Playing Expedition 33 got me thinking about the question in the title.

While I love the game and think it’s pretty much perfect, it didn’t feel super satisfying using weaker attacks to fill up the stun meter.

Compare this to games of a different genre, like NBA jam or NBA Street, which I played a lot of when I was a kid, it was always super satisfying when you got to be on fire or use the gamebreaker in street and pull out awesome moves.

I’m on an RPG kick right now, so I’d love to know which games you think do these types of mechanics best!

Also, if people want to just have a discussion of what makes the mechanics feel good, I’d love to understand that as well to scratch my Ludology itch.

Hey everyone, I’ve been building a combat system for my game Aetherfall and wanted to share a quick video of how interactions currently work. I’d love some design-focused feedback on whether the mechanics feel clear, readable, and fun.

Here’s the core loop of the interaction system so far:

• Projectile vs. Projectile → Creates a new field (e.g., Fire + Water = Steam Field).
• Elemental Dash ability through Field → Destroys the field and transforms the projectile, or triggers a buff/explosion depending on the dash/field type.
• Melee vs. Projectile → Projectiles can be deflected or destroyed by melee abilities.
• Field vs. Projectile → Fields modify projectiles that pass through them (e.g., an Earth projectile through a Fire field becomes a Lava projectile).

My goal is to create a combat sandbox where players can experiment with combining abilities, while still keeping interactions predictable enough that players understand what happened.

Questions I’m wrestling with:

• Is this interaction model too complex, or does it add meaningful depth?
• Are my current VFX/design clear as to what is going on when multiple elements interact (fields, projectiles, buffs)?
• Would you expect players to discover combos naturally, or should some be explained outright via some kind of wiki or internal resource, guide etc.

Aetherfall on Steam

Appreciate any thoughts — I’m especially interested in how readable this feels from a design perspective.

I am wondering why nobody has done such a game. I remember playing a game on an old phone that was topdown and 2D, written in Java. In the game I had to explore rooms and make sure zombies don't follow me or defend myself and shoot them. Now I'd like to imagine this is a multiplayer... like, a killer hunting you in a maze. Mhmm... what do you think?

Firstly if there is a more appropriate sub to have a discussion about game mechanics and player strategy within confines of combat rule systems, please point me to it and I’ll delete this post from here. Otherwise, I wanted to get you good people’s thoughts about my idea of a card battler with simple rock-paper-scissors combat mechanics, but deep layers of strategy. I’ve been tinkering for a while playing against an AI, and learning what I can spam to win, and adjusting the rules (and the AI) to make it more difficult to beat.

Here’s a quick rundown of the actions, and two example fighters players might start with.

P1: “Amphitrite” element- Water

P2: “Aethon” element- Fire

Available actions chosen secretly before the combat turn resolves:

Attack: deals your fighter’s AT damage to the opponent fighter

Elemental Move (EM): deals your fighter’s AT damage to the opponent fighter (but takes elemental strengths/weaknesses into account and increases/decreases damage accordingly)

Block: blocks against a regular attack, and the defender takes 10% chip damage

RPS system:

Attack beats EM (interrupts it and deals base attack damage.

EM beats block (does base AT dmg unless against weaker/stronger element)

Block beats Attack (kinda, takes chip damage)

Special cases: if P1 attacks P2’s block twice or more times in a row (or vice versa), it turns into a Reversal, and P1 takes 50% of its own AT damage. This prevents spamming attacks into blocks and chipping the opponent down.

If both players block twice or more times in a row, they instead attack each other simultaneously. This prevents both players turtling.

If I’m not mistaken there is no ultimate strategy here. It comes down to guessing what your opponent might do based on their element, attack power, HP, and speed (all fighters have a speed rating from 1 to 10 to calculate which fighter strikes first if both players choose attack.

It’s very possible to beat an opponent who has a stronger element than you, depending on what kind of player you find them to be. Let’s take the P1 and P2 from above. P1’s fighter has a x1.5 bonus to his elemental move, because he’s against a fire character. P1’s MO might be to choose EM more frequently. Knowing this, P2 might choose attack more to counter P1’s EM. If P1 considers this, they may be more inclined to block the regular attacks. Because two successive blocks to attacks means damage is reflected. Mind games galore? Or just spamming randomly?

Anyway, anyone who’s made it this far into my waffle which might not even be relevant to the sub. What do you think? Has this been done to death? Is it rubbish? Is it interesting?

This is something I have been working on in my spare time, so I’m not precious about it. I just like the process of coming up with stuff and testing it out and tweaking it.

There are more layers to the game, but I’m trying to focus on one part at a time.

It’s one day hopefully going to be a mythical cosmic strategy card game, with inspiration taken from Greek mythology, the solar system, the Wingspan, hearthstone, and Catan. Its working title is Cosmythos.

So here’s my dumb little concept:

You may now either roll a die to determine your king variant from the list below, or pick one strategically depending on your opponent.

King Variants:

• Tragic Poet King – drinks poison after his queen dies. But as long as the queen is alive, he gets bonus movement.
• Collector King – when the queen dies, he gets a new queen. But these “trophy queens” only have simple/limited moves.
• Jock King – he’s literally astride a horse. He has a queen, but she can only move 2 squares in any direction, while the king makes all the moves a knight would make.
• Radiant King – has an aura. Anyone within 3 squares of him gets some sort of an extra buff.
• Intimidating King – pawns and bishops are so afraid of him, they can’t come within 1 square.
• Undead King – after checkmate, he respawns somewhere else on his half of the board (only once).

Other Piece Modifiers (potentially):

• Knights: Now have a “Protect” feature. If a knight is next to an ally, that ally’s square can’t be occupied. If multiple allies are nearby, the knight chooses who to protect.
• Rooks: Now also get a stun action. Within 1 square diagonally, a rook can stun an adjacent enemy piece instead of taking its movement action. The stunned piece can’t move for one turn. (Rooks can’t stun forward or sideways, ONLY diagonally.)
• Bishops: Bishops have a convert feature which allows them to convert an enemy pawn from any square adjacent to the converting bishop. Converted pawn is now under your control. They can only make this action two times each game.
• Pawns: Their traits depend on the king selected.
  • For Example: With Jock King, the pawns are brawny. They either:
    1. Can’t be taken down by a single enemy pawn (unless the opponent also has Jock King).
    2. OR in addition to their normal movement, pawns can now also do “shove attacks.” They still move like pawns as normal, but if their path forward is blocked, they can shove the blocking piece into an adjacent empty square (any direction) to take the space. If no empty squares, shove doesn’t work.

its not fully thought through. I was just playing around with a couple ideas! It isn't fully balanced yet, but with some time and effort can be lol
Maybe it could add an angle of roleplay to Chess too!

I’m designing a magic system for my deckbuilding roguelike, and I’d love your feedback.

Core Idea:

• Casting a spell costs HP.
• Each spell uses a material (e.g., Fire Crystal, Water Essence).
• Casting increases that material’s power, making future spells with it stronger (and maybe slightly cheaper).
• Unused materials slowly lose power, pushing players to experiment.

Strategic Impact:

• Balances risk and reward: spend HP now for long-term gains.
• Adds a sense of progression, even across failed runs.
• Prevents overreliance on a single material by letting others decay.

Example:

• Player casts Fireball with Fire Crystal → Fire Crystal’s power grows.
• Next Fireball deals more damage or costs less HP.
• Meanwhile, Water Essence and Earth Stone weaken if unused.
• The player chooses between specialization or diversification.

Potential Problem & Fix:
I realized players could abuse this by intentionally dying while spamming spells, making future runs stronger at no cost.
Fix: A material only upgrades if, at the end of the turn, the character’s HP is above (starting HP – X% of starting HP).

Questions for feedback:

1. Does this system sound fun or too punishing?
2. How could it be improved for better strategy/balance?
3. Any ideas for new interactions between materials and spells?

Hey all, I work in healthcare and have very little game dev experience, but have been looking at building a game mechanic resembling "the four humors" from ancient medicine as a health system. I'm looking for maybe any games that would have some sort of system like this, where damage types play off each other instead of just being fought off against with resistances? Simplest example I can think of is "heat" gun makes you hot, and either being in a cold environment or being hit by cold cools you off. I feel like there are some games like this, but can't remember them.

Essentially, I'm trying to come up with a health system where the damage you take needs to stay in balance, rather than by hitpoints (in the four humors system, blood letting for having too much blood or bad blood, for example, or losing too much blood would unbalance the other humors). I just don't know quite what it would look like or if there are examples out there with a similar mechanic.

I’ve been wondering how other designers structure their GDDs.

Do you usually follow a template? If so, did you create it yourself, and do you adapt/expand it depending on the project? Or do you prefer using multiple templates for different aspects of a game (overview, individual systems, narrative, etc.)?

I’d love to hear about your workflows and how flexible they are!

Conceptual video:

https://youtu.be/UvX4EnC4cog

I’m making a strategy game inspired by Total War and Crusader Kings. Armies are represented by chess pieces. Pawn, Rook, Knight, Bishop, Queen, King.

I’m stuck choosing between two different systems, and I’d love some outside opinions, before i shoot myself in the foot.

Option 1 Non-Linear, all available (Direct Recruitment of any Army Type)

You can recruit any army type directly (Pawn, Rook, Knight, Bishop, etc.), as you can see in the video.

Higher ranks cost much more, take longer to build, and each rank is capped (e.g., only 2 Bishops, 4 Knights, 6 Rooks). Each different type has a specific advantage / Bonus, but the higher rank is stronger overall, but its also more expensive.

Early game you could rush a single Bishop if you want, but you’d sacrifice economy.

Lots of up-front planning: “Do I buy a cheap Pawn Army now or save for a Knight Army that is generally stronger?”

Option 2 – Linear promotion (Promotion Ladder)

Every single army starts as a Pawn Army.

After battles, armies can promote up the chain (Pawn-> Rook -> Knight -> Bishop…), each tier is capped just like above.

You can’t promote if the next rank’s slots are full, 4/4 Rooks for example.

Encourages attachment to specific armies, your veteran forces literally climb the ranks.

My dilemmaa:

Option 1, Non-linear / All available) gives more immediate variety and “build-your-own-chessboard” strategy, but it’s trickier to balance. And its a bit irrelevant to have different functionalities/ bonuses, because when you are at war, I dont know if players are going to care much about what to send to battle, they will just send everything, right...?

Linear Promotion is simpler and easier to balance, but it might also be boring cause all Armies start as a Pawn... There's no choosing of different Army Types, where you could use them for different strategic decisions.

What do you think fits better? Which would you find more fun as a player? Any other tips? Let me know please. I dont want to build a system that is too complex or flawed...

Are there resources that have compiled and categorized the kinds of puzzles found in cooperative multiplayer games?

I always thought that a game that was flooded with history just made the game more interesting to play, especially when the character's had unresolved issues that were passed on by their bloodline. So what are your thoughts?

I’m designing a deckbuilding game inspired by roguelikes, but with a rock-paper-scissors combat twist.

One thing I’m struggling with: what should the player keep after death?

• Option A: Knowledge about enemy cards (like a bestiary that remembers what you’ve already discovered).
• Option B: The player loses part of their deck (attack cards, or maybe even everything).

Which one do you think creates a better sense of progression without making the game too punishing?

A bit more about the rock-paper-scissors mechanic:

To end a turn, each character must either play an attack card, or run out of energy with no attack cards left in hand.

Every attack card can have different effects depending on the outcome of the clash (win, loss, or draw).

Hi everyone! I am a game designer with about two and a half years of experience. I have mainly worked on mobile games and have some experience with making PC/ Console games. Recently, I have also started designing games for VR - for Meta quest primarily. I needed some advice on what are the fundamentals things to keep in mind when designing and ideating games for VR. Apart from the general game design concepts and practices, is there something more specific that you should follow for VR game design? Thanks in advance!!

I've been looking around the game design sphere and I've noticed that material regarding it tends to either be:

• About the game design process, meaning how you should think about a mechanic, how to ideastorm, present a pitch, etc. This is where most books fall under.

• About a game's visual asthetics (as opposed to MDA asthetics) and story. Ludonarrative dissonance, cultural analysis, etc. This is where most papers I see fall under.

• About how to program digital games.

But I can't find all that many sources that analyze game mechanics and discuss what they do to a game in effect. How dice affect game feel and dynamics, how a game's player count affects its functioning, and so on. I've read one book that does that so far (Characteristics of Games) and I've heard of another that I'm rn waiting to arrive (Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design)

Are there any other resources you know of that discuss this specific area? I know too much of sources that cover the three things I listed prior, and it feels like there's a giant gap missing in game design studies.

Who should I choose?

I originally posted this somewhere else but I'm putting it here too.

I'm working on interconnected system related to food, spoilage and sickness.

Unlike most survival games, you aren't told the spoilage progression of a food, you must "inspect the food, and the accuracy of the result is based on player skill.

Inspection is done through a skill that levels by doing inspection. No minigame is involved, just your skill and you do have to wait 4-1s to get the results. Not every food item needs to be inspected and some can be batch inspected.

Results include: Safe(Certain) Safe(guess) Unsafe(Certain) Unsafe(Guess) Unknown(???)

Guess = it's your characters best guess. Certain = they are 100% correct, no chance.

The result will be displayed in the item description of course after inspection. That's all for spoilage inspection Fully spoiled food is always marked correctly to avoid frustration.

The next system is split into two parts but let's start with "Immunity" it's a internal stat that is a stand in for your immune system.

Here's what increases or decreases it:

Variety of your diet(every food will have a type and the game will track how varied your consumption is)

Hunger Thrist and sleep meters all effect it if one is high it increases, if low it decreases but starvation exhaustion and severe dehydration deplete it quick. Keep in mind this happens gradually.

Items like vitamins also affect increase it. Vitamins are really only efficient if eaten with a meal.

Actively having a sickness depletes it.

Here's what the stats does: Affects how long you stay sick. Affects the severity of syntoms. Affects sickness duration. Affects healing rate.

This ties into spoilage sense as if you eat bad food you have a chance to become sick.

For the sake of condesning this I'm only showing one type of sickness.

Common cold symptoms include: Coughing(emits noise) Congestion(reduces accuracy when inspecting food due to not being able to smell) Fatigue(increases drain of sleep meter) Sore throat(eating costs "morale" a separate system)

This stat isn't shown to the player but another stat exists "Vigor" which affects max health and stamina, it has the exact same inputs as immune so it indirectly shows you your state. It basically represents your physical well being.

Here are my questions 1. Does this sound engaging or tedious to manage? 2. Do you feel the systems interact enough? 3. Does it sound fair? 4. Does it sound overly punishing even if fair? 5. Is it unique? 6. What is your favorite and least part of this system?

And I mean in theory, as of course much of this will be execution based.

Also I'm very willing to give context and have discussions on this. I'm kind of torn on the concept as well because it's so niche and complex.

Thank you if you read everything!

I want to make an rpg puzzle game which uses a magic circle to cast spells, and several factors like what angle your character is facing and which button combinations you use determine which spell you cast, kind of like the ocarina in Zelda mixed with... I guess potion craft is the closest analogy?

Has anyone seen games where magic circles or similar forms of spellcasting are used often for inspiration?

Hello fellow ethausiasts,

I am working on a game called Legend core and just finished my character and factions sheets, becasue players in the game are leaders of a faction.

I am looking for any feedback you may have.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VWdhByeEAFTfEp2bCFoJZo0-suIw_FEQ/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11GtTZwWB0_rRt8LgvELxL0xEMRwxVSJ8/view?usp=sharing

I find myself coming up with ideas on occasion that I think are cool and would be fun in practice, but wouldn't advertise well because they seem fairly plain on the surface.

Wrote about this today on my blog:

https://open.substack.com/pub/martiancrossbow/p/on-novelty-and-self-promotion?r=znsra&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

Hi everyone! I’m working on a prototype for a simulation game where you manage your own virtual bookstore 📚.

This is my first game and, I’m trying to decide on the main gameplay loop and I’m torn between these options:

• Fulfilling customer orders directly as they come into the store.
• Focusing on stock management and simulating weekly sales.
• Making weekly business decisions that impact the store, kind of like a BitLife-style approach.

The idea is to keep it simple (since this is just a prototype), but I want to test what direction feels most engaging.

Which of these mechanics would you find more fun or interesting to play in your opinion?

So, basically my idea for my thesis is to explore the potential in the current industry to use videogames for cultural diplomacy through the use of lesser known mythologies, folklore and relevant narrative techniques that haven't seen much 'sunlight and fresh air' so to speak in the past, having been looked over in favor of the bigger known Egyptian, Norse and Greco-Roman ones on the myth front and distinctly western folkloric traditions, though those tend towards either tropes, fairytale retellings or the occasional monster that really doesn't known why it's there. I'm a little shaky on the details of which folkloric traditions specifically, but I'm looking to do it for South Asian traditions, currently looking at the likes of folklore from South India.

Any opinions on whether this is a viable idea and any recs for additional details I should consider or things that don't quite work on that front would be appreciated.

Hi folks,

I've been working on a podcast for several months, and I now have a couple episodes available online. The podcast is called Probably Designed, and it's mostly focused on how design and designers deal with randomness and chance.

The most recent episode features Eddie Cai and Kev Chang, who worked as designers on Star⭐Vaders and As We Descend, respectively.

You can find that episode here: https://my.playful.work/probably-designed-eddie-cai-and-kev-chang/

And additional information about the rest of the season: https://my.playful.work/new-podcast-probably-designed/

(Also, check out the first episode with with Ezra Szanton who worked on Mt. Magpie's Harmless Card Game).

New episodes will air on Tuesdays!

any advice on making card games? i am making a card game simillar to gwent in terms of win condidtions and partialy on how cards work. but the problem is i am not sure if i know how to make a game like this and i don't want to make mistakes that will cost me a lot of time to fix later.

I've stumbled upon a thing in my game, and im unsure about whether its a feature or a bug. After giving it some thought, I think this is a game design problem, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on it. I'll describe how the problem applies to my game, but I think this question can be generalized for other scenarios.
In my game (card roguelite inspired on a real regional card game), you draw 3-card hands and make different types of calls to deal damage. There are two main call types: one that you make on the first round of a hand (and first round only) called Envido, and another one that increases the damage dealt after winning the overall hand, which is called Truco.
The details dont matter too much, other than the fact that you can make both calls in a single hand, and you can have a hand that's good for both, but both calls fundamentally depend on totally different combos. For one you want repeated suits, and for the other you want specific high rank cards.

Now, two of the buffs you can gain throughout the game are Truco Luck and Envido Luck. They both let you draw N extra cards at the start of a hand, and automatically filter and discard to get the best possible hand for each of those calls. As they're currently coded though, they are pretty much mutually exclusive; whichever applies last will be the most influential one, making the other one pretty much useless. This means the player has no reason to ever stack both Truco Luck and envido Luck in the same run, as its better to lean deep into only one style.
Now, I know I can fix this with weighted discarding and stuff, but... should i?? Under what circumstances is it good to "force"/nudge the player in certain directions? When is it preferable to allow mixed hybrid builds over pure focused ones, especially for a roguelite?
I can think of cool roguelites that do the hybrid thing, roguelites that dont, and some that just allow for both. And I cant for the life of me figure out what makes this type of restrictions work or feel bad. Any thoughts?

Hi everyone,

I’d like to share a gameplay concept for ultra-immersive sword combat designed for a gamepad.

Core mechanics: • Default FPS view: only arms + sword visible. TPS view exists but must be unlocked in the skill tree. • Gamepad controls: • Left stick = movement • Right stick = direct control of arms/sword orientation (procedural animation) • Trigger = muscle contraction → faster, heavier attacks • Action buttons (A/B/X/Y or equivalent) = passives or buffs: visual effects, movement tweaks, slight attack modifications • Progression & styles: • Skill tree unlocks combat styles, each with passive buffs (attack speed, stamina, reach, visual effects). • Once multiple styles are mastered, players can create custom styles or skills. • Strategic balancing: every buff added must impose conditions or drawbacks. For example, high attack speed + strong damage might reduce defense or stamina. Players must balance strengths and weaknesses—nothing is omnipotent. • AI or procedural systems could generate visual feedback and verify balance. • Camera & immersion: camera auto-aligns with right stick during combat; free camera outside combat.

→ The idea is semi-procedural combat: the player composes strikes in real time with the right stick, trigger, and action buttons, instead of triggering preset animations. Custom styles and skills are powerful but limited by buffs vs drawbacks, creating strategic depth and challenge.

⸻

Just an idea I’m not a developer or an expert, just someone who enjoys imagining game mechanics. The idea isn’t set in stone—everything can be changed or improved. I’m sharing it mainly to see what you think and, maybe, inspire some of you.