Research on games I like

• Intro
• Main Concepts
• References
  • Enter the Gungeon

Intro

This research is about the games I remember playing in my life. I want to have a record of what I'm using as influence on a new game I want to make so I can extract the good parts and filter the bad ones to create a new unique experience. You can check the games I'm still to play here in this Github Project

Main concepts

These are points I'd like my new game to have.

1. A finite single-player gameloop with high replayability

A finite gameloop that cannot exceed a certain timebox (unless paused) is trending as streaming material. This is true since sports exist, so I'd like to have this sport vein in this game to be able to impulse it's streaming value. For sanity matter, this finite gameloop will be named as a "run".

Single-player is a focus I want to maintain for this game. Speedrunning is the absolute proof you don't need online interaction in the game to make it have streaming value, and I want to be able to develop it without the need to have a friend beside me. Please don't confuse this with making the game alone in the basement without a single person ever playing it, delivering continuous incremental value that reach the user's hand ASAP is my game-design style and I will maintain it.

2. In the longest case a run has no more than 30 minutes

This helps forcing me to pack a lot of action in a short period of time. The best case I have to compare here is Overwatch, where the short timebox makes the game feels much more dynamic than MOBAs where you need the time of about 3 OWs games.

StS (Slay the Spire) difficulty (ascension) system really shines here. Playing the same game for 30 minutes over and over might be boring, but if every time you beat it you can make it harder this adds insane replayability value. StS is trending on streams because eventually it gets so hard that it's rare to see even the best player winning, and this type of exclusivity brings to the table a strong streaming value.

3. Heavy abuse of your predictability + probability skills

Every time you need to think about a decision you start creating branches of predictable scenarios inside your brain. This exercises your rational thinking, and can be true in different genres. StS for example makes you think a lot when adding a card in your deck because you have to take in consideration a lot of variables and make decisions feel relevant, this is a display of predictability + probability skills. In a bullet hell game if you can't predict where you need to be positioned, you will probably die miserably, so predicting the bullet patterns is a crucial part of the game.

4. The game is hard, deal with itw

This is just my game style. I don't want to make a game where you will win in your first attempt if you never tried any of the games on this list, this involves heavy muscle memory or knowing what decision looks shiny but is actually a trap. I think hard games are easier to develop as well because I don't need to take in consideration my bias on the game mechanic when balancing it, because if i can win it it means it can still get harder and harder.

References

Enter the Gungeon

The look and feel of this game is really spot-on. It's a really awesome bullet-hell experience overall, probably the best of its time, featuring tons of weapons, enemies, bullet patterns, and good jokes.

• Dash is free, quick and makes you invincible. This allows bullet patterns to force you to dash, and it feels very rewarding when you dash towards a position of advantage while dodging a bullet.

• Flipping tables is fun, but it's kinda clunky to use. I think it's the key binding's fault.

• I don't think I like "keys" as a mechanic to open chests. It just makes the chests less accessible thus the run is less fun. It also sucks that there is a class with a bizarre RNG to open chests without keys, I think the "key" mechanic is the most unresolved part of this game.

• I don't think they have done ammo correctly. You are forced to use crappy guns because if you spend ammo it's quite hard to refill and you can only refill one weapon. It's not fun, it just looks badly resolved.

• Reload is completely bad IMO. It forces you to spam mouse clicking because it reloads automatically if you click after the ammo finishes, but if you just hold the click the weapon won't reload. This is not TOO serious but it's annoying.

• Playing on controller completely sucks, mouse has a clear unfair advantage.

• Co-op is bad because items split and this is not rewarding at all. It just makes the game harder and it's really frustrating when playing along with someone that plays bad.