Tick Talk

 Please pardon the provocative title.  There is a bit of debate about what exactly is game balance.  Balance is a subjective assessment, similar to fun, but while balance may be subjective, there are concrete measurements that can be applied to determine how closely a design aligns to that subjective goal.  In a word: metrics . For myself, I want a player to feel like their skill and perhaps some luck, contributed to their victory or defeat.  I hate the feeling of realizing that something in a game is even moderately unbalanced.  If the game is severely unbalanced, it reduces the game to an activity.   For example, if a game has players select from unique abilities at the start (like a faction), but you realize that your faction is unbalanced, the game is no longer about skill and luck, but rather the choice you make at the beginning of the game.  In which case, why play the rest of the game?

Games, Design and Play (by Colleen Macklin and John Sharp) is a solid practical book that lays out an iterative design process. While it focuses on video game development, more than 90% of the material applies to game design in general (product design to a degree). This book is a fairly quick read and full of practical advice.

Design permeates our lives.  It is everywhere.  I was recently re-binging a Netflix show, Nailed It! , and began to think about the design of the game in the show.  

The board game Villainous is widely available at your local Big Box and on the surface seems to be another barely-a-game theme-for-dollars affair.  After playing it, I came to view it is as a very elegant and well designed game.  Today I want to discuss all the things that I find interesting as a designer.

Cheapass Games in Black and White (by James Ernest) is a book that tries to take on several different roles: part retrospective, part rules archive, part design book.  It is an ambitious attempt, but ultimately falls short in most areas.

Hollow Knight for the Nintendo Switch seems to be tried and true metroid-esque game.  However, while it does have elements of Metroid games, there is little innovation of them.  There are some design decisions that seem to actually detract from the player experience and that is what I am going to talk about today.