Game Demos Need to Come Back For Many Reasons, Especially for Accessibility

Having more playable demos can help players make an informed purchase, and for disabled players this would help with accessibility.

Most of us know that without a playable demo, marketing materials like gameplay trailers and development blogs aren’t always enough to answer the question of whether a game will be enjoyable. Ben Bayliss points out that for those of us with accessibility concerns the question can instead be whether the game is playable at all, making purchases much riskier.

Players approach in-game challenges in ways informed by what the game (and other similar games) have already taught them - in some cases, this can lead to missing seemingly-obvious solutions because the game’s affordances are pointing in another direction. (I ran into this during my playthrough of Right Click to Hack.)

This write-up illustrates that principle by taking a look at how playtesters approached a particular environmental puzzle in Immortals Fenyx Rising - and encourages designers to support more freedom and creative thinking in designing their challenges and to not be afraid of the opportunities this can create for “breaking” the game, as that’s often more satisfying for the player anyway!

The Design Philosophy Of Battletech 2

The Event System

Game designer kiva’s blog has some fascinating war stories. This particular write-up, part of a series about her work on Battletech, discusses her somewhat-failed attempt to create an event system that would create a bond between the player and their characters - what it tried to do, and why it didn’t achieve those goals.

If you find it interesting, I do recommend her other posts - she has fascinating thoughts on a game designer’s role (in a nutshell: empathizing with the players) and skill set (another nutshell: internalized understanding and intuition from deeply examining many games).

Mass market, mystery boxes and metric-driven design: The legacy of FarmVille

With the original FarmVille shutting down after 11 years, we explore the impact the hit social game had on the industry

As I wrote about myself a bit recently, FarmVille’s impending shutdown closes the book on an incredibly influential game (for better and worse) and a huge part of gaming history. This article takes a closer look at FarmVille’s legacy, discussing its role in bringing games to mass market and early steps in metric-driven design and what we might today call loot boxes.

With so many quality games coming out all the time, the bar for success has raised considerably from where it used to be. It’s harder than ever to get and keep the attention of players, especially for indie developers. Here, Josh Bycer puts together a list of what he sees as the minimum requirements in game feel, presentation, and marketing for a game to succeed in the modern landscape.

Spiders Are a Popular Video Game Monster. They're Also an Accessibility Problem

The developers of 'Grounded' made spiders the big enemy of their new game, then suddenly realized a bunch of people were too scared to play it. They decided to find a real solution.

Patrick Klepek explains how and why Grounded ended up with “Arachnophobia Safe Mode” as well as similar examples from Skyrim, Satisfactory, Sea of Thieves, and Cook, Serve, Delicious! showing how these kinds of accessibility features can open games up to audiences that otherwise couldn’t enjoy them.

Understanding Pain Points in Game Design

Pain Points are often the understated killer of many games, and we're going to discuss how to spot them and some common mistakes for developers to avoid.

Josh Bycer lays out the concept of a “pain point” in game design - distinct from difficulty spikes or sources of challenge, pain points are sources of frustration that prevent players from engaging with the game’s core experience. They can be difficult for designers or fans to see, because once you’re used to them and willing to put up with them they become easy to ignore - but they’re important to notice and remove because each pain point a player runs into can be the final straw that causes them to abandon the game.

Why Players Blame Skill-Based Matchmaking for Losing in Call of Duty

The thing about skill-based matchmaking is that it's not as perfect as its critics think it is. And that's by design.

As satisfying as it is to dunk on esports pros for essentially complaining that they can’t play on easy mode (especially given the short-sightedness and lack of empathy on display in their desire to freely stomp on less-skilled players - everyone has a better time when skills are more closely matched), there’s also some fascinating psychology beyond that here.

While the article doesn’t provide citations for this beyond quoting Halo 2’s multiplayer lead, it claims that “every major multiplayer shooter since Halo 2” has had skill-based matchmaking in both ranked and unranked playlists, with the different lists existing to lure the hyper-competitive or more-toxic players to ranked and leave supposedly-unranked play more enjoyable for other players.

Mixtape for the Milky Way - Video Games

Video credits (25¢) : Directed and animated by @ericpowerup http://ericpowerup.net Piano, synths, production by @John Mark Nelson // Lyrics and vocals by…

If Danny Wiessner’s The World Is Saved is gaming’s anthem, then Mixtape for the Milky Way’s Video Games is its dark reprise.

Andreas Papathanasis calls for recognition of the fact that in game design, simple isn’t bad and complex isn’t good. Thoughtlessly chasing complexity in game design makes games less legible, less accessible, and less approachable while increasing development cost.