DI MONTHLY #11: Let's Talk About Game Design

Welcome to my GDC talk.

I've been deep in the coding mines recently, grinding hard on our engine (not in that way), and procrastinating hard by working on various pointless side projects. But alongside all that work, I've also been thinking a lot about game design.

Screw it, let's talk about it! Right here, right now! _{Right here, right now! Right here, right now!}

Let's Make Up Some Terms

I like to split 3D platformers into two categories: tight platformers, and loose platformers.

Tight platformers are the ones where the level design is the main focus. The controls are tight, precise, readable, and predictable. The goal is for the player to quickly internalize the ruleset and build a mental model of the character's physical capabilities, so that the level design can shine without any ambiguities getting in the way. Think Crash Bandicoot, or Super Mario 3D Land.

These are essentially puzzle games in disguise. Each section is a spatial problem you need to solve, and the moveset is your toolkit. You read the level, find a solution on the spot, and (try to) execute it cleanly. The controls don't need to be “expressive” for this, they just need to work and be predictable.

Loose platformers, meanwhile, are the complete opposite. The levels are there to give you somewhere interesting to be, and don't necessarily need to present a challenge for you to overcome. And the controls are designed specifically to make the simple act of moving around feel satisfying on its own. Think Super Mario 64, Super Mario Odyssey, A Hat in Time, or pretty much any modern indie 3D platformer.

As you can imagine, a lot of what makes a loose platformer feel good is the opposite of what makes a tight platformer feel good. In a tight platformer, you want to stop the moment you stop holding the analog stick forward, because that's actually needed for precision. In a loose platformer, you want to keep moving for a while, because it actually feels good to feel the weight of your actions.

And yes, I'm aware of how “tight” and “loose” sounds. Get your mind out of the gutter. This is a family newsletter. If you laugh, you go to hell.

Cut The Yap, Please

So, what kind of 3D platformer are we making? Well, so far we've been describing it as a “Precision 3D Platformer”, so you'd expect it to be a tight one. And, well, in many ways, it is. But we also don't want to box the game completely into that category.

See, the reason we went with this “tighter” approach is because there simply aren't enough 3D platformers like that around anymore. All the new indie 3D platformer hits like Demon Tides and Penny's Big Breakaway are “loose” platformers that focus more on expressive movement mechanics than level design. And they do so in a way that lets you just skip half the challenge by doing “cracked shmoovement” or whatever kids call it these days. That's not necessarily a wrong approach, but it's not what we want to do with our game.

With our game, we wanted to make sure players actually have to engage with the level design rather than just bypassing it with a strong enough aerial move. But we also didn't want a moveset so stripped-down that there's only ever one obvious solution. That's where the tight platformer approach starts feeling a bit sterile. So our goal here is to give players a more expressive toolkit, like those looser 3D platformers, while making the level itself the thing that determines which tools are actually the most optimal at any given moment. So a part of the puzzle now is figuring out which ones to use when, on top of everything else.

As you can imagine, this is a bit tricky to nail down! We have a lot of ideas about which tools to give the player, and how to properly balance them out. We're currently in the process of testing them out, but the issue is that this takes a lot of time! Especially when you use your own engine to prototype instead of something like Unity or Godot. Don't ask why we're doing this to ourselves.

Still, once we have something we're happy with, we'll be sure to share it with you all, don't you worry!

The Forums Are Dead, Long Live The Forums!

So...about those Distant Illusions forums we've been talking about since the dawn of mankind. Or at least since newsletter #1. Same thing, really.

It's cancelled. Sort of. Kinda.

What I mean is, we're rebuilding it from scratch. This might sound like a waste of time, but the truth is that we had barely made any progress on it in the past few months. The technology we were using to build it, ASP.NET MVC, turned out to be the wrong tool for the job. It was outdated, not well suited for modern web design patterns, and an absolute pain to work with.

So, rather than ship something we'd be fighting against forever, we made the call to start over with a better foundation that will be cleaner, faster, and will allow for things like social logins and account features we wouldn't have been able to do before. Think of your Operius DX high scores getting tied to your account. That kind of thing.

What's that better foundation? Well, I looked into many things and decided to land on Astro, with Vue.js islands and Tailwind for styling. For the backend, meanwhile, we're sticking with ASP.NET Core, but this time turning it into a separate API rather than it being tied to the frontend like before.

The trade-off is that the forums are, once again, delayed. If you're keeping a bingo card of “failed DI promises”, you can go ahead and black out the forums square. It was necessary either way, though.

We're also not going to make it a massive priority. After all, we're a games studio, not a web development house. We have more important things to focus on.

In the meantime, you can still join us on Discord if you want to chat. It's not a forum, but it's something. You’ve gotta take what you can get.

Your Chance to Meet The Mors Games!

I'll be attending BitSummit this year, held from May 22nd to 24th in Place, Japan.

Unlike Gamescom last year, we won't be a part of a booth or have any playable games. It's going to be just me, attending as a visitor. And yes, I actually will be there this time around.

So, if you want to schedule a meeting or just grab a nice refreshing can of Match during the event, feel free to reach out ahead of time so we can coordinate! Doesn't matter if you're a fellow developer or just someone interested in what we're cooking up, I'd love to meet you! Contact me through Discord or via email at mors@distantillusions.com to set something up!

Let's become friends!!! Yay!!!

End of the Ramble

Welp, that's all I've got for this month. As always, there's more happening behind the scenes, but moving forward, I want to focus more on our primary projects than stuff these newsletters with irrelevant crap no one cares about.

Anyways, until next time, Distant Illusions out!

Comments

Join the discussion on our forum! More Blog Posts