Hello! Thanks to the voting, there was an equal number of votes on two platforms on two different topics, Game Design and Addons. Therefore, this devlog will be about game design, and the next one will be about Addons.Game Design is probably the most extensive topic that is very often ignored when creating games. How do you even understand game design? Level design, gameplay design, world design? In fact, any of the above can be attributed to the category of game design and each item is in fact a very extensive topic that will affect the success of the completed game.
Today I will talk about global things about game design. Every game that I created revolved around a global idea that I wanted to recreate. For example, "Life with the Tribe" was basically my attempt to repeat the idea of the game "Mini Club" (here is the link) :
If you look at where the idea for "Life with the Tribe" came from, you will not understand at all how they could be connected. But in general they are identical, you play as a guy who walks around and fucks women. Everything is quite simple, right? But here begins the difference between the game and a simple set of animations, which in fact is "Mini Club". Game design creates a different attitude of the player to the game, and this attitude of the player "hooks" is the global goal of any game design!So how do you achieve this goal? How do you create a game with good game design? This is a complex question and I will try to explain it a little. I will not speak for ordinary games, since I have experience only in creating R-18 games, but I can talk about the game design of R-18 games.And in R-18 games, the most important thing in my opinion is the idea. It's not the genre, or even the graphics (although this plays a big role), but the idea of the game. And how the author tries to emphasize this idea and determines the passion of the players. You ask why, there is nothing about real game design here! You will be right if this applies to ordinary games. R-18 are different.For example, I won't go far, "Life with the Tribe" is a successful project, it sold a large number of copies, people ask me for a sequel and more similar content. But if I remove all the R-18 content from the game, what will be left? Simple combat, basic inventory, "go and fetch" quests, and fishing. Would you play this game if there were no R-18? Of course not, because it's crap. But why then did so many people like this game? I've asked myself this question quite often, and here's what I came up with: it's the idea of the game and how it's used.The idea of "guy fucking busty women" is pretty basic, you can find a lot of similar ones. But are they interesting? Some are, some aren't, I know of many other games, but most of them are usually either RPG maker games or Visual Novels. Games where you can do this in a 2D side scroller? Honestly, there are far fewer. Pixel graphics with this idea? Even fewer. A game that is not just a set of animations? There are, but they can be counted on the fingers of one hand.And here we come to the understanding that the implementation of a game with the basic idea of "guy fucking busty women", in a 2D side scroller, with pixel graphics, is not so basic anymore. The whole process that I described above can be attributed to game design, since the global idea of the game itself already decides a lot of things about the game itself.Now we have dealt with the basic idea and can move on to world design. Here, even such an idea as "guy fucking busty women" can be used in different ways. In the case of "Life with the Tribe" I chose a more basic scenario: a guy finds himself on an island where are many monster girls and he is saved by a tribe of busty women. But this same idea can be implemented in this way:1) A guy comes to a village to inherit his grandfather's house and there are only women in this village. (Stardew Valley ?!)2) A nobleman who was sent to manage a settlement on the outskirts of the kingdom discovers that there are too few men in this settlement!3) A guy moves into a small apartment complex with only about a dozen apartments, but for some reason all his neighbors are women...And I could go on and on. As you can see, the same idea can be used in a different setting, and this will affect whether the player will "get hooked" on the game. I like fantasy and fantasy worlds, but there are those who like more down-to-earth stories. And maybe if I had chosen a different setting, the game could have been more successful, or maybe less successful. And this is the worldbuilding, the setting that is built around the idea.What's next? Real game design? Mechanics? Yes, but "Life with the Tribe" is a pretty easy game. I didn't come up with anything overly original in terms of mechanics and gameplay.Battles? It's as simple as possible, there are two dodge buttons and one attack button, and it all depends on the timing of the dodges.Quests? Go to point A and collect an item, then bring it to point B.Fishing? Honestly, I should have spent more time polishing it.Items and buying/selling? Can you even call that a mechanic?Mini-game with moving between locations? Well... it's a mix between battles and randomly generated scenes. It's really very basic.BREEDING GAME? Really? It's just walking around and pressing one button!From a mechanic point of view, my game sucks. But in the mix they create a fairly simple game that doesn't put too much strain on the player. You don't have to think about the gameplay but you still feel it. That's exactly what I wanted to achieve with all the mechanics in the game. To keep the game from turning into an animation player, it was necessary to add simple mechanics that diluted the R-18 scenes a little. The whole game is still the same idea of "guy fucking busty women", but now you're fucking them and have to do something in the game besides that. Is this game design? Yes. Was it implemented correctly? It's hard to say, but I still got the basic idea.What's next? In fact, that's all that needs to be thought out from a game design perspective. Graphics and animations can also be attributed to game design, but they depend more on the idea that the author wants to convey. The same goes for music. They create an atmosphere around the idea of the game and reflect this idea. Therefore, we'll talk about this part in another devlog.As you can see, game design encompasses a lot of things during development. Did I always keep in mind what I mentioned above during development? Of course not. But I always remembered my basic idea and what I wanted from the game.Globally, game design is a scary word and everyone is used to thinking that it is about coming up with mechanics. But I believe that game design is a collection of different little things in the game that are intended to reproduce the original idea. Because as soon as the game you are creating starts to deviate from the basic idea you can simply get lost in further development.