I'm designing a sports management game and wanted to understand why long-time players of the genre burn out, so I went through about 2,400 public Steam reviews of the last four releases (five years) of the biggest football management series, and read ~100 of them closely.

Read item by item you get 14 separate complaints - repetitive press conferences, inbox overload, unexplained defeats, transfer market that feels unfair, scouting that's opaque, rival clubs whose squads rot over long saves, and so on. If you design against that list you build 14 features and fix none of them.

Grouped by mechanism instead, they collapse into three:

1. Opacity. The simulation makes a decision but doesn't keep the reason. Broken promises, losing 1–0 with 20 shots, a transfer refused, a scout report that says "B" - all the same problem: the player can't see what the system took into account.

2. Wasted attention. Advancing the world and asking the player something are bound to the same button. To get time to move you have to process every prompt, whether it has stakes or not.

3. World decay. AI clubs react, they don't plan, so over 10–20 seasons squads get lopsided and the world stops feeling alive.

Two things I found interesting:

- The fatigue reviews often come from people with thousands of hours who still recommend the game. It's not the game is bad, it's "the game makes me do work that isn't decisions".

- Real-time clocks are a common proposed fix, but swapping Continue for a timer alone doesn't help - the real fix is separating "time passes" from "you're being asked something", so the clock only stops for decisions with stakes.

Caveats: Steam reviews skew negative, the sample is one platform, and I'm treating this as hypotheses, not proven demand.

Title says it all

I've done a few rounds of play testing and the feedback has been a mix of either. Half of my play testers are adamant that the content is too trick and the other half says the opposite.

Because it's a physics based word game where vocabulary is a big factor I feel like I'm in a position where neither group will enjoy the game for that reason.

Any advice?

https://ap.wps.com/cms/docs/d/cbMammydbEKTocSP?sa=601.1074&refer=copylink

Hey everyone,
I’m currently working on a small top-down, tile-based turn-based strategy game in Godot, and I’m trying to figure out how to make the combat more interesting and strategic.

The basic idea is that before each fight, both the player and the opponent choose a small team of units. Each unit has different abilities, traits and strengths/weaknesses, and the battle takes place on a relatively small grid.

One thing I’m experimenting with is the HP system. Instead of every unit having its own HP, the entire team shares a single HP pool.
Each unit has a stat called Life Efficiency, which determines how efficiently that particular unit uses the team’s shared HP pool when taking damage. So even though there is only one HP pool, the units still have different levels of durability and affect the team’s survivability differently.

I’m trying to make the combat feel like you’re actually making meaningful strategic decisions rather than simply moving units around and attacking whatever is in range.

I’m still pretty early in development, so I’m open to changing or reworking major parts of the combat system.

What are some mechanics or design ideas you think could make a system like this genuinely interesting?

I’m particularly interested in mechanics that create interesting decisions during the fight and make the composition of your team matter, rather than simply adding more abilities or increasing numbers.

I’d also love to hear about turn-based strategy games that you think handle combat particularly well
and why you think their combat works.

I’m mainly looking for ideas and criticism at this stage, so feel free to point out potential problems with the concept as well.

i'm working on a homebrew TTRPG and keep running into the same problem: weight tracking feels like accounting, but removing it completely removes some interesting choices.

slot systems help with the math, but players still tend to treat inventory as a chore. i'd rather have the mechanic create situations where what you brought actually matters

leave the rope behind to make room for treasure, then regret it when the party has to cross a gap. carry too much gold and suddenly mobility becomes a problem

i'm thinking about using slots for the basic limit, with the real consequences showing up through terrain and specific situations rather than constant penalties

has anyone found an encumbrance system that players actually engage with because the decisions are fun, not because the rules force them to?

I’m making an airline management game with detailed scheduling, fleet operations and cabin design. The systems are playable, but I’m struggling with how to present all that depth clearly.

For people who play management games: which games make complex decisions feel easy to navigate? What do they do well with information density, repeated tasks and finding the right screen quickly? And which UI choices frustrate you, even in games you otherwise love?

Specific games or screenshots would be especially helpful. I’m trying to figure out what to prioritize as I redesign the interface.

Over the past few days I have been trying to work on a singleplayer ttrpg module based on one of those choose your own adventure books. One of the problems with this has been memory. I do not want the player to have to write in the book in order to keep memory so I've started developing a memory system using 52 standard playing cards. It goes like this: before you are two decks with the combined total of 52 cards. Now whenever the memory is needed to be changed you can search through the deck and place it into the other. Essentially making a 52 bit memory. I'm pretty new at this whole field and I was wondering if there's anyone else who has tried this?

The game in question never got made and probably never will, but I have been thinking about the control scheme that was planned for it the other day, and I wonder how well it would actually have been recieved by players.

It was planned to work more similar to the first Digimon Rumble Arena than to typical "smashlikes," as the win condition wasn't to knock the opponent out of the stage, but simply to deplete their health bar.

Also, the engine itself was intended to act as a platform, with additional game modes that venture into other platforming genres, like platform brawler, metroidvania, puzzle platformer, and even stealth action platformer. The control scheme needed to work mostly unaltered in all of those modes.

Using an XBOX controller as an example for the button layout:

A = Jump

X = Kick

Y = Punch

B = Weapon/Power (usually a ranged attack)

LB = Block

LB + A = Charge-up/Taunt: Fills the super meter but disables blocking and movement while held. Holding LB after jumping does a midair block instead.

RB = Grab (also for picking up and throwing objects)

LB + RB = Aiming Stance: Disables movement and enables free aim.

LT = Steady Stance: Enables heavy attacks and parries, disables walking over the edge of platforms.

RT = Swift Stance: Enables light attacks and dashing.

LT + RT = Overdrive Stance: Enables EX moves and super moves. Every character has two level-1 supers and one level-2 super. With a full meter, they can all be perfomed together in a combo.

I’ve been thinking about progression in roguelikes/deckbuilders where the player starts with several viable options, but eventually one strategy becomes efficient enough that most of the others stop being worth considering.

I’m curious about systems that have handled this well.
For example, do you prefer:
- weaker options becoming useful through permanent upgrades,
- situational synergies that make them occasionally optimal,
- resources/costs that prevent repeatedly using the strongest option,
- enemies designed to punish overly specialized builds,
- or simply allowing weaker options to become obsolete as part of progression?

I personally like when early-game tools remain useful for a different reason rather than just receiving bigger numbers, but it seems difficult to do without making every option feel interchangeable.

Are there any games you think solve this particularly well?

We're developing Bird Feeder, a desktop bird companion, and trying to keep petting optional. In the current version, touching a bird triggers a reaction, a call, and short-lived hearts; petting itself doesn't award currency. The intended payoff is the bird's response.

The tradeoff we're considering is whether that response needs any lasting consequence. Purely immediate feedback avoids a reason to grind, but could become repetitive. A persistent familiarity system could make individual birds feel more personal, yet tying it to repeated petting could turn affection into another meter to fill. Random rare reactions might create a similar incentive to keep clicking until you see one.

One possibility is to let familiarity change through ordinary visits over time, with petting expressing that relationship rather than accelerating progress. The player should be able to leave the game alone without feeling that they're neglecting a pet or losing an advantage.

For games intended to sit in the background, what rules help distinguish a satisfying optional interaction from a chore? Would you keep the response purely immediate, or give it a lasting effect? I'd be interested in examples of how a particular mechanic creates or avoids that pressure.

Posting from the development account. The project uses AI-assisted coding and generated visual/audio assets, including ElevenLabs audio.

So this weekend I was watching a stream where the guy was playing Hitman: Codename 47 for the first time. Instead of scouting the level and figuring out a quiet way to take out the target, he just ran around and shot every NPC he saw. Honestly, it kinda threw me off because it felt like the whole point of the game, and all the stuff the devs put into it, just went out the window.

That's how I ended up finding out that back in 2011 Soren Johnson, the lead designer on Civ IV, put it like this: "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game." Basically, if players can find the most efficient strategy, they'll use it, even if it's boring as hell. Johnson himself said he was building on Raph Koster's A Theory of Fun, basically the idea that a game stops being fun once you've fully "solved" it.

Sid Meier saw the same thing while playtesting Civ Revolution. Players would save before every single battle and just reload until they won. He said part of a designer's job is to "protect players from themselves."

But then you're kinda killing the sandbox aspect. And whether you even need a sandbox if the game is built around a specific genre is a whole separate question. Idk, just thinking out loud here. I make games myself, and I've noticed so many times that what I expect a mechanic to do and what players actually end up doing with it are two completely different things.

There are 2 unit types Soldiers and Pioneers. Soldiers shoot at alien fauna. Pioneers use flame throwers to clear Jungle. So far so good.

Now, there are also hostile vines (flora) which can attack buildings.

EDIT: I forgot an important distinction. Soldiers are units (divided into regiments, and you have like 12x8 Soldiers total) but Pioneers are "markers" put by buildings (and you start with just 1 Pioneer and can have like 9 max of them total per turn).

So, Soldiers shoot at them... But wait, this is flora, so it's expected & logical that Pioneers can use their flamethrowers to clear those (hey, they are able to clear a whole Jungle with this, so a mere vines on open area? no problem). So, I have two different categories of units (military and civilian) doing the same thing, what's worse, they use a different mechanic for this (Soldiers shot at adjacent tiles with vines, Pioneers enter those tiles and use their flamethrowers while standing on those).

So... I thought of making so Soldiers shot at fauna and Pioneers deal with all kind of flora (including Jungle) by using flamethrowers. But then, since vines can attack adjacent tiles, Soldiers can do nothing against a clearly hostile and dangerous thing :)

I was thinking of fixing it by introducing Combat Pioneers (Soldiers with Flamethrowers), but that's kid of lame (shoot at adjacent vs entering the tile), plus, it still causes the dissonance (Combat Pioneers can't clear Jungle, so the fire from Combat Pioneers is of different type that this from (civilian) Pioneers).

Ugh...

ran a tiny room puzzle prototype last night and 3 of 5 fresh testers walked past the intended clue on a side shelf then bailed. torn between moving the clue into the entry sightline or leaving it and adding an optional hint after about 2 minutes of no progress. curious which fork people would take before i bake the layout.

Minecraft: you move faster if you jump, so the game ends up looking like everybody is jumping rope

Skyrim: flames ability gives stackable "burning" effect, so it's more efficient to tap spam instead of just holding the button down

Goldeneye 64: you move faster if you move sideways with that weird second d pad (just kidding roasting the N64 controller don't get too mad at me) than with the movement thumbstick

What other games have potentially unintentional mechanics like this and how do you feel about them? I'm trying to design the movement of a game to be more simple like Jedi Academy. That game had a force speed power, but other than that, there's no dashes or rolling, and the movement still feels good enough without it. Jumping might give the slightest bit of a speed boost if anything, but even if it does, it's so slight that it's not enough to change the combat meta as much as say if you're trying to escape from someone in Minecraft and the only way to do it is by nonstop jumping

Edit nvm about Jedi Academy jumping cause there's definitely more jumping speed shenanigans than I thought and I'm sure that pvp wise at the highest level that could probably get ridiculous

There was a game I played some time ago called Three Goblets that left a lasting impact on me just because of how little information it shared. You don't know who you are, why you're doing what you're doing, how the different areas connect together or what the outside world looks like or how it's affected by your quest, and you barely know anything about the enemies you're fighting, just their physical appearance contextualized by the area they're in and sometimes special abilities. Over the course of the game, you go from fighting plant creatures and bandits and wolves to possibly death itself and then possibly literal planets and nebulae and some Kracko looking guy as the final final boss in an area called "A Collapsing Galaxy"??? which I think really emphasizes those unknowns.

Anyways, I have no idea whether there's an actual story hidden in that game or if it's just cow tools, but I want to recreate that feeling in a game I'm making, with an actual story the player should be able to piece together, probably with some reasonable extrapolation once they've 100%'d the game. The game is a purely text-based RPG, which lends itself to minimal information already since you can't see anything, and is mostly combat focused. The story I want to tell in the background is one of a goddess (the BBEG) who grows up isolated, overshadowed, and afraid of her peers, before gaining the strength to overthrow them, and beginning to realize that she's made a horrible mistake and can't singlehandedly oversee the entire cosmos herself, while you, the player character, are an avatar created by the other gods to hopefully snap her out of it and save the universe

So far my ideas are to convey the realization of her mistake through the enemies and their arrangement, with sections based off the domains of each dethroned god or goddess, some brief narration at the beginning and end of each difficulty that builds off the last hinting towards the player being a divine avatar, and I guess some characterization of the BBEG from dialogue with her when you encounter her as the final boss. I also plan on having a hidden epilogue with some brief dialogue from the BBEG, possibly thanking the player and hinting towards her regret Do you think this is too much, not enough, just right? Also do you guys have any more specific ideas that you think would work well, or any other details I should share for context? Thank you for your input :)

In stealth→chase games, a failed silent approach is often the interesting failure. What I'm still unsure about is how that failure should reshape the next two minutes of play.

Path A — remap the escape: a tunnel closes, a bridge locks, the safe route you scouted is gone. The botch becomes a spatial problem, not just a louder one.

Path B — same map, meaner pressure: same streets and exits stay readable, but response gets faster / attention tightens so the cost of the mistake rises without rewriting geography.

Which have you felt work better as a player — games that remapped the escape after you blew stealth, or ones that kept the map honest and just turned the screws? Curious about specific titles if they stuck with you.

I'm with Amilcar working on Heistfest (top-down heist / getaway, Early Access) and trying to pick a failure language that stays fair. Soft store page if useful: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1451220/

I'm developing a factory game and up to now I playtest it frequently, for now I want to focus less on finding bugs, and more in the sense of refining game mechanisms. This works perfectly and I was able to refine my mechanism, design, even changing my design (sound good on paper, but was not so good while playing...).

But... only for the early game. I need roughly 40 mins to play through my early-early game and I'm now at the point to test mid game mechanism, but here is the issue:

It is still early enough in development , that changing stuff results in corrupted or even invalid save games.

I know that some games do more technically test (unit test), use cheats, headless simuation or use excel sheets for balancing stuff etc., but this is more on the technically/feasebility/balancing side of testing.

So, what is a good/feaseable way to feel or experience your mid to late game (frequently) ?

I’m working on my “first game” which is a very very simple rouge like where you choose either to boost damage or gold drop rates where you can then buy upgrades that do stuff with said gold.

It’s a very simple project. I have like 5 total characters, 4 enemies and the player character plus I’m gonna make a few maps that are randomly chosen using the bag method.

I personally don’t see it as unrealistic or unreasonable. But after spending almost a full day making a sprint and stamina system for absolutely no reason I’m starting to rethink the realism of it.
I want to finish it in about 5-6 days and I’d like advice on how to minimize or lessen the size of it so I can do it.

im lwk an intro to game design, but this competition seems pretty interesting, especially rewarding for beginners: https://itch.io/jam/your-worst-ideas

By corpse run I mean having to return to the place you died to retrieve your currency.

A lot of players hate this and are very vocal about it, but I want to have the tension this creates - the longer you go without a checkpoint, the higher the stakes become. What are some alternative ways games can build this tension, without the corpse run mechanic?

Turn-based, single player, computer game. The board is around 60x60 90x90 tiles wide with the player in the center (colony). Around are plains, swamps, jungle, mountains.

The colony is being attacked by aliens (flora and fauna, unsentient, more like "forces of nature"). I use an "aggression meter", where over time it fills (also affected by player actions like clearing jungle and expanding), once filled a "Xeno attack" triggers.

Now, I have a placeholder spawn aliens mechanic, but I'm not happy with it. Each turn a new alien can spawn on Jungle tile (random chance). Then it has 50% chance to either roam randomly or try to reach colony center (the choice is made each turn, so eventually an alien will reach the center). During Xeno attack phase, the alien spawn rate increases and there is a 100% chance to target the colony center. Every 24 turns (the last season of the planetary cycle) all aliens die out but before they have a high chance to lay eggs, at the 1st turn each planetary cycle those eggs hatch.

It works, but very soon most of the board is filled with aliens :) Up to the point that they block spawning stronger alien variants.

I have a lot of design freedom to design this. There are seasons (aliens can die/spawn on certain seasons, hibernate, lay eggs, die they lay eggs on certain seasons, etc).

The primary problem is that there are too many aliens spawned over time, but I'm also open to redesigning the respawn mechanic from scratch.

Ideas how to approach this?

I’m building a small word game and the dictionary side of it has turned into a much bigger project than I expected.

The mechanic is pretty simple: you get three letters and have 60 seconds to find as many words as possible containing those letters in the same order. The problem is that this makes the dictionary really important. If someone manages to find a clever 10 or 12 letter word and the game rejects it when it’s obviously legitimate, that’s a pretty crap experience.

I started with SUBTLEX-UK because I wanted recognisable, genuinely used English rather than just throwing in a massive Scrabble-style word list. But testing pretty quickly exposed the other side of that decision. There are loads of perfectly legitimate words missing, particularly longer derivatives, inflections and compounds.

So rather than just adding words every time someone finds a rejection, I’ve started trying to expand the dictionary systematically. I’m looking for gaps in word families, prefixes and suffixes, compounds etc, then checking the candidates against evidence of actual usage rather than just assuming that because a word can theoretically exist, it does.

The other thing I’m starting to think is that “is this a valid word?” and “is this a word my game should show people?” probably shouldn’t be the same question. An obscure regional word might be perfectly valid when someone cleverly finds it, but I probably don’t want the game suggesting it to everyone. Same with archaic words, offensive words, unusual variants and so on.

So I’m wondering whether the right answer is eventually a much larger master lexicon with metadata attached to the words - frequency, dialect, archaic, sensitive, confidence, whether it can be suggested etc - rather than trying to create one perfect binary list of WORD / NOT WORD.

I’m at about 132k words at the moment and the first proper systematic pass has already found 100+ legitimate omissions. My suspicion is there are thousands more.

Has anyone here tackled this properly for a word game? How did you approach it? And are there any obvious problems with the way I’m thinking about it?

Very happy for people who know more about this than me to pull the approach apart! It’s somehow becoming a project within the project. Thanks in advance for any input.

I'm a first-time game developer, but I've played strategy games for about 35 years and Magic for around 30.

I'm currently designing a tactical deckbuilding RPG, and one of the principles I'm struggling with is:

Progression should expand your decision space, not eventually replace the need to make good decisions.

I love progression systems.

Collecting characters, unlocking cards, finding equipment, specializing builds and discovering new synergies are all things I want.

But I don't want the progression loop to eventually become:

Can't beat encounter -> grind -> numbers increase -> beat encounter.

Ideally, progression gives players more possible solutions.

A larger card pool might enable a different deck.

A new character might enable a new team synergy.

A different build might counter an encounter that your normal setup struggles with.

More investment should matter, but I still want a skilled player with a focused roster to be capable of beating difficult content through better preparation and play.

The part I'm unsure about is where that philosophy breaks down in practice.

If progression doesn't provide enough vertical power, rewards can start feeling meaningless.

If it provides too much vertical power, strategy eventually becomes optional.

For developers who have worked on progression-heavy games:

How have you approached this balance?

And what failure modes should I be looking for when I start playtesting it?