February 25, 2023

Character sheet prototypes - Devlog #6

The first iterations for player character sheets started almost a year ago. Any time I was thinking about a problem players might encounter I thought about how they might resolve it. I asked myself a lot of questions during this process:

  • What kind of interesting choices should they be able to make?
  • When is a stat needed?
  • When is a skill needed?

To answer those questions, I kept trying things, running through little experiments, disliking them, and trying more things. I was also reading an interesting book, The Art of Game Design A Book of Lenses Third Edition by Jesse Schell. In it, Jesse makes an interesting case for when a stat or skill is needed, and that's:

  • If the simulation requires it
  • If it thematically makes sense
  • If there is a difference that could and should be defined

When I read that is when things started to really click. I went from testing with tens of stats and other mechanics to five or less in a weekend.

What follows are the main prototypes that I'll be testing Bug & Claw's core game mechanics with! That's a big milestone!

These have a lot of little design oddities to clean up, and I'm sure otherwise they'll have some iterations to go through, but I'm happy that I've finally landed on some key concepts. I was going back and forth on core stats for a long time. I could not have done this without feedback from a few great people like friends Neil, Jason, and Karyl. Thanks, pals!

A crystal

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