If you’re anything like me, you’re probably in a similar boat. Between new releases, Steam Sales, and Humble Bundles, your library has grown steadily over the years. But when it comes time to pick something to play, you find yourself playing to the same ol’ games. Don’t get me wrong, the games you keep coming back to are likely really good (believe me, I’m very happy with all the time I’ve spent playing Hades, Hearthstone, Slay the Spire, Spelunky, and The Binding of Isaac). But playing the same things over and over again does nothing to chip at your ever-growing backlog of games.
There are literally hundreds if not thousands of incredible games out there, and if you keep yourself limited to only a handful of them you’re missing out on so many amazing experiences. Especially as a game designer, I want to play as many different games as possible so that I can make the best games I can.
So, how can you actually start playing your unplayed games?
Read moreWhen I look back at the games that I played in 2020, a lot of them didn’t actually come out last year. Sure, a couple of them did, but most of them were either older games I finally got a chance to play or games I grew to appreciate more while stuck in lockdown. So for this year-in-review list, I’m gonna take a bit more of a personal approach. Rather than just limiting myself to new releases, I’m going to highlight the games I played that mattered to me. Some of these games have been out for quite some time, but I believe each one of them deserves to be on this list for helping me get through this wild year.
Read moreA few weeks ago, I broke down some of the many ways that designers can classify their players. I purposefully kept that post broad and mainly focused on what some of the different typologies are. But this week, we’re going to focus in on how a game can appeal to different types of players using specific features and mechanics. For this case study, we’re going to break down Supergiant Games’ Hades using Nick Yee’s Motivations of Play. Keep in mind that this is not going to be an exhaustive breakdown of every single mechanic in the game, but rather a highlight on some of the game’s key features and their effectiveness.
Ready? Let’s go. In the name of Hades!
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