I often get asked about what exactly the difference is between Systemic Design vs more traditional design. I think it boils down to a curated versus a sandbox experience for the player. Let's talk about emergent gameplay! #gamedev #indiedev #gamedesign #gamedevelopment 1/14 - ThreadSky

turbohermit.bsky.social • 20 days ago

I often get asked about what exactly the difference is between Systemic Design vs more traditional design. I think it boils down to a curated versus a sandbox experience for the player. Let's talk about emergent gameplay!

#gamedev #indiedev #gamedesign #gamedevelopment
1/14

Comments

turbohermit.bsky.social•20 days ago

So, let's say we want to give our player some tools to work with. A grapplehook for traversal, for example. In traditional design, you'd start of somewhere like: "OK, what can and can't the player hook? Let's say they can hook to enemies and everything that's made of wood."
2/14

turbohermit.bsky.social•20 days ago

Pretty soon after testing the mechanic, you figure out that so much of visuals are wood, that the player can easily go out of bounds using the grapplehook. Also, it's hard for the player to differentiate grabbable wood materials to those that are purely decorative.
3/14

turbohermit.bsky.social•20 days ago

Also, grappling towards enemies quickly becomes the dominant combat strategy. So you compromise. You create a hook object that the player can easily see and attach to. You pepper them around the world, using good level design to make traversal feel cool and fun.
4/14

turbohermit.bsky.social•20 days ago

Some enemies have this hook object in their design, so you can grapple towards them, but others have armor that the grapplehook bounces off of. You've now created a smooth, curated experience for the player. Excellent! Now let's take a look at Systemic Design.
5/14

turbohermit.bsky.social•20 days ago

We start from the same place: "We give the player a grapplehook that can latch onto wood." But instead of compromising to curate the experience, we double down. Everything that's wood, is grabbable. Every tree, every window frame, even tiny wooden mugs, grabbable.
6/14

turbohermit.bsky.social•20 days ago

What's more, we state that enemies AREN'T grabbable by default, unless they're somehow made of wood. Maybe they have a wooden shield, maybe they're mutants that are part plant, maybe the player has a spell to temporarily turn them into wood. We don't know yet.
7/14

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply