How to be a Game Designer Part 2: Mechanics and World Building

Mechanics for gameplay is one of the most important things in a game, not only can it affect how your players interact with the world, but it can also be woven into the story itself, helping tell your story through the gameplay, not just info dumps and cutscenes. However, it is something I see new developers fail to do which can be really infuriating. There's a lot to cover with mechanics but for now I'm just going to focus on its World Building potential, with Zeta as my example.


So what are the mechanics of Pokemon? For its combat alone...

• Turn based combat
• The priority of moves can affect who attacks first
• The Speed of the Pokemon can affect who attacks first
• Abilities can affect the battle depending on the specific ability
• The Status condition of the Pokemon can affect who attacks first
• Each Pokemon move is assigned a type, this type can either be strong against or weak against the defending Pokemon
• Moves have a chance of negative repocussions depending on the strength of the move (low hit rate, inflicting confusion, skip next turn ect)
• Each pokemon has an experience bar that can be filled to earn a new level, granting stronger stats
• The amount of experience can be affected by items (Lucky egg boosts, EXP Share (prior to gen VI) would split the XP by a varying degree)
• The higher the level and the stronger the Pokemon's species Base stats are, the more experience required to level up

That's just on the surface, I'm not going to cover EV's for this example. Why does this need to be known for World Building? Because of the implementation of Trainers. If done well, if you were making a game using similar mechanics, you can use the Trainers as a way to measure how the player is progressing through the game, this is where solid play testing comes into the development phase. With a strong play testing team, you can measure how long it takes for a player to get through the route, the AI level in comparison to the players and many more to judge the difficulty and level out difficulty spikes if needed.

Lets look at an example from Zeta, the Delta Temple Look here for official information. Based on what we know.

1. It is a late game dungeon, meant for Level Grinding before the final boss
2. If the player is going into it, chances are they have several, if not their entire team needing to be leveled up to the games new cap of Level 120 (which the final boss has a full team of Max Level Pokemon)
3. The Dungeon is split into types (Grass, Fire, Water, Psychic, and Steel) allowing for great level grinding potential for Flying, Poison, Bug, Ice, Fire, Ground, Rock, Water, Grass, Electric, Ghost, Dark, and Fighting
4. Thanks to the Wiki, we know Odin has a Jolteon, Divaevus, Shaymin, Salamence, Escavalier and Mega Gengar at level 120 each
   
   Their strongest weaknesses are
   Jolteon: Weak to Ground
   Divaevus: Weak to Fighting
   Shaymin: Weak to Fire
   Salamence: Weak to Ice
   Escavalier: Weak to Fire
   Mega Gengar: Weak to Dark

So the dungeon does indeed cover all the types, which is good. However, Odin's not the only fight you have. You've also got to deal with Cyrus, N and Red, meaning that there are Curve balls here. The Temple itself leads to several problems however.

1. Because almost all the trainers are mandatory to complete the dungeon, the player is going to have a large stockpile of money and as the expansion, items going into not only the Odin battle, but the Aroma Region
2. To conserve as much money as possible, players are going to use the nearby Pokemon Center to heal their pokemon, which it a tedious process to complete
3. As a designer, you DON'T want your player to look up guides unless they have to, its better to keep a surprise, as such you can't expect them to know what's ahead, which leads to
4. If the player has raised the wrong Pokemon, you're forcing them into a wall with these three trainer battles, meaning that they may need to raise a brand new team, which at that point in the game isn't a practical solution. You're building it up as the end of the game and if the player has to stop and Level Grind even more, they may go "I'm not playing this anymore" and stop completely.

This is just an example, you can decide if Delta Temple was well made or poorly made. But lets look at an example of an expanded mechanic now, Shadow Pokemon. For those who never played the Gamecube Pokemon Games, Shadow Pokemon are "corrupted Pokemon". They're only weakness is Shadow moves, which are Super Effective on all types, at random points, they will enter Hyper Mode and every turn, they will do damage to themselves. They do not Level Up or obtain EV's until they are purified. In Zeta, one thing I found was the closer the Pokemon got to purification, the weaker the Shadow moves became. So what could make this mechanic a problem?

1.  The percentage of Hyper Mode: In Zeta, the percentage of status conditions are drastically different (from personal experience) then the main games. Confusion, to me, felt like it was a 90% chance of hitting myself, Paralyzed triggered more often,  Sleep was longer ect. If my theory is correct, Hyper Mode in the code is also affected by those changes. There were several times where I had just gotten them out of Hyper Mode, only for them to return to it that same turn.
2. The requirements for Purification: There are a lot of trainers to battle before you can purify a Shadow Pokemon and with the nature of Shadow Pokemon in Zeta, it seems to be an impossible challenge to complete the Aroma Region with only Shadow Pokemon because again, they can't level up and the region feels like it was made with level grinding in mind so if you can't level grind, you're once again forcing the player into a brick wall

This is a (much more definitive) example of the mechanics trying to be built around the world. This doesn't work, no matter what way you look at it.

With that, look into other games, see how the Mechanics have been integrated into the world. Next time, difficulty and how to adjust for skill.

2014: The year that was

All things considered, as an opening year, for me I count both Blaster's Projects and Blaster's Reviews a success. At time of writing, Blaster's Projects is approaching 1300 pageviews and Blaster's Reviews just broke 4000 so thank you to all who do read my content. This post isn't going to be much, its just me providing a bit of back story to some of the content that was published in the last 10 months, as we leave 2014 behind us.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas: "Tomorrow's Christmas, its practically here"

"T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse." I'm 100% confident saying that there is no person alive with access to literature who doesn't know of Dr. Seuss and if for some reason you don't, THEN YOU HAVE NO CHILDHOOD. The stories are iconic while still being simple, each with a story to tell and a lesson to learn in a style that no one can replicate and an art style just as unique. However, his stories haven't really transferred well to the silver screen recently with one of the first of the new wave being The Grinch (Its called that here, I'm sticking by that name as I'm reviewing the movie, I don't know why the Australian version is like that, I just know it is for some reason). Is the Grinch one of the better ones, or just as bad as the later films?

Rescue Heroes: Thunderbirds are... wait... you're saying there's a difference?

You know the saying "with age comes experience", with it also comes confusion. Have you ever re-watched a show that you used to love when you were a child and go "I used to watch this?" It's a weird feeling isn't it?

When I was working on the schedule for content uploads, I had a spot free to which I offered the choice to my mother as today is her birthday. After several weeks of changing her mind, she "chose" this (by that I mean she suggested it and I said "I have to start working on it, no more changing your mind"... Of course there's another one which I turned down for now so... one review at a time...), forceful padding aside, lets see how this not Thunderbirds holds up, Rescue Heroes Season 1+2 (I'm having trouble finding season 3 somewhere I can obtain it to review).

Top 20 MLP: FiM songs

This is something I've had planned for a while. At this point in time I have a schedule of posts for both Blaster's Projects and in particular, Blaster's Reviews. The reason for this is because, while I am open to doing requested content, I do need something to fill in the gaps for when there aren't any requests and at the time of writing, there wasn't any requests. When I reviewed the four seasons of the show and the two films, I wanted to do a list of my favorite songs from the series as a whole because more often then not, they are great songs. Seeing as I didn't even mention the songs for the reviews, its only fitting to see which ones were the best songs now. I'm not putting in any rules for this list but I ask that you respect my opinions on these because, from the research I collected while writing the reviews, I know that there are songs on here that... got mixed opinions.  You can pretty much figure out what I think of the shows's music based on this list, without further ado...

My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks. Don't let this Siren cast her spell

So those who have been paying attention, I started reviewing the series the week this film was due to go to cinemas and the week I posted the first film was the day it was released on DVD... to my knowledge, there is no connection to the film and today, or this week, I just wanted to give it some time to settle. When this is done, while I have one final post to make at the end of this week, I will have covered the FiM series released to date. I won't review the latter seasons on their own, but I am still willing to review other aspects of the franchise if I get requests for them. With that out of the way: Rainbow Rocks.

Super Smash Brothers for Nintendo 3DS: Smash ain't no joke

No intro, no more padding. You know what's coming. I've drawn this out enough, time to look at Super Smash Brothers for Nintendo 3DS.

The Hype Train for Smash 4

For a newcomer to this kind of hype train, this was incredible to see. This isn't a review, impressions or anything like that. This is just a reflection on what has been.

E3 2013: This was a weird time to be a Nintendo fan. The Wii U was barely selling and had no system sellers, the 3DS was doing better but still not great and for the first time ever, a first party games company decided not to do a live press conference at E3, instead opting for a Nintendo Direct. The Direct itself, while it had some good titles on it, there wasn't anything we didn't expect. "Oh look a new Mario game" "Oh look a new Zelda", there wasn't anything to really care about... until the finale...

What does 2015 have in store for Blaster's Reviews and Blaster's Projects

Before I begin, thanks for the 1000 page views, I know I don't update this site often, but thats just because I don't have anything to talk about. But even still, thank you, it means alot to see people reading my content on both sites.

With 2015 almost upon us, I think it might be time to talk about some upcoming plans for Blaster's Reviews and Blaster's Projects (though not in as much detail)


For Blaster's Reviews, with some miscellaneous reviews scattered between, there are some marathons planned for the first half of the year:

1. During January, I'll be reviewing 4 Direct to DVD films to which the franchise they're based on has a spot in my heart. BIONICLE: Mask of Light, Legends of Metru Nui, Web of Shadows and The Legend Reborn.
2. To celebrate the 1 year anniversary of the two sites, the Digimon Anime will be reviewed including the films. Do note that most of them will be using the English Dubs.
3. To coincide with the launch of Avengers: Age of Ultron, the Marvel movieverse (not including Guardians of the Galaxy at this time) along with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D will be reviewed.
4. During July, I will once again be tackling E3, which may mean that there will be a lot of Impressions occupying the space after.

 On top of that, two new review types will be opened up during the course of the year

1. The Retake Reviews: If I or another reader thinks that one of the previous reviews could have been better, I will begin rewriting them and posting a brand new review of them. Imagine it as a sort of "Then and Now" kind of post.
2. Comic book reviews: I've always been curious about Comic books and Blaster's Reviews has given me a excuse to loo into them. These reviews will be reviews of spesific arcs and individual issues, not comic series. For those who don't know, a comic arc is a small "mini story" in a series of comic books where the story flows directly from one comic to another. Two examples of this are "Blackest Night" from the Green Lantern comics (though it is a cross over) and "Genesis" from one of the two comic book series I do follow, the Sonic the Hedgehog comics. These reviews will be dependent on requests and suggestions so feel free to make requests (I don't ignore everyone except the Patreon supporters, you can talk to me, I don't bite) as to what arcs you'd like to see a review of (just give me some basic info like name of the arc, publishers and what series its from).

As for Blaster's Projects, I unfortunately don't have much to say. But what I do have to say is this:

1. How to think like a Game Designer isn't dead and more posts on that will appear, I'm just struggling to find a topic, so feel free to make suggestions.
2. Turnabout Smash: The Project itself is currently halted due to lack of progress on the production for the Prologue and writer's block for Chapter 1 (I know how I want to end it, just not how to get to it). I have plans for Turnabout Smash so that you can still see a form of the project but I am still looking for writers to work with in order to see this project complete. More news on that plan later.
3. Super Smash Brothers: Fan Disagreement: I have nothing to say about this because SSBFD has, to me at least, become Turnabout Smash. I used SSBFD as a base so to me, the two projects are the same.

That's a little taste of what's to come next year, but there is more then that coming. As I said during the comic book discussing, seeing as it applies for all material, I'm open to requests and feedback as you're the ones motivating me to keep writing, to keep improving. Thanks for the support, and enjoy the rest of the year. Tomorrow and Saturday will be finishing off the Week of Smash and then I'm finishing off the MLP reviews with a review of Rainbow Rocks, and my built up Top 20 MLP songs list.

Week of Smash bros.: Top 10: Smash bros. Fighters

Day 3 of my Week of Super Smash Brothers, and what better way then to celebrate the top 10 fighters I've used in the games I've played (again, this excluded Melee). Do note that most of these entries come from Brawl and Smash 4 as they are the two I've played the most. If you see a character here, chances are you'll see me play as them.