What do you think makes for a great decision in a game?

sometimes its fun to not get decision feedback right away, the mechanic becomes probing a blackbox trying to figure out whats inside, but the longer you wait to give something, the harder it is to make that actually feel even possible to understand. might be fun to see a game where parts of the puzzle are covered and you have to figure out whats hidden to move on, at which point the bits are revealed.

1) Freedom or Options 1:33 2) Impact 2:09 3) Understanding 2:48 4) Meaning 3:43 5) Challenge 4:28 6) Game Design Pyramid: Sandbox or Gambling 6:42 7) 5 Seconds of fun 7:20 8) Ways to fix a bad game? 8:28 a) More Freedom, new ability 8:49 b) Bigger Impact, different outcomes, lasting consequences 9:08 c) Clearer Understanding. Feel impact of your decisions more when they're understood 9:32 d) The more the future is impacted the more meaningful they feel 9:58 e) Challenge wears off, keep it interesting, randomness, multiplayer, good balance 10:07

listen you are really good at summing points... this is gold, I basically build a list of todos for game design based of your vids... Top stuff thanks!

Big fan of the channel thanks for all the great content! You put a lot of work into these videos and it shows.

I came here from btp video and just watched a couple of your videos, really great content man 😊

These are my favorite videos of yours, and this is another new high. Likely your best video yet. Excellent job. Much respect.

I've learned more about game design from this channel than any other.

Man your videos are way better than mine :D. I guess I should put more work into them, but I don't want to sacrifice my development capabilities too much. How do you handle it? Again great video, well explained, nice footage and editing. I am actually going to use a random event system in my game, where the player can choose from a good and evil decision resulting in a direct effect and ultimately in two different endings :)

Very underrated YT channel...

Man your videos are unique! I really like the way you analize things. Really interesting and useful. Plus I'm at that stage I am actually working on designing decisions. Keep it up!

Thanks for making this video! I'm gonna make a game inspired by this :)

Oh yes, a new video. I was holding my phone waiting for this video

Very concise and well made video. Thank you.

Was going to sleep, saw the notification from Jonas, now I will be awake for few more minutes.

I think my redesign of Grand Illusion lets the player make more interesting decisions thanks to your suggestions. Great video as always!

I really happy to meet you. I watching your videos randomly. And it's so funny and i learning too much things.

Great video as usual! Definitely gonna show this to my team!

AMAZING , I love your game design videos dude. It helps alot for our team to have a decision for our game.

That game was so good that I want a download link.

This list was super helpful for me thanks!

Restricting freedom can often make more meaningful decisions though, e.g. cooldowns. Or stopping/slowing down when shooting

Man I love your video and your games! thankss

Great video Jonas! I think being able to express yourself in overcoming the challenge make for great decisions. For example: do you go in guns blazing or stealthly sneak around.

I bought your game just this week u know. It was on sale so i thought oh yeah looks nice ill get that one. And yesterday by accident i found your channel. What a coincidence :D Ach nebenbei lebe auch in deutschland 💪

This video is criminally under-viewed.

Omfg i just found your channel again i remember your old channel tasty blue games. and when i was 10 i made my first game because of your game maker tutorial. Much love

Ich habe mir heute endlich Isanders und Superflight geholt! (Ich bereue es jetzt, so lange gewartet zu haben)

Fantastic video! Really gets you thinking. I'd love to see that balancing video (I have a whole bunch of balancing work to do at work in the upcoming weeks)

Now I have become a much better game designer, thanks a lot for the clarification!

Dear God... I feel like this video solves the riddle of life or something. This should be taught to everyone in like grade school or something.

I screenshotted that pyramid, thanks for all the help over the months :_)

Nice one... Thanks for posting....

Thanks to this i got such a good game idea xD

Choice - Consequence - Causation or Clarity - Context - Challenge (I just renamed each step and I'm calling it the 5 Cs 😚)

I love your videos, you are helping me so much for my first game development exam. Keep it up :)

Your videos are fascinating, you cover interesting topics and present them really well. Do you know whether these informative and instructional videos seem to have any impact on your sales of Will You Snail? You and Thomas Brush seem to do a really good job of providing interesting KZfaq videos, and seem to help to spread the word about your games. But curious if you actually see any increased sales due to these types of videos? I hope so, but it seems really really hard to market indie games.

Bro, why do I feel like that example game would make a great and pretty addicting mobile game?

Interesting how the final game could be a decent AI benchmark

I feel like ambiguity is another important aspect; if you know everything about the game state, you can overthink it and plan too far ahead making it a chore to simply execute that plan. This is why tic-tac-toe isn't fun past the age of 7. On the other hand, if you have some aspect you can't account for, it can add an element of tension that makes each decision a bit more exciting; this arises naturally in your simple example, but should be considered if ot doesn't, and even if it's already implemented, you should consider whether it's properly balanced; for example, in your game, you could make the visible rectangle larger or smaller, perhaps even non-integer sizes so an observant player might be able to narrow down what a square might contain but it could be a couple different values depending on the graphics

wooooooooow 😍😍😍 amazing it will help me alot

Thanks for sharing these tips and once again another great video. That example game is actually not bad, could make a good casual mobile game.👍

well clicking on this video also is a decision but not in the way in a game but I'm glad I made that decision :D

Amazing lesson as usual! I got one question (not related to the video tho.) I'm working on a 3D game on Unity on Windows and everything is fine. I downloaded the same version of Unity on a MacBook air laptop and tried to open the game project and I was faced by a pink loading screen that remains for hours. So, my question is: what's the cheapest Mac I can buy that can open 3D projects efficiently (just to test and publish games for Mac on it)? I know this is very specific but I am sure you had gone through something similar while testing Islanders in Mac. Thanks for everything you do for the game devs! Keep up the good work!

i love those videos!

Another way to add a good decision to your game is to give it a good and bad effect. For example, in some games when you hold your knife you move at your normal speed but you are left with no way to protect yourself except for avoiding other players. This makes it so the only way to damage them is to get close but that risks you getting killed. But when you hold your gun you can fight from far range decreasing the risk of dying while being able to damage them, but it slows you down making it harder to get to cover and risks you being shot.

Imo, the most important thing is opportunity cost

7:03 this is Murica

Can you release the game you made in this video? Just like on itch or game jolt or something? (If I check and it is already there then I will cey)

After looking at all the green I looked away and just saw pink 😳

Interesting how much overlap there is between video games and ttrpgs

What are your tips for growing a channel like indie game dev?

Many games have large character designers. They change nothing in the game. How does the choice of the character's hair fit to this video?

*1:58** aka playing a telltale game* 😂

Glückwunsch! Du bist der einzige User, der hier noch sinnvolle Videos produziert :)

plumber or paintbrush

Can you make Godot 3 tutorials please? I'm sure you will be Barackeys of Godot 3 :D!

Challenge Meaning Understanding

👍

Bei Islanders fehlt bei mir die Tarverne im Sandboxmodus

Yes a very new vid - 4 minutes old!!

0:52 what is that game

Can you make a Video at Tasty Blue Games. ....

4:38

Jonas, want to make sure you saw the Islanders design shout-out in the new Architect of Games video :) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/arCcet2omdKalo0.html

A good follow up on decision making and game design is a wonderful article by Soren Johnson. TLDR (total fun) = (meaningful decisions) / (time played). www.gamasutra.com/view/news/197181/When_choice_is_bad_finding_the_sweet_spot_for_player_agency.php

Hallo Jonas ich habe eine frage ist es möglich mein Schülerpraktikum bei dir zu machen ich lebe auch in berlin

why don't you make this prototype a actual free game?

Hey, just wanted to say hi.