My daughter is 3 and her school was having a Halloween party. They need someone to bring and run a game for the kids. Why not just design a new game? I approached this design as I do all other designs, nailing down goals and constraints. – audience: 3-4 years olds. – goals: a game […]
After upgrading my 3Gs to iOS 5, Xcode would not recognize my iPhone for development. It just listed my phone with the old version of the iOS, not connected. After updating Xcode through the app store, (which does not actually update Xcode, you have to find and run the installer in your Applications directory) Xcode […]
This was my second year at Austin GDC and again, it was fantastic. Austin GDC feels like GDC used to when it was held in San Jose, there is little press, no games reveals, no glitz and glamour. Just developers coming to meet, network and share their experiences and knowledge. It’s a great places to […]
There is an update coming for Exonaut soon and I am putting in some balance changes as well. This is all based on win/loss data for the exosuits. Ultimate Swampfire’s weapon mod damage increased slightly Bobo Haha’s weapon mod damage decreased slightly Flapjack’s weapon mod damage increased slightly Johnny Test’s weapon mod damage increased slightly Ultimate Humungousaur’s weapon mod damage increased […]
Design Goals One of the design goals for Exonaut was to not get caught in the “expansion for only high-level players” content trap. Many games do this and while you may be serving the most active and most vocal players, you will be serving a minority of your players. This is why Project Exonaut is set up so we […]
Recently we put our our first balance patch for Project Exonaut. Here is an overview of the process, data and how I reached the decisions of what to change. Assumptions I wanted to write down some assumptions before I dove into the data to see if my instincts would be correct about where improvements were […]
In addition to the new exosuits and map, there have been a number of other changes to Project Exonaut. Changelog – 2011 -06-13 Game Features Added Johnny Test exosuit to Banzai Squadron Added Bling Bling Boy exosuit to Atlas Brigade Added Bling Bling Lair map Added chat functionality to game lobby “Marshall” rank fixed to be “Captain” […]
Updated this week, faction stats are now a measurement of weekly performance. This means faction stats will remain a bit closer, making competition more fierce! Other changes: Bobo Regen and Jetpack decreased from 4 to 3 Gwen’s damage increased slightly Congratulations to Banzai Squadron for being so dominant! Now is your chance to catch up Atlas Brigade!
We are often making updates to Project Exonaut both from a technical and a gameplay standpoint. I thought I would document our changes here so I can keep up with game balance and fixes. There were a ton of balance updates between sneak and full release so I am only going to list updates made after proper […]
Balancing Act Over the past couple of years I have been working on character-based competitive games. These are the kind of games where the word “balance” is repeated ad nauseam. As a (somewhat) competitive fighting game player myself, I have strived tirelessly to make our games as balanced as possible. I have created complex tables to value character abilities, poured over win/loss […]