We Brainstormed Ideas for Indie Games | Scope Creepers Podcast

@ThomasStewartDev and @Aarimous sit down and chat about Thomas's ideas for his next indie game.
Aarimous's Games:
Hexagod: store.steampow...
Chess Survivors: store.steampow...
Thomas's Games:
Bridges and Docks: store.steampow...
Tanks but Not Tanks: store.steampow...

[@playfuldev]

I love the tetris builder idea. I would play it even casually, without any units (like a mode for the Bridges and Docks but released as a different game). It would be similar to Dorfromantik. It's hard to imagine Dorfromantik being such a success without the tiles deck. There's beauty in boundaries.

[@rolypk]

keep it up lads, nice podcast from people who have actually released games :).

[@JoeTheis]

Love Zachtronics games! Though one thing that is interesting and perhaps unfortunate about the histogram-based approach: if there are 3 metrics you're ranked on (e.g. cost, time, space), that favors solutions that minmax exactly ONE metric. The player is not rewarded for solutions that are a great and perhaps clever balance of 2 or 3 metrics simultaneously, but don't maximize one in particular. I haven't thought about how to solve that, but maybe additional histograms would do it.

[@NickyDekker89]

Isles of War made me remember a game called Netstorm: Islands At War :D def check it out if you never seen it before.

[@JoeTheis]

I've been considering some of the same issues: what if random generation makes an unfair or unwinnable level?
My current solution is to make "victory" not a binary black and white. So the player tries to achieve as many objectives as they can on a given map. There are also some resources that carry forward. So it's up to the player to decide if they want to expend persistent resources to "fix" a tough situation, or take a minor L and save them for the future. Or go all in to try to achieve every objective. Turns a technical gamedev problem into player choice and decision making. Or something. :)

[@koichark]

Hell yeah, Bad North is great. Looking forward to see where you take this.