Scratching an Itch

Dungeon Crawler on Demand! by redpangilian is definitely an interesting experience. Mostly for the fact that it crystalizes the very feeling that makes slot machines so addicting into a small mobile game.

The variable reward ratio, discovered by the behaviorists and perfected by casinos…and video games! It is fancy-speak for the simple fact that not knowing when a reward is going to drop is very enjoyable for our brain because that keeps it entertained. I haven’t yet played a game that so purely distills this like Dungeon Crawler on Demand. Sure, you’ve got your Diablos, your Borderlands, and TikToks, they all use it, but this made it intrinsically observable for me. So visceral that I felt I could grasp it.

I knew it doesn’t take much to make something fun. This taught me it doesn’t take much to make something too fun.

Oh, the French! my first narrative game, and it’s inspired by absurdist fiction. You can play it in the browser on itch, and it (probably) takes less than listening to this podcast to complete one play-through. Please check it out!

I learned many, many big things by making this very, very small game. But why did I pick this project? Interactive fiction games are thing of the past with no audience! There is a thriving community, I’ll have you know. I was simply aiming to make something. I tried to follow the good old advice: finish it!

A twine narrative game seemed like something I would enjoy doing and could actually do, and I wanted to go through the development loop at least once, as fast as I could. So what did I learn in this loop?

* Scope creep is real: many small decisions affected later decisions which allowed me to continuously convince myself that something needed to be added to the game. Could some things have been cut without anyone noticing? Yes! Do I regret adding them? No. But only because it was such a small game that the additional time investment was negligible. However, this is precisely why I wanted to go through the loop once: to see these tendencies and plan against them. Which brings me to:

* Keeping a design document is really valuable: Not everyone agrees, and it probably just depends on your work style, but for me, it really helped streamline the writing decisions for the narrative as well as keep an overview of the whole thing. For next time, I’ll also have a mood board or something to create an even stronger direction.

* The GOAT was actually keeping a development diary because I had a huuuge break during development. This helped me jump right back into the mindset and decision making that led to what I had at the time. I was able to pick it up like no time had passed.

* Playtesting is crucial (duh), but make it count: I posted it on reddit to get some feedback and iterate as needed. I got really valuable feedback, which made me realize some things I was approaching wrong because I put narrative before fun, which is plain wrong. It needs to be both, of course. I attempted to mend my ways, and you tell me if I succeeded. But the issue with the playtest was that I just asked for feedback. Next time, I’ll come up with 1-3 concrete (and well phrased) questions to get players to pay attention to what I want to know, and get even better feedback.

All in all, I didn’t learn anything I hadn’t known, but experiencing something yourself makes all the difference!

Web Hotel by FunnyGameDev, made me feel comfortable! It deservedly got first place in the micro jam 48.

My key takeaway: Tying the game together using narrative design helps make it more enjoyable. By using narrative design (for me that includes the theme as well), you can turn your game into a holistic experience. The theme for the jam was webs, so in this game you create webs in rooms by standing in front of them. This could have been it, but FunnyGameDev did one more. Why are you webbing up rooms? You are trying to ruin a guests experience. The guests are jolly and are shooting out attacks until you succeed in webbing up their room, and they are frustrated so they stop attacking you. In the end this leads to bad reviews and an article in the newspaper ruining the hotel’s reputation. Connecting everything this way makes a cohesive experience that’s easy to understand and hence, enjoyable. Fluency is the fancy term for it: the easier something is to process, the more we like it.

Tiny Tarantula Tower by SeeOne is very very fun! Why? Well because you get to see whether or not you are the best in the world. But who am I, why should you listen to me? I am ranked 1st place worldwide in Tiny Tarantula Tower (as of this writing).

Leaderboards: they work. Comparing yourself to others is the killer of joy in daily life, but in games it is flipped around, it can be the provider of fun. Well, only if you feel like you are progressing or winning. This is why very large competitive games use leagues to make you feel like you are doing those things. It needs to feel possible to become first relative to your group.

The deeper underlying psychological need this progress is fulfilling is competence, one of three basic needs according to self-determination theory. But competence hinges on success or perceived opportunity to succeed.

Bottom line: if you have a small game, use leaderboards, they’ll make it more fun for the player, or motivate them to play more. If you have a gigantic game with a large number of players, use relative leaderboards.

One thing I forgot to mention in the podcast is that the game uses a one minute timer for one attempt. I think that is a great addition to a game such as this because it reduces the bigger loop of the game. Each attempt to balance a new object is like a mini loop. And each one minute run is a bigger loop of success and failure. Capping it at one minute, instead of making it endless, makes me feel like I am progressing faster or learning quicker.

I’ve played three versions of the same game:

* Robotron 2084 by VizKidz

* Robtron 2084 Remastered by Parsimmon Factory

* 2600 by dungeon

My key takeaway: enemies support the main mechanic

As a designer, enemies are your friends. In Robotron, the main thing is moving and shooting. So in the first level you already have an enemy that makes you move and shoot, and one which prevents you from moving everywhere. Later enemies demand even more map awareness and precise movement, i.e. they increase the difficulty by requiring greater skill.

nubitoad’s Bomb or Kill puts you on the spot by demanding jokes. You play a comedian in front of an audience who needs to get laughs to get money. I found it interesting that the comments were so amazed by the technology, they forgot their pitchforks!

This game definitely KILLED.

My takeaways:

* Each mini-loop works toward making you feel the emotional core of the game.

* A perfect theme to use AI in the best way

* The scope and design is a certified chef’s KISS: keep it simple stupid

Let me know what you think!

Break the Tower

A chaotic but addictive arcade game by torcado. The Ludum Dare entry’s core loop is a twist on Breakout (I keep saying brick because there was a Color Switch mode with that title): you bounce a ball off a platform to break through layers of bricks, collect coins, and unlock upgrades like faster dash recharge. The unique twist mechanic is charging and redirecting the ball mid-air and something special, which I can’t spoil.

Key insight for me:What makes the game memorable isn’t the great mechanics—it’s the unexpected extra. That surprise is what elevated the game for me. As a designer, it's worth going beyond “the minimum” to include something unexpected that can transform a fun game into an unforgettable one, even if it takes a toll in time and effort.

* Game: Break the Tower by torcado (Godot, 2025 made in 3 days for Ludum Dare 57)

* Mechanic: Breakout but you can redirect the ball

* Lesson: Set the right expectations and then go beyond

* Takeaway: Players judge against expectations. A plain setup makes the surprise land harder

* Click here to play for free (in browser or Windows download)

* Other episodes: https://zivanovic.substack.com/p/30-satisfaction-escalation

Can I interest you in subscribing for free?

Voices in Static is a very short interactive fiction game that takes about 10 minutes to play. Maybe I read too much into it, but I really liked one part of the narrative design of this game.

Game: Voices in Static by the.sus (Twine)

Mechanic: multiple endings

Takeaway: making quitting the game part of the narrative

Play it: Voices in Static

More episodes: Doki Doki Literature Club

Full spoilers ahead! Play the game first.

You're the last sailor on a ship whose AI has gone rogue, and your goal is to get away and destroy it. But you don't get much agency. It's inevitable. You are outmatched, but it dangles this idea that you will be Ripley, the one who saves the day, and then doesn't give it to you. That's the narrative design, and it's the thing I found so interesting.

Game: CYBERQUEEN by Porpentine (Twine, 2012)

Mechanic: Pseudoautonomy

Lesson: Not having choices only works if it's the point of the game

Takeaway: 1) Time-bound text can be a cool way to present narrative 2) Frustrating a psychological need evokes emotions which works

More: howling dogs by Porpentine

In an interactive fiction game the loop is: read text, make a choice. From my own game design experience with interactive fiction, the goal is to make the choices more frequent. The psychology pretty much boils down to reading being the harder half of the loop. If the player has to read 10 minutes of text before making a minor choice, they're going to be bored.

Sometimes big text is "necessary." howling dogs breaks it up with a link at the end of a paragraph that reveals the next line instead of the next page. A simple interaction like that gives the player agency.

Game: howling dogs by Porpentine (won XYZZY Awards for Best Writing and Best Story)

Mechanic: hypertext links used to pace the reading

Lesson: shorten the read-then-choose loop

Takeaway: take the rewarding part of the game and make it happen more often

Other episodes: here's Cyberqueen by porpentine