Lens #10: The Lens of Holographic Design

The next lens I want to look through on our game All Fucked Up is the lens of holographic design from the book The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses written by Jesse Schell. This lens is about seeing the four elements (Aestetics, Story, Technology, and Mechanics) and the player experience in a holistic way. Let’s tackle the following questions in this lens.

  • What elements of All Fucked Up make the experience enjoyable?
  • What elements of All Fucked Up detract from the experience?
  • How can I change game elements to improve the experience?

The cute characters, the little details, the smooth gamepad integration, and the guns make the experience enjoyable. To watch and experience guns in action is satisfactory. The gamepad optimized precise control makes the navigation of the character smooth and nice and does not distract from the game experience.

The double barrel shot gun with it’s late shell ejection, like in reality, as well the camera and character kickback makes the feel of the weapon nice and power full.

Here we see wall jumps in action. The control is smooth and lets you navigate quickly through levels.

The environment and the level-design do detract from the game experience. It looks nice but not brilliant. Quite flat and too simple. The levels don’t look exciting enough way to simple and linear. This can be improved, I need to design much more level also to get more experience on what works and what does not work. If I want to introduce the switch from rifles to handguns or knife I need to design the levels accordingly to make that a need. The same for shooting enemies, if I just can jump over them it makes no sense to shoot them except for the joy of using the collected weapons and ammo.

I think it is very clear that the element level needs a big improvement to make this game fun to play. I feel I’m far away from that. I probably first try to improve the existing levels not on the graphical level but on how I compose the platforms, weapons, ammo, and enemies. I need to make it impossible to jump over enemies and evade but have to design it in a way that they are a danger if not eliminated. As well I want to avoid that there is only one way to manage a level.


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Lens #9: The Lens of the Elemental Tetrad

The next lens I want to look through on our game "All Fucked Up" is the lens of elemental tetrad from the book The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses written by Jesse Schell. Elemental tetrad is the diamond shape of the four elements aesthetics, story, technology, and mechanics.

I will now answer the following four questions:

  • Is my game design using all four elements?
  • Could my design be improved by enhancing elements?
  • Are the four elements in harmony, reinforcing each other and working together toward a common theme?

Our game focus on gamepads rather than keyboard or joystick. For testing and development purposes it is currently also possible to play it with the keyboard. But the main focus will be the gamepad. We will not go into a twin-stick game, so you can only shoot vertical.

The mechanics are laid out for gamepads to have good control over the character while jumping around. As well all the buttons to make reload, switch weapon from rifle to handgun smooth. The mechanics are rather simple, you can walk, jump, double jump, wall jump, shoot, reload, and switch weapons. The levels support this as you often close to enemies you have to switch to the handgun, as rifles don’t work on man to man combat. As well you will need the reload mechanics to have always enough ammo when you enter a platform.

The story is around a man who has been dropped into a weird world full of people who want to shoot him. To go back to his normal life he has to go through all the levels. The man has amazing gun skills he didn’t even know.

The aesthetics are rather simple. We focus more on the little things to add love to the game, like shell ejection. Every weapon does have its shell ejection and reload behavior.

We plan to add more little animations like dust, falling leaves, papers which whirl up if the characters rush through a room, flickering neon, and many more. We focus on these little things and keep the overall graphic design simple.

The very simple graphics might need improvement, I’m not sure if it is enough to just have these little animations. It’s not really up to date graphic design but unique. The animations of the guns reinforce the theme a lot as it is kind of a gun porn game. The cuteness of the characters helps to improve the overall aesthetics I think.
The levels drive the story and the goal is that the player wants to finish a level to see what is coming in the next level. We plan to have different worlds, starting with a grass and bunker world. But as well an office world, tower world, and more. The gamepad should make it more attractive to game shows, it’s much more likely that somebody picks up a gamepad and give it a try than sit down in front of a computer and uses the keyboard. Gamepads also need much less introduction as it is so much more natural to play.


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Lens #7: The Lens of Endogenous Value

The next lens I want to look through on our game "All Fucked Up" is the lens of endogenous value from the book The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses written by Jesse Schell. Endogenous value means the value which is generated in the value. The score is such a value.

I try to answer the following three questions:

  • What is valuable in our game for the players?
  • How can I make it more valuable to them?
  • What are the relationship between value in the game and the players’ motivation?

The internal value in my game are ammo and weapons, you need that to defeat the enemies. But also a grappling hook or grenades are things with an internal value. You simply need that to complete the level. Not sure if that is enough, but that’s pretty much it.

To make the ammo and weapons more valuable I probably have to place them strategically so that you can’t pass a certain point without them. At the moment you can outsmart the enemies and also the levels and reach the end of the level without any kill. It’s probably possible. So I need to find a way that you can’t just skip them. Maybe they follow you to a certain point? Or make the passage small enough, that you have no other choice? Maybe they protect a key or a smart card you need to leave the level? Or you simply can’t leave until you didn’t destroy everything (a cheap solution)?

Thanks for reading. I would appreciate your oppinion below in the comment section.


I get commissions for purchases made through the following links, I only put stuff in this section I also would buy or I already bought

Lens #6: The Lens of Curiosity

The next lens I want to look through on our game "All Fucked Up" is the lens of curiosity from the book The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses written by Jesse Schell. I try to answer the following three questions:

  • What questions does our game put into the player’s mind?
  • What am I doing to make the player care about these questions?
  • What can I do to make the player invent even more questions?

What animation can I trigger with what action? What happens if I finish the level in time? Can I avoid killing anybody and just sneak through? What happens if I kill all enemies in a level?

I put a low level to gain the first animation, like pickup things or shoot two enemies in under 2 seconds, this should make the player aware of that and make him curious how he can provoke other animations. I love those kinds of little things it feels rewarding if I can unlock a neat little animation by achieving something. That makes me curious about the level and I would try to play a level even more than once to see if I didn’t miss a possible animation. The tricky part will be to collect enough animations. As well as how the enemies react on certain events and the fact that they react differently to certain events. They for example are very nervous if the player hits the scene and they get confused if the player jumps out of sight. They start shooting a second after they see you and if you jump at that moment they kill each other, remember they are very nervous.

The level itself should have animations too, like exploding if time is up in time-limited levels. Or let free prisoners if achieve something and they will shoot to as soon they find a gun. Our game does have friendly fire activated. So bullets kill no matter if friend or enemy. That might add challenge and fun situations if enemies shoot each other in the heat of the battle.

I guess I need to think of more things, but I have the feeling I’m on the right track.

Thanks for reading. I would appreciate your oppinion below in the comment section.


I get commissions for purchases made through the following links, I only put stuff in this section I also would buy or I already bought

Lens #3: The Lens of the Venue

The first article of my game design diary, probably not daily. If you have recommendations or ideas you want to share let me know in the comments section below.

I look through the first lens of the book The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses written by Jesse Schell on our game, the emotion lens. There are three questions

  • What emotion shall my player experience?
  • What emotion do they have now?
  • How can I bridge the gap between these emotions?

The player should experience a powerful feeling using the guns, it’s a gun porn game and everything should be around these guns and ammo. The better the experience of these guns the better.
Cute characters should provide a playful experience.
As well it should have a badass experience with those badass comments.

When I play the game using the guns is already very nice, the kickback (camera and player), shell ejection, and also the sound is nicely put together and it feels really good to fire the weapons. As well the enemies are easy to kill which makes the feel of powerful guns even stronger. I have to be care full not to rush to the more powerful guns as this is the trophy of finishing levels. I probably need a lot of guns
I need to add more cuteness to it, the heart emoji is just one that needs to be improved. I like the minion’s way of speaking, so I want to add more of that to improve that "it is cute" emotion.

To improve it I have the following points on my list

  • Add more bass
  • Improve the flashlight
  • Add more weapons
  • Design the levels that I can use the weapons a lot
  • Add badass comments
  • Add more cute sound and animations if we accomplished something.

I get commissions for purchases made through the following links, I only put stuff in this section I also would buy or I already bought

I look through the third lens, the lens of the venue from the book [The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses](https://amzn.to/2EWvFk3) written by [Jesse Schell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Schell) at our game “All Fucked Up” and try to answer the following questions

* What kind of venue suits our game the best
* What kind of special properties does the venue have to support our game
* How do the elements of our game harmonize with the chosen venue

This is quite tricky for me and I hardly can get my head around it. My game is a single-player game so far as co-op isn’t something I was thinking about when I started the game. It might be fun to watch somebody playing this game similar to [Mario Bros Games](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario) which are both fun to play and fun to watch. The funny cute elements shall make it joyful to watch not only to play it.

This game might be playable as a console, PC, or mobile game. The levels are short and quickly played. The story is implicit.

Let me know in the comments what you think about this lens and if I interpreted it properly?

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*I get commissions for purchases made through the following links, I only put stuff in this section I also would buy or I already bought*

Lens #1: The Lens of Emotion

The first article of my game design diary, probably not daily. If you have recommendations or ideas you want to share let me know in the comments section below.

I look through the first lens of the book The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses written by Jesse Schell on our game, the emotion lens. There are three questions

  • What emotion shall my player experience?
  • What emotion do they have now?
  • How can I bridge the gap between these emotions?

The player should experience a powerful feeling using the guns, it’s a gun porn game and everything should be around these guns and ammo. The better the experience of these guns the better.
Cute characters should provide a playful experience.
As well it should have a badass experience with those badass comments.

When I play the game using the guns is already very nice, the kickback (camera and player), shell ejection, and also the sound is nicely put together and it feels really good to fire the weapons. As well the enemies are easy to kill which makes the feel of powerful guns even stronger. I have to be care full not to rush to the more powerful guns as this is the trophy of finishing levels. I probably need a lot of guns
I need to add more cuteness to it, the heart emoji is just one that needs to be improved. I like the minion’s way of speaking, so I want to add more of that to improve that "it is cute" emotion.

To improve it I have the following points on my list

  • Add more bass
  • Improve the flashlight
  • Add more weapons
  • Design the levels that I can use the weapons a lot
  • Add badass comments
  • Add more cute sound and animations if we accomplished something.

I get commissions for purchases made through the following links, I only put stuff in this section I also would buy or I already bought

Sneak Peek Of Our First Levels

We happily present you a sneak peek of our first couple of levels including failures.

The game gives instant feedback on failure and puts you at the beginning of the mini levels. It only needs little to get killed. The enemies are not very smart and shoot each other in the chaos of the battle.
It’s currently more feel-good gameplay than very challenging or surprising. The weapon and collecting ammo is the main mechanic in this simple platformer game. We would love to hear your opinion or maybe ideas about what kind of mechanics we could introduce.

Game Feeling

I read and watched a lot about game feeling beyond many I liked these best

Game feeling is how you experience your interaction within a game. Does jumping feel good? Does the gun have a powerful feeling when using it? Is it satisfying when you destroy or kill something? Does it have a snappy control? Was it exciting to solve that puzzle?

The 30 Tricks of Jan Willem Nijman

I made my self a list of the 30 tricks to make a game feel good by Jan Willem Nijam:

  1. Basic Animations & Sounds: Makes the walking, jumping, pick up things, and shooting more fun.
  2. Lower Enemy HP: It’s more fun.
  3. Higher Rate of Fire: It’s a video game about shooting so put more bullets in there.
  4. More Enemies: Because of trick 2. you need more enemies to shoot.
  5. Bigger Bullets: Don’t use realistically sized bullets as it looks so silly, make them big.
  6. Muzzle Flash: Just make the first bullet frame a circle.
  7. Faster Bullets: Slow bullets are lame, make it faster.
  8. Less Accuracy: If your gun is not too accurate it looks more realistic and is more fun.
  9. Impact Effects: Let the player know he hit something, don’t just remove the bullets.
  10. Hit Animation: Let the player know that he damaged the enemies.
  11. Enemy Knockback: But knockback force if you hit enemies.
  12. Permanence: Don’t remove dead bodies, it helps you remember if you come back in a room with a huge pile of dead bodies in it.
  13. Camera Lerp: Smoother cameras make the character feel more in-motion.
  14. Camera Position: Your your camera to focus on important things in your video game.
  15. Screen Shake: This is an important rule add screen shake on explosions it looks so much more powerful than without.
  16. Player recoil: Shooting feels much more powerful with recoil on the player and you can use it to avoid that player do not shoot all the time as it has a drawback.
  17. Sleep: If you set a deadly hit sleep for 100 or 200 ms, it puts more meaning in that action, brawl games do that a lot.
  18. Gun Delay: Make the character and its props look like they have weight/momentum when moving.
  19. Gun Kick: Add recoil to things that would have it.
  20. Strafing: If you shoot and change the direction the shooting will be still in the same direction until you stop shooting to turn around the gun.
  21. More Permanence: Put ejecting shells in your game and make them permanent, it also helps to remember that you were in that room and that you did shoot a lot.
  22. More Bass: Add bass to your shooting and explosions they get much more meaning and power.
  23. Super Machinegun: Try ridiculous variations on how shooting performs, maybe three bullets a time, go crazy.
  24. Random Explosions: That is a funny one but it puts more action in your game if you put some random explosions to your game when you shoot enemies, don’t overdo it.
  25. More Enemies: You tuned up your gameplay so that you got the feeling you have not enough to shoot at.
  26. Even Higher Rate of Fire: Because it is more fun to shoot
  27. Even Higher Rate of Camera Kick: Make your camera kick in the direction of the action/shooting.
  28. Bigger Explosions: Seriously, who doesn’t like explosions.
  29. Even More Permanence: Put some dust after your gigantic explosions and let it fade slowly.
  30. Meaning: Let your player win or loos.

My Personal Addition

I have some more points for this list.

  1. Flashlight: Add a short bright light flash on explosions it feels more realistic and more boom, it looks good even without sound.
  2. Add more light: Attach light on rockets, it makes it more vivid.
  3. Hitpoints: Visualize hitpoints instantly on the location of the hit.
  4. Add a camera kickback: When you fire a gun add kickback to the camera, it looks more fun.