Pedro Braga
@mrpedrobraga
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Software Engineer; Creator of "Sol," a programming language for game assets (and like a bajilion other cool things). Compilers rock!
Turn around.
Joined January 2018
Evening! I will be out of work after this week. I have one (1) month of savings I'll be using to catch up on my website and pending work. In the meantime, if you know of opportunities for game/software/web programming roles, please let me know. Thank you.
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Thread of game design decisions I had to make on things that seemed obvious to me but werent during playtests. 🧵.
the yellow paint is so unnecessary obviously a ladder is climbable obviously a crate is breakable why did they do this
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1 - In a platformer, players would assume you had to go to the right and kept jumping in the void over and over. I had to add a revolving staircase that spins you and makes you face left. They acknowledged the staircase was weird, but couldn't figure out the reason.
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4 - It doesn't matter what the vibe of the game is, people always try to beat the shit out of everyone they meet. Blocking the attack button would be too handholdey, so I add a disapproving response from the NPC. Then players are like "oh i'm so sorry.".
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2 - When players got to a village, they wouldn't interact with any of the houses. So I added a giant exclamation point in one of them. An NPC would tell you to visit a shop, which has a huge sign. Noone would read the sign. I added another huge exclamation point.
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7 - I have to put elements that are cut off by the screen on every level, otherwise players will assume the level is one-screen wide. This one is a good tip for y'all btw!.
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It's important to remember that the vast majority of people who play games aren't "gamers." You may feel like everyone knows everything about video games at this point, but, boy, you'd be surprised.
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3 - People keep trying to interact with elements of the background in an RPG, so I have to add dialogue to them so they don't get confused as to why they can't use it. I just add funny quips, but it works.
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5 - Players won't pickup a necessary item even though it's on a pedestal. So I make it float with glowing instead.
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6 - I have holes impossible to jump through twice as large otherwise people will be trying to make the jump for hours and get bored of the game.
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4.5 - So players online complain that they can kill people and then the game will have less content. What did you expect? A Ghost party?.
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Lastly, I had to paint my climbable surfaces blue because otherwise players keep trying to climb every single geometry in the level and get bored. .
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We want everyone to be able to enjoy our games, and while sometimes some design trends can be a bit obvious. Y'all still haven't noticed the bulk of them!. We are evil sorcerers and we hack your mind MWAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHA.
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Great video on Playtesting by GMTK, taking a look at the incredibly designed game "Portal.".
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To those saying things about playtesting being "designing for the lowest common denominator," well, I once had a hardcore gamer get stuck in my game because he was trying to move with WASD. It's not just "newcomers" that get stuck on quirky problems. Also,.
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Playtest isn't to dictate how your game should be. It's to make sure you're creating the experience you think you are creating. The end result of your playtest can still target a specific audience or be very hard!. You just want to make sure you're not having critical oversights.
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Sometimes, the result of a playtest allows me to make things *harder* because players were much better than anticipated. That happened a lot during my work in
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In puzzles, my playtesting pain is actually making sure my puzzles are *hard,* because players keep finding ways of solving it too easily that I didn't anticipate.
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Nowadays, in my upcoming game Inner Voices, I try to make hints specifically only appear if I can *detect* game-design-wise that a player is lost. For example, the "arrows to move" indicator only appears if you've stood still for too much time when the game starts.
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My idea of the best design for hints is that they'll be there for whoever needs them, but won't get in the way of people who already figured it out.
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@prntgdcolonized "You only do things when someone tells you to!". You have a person you can, with a few words, order to do whatever you want and you're still complaining?????.
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Proof that game design is relative:. Yellow paint would go against the very point of a game like this:
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@ThisIsYubs Sometimes players miss the design cues in ways that make them better at the game than we had expected!!!.
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This is how it feels to be autistic talking to neurotypicals.
IT SAYS CLICK ON THE WINGED INSECT BUT THEY BOTH HAVE WINGS. BEETLES HAVE WINGS THEY ARE JUST TUCKED UP UNDER THE FLAPS 😭😭
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This thread is not a thread of tips: run your own sessions!. I, for example, wouldn't do this (linked tweet) in Inner Voices, because it wouldn't fit there.
2 - When players got to a village, they wouldn't interact with any of the houses. So I added a giant exclamation point in one of them. An NPC would tell you to visit a shop, which has a huge sign. Noone would read the sign. I added another huge exclamation point.
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@username_var @DaDandyman @gabberghoul @pantrymoth Whenever someone wants to make a movie about maths, they slap it in to seem trippy and smart.
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Testing rendering of a scene + the debug menu (also zooming).
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I've been looking at the mental images that people came up with for the people who were part of the playtests mentioned. they were just, normal, everyday people. just, members of society like you and me. we don't "choose stupid people," what does that even mean lol.
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@KennyGoo I specifically picked these examples because players didn't notice them after I had implemented them. Even the exclamation mark one. It fit the videogamey aesthetic of that game. It was fine. People enjoyed the game more.
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@jessicobra im not exactly a very masculine guy, but I wore a dress to test once and it was like "holy shit imagine having to dress against ur gender your whole life" and it was like "oooooooohhhhhhh".
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@SpectralAurora_ So, game dev here. when designing things we run playtests with real players. that shit's needed.
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@connor_mcgwire One of the players back in the when tried to play the game, with the arrow keys, with a single finger. Then he got stuck on a jump because he had to press both jump and move at the same time. It was a revealing moment to me!.
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@SplinterGP "especialmente em países que não falam as línguas que o jogo tinha," sei bem o que é isso vei.
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@nightshademagia The fact you measured the magnet strength not in teslas but in bits (information metric) makes me imagine the magnet will make all the books fly across the room.
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@ImLost_mp44 @pantrymoth It's noise, each pixel contains a value from 0 to 1, which you can get to do. well, whatever you want. Like, for example, generate your Minecraft world :).(here each pixel is interpreted as the height of the floor).
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@AutisticCallum_ Conversely it explains why when calling someone do to something, they may come and then act utterly uninvested in the thing;.
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And, Guess what! That game I worked on has recently entered Kickstarter and we already got 80%!. Wouldn't be without support of the players who helped shape it to what it is today!. (check it out too pls).
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@tayl3rt0t It makes sense, right?. Like, autistic people will have trouble following social norms because they are arbitrary and we can't understand why they need to be done --- so if we DO follow some rule, it's because we actively believe on it!.
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@No_You_Are @krystalwolfy This would be 40% better if those gradients were done on another colour space.
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@TimKrief It's too coloured and friendly, gives the impression that it's a software you'll have fun using and things will be simple and easy. It's bubbly and has personality, it looks too much like it has an easygoing and friendly community that will create nice things together and share.
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Person : Oh, you're drawing? Can't wait to see the final result!.Me, with aphantasia : same lmao.
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@Powergannon Sure! I solved it that way because exploration wasn't the point of that specific area (and waiting for players to figure out _really_ didn't work). In other moments, I do allow my players to explore freely.
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@FeralPhilosophe Absolutely. People say videogames should take risks and reinvent design cues -- whenever we do, this has to be a great consideration. In a platformer game, I had levels that could go from right to left, and experienced players would take so much time to adapt to that.
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@its_adamneely If reading sheet music was trivially easy, you could just admit students and they would learn in the first day of class.
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@jatolion @rope_sand @LenKusov @Warlockdnd oh, it's because it's an image -- and those typically don't smell :). this is a fun reply do not kill me.
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In light of the recent Godot immigration, I'd love to share some #GodotEngine addons and tools yours truly has made! 🧵.
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@spaghetasaur @ManchmalPfosten @damanrambo @Okasumanko @deckenkatze @GoodReddit This ain't a ratio, it's a square root.
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@TicsnTatts "I don't treat you this way because you're autistic, it's because [insert autistic traits]".
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@horrolivia Only game I've worked in as game designer that I can link to is but I haven't run playtests on it. I worked on so many projects that were canceled or under NDA. my portfolio is crying;.
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@TFranguiadakis @StarlightSkyes you could've just clicked the "add multiplayer" button come on smh my head.
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@laurenancona Telling a mentally ill person “to go to therapy” is one of the new century's annoying-est tought terminating clichés tbh.
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@arcanegold okay so any tips on how to get wrinkles out of a polyester flag?. I tried ironing and I melted a bit of it slightly and I'm so sorry my iron is transphobic.
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@hadesselch @MoodAdjuster @peerifool_ Comes from an LGBT mod that actually has all the LGBT traits, and then lets you add the phobias as add-ons.
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@astrvlwitch Back then I got a few mainstream gamers,.A few old game players (NES-Gameboy era),.A few people who haven't played games,. A diverse collection is the best you can ask for. A lot of playtesting problems only happened with mainstream gamers and didn't happen with newbies, too.
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@Mother_Encore Greetings. They have changed the password to our Twitter account, locking us out. We are currently dealing with the situation. Please if you'll read this, wait for our response before making the final judgements as every story has two sides. Take care in the mean time.
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So, soon I'll have to sprite thousands of frames of animation. Meanwhile, here's a sneak peek of all the character #pixelart designs I've finished so far. There's a lot more that I finished on paper coming soon!
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Experimenting with some things, stylistically. Thoughts on 4:3 resolution?. #gamedev #innervoices
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@Solyssey @TheNCSmaster oh no I'm agreeing with you just don't ruin our name comparing us with g*mers.
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@mininuke_3192 @Phantom_TheGame A common technique is to just avoid using bigger numbers. Once the player has ventured far enough, the entire world can be shifted such that coordinates for the place are smaller again. This is not applicable for _every_ case though, but can solve problems with models.
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@Nobody76856484 @r4mb3rt4 @yesitsvitaminC I found out I was autistic at 19yo, was bullied by it at 6. I propose we get rid of theraphists and hire kindergarteners instead.
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@GavinEdgington @Ahr_Ech A game with a more streamlined level design can more consistently rely on the functions of objects, yes. The opposite extremes are Portal (where every component is literally only included when needed) or Minecraft where you can just do everything.
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@ItsEmilyKaty My ongoing autistic nightmare is that no explanation of masking makes them not respond with “that's everyone sweetie, we all have to think what to say”.
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Our favourite mayor's party values democracy, the electoral system, and the right of people to choose. So, should Manuel McMayor forcibly take over the city of. 1. @Mother_Encore's Podunk!!!.2. @DREAMTONEgame's Knowhere!!!
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(Temporary new Pinned Thread!). These types of colours and patterns feel perfect when in fullscreen.
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@Autistic_Lia @CloudyOrangeSky After being bullied a lot for being different, the school suggested an assessment, after it I was cared for and supported in my autism discovery journey. The insurance covered the assessments too.
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@mightbeautistic The part that pops off to me is that they subtly considered themselves "overly smart.".
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@TheJakeneutron Yes this is the correct tweet; I was so put off until I saw the Quoted Tweet.
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@PixelsnPolyg0ns Yeah, the goals of reality and the goals of a videogame are very different, and it's hard to make one look like the other without breaking design. Nevertheless, there's an idea of immersion that's separate from the game being realistic.
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@shycnidaria I'm pretty sure I know the answer. You see, people see Autism/ADHD as making someone incapable of living, achieving things and functioning in the world. When they see you walking outside and talking fine, they can't fit you into that worldview.
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@Taran966Dragon @Viggomanmc @Tadleeh @XxRexRaptorxX @JasperBoerstra Just put a sun in the wardrobe as well. Problem solved.
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@FeralPhilosophe So many innocent level design looks like obvious secrets to players. I can't have a waterfall just hanging anywhere, y'know what I mean?.
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@IzumiDaniel1 @ShitpostGate If your skin is too dark, you'll just fall into "black= electric."
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Some Assets are reusable through the power of procedural!!!
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This week's #GodotEngine Addon:. Add buttons, warnings and custom editors for your properties on the inspector -- use the few builtin, or create your own!. #gamedev
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@bonniscotch Paradoxically, this post has a warmth that makes me ever so slightly more hopeful in life.
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Waiting to catch the bus. I want to get my shit together in tech, to stream making one room together one day.
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