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Reworks are fun CrazyAmphibian - 13/aug/2023

Reworks are a staple of game development. Be it a lacking mechanic, or for the sake of complexity, odds are every game you've played has had at least 1 mechanic get reworked.

in SSTD, i had to rework something. Spell costs.
initially, i made the base cost of a spell be what is now known as the random spell pick, and picking was a multiplier, as was picking the catagory. Both the base costs and mulpipliers were able to be changed with the meditation menu.
after some playtesting, some issues started to emerge.

  1. the intent of the game is to use variety
  2. there is little incentive to use multiple spells
  3. the game is less interesting the fewer options you have
  4. there was no reason to pick more than a few spells of a category

I solved these issues by reworking how spell costs were calculated, so that, now, spell costs are at their base, picked costs. (default 150). The costs for random spells are now directly proportional to the base cost, and cannot be changed. This change encourages players to learn more spells, and rewards random, risky play. In fact, the cost of the fully random spell at the start of the game was reduced from 50 to 25. Before, it was hardly ever worthwhile to pick it, now, it could be useful.

last blog post i included a reasoning list, and i might as well put one here, too, for the hell of it.
some (but not all) reasons a mechanic may be reworked: