itch.io

Cool app! It seems like it’s forced into fullscreen for Windows? It would be nice if I could just put it in the corner of my screen.

Thanks! I think I saw this bug too, and I have an idea of what’s causing the crash now. Hope to have a new update out soon! Thanks for playing!!

Thanks for the report! I will look into this. Does it happen on a specific level, or every level?

Thanks for the bug report! I’ll be sure to fix this in the next patch!

What an excellent use of ONI icons :)

Key takeaways:

1. Games don’t design themselves, you’re making many micro-decisions at every step and acknowledging that fact can help you see bias
2. Give time and space for reflection; catch your tunnel vision early
3. Scope early and re-evaluate scope often
4. Playtest early and often, but beware of using up your playtest pool
5. Game development uses more skills than you realize
6. Don’t underestimate emotional impact

Check out the full post here: https://joshaaronmiller.itch.io/balance-this-game/devlog/309732/postmortem-balance-this-game

It took 6 weeks, but I did it! You can now play Balance This Game!, the whimsical strategic sim about balancing an MMORPG for free on itch! https://joshaaronmiller.itch.io/balance-this-game

Check out the trailer! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RAQbvbsR9I

Hey devs!

Even though this is my first post, I’ve been working on a little game every day this month, and it’s starting to be in a position to share.

Balance This Game! is a whimsical strategic sim about balancing an MMORPG.

You’ve just started an internship at a big game studio, but they don’t have anyone to balance their game! Across 8 weeks, your goal is to tweak stats, loot drops, spawn rates, and more as you try to make your players happy.

I started BTG mid-September and decided at the start that it would be a 6-week project, going through devtober. Curiously, the LD49 theme also happened to be “unstable,” which was perfect for this game concept and kept me motivated to work on it.

The idea for this game came about because I wanted to create a simulated space for practicing a skill, and game balancing is a skill that I use all the time, as do other devs. So I made this as a developer playground: hone your skills as a game balancer, and maybe learn something about interacting systems that you can take into your own games!

I can’t wait to write up my post-mortem and share everything I’ve learned so far with y’all. In the meantime, the current version has all of the critical features I wanted the game to have, so please check it out here! If you do get a chance to play it, let me know how the difficulty is — that’s what I’m trying to balance (heh) right now!