JB Oger

The more I play, the more I realize stuff and go like "wow this is cool, I didn't know about this ... why didn't they tell me?"

Skull & Bones isn't an outstanding experience, sure, but it's a rare case of a game that feels both overwhelming and hollow (but actually isn't).

Even sandbox games have to meticulously plan out how they distribute content, how the player will learn what action or item does what, understand their goal and how to achieve them.

The many quests of SB are a band-aid, but the core issue is the lack of structure.

When there are this many options available and you're not sure what the paths lead to, players will naturally resort to following the path of least (cognitive) resistance and ignore the rest.

This can't be fixed by removing quests entirely either, this huge mass of content would still be confusing.

Meanwhile, SB has so many game loops that aren't exposed or straight-up confusing. So everything you're doing is hoarding on quests and following the markers.

I understand the need to keep things open and not force players into a scripted path, but ironically it decreases the sense of agency.

Classic Ubi formula open world would have you playing a main story that gradually unlocks and teaches side activities & rewards, giving meaning to what you're doing.

It teases you enticing rewards and showcases difficult challenges that motivate you to keep upgrading. Objective, challenge, reward.

Skull & Bones isn't meant to be a challenging game, but it has more depth than other open-worlds and is interesting to study because it exemplifies what happens when a game lacks a proper spine.

But what do I spend my money on? I don't know really. Should I explore the world, is there something to find? Not sure. What is the levelling doing, what upgrade should I get? No idea.

Playing after a year of post-launch additions certainly makes the thing harder to grasp, but still.

But you come into the game, and all of this depth and complexity is not introduced gradually, not made interesting and valuable to you, which leaves you extremely confused. What am I supposed to do?

Guess I'm going to follow one of the dozens of quests I have in my log and gain money?

I thought it'd be like Anthem, a shallow experience that spreads the jam veeeeery thin to keep you replaying again and again the same thing with artificial pretexts.

Instead, there's a ton of things going on with factions, characters, loot, crafting, quests, ships, combat depth, economy, and more

Setting aside that it's not the swashbuckling adventure game people wanted, it could be a great ship-based Destiny-like with enjoyable combat, loot & exploration. It should be. And somehow it is, I got strangely addicted to it.

But it could be so much better presented that it's almost infuriating.

I've been playing Skull & Bones a lot lately for... huh... research... and I've never seen anything like it.

There are so many mechanics, so much content, but the game doesn't seem at all interested in onboarding the player. Everything is just ... overwhelming?

Blender Environment Artist: Create Your Own 3D Game Worlds Learn Blender 3.1. Create 3D Assets For Video Games And Make Unique Environments

J’avais fait lui mais c’est similaire www.gamedev.tv/courses/blen...

J’avais suivi GameDevTv c’était super, et le gars qui s’appelle Grant a une chaîne YouTube avec plein de tutos aussi

What do you mean « unlockslop »?

Bruhh

LinkedIn influencers are unironically sharing this advice all day long, using Clair Obscur and Balatro as proofs that the strategy 100% work

Publishers who won’t trust the process/can’t project themselves.

« What if it’s not fun tho? Or repetitive? Or it looks bad??? »

Weeeeell it’s obviously not our goal but if the project doesn’t hit the quality target, we’ll iterate. We have regular milestones and feedback sessions planned anyway

Not saying there’s no luck involved but I am yet to see one of those games that failed *despite* doing the same things a similar successful one did. Usually boils down to: the game’s quality just wasn’t as good/catchy/replayable (and that’s the difficult part)

The game works much better than I anticipated, and all I can think about is that I have to redo all my plans for the studio now…

Oui tout à fait 👋

Hello et merci pour le segment sur Drop Duchy! On est pas tous à Montreuil car on a un studio principalement en télétravail mais moi j’y suis en tous cas et je serai dispo pour parler du jeu, les inspirations, les challenges, etc!

It’s definitely inspired by board games that I love (MyCity, Cartographers, Carcassonne, etc.) but it started as a video game from the get go because that’s more convenient to iterate and playtest. Might make a board game out of it eventually, I’d love it

Even if I'm not fond of the concept of noting games, I've got to admit that waking up to this makes me proud
www.metacritic.com/game/drop-du...

Drop Duchy is now AVAILABLE on Steam!

🧩 build your duchy piece by piece
⚔️ rally your forces and storm through fierce armies
🃏 customize your deck with +110 unique (unlockable) cards
🔁 enjoy endless replayability in this hybrid rogue-lite game

🔗 store.steampowered.com/app/2525310/...

But anyway, I guess I’m not the target audience for the game since most players who like it are drawn towards the meta puzzles and feel like it’s good that the roguelite part is toned down as you progress.

It’s as if Balatro meta-progression wasn’t unlocking jokers to explore new synergies but just gave you larger hand size, discards, or removed the 2s out of the starting deck.

Really feels like the creator didn’t know how to expand on this base gameplay and changed its focus towards classic escape game, which is a shame because I feel like the surface was barely scratched in terms of « build » synergies. The few that exists in the game are good, but they get old fast

The reward for solving those puzzles (that get increasingly luck-dependent as you progress) become some increased stats that don’t make the exploration gameplay more strategic or deep, just straight up easier. You’re not getting rewarded with more challenges but new ways to soften that parts.

I just don’t understand why the game isn’t interested in doing more of that « board game » and shifts its focus toward simple point’n’click puzzles that require that item + that item or making basic deductions (one problem in some room, one obvious hint in another)