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Problem Machine

@Problem_Machine

Some kind of disaster man. He/Him/They/Them https://xitter.cf/t.co/97qms2UkeS https://xitter.cf/t.co/V0pVbfAhnI https://xitter.cf/t.co/p7pLiqCGnx

problemmachine.wordpress.com
Joined June 2012
  • Tweets2.7K
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Photo by Problem Machine (@Problem_Machine)Photo by Problem Machine (@Problem_Machine)Photo by Problem Machine (@Problem_Machine)Photo by Problem Machine (@Problem_Machine)Photo by Problem Machine (@Problem_Machine)Photo by Problem Machine (@Problem_Machine)Photo by Problem Machine (@Problem_Machine)Photo by Problem Machine (@Problem_Machine)Photo by Problem Machine (@Problem_Machine)
I've been really liking Lies of P but this is a truly egregious piece of level design. The platform the red arrow is pointing to has a kill volume attached, causing instant death. This is made worse by the lit spot circled in green suggesting I should be trying to get there.
Image from Problem Machine (@Problem_Machine)
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The nauseating vertigo of having to consider spending months porting years of work into a completely different context
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How can it possibly be legal for a company to retroactively add a "you owe us money for each time this server gets pinged. No you can't see how the server gets pinged" to a license??
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With advances in evolutionary algorithms butterfly technology will soon be so advanced that they can perfectly reproduce an owl. Owls will be completely obsolete.
Image from Problem Machine (@Problem_Machine)
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The Great Unknown problemmachine.wordpress.com…
The Great Unknown

The Great Unknown

I find randomness a fascinating topic. Core to many game designs, a hint of randomization can cause the possibility space to explode in many directions, create a sense of mystery and possibility, a…

problemmachine.wordpress.com
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Wildfrost problemmachine.wordpress.com…

Wildfrost

After Slay the Spire released into Early Access in 2017 and was one of the best-designed games ever made, a wave of roguelike deckbuilders inevitably followed. Most of these were, I would say, pret…

problemmachine.wordpress.com
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Bound City DevBlog, April 2023 - Versions and Diversions problemmachine.wordpress.com…

Bound City DevBlog, April 2023 – Versions and Diversions

Well, my assumption was that after finishing the demo, I’d be mostly taking the month away from Bound City to focus on other things. That didn’t happen so much for two reasons: First, the feedback …

problemmachine.wordpress.com
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These “juicy” techniques are a channel for communication — beyond just conveying bombast and impact, they can convey whatever the designer wishes problemmachine.wordpress.com…

Juice, Crunch, and Clarity

I recently saw this video explaining easy ways to make your game feel “juicy”. I don’t know if I’d heard this specific term used before, but it meant exactly what I would have assumed it to mean: A…

problemmachine.wordpress.com
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One of the foremost needs they seek to sate is that of challenge, which means that they have to frustrate the player’s desires in the most satisfying way possible, to maximize the satisfaction of solution problemmachine.wordpress.com…

Hospitable Hostility

“What do my science fiction stories have in common with pornography? Fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world, I’m told.” -Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. One of the most interesting and useful angles with w…

problemmachine.wordpress.com
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Bound City DevBlog, February/March 2023 – Demonstration problemmachine.wordpress.com…

Bound City DevBlog, February/March 2023 – Demonstration

Well, first off, apologies on having to make another two-month devblog, and on having not really kept up on other weekly posts. Hopefully, though, what I’m about to say will make up for it: The dem…

problemmachine.wordpress.com
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Your life is shaped by the obstacles you swerve around, your routes are planned and your roots are planted in the shadows of the sun you avoid. problemmachine.wordpress.com…

Control Freaking

One of the moments I enjoy most in a game is that just before a combat encounter happens. In these moments I plan my approach, my position, look at the lay of the land, look at how the enemy is for…

problemmachine.wordpress.com
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Problem Machine retweeted
Smiling Apple.jpg (@ellaguro) profile picture
Smiling Apple.jpg@ellaguro28 Feb 2023
new blog post: The California Problem ellaguro.blogspot.com/2023/0…
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...only understands failure as negative, as a cessation of enjoyment, as a downer and a frustration — and, indeed, while failure can be all of these, it can also be funny, can be illustrative, can be poetic or impactful... problemmachine.wordpress.com…

Living Failures

The way games treat failure has shifted significantly over the years. The earliest commercial games were coin-operated, so in this case the loss of the coins used to play the game in the first plac…

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The Meta-Game problemmachine.wordpress.com…

The Meta-Game

Some game design decisions are hard boundaries — if you jump off a cliff you die, if you try to walk from A to C you will be blocked by a wall, and so forth. Just as often, though, design decisions…

problemmachine.wordpress.com
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Bound City DevBlog, December/January 2022/2023 – Building Up problemmachine.wordpress.com…

Bound City DevBlog, December/January 2022/2023 – Building Up

Well, clearly I’ve fallen behind. I ended up combining two months of DevBlogging here partially because I fell so far behind on putting up a DevBlog and partially because January ended up being a v…

problemmachine.wordpress.com
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Making Tracks problemmachine.wordpress.com…

Making Tracks

As you may have noticed, posts have slowed down. Well, stopped. There are a few reasons for this – my writing habits have been interrupted by getting distracted by holidays and other projects, by m…

problemmachine.wordpress.com
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Hard to say a favorite since everything I write turns to mush in my brain a couple of weeks after I write it but I do like this bit
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applecider.bsky.social // (@appleciderwitch) profile pictureapplecider.bsky.social //@appleciderwitch30 Dec 2022
writers, what was your favorite line you wrote this year?
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also this
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The Life of Language problemmachine.wordpress.com…

The Life of Language

I’ve seen a lot of people treat the concepts of puns and wordplay with contempt, and it’s an attitude that I disagree with but also find interesting. So much of humor boils down to some…

problemmachine.wordpress.com
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Bound City DevBlog, November 2022 – Soundmakr problemmachine.wordpress.com…

Bound City DevBlog, November 2022 – Soundmakr

(Note: This post is going up quite late into the month, but I actually wrote most of it up at the start of December. The necessity of capturing images and movies to accompany these posts has become…

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