Persistent systems have become an effective way of smoothing out the difficulty curves of rogue-likes, and provide replayability and progression to many video games. Despite their popularity, there are ways to cause the player to lose interest in replaying a game.
This week on Dissecting Design, I took a look at Dawn of Discovery, AKA Anno 1404, to talk about its take on city building and strategy gameplay.
For this week’s cast, this is the recorded interview I did with Wadjet Eye Games’ Dave Gilbert.
We caught up talking about the growth of his company and the work that went into the Blackwell series. After that, Dave and I spoke about adventure game design and writing for characters before spending some time talking about his upcoming game Unavowed.
I’ve had an idea for a new post series; we’re going to be taking a look at the essential elements of specific genres. There’s a difference between designing a game that has those elements vs. an actual game of the genre. For our first discussion, we’re going to dive into the RPG genre and find out what makes it tick.