Having a pre-existing audience is one of the biggest predictors of success for a Kickstarter campaign. While that’s great if you already have thousands of followers, it can be very intimidating when you’re just starting out. How are you supposed to get people to follow you when you haven’t released anything yet?

This was the exact situation we were in when we decided to crowdfund Captain’s Gambit. When we started out on our journey five years ago, we knew basically nothing about marketing or community management. But through a lot of research (and a lot of trial and error), we’ve managed to cultivate a fun, kind, and growing community.

So how did we do it? Well, today we’re going to share some of the steps we took to build an audience from scratch. Follow this guide and you’ll be well on your way to a sizeable following in no time!

As I’ve talked about in the past, balancing games is really hard. And while that’s true for all games, card games in particular are very tricky to balance. Often cards games will feature dozens if not hundreds of unique cards, all of which could have unintended game-breaking interactions with one another. As a designer, you need a way to keep specific cards separated while still providing players with the freedom to make whatever decks they want to play. Thankfully, there’s a simple design trick that does just that: factions!

We’ve talked extensively on this blog about why you should design games, why they are so awesome for self-expression, and how you can create your first game. But once you’ve taken the first step, it can be hard to know where to go to learn more. Today, I’m going to share some of the resources I personally use to expand my knowledge of game design. Though there are countless amazing creators out there, here are ten of my personal favourites.

There’s a lot to love about Hades. From its diverse cast of memorable characters to its endlessly replayable gameplay, Hades is easily one of the best and most ambitious Roguelikes ever released. I’ve personally sunk over 120hrs into the game and have played more than 100 runs and I still have so much left to do. Despite all the time I’ve spent on the game, it still feels just as captivating as it did when I first picked it up in early access. You might be thinking that this is because of the game’s overwhelming amount of content, and sure, that’s a pretty big factor. But Supergiant actually uses one little design trick to help encourage you keep the game fresh.

See, we often think saying someone “looks suspicious” is the same as saying that they are lying. It’s not. If we knew for certain someone was lying, we wouldn’t call them “suspicious”. Rather, being suspicious means we think they might be lying and that they might be telling the truth. It means we’re uncertain.

Creating games can be really fun, extremely satisfying, and a great outlet for self-expression. But if you’ve never tried making a game before, it can feel really intimidating to give it a shot. As someone new to the field, where are you even supposed to start?

Luckily, I’ve got an easy game design exercise that is perfect for everyone. It’s the exercise I started out with when I got into game design, and anyone can do it regardless of age or skill level. Check it out below, and then I’ll go through why it’s such a great gateway into game design.

If you’ve ever played a Zelda game before, you know that not every item feels like a meaningful addition to your toolkit. Rather, some items just spend most of the game collecting dust in your inventory. For every amazing item like the Hookshot, there’s another disappointing item like the Deku Nuts. What sets these items apart? What makes an item useless, and what makes an item worth using?

The Lock-In Effect is very common in games with multiple objectives. Achieving a win condition typically requires devoting a lot of time or resources, so logically it should be difficult to have enough left over to successfully pivot to another goal. But what if you want players to adapt their strategy and change objectives throughout the game? How can you avoid the Lock-In Effect?

So if many modern Roguelikes do not possess all these traits, does that mean that none of them are Roguelikes? I would argue no. Rather, I believe the problem is with the definition itself. The Berlin Interpretation was created over a decade ago, and since then the genre has changed and evolved. As a result, the definition is out of date and out of touch with modern Roguelikes and is written far too exclusionary. Many of its factors are either too arbitrary, too vague, or too specific. Additionally, the Non-Modal factor doesn’t even encompass ADOM, Angband, and Crawl, all games which it claims belong in the Roguelike canon. When taken together, this shows that the Berlin Interpretation doesn’t define what makes a Roguelike a “Roguelike,” but rather what makes the game Rogue “Rogue.” Because of this, we have no choice but to reject the Berlin Interpretation and instead find an alternative definition.