www.RamblingAboutGames.com is a place for me to share my in-depth analysis of the games I play. In particular, I want to focus on breaking down why specific parts of a game do or do not work, and try to generate productive takeaways from every game I talk about.
RPGs have had random battles for as long as any of us can remember, and while how we handle them has changed a lot as the industry grows, every system has their own strengths and weaknesses. In this post, I examine what some of those are, as well as looking at why Pokemon Sword & Shield’s system is just so great.
Read MoreMMos have been using the idea of level scaling for a while, to help make their content relevant to more people for longer. But Final Fantasy 14’s take on this system comes with a few issues that make things a bit of a pain for low level players.
Read MoreFF14’s UI is very customizable, but coming from a game like WoW which has a fully customizable UI, is a world of difference. So I thought it would be fun to look at the top 5 UI mods that I would install if FF14 let me.
Read MoreWe’ve talked about how Sekiro manages it’s difficulty, and found that in general, the game suffers a lot from a lack of options. Sekiro is a very specific kind of game, meant to be played a very specific way.
But what about those who want to experience the game, but need a little bit of help getting there? Let’s brainstorm some accessibility options Sekiro could have added.
Read MoreWhenever a high-profile, difficult game is released, we see the same arguments about difficulty and accessibility in games, and few titles have embodied this phenomenon as wholly as Sekiro, Many people feel they just can’t play the game, whether because it’s too hard, or because it’s lacking accessibility options.
So let’s look at why that feeling is valid, and how Sekiro could have done it better.
Read MoreOne phrase you will often hear if you hang out in gaming circles for a while, is that “there’s no wrong way to play a game”, but I don’t necessarily agree. I think one of the biggest successes in Devil May Cry 5 is that they did a good job of guiding the player down the path that is the most fun to play.
Here’s how they accomplished that…
Read MorePreviously, I posted talking about the UI/UX of Red Dead Redemption II, and came to the conclusion that, it wasn’t really worth trying to fix or analyse. But after thinking about it, and talking to friends and colleagues about it, I eventually came to the conclusion that perhaps the game’s pause menu was one area that actually was worth a look. So here is my attempt at redesigning that menu from the ground up.
Read MoreMobile games get a pretty bad rap these day. People tend to look at them as exploitative, and only designed around making money. In a lot of cases they aren’t even wrong. They aren’t entirely wrong either, but the truth is that in reality, there is a lot more than that that goes into making a successful mobile game. I’ve always felt that there are a lot of concepts that, if applied smartly, could add a lot of value to a game.. So let’s look at just how Smash Ultimate does exactly that.
Read MoreIn theory, a UX designer’s job is to solve the problem of “It wasn’t anybody’s job to think about this from the player’s point of view, and now we accidentally have an unintuitive game that’s hard to understand, and a chore to play”.
But what happens when that’s the point?
Read MoreIncremental games have always kind of fascinated me. Even before the genre really existed, I always thought it was really interesting whenever a game would allow you to continue making progress while offline, or not actively engaging with it. I’ve played a lot of games in this genre over the years, and they all have wildly varying designs and success levels, so I thought I would take a look at some of the titles that I know best, and try and pick out what sets the successful ones apart from the pack.
Read MoreHi, I like stuff
