Lowbo | 就是萝卜

Hello again! It's time for a new pinned post. I am between jobs, so I've set up a portfolio website and blog here: www.lowbo.io If anything I've ever said here or elsewhere has intrigued you, I'd love suggestions for topics. I do better with a prompt. Hope to see you soon!

Another blog post! I wrote about Silksong and “artificial difficulty." (this was totally topical when I wrote the first draft a month and a half ago) www.lowbo.io/silksong-and...

I am often deeply moved by comments on youtube videos of old songs. It may not be the most skilled poetry, but the sincerity of the message is so powerful to me.

biblically accurate

so I am obviously biased but if you’re interested in smart thinking about game design I think this starter pack is your best quick resource on social media for it. sorry in advance for my contribution of all the animal pics to it.

New podcast episode! This week, I talk with @lowbo.io (Benjamin Lindsay), a former Riot game designer who worked on League of Legends and on Riot's illustrious and secretive R&D projects. We talked about Silksong, League of Legends, and what "good game design" even means! makegamesdrinkcoffee.com

I was on a podcast! :O Was a lot of fun chatting with @nemo10.bsky.social about Silksong, League of Legends, and philosophical approaches to game design. Check it out! youtu.be/DtHTlp5Fvjs I’m a Certified Yapping Enjoyer so if anybody reading has a podcast, I’d be happy to be on yours too!

I think smaller teams make better games. I think happy people make better games. I think every studio should be thinking of the team as their #1 product and strength, and the games are the OUTPUT of that team. People should be trained, given opportunities, given reasons to WANT to be there

1000 MBAs could never prepare you for the reality that people like Good Shit and will reward you for delivering it

About this second principle, which is VERY important: I often find myself designing and tweaking to pre-empt the complaints that I have internalised after years of community management. But when you do that, you're designing for the wrong person. Design it for the sicko who gets you completely

I open up Reddit and I immediately see a NSFW-ish example of "idea that seems ridiculous at first is in fact very promising" newatlas.com/disease/butt...

For TTRPGs I had something I thought of as the "postcard principle". "The game's themes and intent should be well-expressed and prominently surfaced by the mechanical rules - ideally it should not be possible to slip a postcard between the two."

The TLDR Principle: if it takes more than a couple of short sentences to explain how to play then it’s not going to work as a quick, casual game

People Want To Strangle Horses Every game should have at least one stranglable horse. It is a desire deeply rooted in the human psyche. brainmage.itch.io/i-will-stran...

Not so much a design term as a production term; Hot List -> A prioritized list of stuff that is broken that really should get fixed before the next build/milestone/playtest.

When it comes to narrative design and game writing, the phrase "story starts with the controller" has been burned into my brain for just about my entire career.

Meaningful decisions doesn't mean opaque decisions.

This one is kind of silly since it's named after the thing i want to avoid, but "butter sword syndrome" is an issue where your attacks don't feel like they have any impact upon the enemy. I usually try to avoid it by giving the player attacks plenty of push, even against tougher mobs and bosses.

Playtesting Is Play is one I bang on about a lot but that’s maybe not so obviously applicable. Maybe “Don’t make the game for people who won’t like it”. Call it “sickos only” or “every game it’s player”.

Surprise is a virtue that most gamee lack after the first hour.

Do, Don't Show. Don't build your systems to look like the cool things are happening, actually let your player do those cool things. Build your systems simple so the player has rules they can follow to create more surprising, emergent moments they'll actually remember.

Allow the player to have moments of discovery. Lately, I've been mulling over this idea of game design like writing a joke: setup, punchline, tag, tag, tag. The setup is familiar, then a twist that allows for a moment of surprise/realization, then revisit that in a few different ways.

in terms of stuff other people invented, my fave is headroom: nethack4.org/blog/strateg...

@sorenjohnson.bsky.social's "Water Finds a Crack" has been super influential in how I design progression systems, and how I teach my students. For me, it means asking myself "does optimizing for extrinsic incentives lead players into the fun, or away from it?" www.designer-notes.com/game-develop...

Noticing! It's not a cool name, but the most overlooked kind of fun in games (and alll art ??) is the stream of tiny little "a ha" moments when you realize something you didn't realize before...

Give players the tools of their own destruction, explaining exactly what each tool does along the way, knowing that they'll use them anyways and blame themselves when it all comes crashing down

I have one that I call "Go Left" - platformers often hide a secret for players who go left, instead of right, on the first screen. You're immediately rewarding players for thinking outside the box and being curious, instead of blindly following implied directions, with a low-effort small reward

What's your number one personal game design principle? And even better - does it have a cool name?

Who robbed the Louvre? Right answers only.

>Get Earthbound for the first time ever in 2025 >The world's gone mad >All the adults are useless at best or trying to kill you at worst >Everyone talks like a crazy person >Everything's too expensive >Your next door neighbor wants to be a dictator >Get home and start playing Earthbound

WHAT AM I LOOKING AT??? Is this shit AI generated?

This shit is getting out of hand at some point only the robots will be able to solve them