GMTK Extra: Three Other Approaches to Turn Timers

There was some confusion so I decided to go for something a bit more simple

Game Maker's Toolkit

Hey mark, great video! I noticed you called this video “GMTK extra” and changed all the previous “downloadable comment” videos to reflect this title. Was there any particular reason you changed them to this new title?

Nice vid. I've played XCOM, XCOM2 (and dlc's) and Invisible Inc. In XCOM 2, they have a system where they drop in more enemies, so in a way, it reminds me a little of Invisible Inc., but the implementation is flawed. In XCOM 2, the enemy drops seems random instead of increasing difficulty over time. So XCOM has tried three things and failed at correctly implementing each one except for Meld (the other two being enemy drops and the timer). One thing I REALLY liked in Invisible Inc. was that when the difficulty got a lot harder, some guards and/or devices could detect where you were and the guards would home in on that signal. Something like that in XCOM along with the already existing ability to evac would be cool. Problem is that you can't evac during extraction missions. So all these game "mechanics" are all haphazard.

This is a bit of a tangent, but I noticed that most of these systems create "regressive difficulty" - a concept I have stolen unashamedly from <a href="https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ChristopherGile/20160323/268708/Mario_and_the_Effects_of_AmplifyingLessening_Player_Skill_Gains.php" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ChristopherGile/20160323/268708/Mario_and_the_Effects_of_AmplifyingLessening_Player_Skill_Gains.php</a> which in short means the game becomes easier as the player gets better. If you're able to execute on your goals quickly, you get rewarded with more upgrade-purchasing resources - or if you aren't, you face more difficult countermeasures and must spend more of your own resources on them. So if you're ahead of the difficulty curve, you're pushed further ahead for later levels, and if you're behind, you fall further behind. Some folks really like regressive difficulty because it magnifies the effects of increases in player skill, while others (including me) find it frustrating because it makes for a really fragile difficulty curve. So while the systems in this video are definitely more gentle than the hard wall of a turn counter, they still make me recoil a bit, though I'm sure other players like them. I find myself thinking of DOOM 2016's glory kill system you discussed in the previous video. That rewards/encourages particular player behavior in a way that's scoped to the current encounter. Whether you do glory kills _now_ won't really make the fights an hour later easier or harder, but it's really important for the next ten seconds. If someone wanted to encourage faster movement in an XCOM-like game without creating regressive difficulty, that seems like a good template to start from.

Doctor Professor

After the first video, I thought about Meld from XCOM: Enemy Within as well. Here are the rest of my thoughts: One fundamental difference between XCOM 1 and 2 and most of the other games you compare its mechanics with is that permadeath is an intrinsic part of the franchise going back to the original. Spelunky is also permadeath, but players don't invest dozens of hours into one game like in XCOM. Invisible Inc makes players live with the consequences of missions by giving each campaign one save file and no savescumming but also a rewind mechanism. I believe all the other games you mention allow players to retry indefinitely with no permanent consequences. So XCOM is more fun when the player finds themselves in interesting tactical situations and have to come up with ways out. The problem is that those same tactical situations are the sort where players lose soldiers or squad wipe. And permadeath losing a soldier can be a big deal because a lot of time might have been invested in leveling up the soldier and/or it is named after a friend or family. While this is my first comment, I've been following your videos for a while and have consistently found them to be very insightful and thought provoking, which is why the omission of discussing how (1) interesting tactical situations and (2) permadeath seem to be opposing design elements was a bit surprising. So if you have insight into how XCOM or other games resolve this tension, I would be interested. Invisible Inc is sort of like playing XCOM ironman style. But the way they give players leniency from making mistakes or running headlong into trouble is the rewind mechanism, just enough to salvage a mistake that could potentially derail the campaign. I like to think of rewinds as your crack team of infiltrators, based on years of field experience, knowing how to avoid trouble they see coming up. XCOM 1 and 2 have been built up a mythology around the Commander, like he's the fulcrum of the entire conflict, so there may be narrative rationalization for giving players a mechanism where they have the fun of getting into and out of danger but also the dread of permadeath. Thanks again for the video.

Great video as always! You should add your GMTK logo to each thumbnail. The last video got lost in my YouTube updates because the thumbnail didn't pique my interest. I would have clicked if I had known it was the top notch content from GMTK though.

It's great to hear that you're getting *even better* at what you do!

Parachuting Turtle

to be fair, i also, have never Invisible Inc

Andreas