Realm Grinder‘s reset mechanic has the important effect of speeding the player back to where s/he left off. In MMO terms, think of this as letting your alt quickly play where you main just was. There are drawbacks, but this seems generally a good thing that could be adopted elsewhere in some form. For those … Continue reading Realm Grinder: Catching Back Up
Realm Grinder is an incremental game that explicitly merges idle games and clickers. The emergence of “incremental game” demonstrates the convergence of the two, but Realm Grinder embraces both sides with options that gave it more interest and life for me than most incremental games. I may even go back. Realm Grinder starts with six … Continue reading Realm Grinder: Customization
Nothing I have been playing is conducive to stories. I am still playing Slay the Spire and Disney Magic Kingdoms. I could discuss the mechanics and design decisions of DMK, but it is a social media-style game where you send characters on activities and collect the rewards. Its main appeal is the theming, rather than … Continue reading Played Recently
Balance is easy to recognize by a feeling of indecision. If you have several options that are more or less equally attractive, and they are still equally attractive if you are fully informed, that is a well-balanced design. In the idle game Realm Grinder, you can get a bonus for watching an ad. They are … Continue reading Orders of Magnitude
Realm Grinder‘s development path reminds me of WildStar, in that it is gradually coming to an approach of “just throw everything in and hope it works together.” One of my first impressions of WildStar was that it decided to use all the systems and hope for synergy. It has races, classes, specializations, paths, factions, and … Continue reading Kitchen Sink
MMOs have you running on a treadmill to reach a carrot dangling in front of you. We talk a lot about that carrot. Is it big enough for the effort required? Is there any carrots to chase after you max your character’s level? One thing hardcore grinders like me can forget to ask is, “What … Continue reading Core Gameplay