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Screenshot of a tumblr post by greatlordfluffernutter:
AAA Games: We’ve created a massive open world 500x larger than our previous game with a grand total of two (2) sidequests that have been copy-pasted all over the map. That way, you have many different ways to climb a tower to find where to shoot stealth mechanics base building zombies buy the tarnished pass today!
Steam Indie Games: We had the great idea of taking Sekiro’s combat system and making into a rhythm game! We then decided to make it a roguelike deckbuilder so we wouldn’t have to design a progression system or level layouts and the player can just reset runs until the game becomes good via monkeys and typewriters.
Itch.io Games: I made a 2 hour long game about the trauma of growing up as a closeted trans girl presented via metaphor of being a stowaway on a 25th century cargo ship delivering goods between Hong Kong and The Greater Empire of Americana. It’s also a roguelike deckbuilder.
Or alternatively: we drew a big cool map and then a dull version of that map we’ve overlayed on top of it and mechanics that allow you to reveal bits of the good map gated by an exponentially increasing timer tuned to give lots of dopamine early on to get you hooked then it’ll encourage you to spend money to skip the wait. And the exponential growth means each purchase of time or resources can look like it will give you everything you’ll ever need by being way higher than your current needs but in two levels, the new needs will dwarf even that.
Other alternative: we’ve made a (great/decent/passable) combat system and you gamble for combatants. You don’t have to pay to play, but your odds of winning are correlated with how much you pay us, though we can throw free players a bone to pressure you into spending even more because you see them catching up.