Advancing Design Without Emulation
By: Josh Bycer
Tags: Gaming, Design, Startup, Game Design, Development

Iteration, not emulation

One of the easiest — and most common — ways to start a project is to say, “I really want to make X.” That phrase has been the impetus for many indie titles released over the last decade. Platformers, rogue likes, horror, RPGs, and more all began thanks to developers’ passion for a particular genre or type of game. Many indie titles started life as tributes to genres or game series that are either no longer being made (or at least that aren’t being made for PC anymore — again, refer to Wargroove and Fell Seal). There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this, of course. But I have definitely noticed a trend that has turned me off numerous indie games.

In some cases, and for some developers, the goal of their project is to emulate the design and success of another title. It’s obviously the case that if you’re aiming for a specific market, you’ll want your game to be similar in design — but that should be a means to an end, rather than a specific goal in itself.

I’ve seen numerous games that have tried to be “the next” FTL: Faster than Light, Darkest Dungeon, Undertale, and so on. But this raises an important question: why should I play your game when I still have those games?

In order to illustrate this point — and to give you a sense of what good looks like — I’m going to dive into one very popular indie title that was both clearly inspired by other games, but that also struck out to create its own identity.

Stardew’s success

Stardew Valley is a prime example of indie passion leading to great success. The game was in development for over four years, and has enjoyed several more years of post-release support. It was undeniably inspired by the Harvest Moon series, which was never released on PC (and has long ago disappeared on consoles).

A cursory glance might indicate that the game succeeded simply because its creator went out and recreated Harvest Moon on the PC. But once you dig deeper, it becomes apparent that there’s a lot more going on here.

For starters, Stardew Valley is more open-ended than Harvest Moon. It also contains more systems associated with farming and earning money. The game’s combat system and dungeons are wholly different from Harvest Moon (and are perhaps a closer cousin of Rune Factory). Even the progression curve around levelling up and unlocking new tools and functions works quite differently here than in Harvest Moon.

Stardew Valley’s creator, Eric “Concerned Ape” Barone, was clearly inspired by games he’d played before. But it’s also clear that simply recreating Harvest Moon wasn’t his goal; he wanted to exceed that design, to move beyond it, and expand in new directions.

As you might expect, many folks have also attempted to imitate Stardew Valley. But in most cases, they fail to push beyond Stardew Valley’s design in meaningful ways. I’m still waiting for someone to do more with the idea of crop management and earning money around that, for example — there’s a lot of scope to do more, but this requires both a commitment to building on established designs and a fundamental understanding of why those designs worked. When this doesn’t happen, it’s akin to a student copying someone else’s homework without actually grasping the fundamentals.

Now, before I give you the impression that the only problem here is with indie games, let me point out that the same trend exists in the AAA space as well.