I Realized My Game’s Rewards Were Boring

By RookieDev

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I’m working on an idle game called Stellar Breaker, so progression and rewards are obviously a huge part of the game. Recently I was looking through some of my upgrades and realized something uncomfortable: Some of them are mathematically useful, but I wouldn’t actually be excited to unlock them myself. That got me looking more closely at what makes a reward feel meaningful beyond just making a number bigger. I ended up looking at things like reinforcement, expectation and uncertainty, but also went through my own game and found places where I think the reward design works — and a few where I’ve basically used percentage bonuses as placeholders for more interesting mechanics. I made a video about what I found. Would also be interested to hear what rewards from other games actually stuck with you, and why. #GameDesign #IndieDev #SoloDev

Tags: game design, game psychology, psychology of games, game design psychology, game development, gamedev, indie game development, indie game dev, game progression design, game mechanics, player psychology, dopamine games, dopamine game design, operant conditioning games, reward prediction error, idle game design, idle game development, incremental game design, balatro game design, vampire survivors game design