Nuki News #3 - Game Design my Game Plan

I’ve come to appreciate more simple designs in games.  My boyfriend recently got the chance to borrow a GameCube to play Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. My boyfriend wanted to show me how, compared to the latest Fire Emblem game, 3 Houses, was a worse game, despite being released 13 years later. (For context, I watched a few full play-throughs of FE: 3 Houses by this point)

Within just a few hours of watching him play Path of Radiance,  3 Houses by comparison just seemed to be lacking despite having much more “things to do” and mechanics. For instance, you have to tour around a giant school campus, act as a professor, teaching classes and trying to hang out with the students to build a bond with them(there are a ton of students). Not only that, but you have to worry about making sure they all learn the right things you want them to, and manage your time wisely to make the most out of every in-game month.  

Frankly, it can be a tad overwhelming to play more open ended games like this, I kinda get anxiety from all the stuff I have to balance and juggle. Now, there are  some nice things about this approach though, don’t get me wrong- it means anyone who plays 3 Houses will have a fairly unique experience because they get to play the game their own way. And, it does in fact have multiple story pathways. But a big problem I see with the game, is that the moment-to-moment game experience is just dull, and never actually contributes to the goal of the plot. The character interactions are also rife with awkward vapid, and sometimes nonsensical dialogue that goes nowhere and most of the time doesn’t contribute to understanding the characters better.

By comparison, there’s something really engaging about Path of Radiance, because it gets to the action quickly, there’s strong reasons for the action through the interlaced plot, leaving no filler or fluff. You still have bonds you can make with your allies, but they feel more believable, less contrived or tone-deaf.  Each battle means something, the character interactions are there to get backstory and depth, and enrich your reasons to fight alongside them  to keep them alive.

So, how’s this all relate to my art career?! I was so enamored by this succinct game design of Path of Radiance, I want to apply this to my art focus this year with my style, and business approach.  I realized last year I wasn’t actually focused at all - I thought I was keeping it simple; upload art every other day was my goal that year. But looking back, I was all over the place! Not only was I posting every other day, I was doing commissions, trying to learn animation, commit to doing this patreon thing, create sellable merchandise, build a portfolio, make a website- it’s no flippin’ wonder I felt overwhelmed after 5 months of that! If anything, it’s impressive I lasted that long.

This year, I haven’t committed myself to posting art every other day - even though I kinda have this month; it’s a “nice to have” sorta thing, for sure(if I miss a day, that’s fine). But my goals are to do commissions every month if possible, and build up this patreon. If I get any bright ideas for art ventures I’ll write them down, but not take action on it unless I can incorporate it into these two things- Patreon, or commissions. For instance I did try out the Gucci Nuki Idea, which you can check out here:

 https://www.patreon.com/posts/33080833 

And I did get a bit of interest in it! I’ll do another and see how that goes if I’ll end up offering it as a commission option. Keeping this simple and finding ways to be engaging in both will be my challenge for this year! There’s a lot I can do with it. For all I know these Nuki News posts will evolve into something completely different by the time I get to the 25th issue, or the 50th! Thanks for your time reading these! I do wonder if these are too long or not - maybe I could work to keep them under a certain word count, haha! See you next week, where I’ll be going over my first month of the year and my progress!