Where there's lanes, there's towers!
Defensive structures are a staple of the genre, yet despite good design intentions, many of them end up with inelegant or confusing mechanics.
We can learn a lot about this problem by retracing the lineage, and learning how and why towers came to be.
Continual updates have created a dilemma for live-service games with long lifespans.
Each update brings excitement and builds the community, but also steepens the learning curve and list of changes to keep track of.
This holds especially true in lane-pushing games.
How do we design to overcome these challenges? One solution is expanding our use of modular content.
This is the second article in a series about making commercial games, with a focus on efficiently iterating lane-pushing game design.
To find success, any new game must have...
This was a lot easier around 2010. Most commercial games launching in that era could inherit nearly 10 years of iteration on game loops, all perfected during the early years of DotA.
As a team making a new game, you don't have 10 years to iterate — but you can take this advice.
This article series contains my advice on how to think during the concept stages of a commercial lane-pushing game.
I've shared these thoughts during conversations with many early-stage teams over the years — and they're gathered here to help any new teams avoid blunders and allocate their time efficiently.
This first article will consider the market. We'll cover some introductory concepts, and relate them to the lane-pushing space.
Lets dive in with the 6 considerations...
Back in 2014, there was a lane-pushing game that blended League of Legends with the design thinking behind Heroes of the Storm — one of very few games which have done so.
If you haven't heard of TOME: Immortal Arena, now is a great time to learn about it — through this enriching conversation I shared with its lead designer Joe Ryan!
In the early 2020s, web3 technologies (including blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs) began to intersect with games.
Reactions among gamers and journalists have been mixed: fuelling both pessimism about scams and exploitation, and optimism around fairer creator economies and the longevity of service-based games.
With several lane-pushing games now dipping into these technologies, it seems appropriate to share some thoughts on how the genre may be influenced, and offer transparency about how these games will be presented here on Lane-Pushing Games.
I'm pleased to share a recent interview I did with Brett Belanger from Intrinsic Interactive, who are working on an upcoming "MOBA RPG" called Avengard.
Brett is the Game Director, and shares his thoughts about the team's extensive plans for character customisation, supporting both top-down and third-person cameras, and how the MOBA and RPG genres can entwine.
Last year saw the official release of Pokémon UNITE — a lane-pushing game seemingly without lanes!
It takes the much beloved Pokémon IP and packages a 'MOBA' experience into something quick and digestible enough for a wide audience to enjoy on a casual basis.
Timi Studios aren't the first to try for very short match times, but I do think they're the first to succeed. Here's how they make it work.
We're back with Part 2 of my interview with Ambitious Games, where we continue to talk about their third-person MOBA shooter REVN: covering community goals, development challenges, and what future features might be coming to the game.
If you haven't read it yet, do check out Part 1.
Today, I'm delighted to share an interview with the team at Ambitious Games, who are working on the third-person MOBA shooter REVN.
This game has a really interesting story of being developed as a blend of other genres for several years before pivoting to become a lane-pushing game.
I spoke with Silas, Creative Director at Ambitious Games, to learn more about how that happened...