Game Design lessons from designing Football, Tactics & Glory

What the talk is about

Andrii Kostiushko shares game design lessons from making the turn-based football strategy Football, Tactics & Glory. He advises holding on to the original vision: instead of dropping it, the team changed the balance and cut matches from 40–60 minutes to about 10. A new mechanic should first be built as a quick prototype and then implemented properly the second time. The start of the game should be extremely simple so players enjoy their first wins. Hard problems, such as showing the whole pitch on one screen, have no ready answer, so don't give up. He also urges questioning genre standards (for example, real-time economy), weighing the maintenance cost of every feature, and listening to the team while leaving the final decision to one person. Useful for indie developers and designers at small studios.