Sirlin.Net - Game Design

I have a YouTube channel about design. Game design mostly, but sometimes design topics in general. It also includes a new video podcast series. Please do the usual “likes and subscribes�...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/my-youtube-channel

For the last four and a half years, I've been working on a sequel to Yomi. Yomi was "a fighting game in card form" that I made before making the actual fighting game Fantasy Strike. Now, Yomi 2 i...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/introducing-yomi-2

Puzzle Strike 2’s expansion, called Bold Adventures, has four new community bank decks as well as 10 more characters. The fourth of these bank decks is Puzzle Pets.     The creatures are th...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/puzzle-strike-2-puzzle-pets-deck

Puzzle Strike 2’s expansion, called Bold Adventures, has four new community bank decks as well as 10 more characters. The third of these bank decks is Steam Crank.     Steam Crank introduce...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/puzzle-strike-2-steam-crank-deck

Puzzle Strike 2’s expansion, called Bold Adventures, has four new community bank decks as well as 10 more characters. Each character has three cards and you start with those in your deck. Each ...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/puzzle-strike-2-ten-expansion-characters

Puzzle Strike 2’s expansion, called Bold Adventures, has four new community bank decks as well as 10 more characters. The second of these bank decks is Dinosize.     Dinosize is home to big...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/puzzle-strike-2-dinosize-deck

Puzzle Strike 2’s expansion, called Bold Adventures, has four new community bank decks as well as 10 more characters. The first of these bank decks is Haunted House.     Discarding cards is...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/puzzle-strike-2-haunted-house-deck

Puzzle Strike 2’s base set comes with 10 characters to choose from. Each character has three cards and you start with those in your deck. Each character has different strengths, so they push yo...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/puzzle-strike-2-ten-characters

The second community bank deck in Puzzle Strike 2 is Birthday Bash (the first is Grand Melee). PRESENTS The main mechanic of this deck is opening birthday presents. It gets pretty crazy, but l...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/puzzle-strike-2-birthday-bash-deck

Puzzle Strike 2’s base set includes 10 characters and two different community banks decks. Each bank deck changes the feel of the game. Those decks are Grand Melee and Birthday Bash: In this ...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/puzzle-strike-2-grand-melee

I wrote an article about the design of Puzzle Strike 2, which you can find here . I’ll post several more articles about the game’s design, which will all appear on this handy index page th...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/designing-puzzle-strike-2

The Fantasy Strike fighting game is now free to play. I’ll explain why this is a landmark for the genre. First, this is something we’ve been working on for years. The original vision of the...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/fantasy-strike-is-free-to-play

For the last few years, I’ve thought about my tabletop games Puzzle Strike and Yomi. I have not been thinking about new editions of those games, but rather entirely new games that are inspired ...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/help-us-fund-a-new-yomi-card-game

Edit: It turns out that a once-in-hundred-years pandemic rocked the world so hard, and Trump fumbled it so badly, that that one factor lead to Biden winning by the narrowest of margins. If just 4...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/joe-biden-is-a-garbage-candidate-who-will-not-be-president

I’m crowdfunding several projects all at once right now and asking for your help. Join Now Here are things I’d like to do: Add more characters and features to Fantasy Strike Create...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/crowdfunding-sirlin-games

Fantasy Strike is an interesting case study in game balance for an asymmetric game. I did the entire balancing process without any data at all, and now, after it’s all done, we have the data. M...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/game-balance-and-fantasy-strike

Evo is considering new rules for which controllers are allowed in their tournaments. Their call for feedback on rules is here . Their actual rule document is here . In my opinion, Hit Box contr...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/banning-hit-box-controllers

I’ve been working on things behind the scenes for quite some time, as has our team behind Fantasy Strike. Starting in October, I’ll begin showing this content to our patrons at patreon.com/si...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/a-flood-of-content

Fantasy Strike is available now on Nintendo Switch , PlayStation 4 , and Steam (Windows / Mac / Linux). There are several notable features and innovative things about the game, so I’ll summa...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/fantasy-strikes-features

SPOILERS (This post is full of lots of spoilers for Game of Thrones.) The internet seems generally disappointed with the final season of Game of Thrones. Yeah, me too, and it’s all about the ...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/game-of-thrones-what-went-wrong

Edit: It turns out that the last four episodes disappointed pretty much everyone. My predictions below relied on the premise that good writing would basically force some events to happen, and I w...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/game-of-thrones-predictions-from-a-game-designer

Almost two and a half years ago, Soren Johnson did a long, in-depth interview with me and he just released the second part of it (both parts linked below). Part 2 covers the beginnings of Fantas...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/designer-notes-interview-part-2

We just put a new feature in Fantasy Strike that’s notable because it’s never been done before. There are now visual effects on every hit that show if you recover first, or if your opponent ...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/a-fighting-game-first-showing-frame-advantage

Almost two and a half years ago, Soren Johnson did a long, in-depth interview with me and he just released the first part of it. It covers most of my career, including work on Street Fighter HD...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/designer-notes-interview-part-1

Shoryuken.com asked me about loot boxes and published this article . For anyone wanting more context, here is the complete set of questions they had about loot boxes in Fantasy Strike and beyon...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/loot-boxes

I was thinking about how we'll handle cross-platform play in Fantasy Strike. The plan is that you'll add a friend to your in-game friends list, even if they are on another platform, then you can ...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/adding-a-friend-in-street-fighter-5

Fantasy Strike is our new fighting game. We've just announced it and begun crowdfunding for it on Patreon. This podcast explains what Fantasy Strike is all about. We cover the high concept about ...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/sirlin-on-game-design-ep-18-fantasy-strike

My team and I have been working on Fantasy Strike for almost a year and half now. It's a fighting game featuring the same characters as my Yomi card game and it's unusually easy to play. Here's a...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/fantasy-strike-is-crowdfunding-now

Kickstarters projects are notoriously late. I give advice on how to ship your Kickstarter project on time. I've shipped 5 out of 5 Kickstarters on time, so it's time to share the best practices o...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/sirlin-on-game-design-ep-17-shipping-kickstarters-on-time

Thank you to all our patrons for supporting the Fantasy Strike fighting game. Although we're not ready to show the game publicly yet, we give our $25+ patrons new builds every month, the latest o...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/fantasy-strike-patch-notes-august-2016

Overwatch team: great job and all. If you want to listen to an hour of me saying great job, here's a podcast about that. You should probably re-think the current system of gaining/losing rank ...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/overwatchs-ranking-point-system

We discuss Overwatch, Blizzard's first-person shooter. It far exceeded our expectations and we attempt to explain how it manages to do that. This isn't a "review," but rather us analyzing the des...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/sirlin-on-game-design-ep-15-overwatch

Dear Jeff Kaplan and the Overwatch team, I think your game is great and it's not lightly that I rate it a 10 out of 10. Respectfully though, I think you're a bit lost in the woods on how the co...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/overwatchs-competitive-mode

Announcement!     The fourth Fantasy Strike Expo will take place June 3rd-5th 2016 near the San Francisco airport. It's a tournament series and casual play event showcasing the Fantasy Strik...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/fantasy-strike-expo-2016

We discuss the design of Heroes of the Storm. It's a bold entry in the MOBA genre and impresses us greatly. We cover the many things is does differently than the rest of the genre that we view as...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/sirlin-on-game-design-ep-15-heroes-of-the-storm

While the mystic historians of the purple faction look to the past, another part of the Vortoss culture is about looking to the future. The prospect of building newer and better technology drives...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-future-spec

Through his temporal research, Max Geiger made contact with the Vortoss race and is now their emissary. Ever since he was a boy, Geiger loved fiddling with watches and other timepieces, so it was...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-present-spec

There’s a myth about an ancient race that had powerful magic as well as advanced technology beyond even our own, but then they disappeared from the realm. They are called the Vortoss. While som...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-past-spec

Garus Rook, the stone golem, is a long-time friend of the lawyer Jefferson DeGrey. A VERY long-time friend, in fact, because both of them are unnaturally long-lived. They lived through an earlier...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-strength-spec

Setsuki is a fast learner and she’s fast in general. She’s the hero of the Whitestar Order’s Ninjutsu spec:     Her first ability reflects how nimble she is. She can jump out of the way...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-ninjutsu-spec

Many of the strongest, most disciplined warriors of the realm have banded together to form the Whitestar Order, based at Morningstar and led by stone golem Garus Rook. Their training grounds are ...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-discipline-spec

Garth Torken’s tinkering with anatomy led him to discover some disturbingly dark powers. He is now the Necromancy hero of the Blackhand Scourge. Torken’s experiments with human cadavers are...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-necromancy-spec

The Disease spec of the Blackhand Scourge faction belongs to Orpal Gloor. He’s surrounded by a creeping death, and even being near him makes most beings uneasy. The Shadow Plague in the Dreadla...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-disease-spec

North of the realm, a shadowy presence has festered and spread across the Dreadlands. The Blackhand Scourge proliferates plague and death wherever they go. They raise the bones of the dead to ser...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-demonology-spec

I have a free podcast series on game design, here . I also have a second podcast that's just for my Patreon supporters. I just wanted to mention the latest episode of that is up for patrons at...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/raw-game-design-ep15-quest-mode-in-fantasy-strike

Sirus Quince is the Chief Magistrate of Flagstone. They say he speaks the truth and is loved by all. He’s a popular and successful politician, though all of his power is actually from lies and ...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-truth-spec

The Peace spec of the Flagstone Dominion is headed up by General Onimaru. Onimaru is a Sun Tzu-like figure—a master of military strategy. Overwhelming military might is the key to Peace, after ...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-peace-spec

The Flagstone Dominion (blue) faction is part of the Codex Deluxe set. Flagstone is the realm’s capital city, and a paragon of morality, due process, and family values. It’s also a bit of a t...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-law-spec

River Montoya is the Finesse hero in Codex. She sees sword fighting as an elaborate dance. She loves the performing arts such as dancing, singing, and acting, and considers her fencing yet anothe...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-finesse-spec

The Renegades are the neutral faction in Codex. They have no allegiance to anyone, and are generally mercenaries and workers-for-hire. From lovable dancing rogues to violent lizards, they are a m...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-bashing-spec

Argagarg Garg is the Growth spec hero of the green faction. Outsiders stereotype Argagarg’s fish-like people as being savage and barbaric, but they have it completely backwards; the Merfolk are...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-growth-spec

We discuss the Codex card game, on Kickstarter at the time of this recording. Codex is a customizable (but not collectible) card game that has way different design goals than other CCGs. It's bee...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/sirlin-on-game-design-ep-14-codex

Introducing the Feral spec hero, Calamandra Moss of the Moss Sentinels. She has a deep connection with the forest. Animals sense this, respect her, and fight for her. She can unleash the full fe...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-feral-spec

The Moss Sentinels (green faction) are also included in the Codex core set. Lead by Calamandra Moss, they protect the forests and natural resources. They harness the mighty power of nature itself...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-balance-spec

Introducing Jaina Stormborne, the Fire hero in Codex. Jaina fights with a magic bow that shoots flame arrows, and she’s reckless and aggressive despite Master Midori trying to teach her some pa...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-fire-spec

  Codex's Blood hero, Drakk Ramhorn is new to the Fantasy Strike universe. Here’s his hero card:     Drakk is a little guy who rides a huge beast. He bangs on his war drums to hype up h...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-blood-spec

Puzzle Strike is now available on iPad and iPhone ! It's also on Steam and available in physical form , too. Puzzle Strike is a deckbuilding puzzle game played amongst Fantasy Strike character...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/puzzle-strike-on-ios

Codex ’s core set has two factions: the (red) Blood Anarchs and the (green) Moss Sentinels. Each has 3 heroes. There are 4 expansion factions, each with 3 more heroes plus a starter set with 2...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-anarchy-spec

The Codex Kickstarter is now live . It's a customizable (but not collectible) card game with an RTS theme. If you'd like to know more about the game design of Codex, check out these three artic...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-is-on-kickstarter-now

I've been working on the Codex card game for a lot of years, and it will finally be up on Kickstarter early next week. Instead of having just a deck of cards, you actually bring a "codex" of ca...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-kickstarter-next-week

Thank you to all the patrons supporting the Fantasy Strike fighting game. The $25+ patrons are getting builds of the game as we go (latest build here ), as we aren’t actually ready to show the ...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/fantasy-strike-fighting-game-january-build-for-patreon-patrons

There's a new episode of my Raw Game Design podcast up for my ($10+) patrons, here . This podcast series is part of my thank you to all those who support my various projects on Patreon . That sa...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/raw-game-design-ep14-fighting-game-ai-and-menus

We discuss the release of Starcraft 2's third expansion, Legacy of the Void. This is a look back at what we liked about Starcraft from the very start, what things Blizzard changed for the better ...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/sirlin-on-game-design-ep-13-starcraft-2

Puzzle Strike is now available on Steam! It will also be coming to iOS just a few weeks later. (It's already available in physical form .) Puzzle Strike is a deckbuilding puzzle game played a...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/puzzle-strike-on-steam-and-ios

As this holiday season approaches, it's the time for game sales! Starting today, Yomi is part of the Autumn Steam Sale. It's 34% OFF, and so is Yomi expansion too. Get it now And there's mor...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/holiday-sale-2015

Patreon has been such an incredible help to me that I'm giving a thank you shout out to the Patreon staff as well as to all my patrons. (My Patreon is here , btw.) Patreon is a way for people to ...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/patreon-october-updates

Pandante 2nd Edition and a new printing of Flash Duel are now generally available. P andante 2nd Edition The new Flash Duel These games were part of my fourth Kickstarter and the rewards hav...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/the-new-pandante-and-flash-duel-are-now-available

This Friday, September 25 at 10pm Pacific Time is the deadline to sign up for all the physical cards to get early access to Codex. You'll get the base set and all expansions so you can help with ...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-early-access-deadline

This is the 3rd in a series of design articles about Codex. In case you missed the first two: #1 Codex Design: Cards and Gold As Resources #2 Codex Design: Heroes and Tech Buildings Codex i...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-design-combat-and-the-patrol-zone

We discuss "easy special moves" in fighting games. We can pretty quickly say why they are a good or bad idea, but the bigger issue is trying to clarify what the term means to help others avoid mu...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/sirlin-on-game-design-ep-12-easy-special-moves

It’s generally good in a competitive game when there’s a lot of interaction. In other words, if your opponent is up to something, it’s good if you can do something about that. In Codex, y...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-design-heroes-and-tech-buildings

Codex is on Kickstarter now . I want to share with you a series of three articles about the design and workings of Codex, followed by a whole bunch of articles about the heroes and their specs. ...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-design-cards-and-gold-as-resources

Codex is the customizable card game I've been working on for a very, very long time. It will still be many months before we mass produce it and make it publicly available. In September though, we...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-early-access

Did you hear the news? "Former Street Fighter designer / Evolution staff member / writer of competitive gaming guide is working on a new fighting game focusing on easy execution, great online p...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/a-new-era-of-fighting-games

We discuss techniques I use to balance games. The point more about HOW we talk about such things and the general approach rather than any specific example, but we cover many specific examples to ...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/sirlin-on-game-design-ep-11-game-balancing-techniques

I want to show you some of what I'm working (Codex, Flowchart, and a Fighting game) and tell you about Patreon. Patreon has been the biggest surprise-great-thing to me in the last year. It might...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/become-a-patron-on-patreon

The wait is over! Yomi is scheduled to launch on Steam this Friday, May 8th. (It's already on iOS, the web , and in physical form .) Yomi on Steam The full price will be $14.99 but it will...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/yomi-on-steam-release-date-may-8th

The shipping prices at www.sirlingames.com to international customers are now massively cheaper. These shipping prices were calculated automatically through several carriers in order to give you...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/huge-shipping-price-reduction-and-yomi-valerie-geiger-decks-now-available

Yomi is coming to Steam in the next few weeks! (It's already on iOS, the web , and in physical form .) Yomi is a fighting game in card form and it's the competitive card game you should be play...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/yomi-coming-to-steam

Tonight at 7pm (PDT) we'll stream an exhibition match of Pandante using the fan-made online version. Watch it and learn about the game and maybe we'll see some hype lying pandas! Link to the st...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/pandante-exhibition-stream-tonight

Pandante is now playable online for free at www.pandante.com . It runs instantly in your broswer and does not require a download. It supports 2-6 players, so try it out with your friends, or join...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/pandante-online

We discuss the development of the revised printing of Flash Duel. Flash Duel is a simple and fast card game that in high level play ended up being bogged down by lengthy calculations. We talk abo...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/sirlin-on-game-design-ep-10-flash-duel

The Rook & DeGrey decks are now available, both the physical and print-and-play version. You can get them here . Rook the stone golem is the organizer of the Fantasy Strike tournament. He's a...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/yomi-rook-and-degrey-decks-now-available

Announcement! The third Fantasy Strike Expo will take place JUNE 5TH-7TH 2015 near the San Francisco airport. It's a tournament series and casual play event showcasing the Fantasy Strike tab...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/fantasy-strike-expo-2015

I’m going to make a change to the Pandante  stretch goals that benefits all our backers. Pandante is such a great game that I want to put out the best version I possibly can components-wise,...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/upgraded-components-for-pandante-and-flash-duel-kickstarter

Pandante has a fun new feature called "casino cards" which I covered before, here. Casino cards let you visit a new casino in the Pandalands each gambit, each changing the rules in some way. �...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/pandante-casino-cards-part-2

Codex is an upcoming customizable (not collectable) card game that does things very differently from the rest of the genre. It's themed after RTS video games such as Starcraft and Warcraft 3. Yo...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/codex-themed-pandante-deck

Winning by lying is the highest honor in Pandante (on kickstarter now ). When you do that in poker, it’s usually best to keep your bluff secret, but in Pandante we want to showcase that excitin...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/making-the-golden-panda-coin

We discuss the development of Pandante's expansion and 2nd edition. All three of us were involved in this development and playtesting. The core game has simplified and streamlined rules and we go...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/sirlin-on-game-design-ep-9-pandante

The new Pandante has a great feature called "casino cards." Each gambit (each time you start a new hand), you visit a new casino in the Pandalands which has slightly different rules.     Her...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/pandante-casino-cards

The Pandante kickstarter is now live. The Light & Dark expansion for Pandante is unusual in a few ways. Usually expansions make a game more complicated. This one actually makes Pandante si...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/pandante-light-dark-and-flash-duel-kickstarter-launch

The Menelker & Persephone decks are now available, both the physical and print-and-play version. You can get them here . Menelker and Persephone are both very powerful-feeling characters, which...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/yomi-menelker-and-persephone-decks-now-available

Next week, two of my games are about to get better. Pandante will get an expansion (and revised base sets for those new to the game) and Flash Duel will be reprinted with updated rules and balanc...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/pandante-and-flash-duel-kickstarter-next-week

We discuss the drama created by stories that pose moral questions. Stories set outside the law make us think even more about these questions, so that could explain why so many popular stories hav...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/sirlin-on-game-design-ep8-morality-in-stories

We discuss sequels to movies and games. Sequel can mean a lot of different kinds of things, so we sort out the different kinds of sequels. This leads up to a discussion about how to handle sequel...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/sirlin-on-game-design-ep7-sequels

Rodney at WatchItPlayed has a series of videos explaining how to play Yomi, and showing it in action. Check out his fancy intros! You can buy the tabletop version here . You can play the online...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/yomi-on-watchitplayed

@SirlinGames www.facebook.com/SirlinGames NEW AND REVISED CHARACTERS FOR THE POPULAR FIGHTING CARD GAME ROUND OUT CAST TO 20 AVAILABLE CHARACTERS THROUGHOUT 2015 SAN FRANCISCO, CA; JANUARY 1...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/sirlin-games-announces-complete-yomi-release-schedule

In this episode, we discuss the many problems with games where players ban each other's characters. We touch on League of Legends, DOTA2, and Heroes of the Storm, though this discussion is applic...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/sirlin-on-game-design-ep6-character-bans

Guilty Gear Xrd is great. I'd like to talk about the design behind it, but we really have to start with the art. ARTWORK Gameplay is what should matter. Starting by telling you about the art m...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/guilty-gear-xrd

We discuss the Street Fighter 5 trailer as well as the games we're playing now: Super Mario 3D World, Smash Bros. 4, Transistor, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Sirlin gives an award for wo...

https://www.sirlin.net/posts/sirlin-on-game-design-ep-5-now-playing