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Tag: game design

This collage meme highlights a common recurring video game design trope: the existence of a mushroom-themed level paired with quirky, upbeat, 'funky goofy' background music in many different game franchises. The image includes three separate game level screenshots: a dark blue pixel art mushroom forest level at top left, Mario Kart Wii's 'Mushroom Gorge' track at bottom left, and a pixel art mushroom level from the Sonic the Hedgehog series at right, where Sonic the Hedgehog is visible standing next to a large spotted mushroom. The text at the top of the meme explicitly states the trope, and the accompanying post questions if this shared design choice is an unspoken rule among game developers.

Is this some unspoken rule between game developers or something?

This collage meme highlights …

This is a screenshot of a public X (formerly Twitter) post. The profile features a profile picture of a cheerful green incidental fish character from the animated show SpongeBob SquarePants, with a horizontally reversed display name spelling 'Andy Astruc' and the visible username @AndyAstruc. The post text humorously complains about a widely disliked video game design choice: escort/follow quests where the NPC the player must follow moves at a speed that is slower than the player character's running speed but faster than their walking speed, forcing players to repeatedly switch between running and walking to avoid falling behind or getting too far ahead of the NPC. The poster jokes that any game developer who implements this kind of quest should be banned from making video games for a full year, leaning into the relatable frustration many players feel about this design flaw.

Game Devs Banned For Making Annoying NPC Follow Quests

This is a screenshot of a pub…

A two-panel meme contrasting 'Western game designers' and 'Japanese game designers' through character design. The top panel features a character in a green vest, gray shirt, and medieval-style attire standing in a rustic environment with a wooden table, hanging fruits, and a wall painting of a pig. The bottom panel shows a character in a form-fitting black tank top with a necklace, set against a plain background. The meme humorously implies stylistic differences: Western designers favoring realistic, practical clothing in rustic settings versus Japanese designers using more revealing, stylized outfits.

Western vs Japanese Game Designers Comparison Meme

A two-panel meme contrasting …

A black-and-white illustration with bold uppercase text at the top reading 'WHY DID THEY STOP MAKING GAMES LIKE THIS?' Below the text is a diagram depicting a classic video game structure. On the left side, there is a tall, vertical stack of horizontal layers with the topmost layer labeled 'TEMPLE/DUNGEON'. To the right, a grid-like area features small cube-shaped blocks clustered together, labeled 'TOWN'. The contrast between the vertical, layered dungeon/temple structure and the horizontal, grid-based town layout visually represents a nostalgic longing for traditional video game design, where dungeons were often vertical and towns were horizontal grid systems.

Why Did They Stop Making Games Like This? - Retro Game Design Nostalgia

A black-and-white illustratio…