Fig 1. An animation I drew in 1.5 hours that added literally nothing to the game’s system but people liked it a lot !
Before this project, I thought systems design mostly came down to building interconnected mechanics and letting players discover how they all fit together. After actually making Stayin’ Alive, I realized how much harder—and more interesting—it is to create a system that players can understand, manipulate, and emotionally respond to. What surprised me was how quickly a system can fall apart if even one part of it is unclear, too forgiving, or too punishing. I thought we’d be spending most of our time balancing numbers, but in reality we spent just as much time improving communication, feedback, and clarity.
Designing the ecosystem pushed me to think about relationships rather than isolated mechanics. Every change—how fast grass grows, when predators give up, how seasons work—rippled across the rest of the system. Sometimes one tiny tweak completely changed player behavior. For example, when we made winter more punishing, players suddenly started stockpiling and planning ahead. Or when we made grass permanently disappear if overharvested, players acted more cautiously and read the world with more urgency. It was cool to see how these choices shaped the “story” of their run without needing any explicit narrative.
A big part of the project for me was also working on the cutscenes, SFX/music, and some of the art. I didn’t expect these to influence the systems so much, but they absolutely did. A simple sound cue or visual effect often helped players understand something that the mechanics alone didn’t communicate clearly. Adding season SFX, for example, suddenly made players aware of the season shift. Drawing clearer icons or den visuals helped reduce confusion that was accidentally sabotaging the gameplay. It made me realize how much the presentation of a system affects whether players can actually read it.
Watching others play was probably the most educational part. People found strategies we never anticipated—using rabbits as bait, ignoring the worker loop, or hoarding food in ways that broke the game. They also got confused in places we assumed were obvious. Instead of being frustrating, it became a feedback loop: players showed us how the system actually behaved, and we redesigned accordingly.
By the end, I understood systems design as something incredibly iterative and feedback-driven. What I thought would be a simple experiment turned into a process of constant tuning, communicating, and reshaping relationships. Going forward, I feel much more aware of how tightly mechanics, feedback, and player psychology are interconnected—and how powerful well-designed systems can be when they all click together.
