About

About

Welcome to my blog that focuses on games and their design. I enjoy learning new things – especially physics, mathematics, computer science, and game design. I like photography, running, orienteering and rock-climbing. Fantasy is my favorite genre with authors like Patrick Rothfuss or Brandon Sanderson. My full read list is here.

uminomaguro@gmail.com

discord: Maguro#2619

battlenet: Maguro#21786

What content can you find on this blog:

1. game design posts

• Supply limits
• Look at some units designs in StarCraft II
• Closer look at Upkeep
  
• Popularity of mirror matchups
• Progression and strategies (First Order Optimal Strategies vs True Optimal Strategies)
• Feedback loops in StarCraft
• Skill curves and flow
• Achievements
• Wheel of Misfortune
• Others...

2. Various thoughts for future RTS

• Transmission 01: Setting, scale, heroes, socialization, and shareability
• Transmission 02: Player onboarding and lowering the skill floor
• Transmission 03: Divided playerbase, variety mode, victory conditions
• Transmission 04: Improving Co-op
• Transmission 05: Co-op events & progression
• Transmission 06: API, Replays, Post-game screens,...
  

3. analyses

• Mutator compendium – aggregates information about mutators from players and game code
  
• StarCraft II performance analysis – look at graphic presets, resolution scaling, various types of bottlenecks, effects of game speed, and look at the engine
  
• DRAM performance analysis in StarCraft II – this time focus of DRAM scaling and various situations (rendering vs simulation bottlenecks)
• Replay analysis with Python  – various statistics (pickrates, winrates, mastery choices,..)
• Analysis of Brutal+ mode (and follow up) – explanation, statistics and suggestions

StarCraft II is complicated – separation of various frametimes

4. StarCraft II Co-op Debugging

I have made a series of posts that went over around 100 bigger bugs in Co-op. The goal was to explain them in an interesting way to public audience, while also diving into the editor, finding underlying causes, and testing ways how to fix them. Thanks to these posts the vast majority of these bugs were fixed. Several of them have been in-game for a long time already. I got some mentions in the game code after pointing out where the problem was.

Maguro Damage

One hundred bugs is apparently enough for a brood, and so a Zerg Brood was named after me.

5. Modding

5.1. StarCraft Co-op Overlay

App for StarCraft II Co-op to analyze replays after each game, show data as an overlay, and provide various other functions like calculating overall statistics, commander randomizer, twitch bot that integrates into custom maps, and more (link).

5.2. Custom maps

I have my version of all Co-op maps on StarCraft II arcade. They contain many additional features, UI/UX enhancements, debugging commands and statistics.

After game statistics – ready to be shared

I have designed and implemented my own 16 mutators (on top of Blizzard's 61 mutators). Mutators are special game modifiers that change the game and challenge players. Also, Blizzard's Heroes from the Storm mutator was eventually changed to be more like my variant.

5.3. Twitch Integration

Recently, I added twitch integration to my maps that works together with a chatbot I wrote in Python. This lets viewers join as units or send messages directly in-game – making the viewing experience more engaging. If the streamer allows it, viewers can even spawn units, enable mutators or modify player resources (link).

Twitch integration  – viewers joining the game as units

5.4. Custom replay interface

I wrote a custom replay interface that lets you view many additional statistics in co-op replays. Also, keybinds were added that let players hide various UI elements (link).

Custom replay interface

5.5. Survival mode

I have created a prototype of a survival mode for Co-op, which is something that has been unfortunately missing in this mode. It's currently playable on Temple of the Past map (link).

Survival mode

And more....