About

About

Welcome to my blog. I work as a lead co-op designer / senior engineer on Zerospace (RTS). The blog is focused on game design and mainly that of RTS games. Occasionally there are posts about data and performance analysis or other more technical subjects.

I like to learn new things about physics, mathematics, programming, and game design. I enjoy photography, running, cycling and taking long walks. My favorite genre is fantasy with authors like Patrick Rothfuss or Brandon Sanderson.

discord.gg/FtGdhqD

uminomaguro@gmail.com

github.com/FluffyMaguro

What can you find on this blog:

1. game design posts

• Faction image & design
• Supply limits
• Look at some units designs in StarCraft II
• Closer look at Upkeep
  
• Popularity of mirror matchups
• And many others...

2. thoughts on future and past 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,...
• Transmission 07: Team games in RTS
  
• Transmission 08: Attention and macro
  
• Transmission 09: Gameplay variety
  

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 – focusing 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 broad 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. I got few mentions from the StarCraft team thanks to this.

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 18 mutators (on top of Blizzard's 62 mutators).

5.3. Twitch Integration

I added twitch integration to my maps that works together with my overlay app. 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 created 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.

Survival mode

5.6. Karax revamp

I revamped Karax commander which resulted in improved competitiveness compared to other commanders, and more fun while playing him. Since then he received other changes and prestiges, but the still a very fancy page I made for his revamp remains.

And more....