My secret passion is game economy

I have a secret passion for game economies. Like a lot of passions, it probably traces back to childhood trauma (not really). The short version: in game dev there are two big concepts — game balance and game economy. Economy was always more appealing to me because balance is *feely*. There's a chapter in *Sid Meier's Memoir!* that explains why — actual randomness and actual equality don't feel random or equal. So balance is hard. Even if your math is perfect, feelings will mess it up. Economy isn't like that. Economy is just math. Perfect math, often complex math.

In Larithea I've gone out of my way to avoid predatory economies — nothing forces players to gamble or buy anything. What I wanted was super linear, super predictable gameplay, with economy as the basis of all of it. The loop is simple: you fight monsters (no humans, no animals — that's how I draw the line on cuteness), they drop materials and spell sigils, you craft new spells, you fight harder monsters.

The difficulty curve comes from two places. AI logic gets trickier and more complex as you move through the game, and your starting positions in each fight are randomized. The more variety you have in your spells, the easier it is to handle whatever random start you get. Which means the main loop is constantly pushing you to craft new spells the moment you get a sigil — and that turns the whole economy into one question: *do you have enough materials to craft a spell when a new sigil drops?*

That's where my favorite tool comes in. Simulations. I started writing game sims when I worked at SMG and it felt like magic. Any theory you have about what's available and what's possible — you can write a sim, and the math confirms it or proves you wrong.

In an interesting way, the simulation of "this many enemies will drop this much material by this scene" went from being a helper tool to being the central tool. Before I plan any enemy layout for a fight or battle scene, I run the sim first. How many enemies do I need, with what material drops, to land the right amount of crafting headroom by the next sigil. No guessing.

It's a very geeky thing. But the amount of endorphins I get every time I don't have to guess what enemies should be where, or what the reward should be — I honestly cannot overstate. My memoir is going to be called *Control Freak*, I guess.