Getting Started with Feature Reports

Every game is built from a handful of design decisions: a core loop, a progression system, a setting, a look. We call these features, and we’ve curated a library of around 470 of them, each verified against the games on Steam that actually use it.

A feature report brings together everything you need to decide whether a feature belongs in your game: the games that nailed it (and the ones that didn’t), what it takes to build, and what players really think of it. Use feature reports to sharpen your pitch, spot risky scope early and learn from games that went before you.

What is a feature?

A feature is a single, recognisable building block of a game’s design. Each one belongs to one of seven categories, shown as a coloured pill wherever the feature appears:

• Core Mechanics: what the player actually does, moment to moment.
• Systemic Rules: the underlying systems and rules that shape play.
• Meta-Progression: how players grow and progress across sessions or runs.
• Session Architecture: how play is structured into runs, levels, matches or sessions.
• Thematic Setting: the world, era and theme a game is set in.
• Visual Presentation: the art style, camera and visual treatment.
• User Interface: how information and controls are presented to the player.

You can browse every feature in the Feature Directory. See the Directories guide for how to search and filter it.

Inside a feature report

Open any feature to see its report. A Feature Report table of contents on the left lets you jump between sections. If a feature has no data for a section, that section is simply left out.

The header

The header shows the feature’s category, name and definition, along with how many games have been verified to use it and how many videos we’ve found about it. Subscribers can bookmark the feature from here to find it later on the dashboard.

Overview

A plain-English explanation of the feature, including Feature Boundaries: what counts as this feature and what doesn’t, so you can tell it apart from similar ideas.

Examples

“Games verified to implement this feature and how players received them.”

• Best & worst received: the games using this feature that players rated highest and lowest. The contrast is often the most useful part of the report.
• Verified games: a sortable table of every game verified to use the feature.
• Screenshots: a carousel of screenshots from those games, shuffled on every visit. Click one to view it fullscreen, then click More Details to open that game’s page in a new tab.
• Related features & tags:
  • Often tagged with: Steam tags common among games with this feature.
  • Commonly paired with: features that tend to appear in the same games.
  • Rarely seen with: features that seldom or never share a game with this one. These combinations can be a clue to an untapped idea, or a sign they don’t work well together.

Implementation

Practical advice for building the feature:

• Game Feel: what makes the feature satisfying to play.
• Common Pitfalls: mistakes to avoid.
• Production Cost: how much effort it’s likely to take, which is useful for scoping.
• Architecture: how you might structure it in code.
• Code Examples: minimal implementations with a tab each for pseudocode, GDScript (Godot 4), C# and C++, and a Copy button.

Architecture and Code Examples aren’t included for Thematic Setting and Visual Presentation features, since those aren’t built in code in the same way.

Player Sentiment

What players love and What frustrates players about this feature, drawn from real Steam reviews. Expand any point to read a quote from the review and a link to the game it came from.

Resources

• Videos: curated videos about the feature, including tutorials and critic reviews. Click Show all to see the full list.
• Articles: articles about the feature, found live on the web. The first time a feature’s articles are fetched it can take up to half a minute. If the search fails, click Try again.

Where features appear

Features are woven through Game Oracle, so you’ll bump into them wherever you’re researching:

• Game pages: Features found in this game lists the features a game has been verified to use. You’ll find it in the sidebar on wide screens, or near the bottom of the page on smaller ones. It’s available on every plan.
• Game Gap: each market segment has a Building Blocks section listing up to six features that are unusually common among its games, with a note such as “Found in 12 of 20 similar games”. See the Game Gap guide.
• Concept Compass: pick up to five Core Features to define your game. They steer your competitor search and every report Concept Compass writes for you. See the Concept Compass guide.
• Search: switch the navigation bar search to features to jump straight to any report.

Feature cards open their report in a new tab, so you never lose your place.

Free vs subscriber access

• Free accounts can open any feature report and read the header and Overview. The table of contents still shows the full outline so you can see what’s included; choosing a locked section takes you to Unlock the full feature report.
• Subscribers get the whole report: every verified game with best and worst examples, the implementation guide with code examples, player sentiment, and curated videos and articles, plus bookmarking.

See the pricing page for plan details.

If you have any questions about using any of our tools, drop us an email at support@game-oracle.com and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.