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Month: February 2024

How to evolve chores

Published by Paolo on 14/02/2024

Any video game sets up routines for the Players. Certain genres, like RPG and survival, are based on the concept of grinding. Grinding is making certain things over and over to achieve certain results. Often related to power-progression.

The art of game design in this case is being able to anticipate when certain tasks become a chore and make them evolve into something else. Usually, there are two steps:

  1. First, you make them automate something
  2. Then you give them the possibility to evolve the system so that the player becomes something new.

An interesting example of that is the game V-Rising. You are a vampire building an empire. And you have chores to do, collect things, craft other things, and so on.

The game lets you build special floors that boost that part, so that the game becomes a matter of designing your castle, more than building the next thing to improve your crafts.

The problem with the “Microsoft Game Day Commercial”

Published by Paolo on 13/02/2024

I am European, so I don’t know if Microsoft made this commercial for the Super Bowl or what:

Many thoughts come into my mind, though. I can define the message as worrisome at the very least. I don’t believe in ghouls but I can see greed. Still, I tend to always find the good part in everything. Let’s go with the plot analysis

The ad starts with young people worried about their professional future. One of them wants to have a business, another wants a degree, and so on. The message focuses on an invisible enemy (“they say I can’t…”). My expectation for the rest of it was a revenge-based narrative. Something like “They say this, I show them I can do that”.

Instead, the protagonists accept what “they say” and start using a powerful AI to do the things they love. “Write me the code for my open-world game…”. My? Are you sure that game is yours? “Generate storyboard images for the dragon scene in my script…” Did you feed an algorithm that stole hundreds of artist’s works with your script? So lame!

The campaign perpetuates society’s renunciation of the growth of their future, young people. MS is saying that they should renounce their dreams and put them in the hands of the corporation. I know that they want to announce their service, but the cake is a lie. LLMs are very limited right now. The fact that they are trying to convince creative people to give up on their creativity drives me nuts.

I am also worried about the environment, how much energy and water are these services using?

The adjacency of marketing

Published by Paolo on 12/02/2024

There are designers and marketers, creative and tricky/boring stuff to do. One thing is always there: both are absolutely necessary for the success of a game. And so, for the success of a company.

A game company is run by business people, but games are made by developers and creative. Sometimes business people are very creative, sometimes developers are very aware of the business of making games.

In 2024, having marketing knowledge will be a boost for professional game designers. If you want to create your games like an artist, you have the opportunity to create your IPs and eventually get rich. But if you, like me, are here to serve other people and businesses you should aim to learn marketing.

Marketing, just like writing and art, is an adjacent space to explore and study. Very important to be aware of it and very few people are. It’s boring as heck, but it’s part of the craft to me.

Starting from UGC

Published by Paolo on 09/02/2024

Imagine you want to create a new team to develop video games. Imagine you have a team of veterans and people with less experience. One of the ways to start is Roblox or UEFN (Unreal Editor for Fortnite).

They are walled gardens but allow you not to worry too much about thinking about the game to develop. Roblox has more players than Playstation and Xbox combined. So there is a solid community of players.

When you start a new project by creating a team of people who don’t know each other, it’s a good idea to start doing smaller tests. So why not try these systems that already have their basis? In my opinion, it is an excellent opportunity to start.

Time for the underdogs

Published by Paolo on 08/02/2024

I am at Gamesforum, a conference on the marketing of games. Organizers gave me a free ticket and I have to say that is worth every single (and inexistent) penny.

The times are challenging for employees. We are seeing many layoffs, changes imposed by platform holders, and global insecurity. I met colleagues and I noticed that those who work as independent are younger than those who are working as employees. It’s crazy, right?

  • If you are on a successful project, it’s very hard to grow more and more. So the day job is gritty and the pressure is very high.
  • If you are on an unsuccessful project chances that you will be fired are high
  • If you are an underdog, there are lots of opportunities to grow! Many skilled professionals are available. Many known tactics for zero-to-one growth and you can probably create realistic plans.

What does it mean to be an underdog?

There are many acceptations to the term underdog, but to me it means:

  • small scopes, budget, team
  • ideas more focused on USP, both for product and for marketing
  • zero-to-one, still few partners/peers/providers
  • focus on the build, money will be a consequence

Why is it time for the underdogs?

Big players in the market are lost in the age of efficiency. After chasing impossible growth, they are now all-in for profit. They are reviving legacy products, and creating copycats, and they are not building anything new. Being an underdog now means being forced to think of alternatives to production and distribution strategies. It means to dream more and probably better. Who knows, maybe you will be the leader of the future!

Designing Journeys

Published by Paolo on 07/02/2024

I am designing the journey of a game for a client these days. It is a fun activity, also when you don’t have all the information you need to complete it. Anyway, it can be struggling, because it is very critical for the entire project.

A journey is the prediction of how the Players should behave in the game. At the same time, a journey imagines what the game offers to the Players, according to each stage they are in. When the journey is extremely detailed, usually you have a game with less freedom. The possibility space leaves fewer choices for the Players. When the journey is just sketched, you may oversee things too much.

General rules for journeys

  • Draft your journeys on a spreadsheet
  • The first column (or one of the first columns) should always be regarding the time
  • There should be some feature to represent the stage of the Players inside of the game. In many games it is level
  • You can briefly describe what the Players should do and the narrative around it given by the game
  • Each step should have its goals
  • Each goal should be reached using at least a single mechanic, or a combination of mechanics (skill atom). The key here is to always teach something. Remember: to have fun is to learn
  • You can define the challenges that the players will find over the journeys
  • Reaching each goal (every line/step of the journey) should unlock something meaningful for the next steps of the journey

It is hard to imagine exactly how the whole game should go. Especially with big games. Journeys are usually iterative, at the project start you have less definition and more questions. You can add those questions in a separate column. It is not necessary to balance at this stage, keep it clean and balance later. The last thing, journeys are very much needed also for simple puzzle games. In that case, we talk of the beat chart more than the journey.

When the junior is your client

Published by Paolo on 05/02/2024

When you gain some experience, you happen to work with junior profiles. They are people who need to grow and it takes considerable management and mentoring work. At first, you are inevitably slowed down, but then you see the benefits.

It then happens that you work for clients and your client is the junior. It explains badly, it defines things badly. In that case, you cannot treat him as you would treat a junior in the company, as a subordinate. And that’s great because it helps you understand how to treat people in the best way possible.

I understand a lot of things that I could have handled differently in the past. Considering a subordinate as the expert, which we are forced to do when working with a client, opens the door to many learnings.

Join the Scott Rogers Fundraiser Event

Published by Paolo on 02/02/2024

Scott Rogers, game designer, master and author of fantastic books needs some help. We are organizing a FREE online conference to raise funds for him.

You can join the conference here. It’s on Sat, February the 3rd. Event link here.

I will give a speech. From Books to Games: My Freelance Journey as a Self-Taught Game Designer

Years ago I had to create my opportunities in game design because the scene here in Barcelona was hard to navigate, to say the least. Thanks to books like “Level Up!” I managed to create my method of getting there. Tomorrow, I will share this method at the conference.

See you there!