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Author: Paolo

Things that matter

Published by Paolo on 16/12/2025

Yesterday I wrote an introduction on LinkedIn because suddenly I got lots of new contacts due to my post on The Game Awards. I was taking care of things here at home and wrote that piece spontaneously, got much more traction than other times where I have the time of think and structure better my thoughts.

I got two new leads for clients, and the post shows nothing about my knowledge and skills, that is surprising. On the other side, the temptation to go always more personal and deep is strong.

I am sure that this is valid also for game making. If we create something that connects truly with us at a personal level, chances are we can achieve better results than making things just for the sake of business. It’s a delicate art, and it’s easy to believe to weak theories I am aware of that. But I am also aware that I have maybe 20 years of career in front of me and it would be better to spend them on something that truly matters.

Pragmata first impressions

Published by Paolo on 15/12/2025

While I am preparing my classes for this week, I have played the demo of Pragmata the new game by Capcom presented at The Game Awards. In Pragmata, you control a gunner with a little girl on his shoulder and you need to arrive from point A to point B solving spatial puzzles and destroying robots. To do that, you control the man to shoot at enemies and the little girl is a cyborg, capable of hacking the robots’ systems.

While you aim and shoot, then, you also have to move a cursor on a grid and solve simple puzzles. During the exploration you can find extra tiles for the grid that give you benefits (on damage, basically) and extra weapons for the man.

Pragmata is a game designed for people like me, 35+ year old, mostly male, who may or may not have children. The movement speed, the weapons feeling and the general pace reminds a lot of classic 2000s games, like Gears of War. The use of robots is savvy, because they are pretty slow compared with aliens for instance, so you have time to think in both the shooting and the puzzle. Capcom promises to publish a cool game, I am sold.

Feelings for 2026

Published by Paolo on 13/12/2025

My feeling is that 2026 will be the year of people with the courage of creating new worlds and putting them out. We have not only tutorials, but plenty or resources to visualize and realize our dreams. To make them playable from people from all over the world. My feeling is that independent creators will benefit the most from recent technological advancements.

Of course, there are many factors that can influence the course of events so don’t take it as a prediction. I loved The Game Awards, I watched it with emotion, including some tears of joy and nostalgia. And the desire of helping build something memorable.

My takes on The Game Awards

Published by Paolo on 12/12/2025

Today my post came later because I wanted to watch the whole show of The Game Awards, so I took my time. I loved the show, in my opinion it is getting better and better. I liked it better than last year, because I found the new teasers less like a Tool video and with more hope.

The first take is that it is a great time for independent developers. The creative director of Sandfall told that he is thankful for youtubers for putting out tutorials because he had no idea on how to make a game. And the game he made with the team was the most appreciated in the history of TGA, so yeah… I guess it’s easier to make games nowadays. The important part is the creativity, now more than ever. And I believe that now it’s a moment where we can, and should, risk a little bit more in that sense. Avoid repeating formulas, find new recipes. Now the tech permit beat everybody else with less than $10M.

Another trend I am noticing is that horror and monsters is casualizing. Monsters are getting cool, I saw zombies dressed like rappers and cool things like that. Sci-fi, instead, is animalizing always more, with bears and dogs in tech armor. These are two new trends that have been started years ago (in my opinion, from Twilight and Guardians of the Galaxy, respectively) but that now are exploding.

During my view of the show there were tears in my eye. First reason is because the show is fantastic if you love videogames. There is music and stunning visuals, incredible people coming on the show. There is everything I love. But I cried also for a little bit of nostalgia/sadness: it’s because it’s very hard to participate into something like the games presented there. Most of the work in games is on very poor experiences, so I feel that maybe I am losing my time. Maybe I do need to really care about my own world, things I want to put out there, and leave the chase of the next client. I have to think about that.

Meaningful coincidences

Published by Paolo on 11/12/2025

I got a flu, so I had the chance to watch much more videos while on my bed, resting. I felt a big nostalgia when I found out interesting videos on “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time”. I believe that I am a game designer also because of that game.

But I will probably never find any job to work on something like that, in my entire career. If I keep working for others, I will continue work on projects that can be more or less interesting to me, but not THAT, right? That’s an issue, to me. What am I doing with my time?

My little daughter is starting making drafts with her ballpen and I took one of them and recognize in its lines a map. So I draft a map on top of it:

In my dreams there is this game, this RPG fully inspired by Zelda, where you control a girl who moves with a skate and fights with a martial art heavily inspired by Capoeira, which is one of my passions outside of games.

The (known) world of Oridara is made out of 7 different biomes:

  1. Forest
  2. Volcano
  3. Mushroom
  4. Tecno
  5. Ice
  6. Desert
  7. Abyss

You have to imagine everything in a SOLARPUNK fashion, imagine a world where nature and technology found the perfect balance somehow. Pokemon, Studio Ghibly, worlds like that are solar punk.

Now I am starting to work on this world, I will post updates over here.

Convincing NPCs

Published by Paolo on 08/12/2025

I am playing Where Winds Meet these days and there is a feature that let’s you talk freely with NPCs. I have tried a couple of things, some of them give you quests and things like that. It’s a cool feature, but I try hard to convince them doing something they cannot (like “follow me”, “go out and hunt bears”), and they find always an excuse to not do it.

The whole system is based on LLM, I don’t know which API they use, but I have to say that it’s fun to try convincing them.

Let’s talk about Horses

Published by Paolo on 07/12/2025

The new game from Santa Ragione, Horses, has been banned from the main stores: Steam and Epic, at the moment I write this post. Humble just enabled the game again in their list, they delisted for a while.

I watched a gameplay and Horses is a game about cruelty. The experience is about helping a dark organization in torturing and abuse people. It is pornographic, as well. That’s why it was censored from the two main PC stores out there.

There is a lot of discussion online regarding censorship, capitalism, politics, and it’s not just something coming from young players. It comes from developers as well, and that shows the ingenuity (to say the least) of certain professionals. In fact, Steam warned the company Santa Ragione 2 years ago about the impossibility of publishing this game. They decided to go on and Steam maintained its promise. It is what it is.

I believe Santa Ragione was coherent in their choice to continue develop the game, but I also believe that putting your whole business at risk for a principle is not a good choice. I cannot manage to feel admiration for them, also if I empathize because I know they want to tell a unique story. And I saw that they did manage to deliver something unique. Lots of game design issues (in my humble opinion) but a clearly identifiable game with a unique voice. Let’s hope they manage to continue with their business, as they deserve. But they made a mistake.

Steam Sale Games in Italy

Published by Paolo on 06/12/2025

The fifth edition of the Steam Sale Games in Italy is underway, the initiative dedicated to Made in Italy video games powered by IIDEA!


From today until Tuesday, December 9th at 7:00 PM, discover over 400 Italian titles, including video games, DLC, and additional content: a vast selection that celebrates the creativity of our studios and offers numerous special offers on productions of all genres.

Common ground beliefs

Published by Paolo on 05/12/2025

Marketing works better if the marketer believes in the product. Game design can help with this, if the company allows the communication between designers and marketers.

Sometimes, though, we are working on a game we don’t really believe in. We are there just for the job, someone above makes all the calls and we do not see any value behind the strategy. It happens, more than it should actually.

Everything gets more complicated from there, so one of our duties in this case is to find common ground and push to focus the efforts on that. Because only that may become unique, in the end.

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