Skip to content

Author: Paolo

Tips for writing better documents

Published by Paolo on 20/09/2023

I joined a list of mentors in the games industry a while ago. I receive messages from all over the World that make me think a lot. Very grateful for receiving those energies from different cultures and people.

One of the most common requests I get is about how to write better design documents. The main issue with documents is the harsh reality that most people don’t want to read. Also if some of them have this duty, I have noticed that oftentimes they keep what you said in a presentation or chat. So, why boring to write a wall of text?

It’s important to write a lot on the game we are making, for ourselves. It is not important, instead, to write a lot for others to read. That is my point. I do like this.

  • I start by writing by hand on paper. Very important to create meaningful connections in my brain. I don’t get the same result when I write on a keyboard.
  • I continue by writing digitally a short resume of what I wrote on paper. Sometimes very short.
  • When something needs more words, I create an image instead. It can be a flowchart, a UX flow, a wireframe, or a sketch.
  • Then I read the document again in a loud voice. This makes me spot things that are hard to read. It has to be aloud. Don’t be shy, don’t be lazy. It doesn’t work if you read in your mind.
  • If I have time, I try to add something fun to spot in the most boring parts. That happens very few times, honestly.

When the boss gets in the middle

Published by Paolo on 19/09/2023

Every game designer has experienced at least once in their life the horrible feeling of being deprived of their ownership.

You design a new game mode, a mechanic, a progression, an economy. You spend your attention and energy on it, perhaps for weeks. And the person in charge of the project, a producer or product manager, changes everything without warning.

It’s hard, I’ve even left companies for things like this. But it happens. It’s a huge lack of respect disguised as “sorry, but the project needs this“, “the data speaks clearly!“, “I wasn’t convinced…“.

The reality is that there are very few true creative leaders and changing numbers on a spreadsheet or in-game setups requires no skill. The pressure that some people feel leads them to this disastrous behavior. So what to do?

Seeking an agreement and understanding the problem is the first step. Many people want to be successful, others want the team to be successful. Some think more broadly about the entire company. We need to understand what motivated the choice.

This is a wrong choice, in every sense. A serious mistake. But we do it too, let’s remember this. I therefore recommend staying calm to make the correct decision.

Making games is hard…

Three ideas on ads

Published by Paolo on 18/09/2023

Ad-based monetization mechanisms have established themselves in the mobile market in recent years. There are many providers and related SDKs that need to be implemented in our games. From a business perspective, they make completely sense. Players get free entertainment and in change they are exposed to promotions.

To date I haven’t met a single game designer who likes ads. Why?

The answer is very simple, ads work against the game itself from a gameplay perspective. You are participating, you are involved in the game and you are offered to see an ad. This advertisement may also take you out of the game to install a new one. Generally, in fact, advertisements in games are for other games.

This is working against your own game, risking losing the players’ attention. In the long term, among other things, they can be really boring and affect people’s retention. Too many announcements, I’m not coming back!

I as a player, and I’m sure I’m not the only one, use ads as breaks. I start the ad to get a benefit, I move away from my cell phone to do other things. The ad is a pause.

But does it have to be this way?

Advertisements are an opportunity for entertainment and television has demonstrated this. The ads could be very funny.

  1. We could show things more related to the universe of the game itself. If we refuse privacy permissions, the advertisements are generic and random.
  2. We could integrate the content with the characters and lore of the game we are playing. Instead of starting a generic video, the characters could give us purchasing advice. With new programs that use machine learning algorithms, this blend is very workable.
  3. You could show ads alongside recommendations for the game we are playing. You play the ad, and a video plays that explains specific things about the game. In the bottom half, the announcement of another game. This way, seeing a video makes sense and we will also show an advertisement.

Freedom, security and work-life balance

Published by Paolo on 15/09/2023

In our career, like in other areas of our life, we play with two main things: security and freedom. The general rule is that the more security less freedom. The more freedom less security.

  • When you go alone as a freelancer, you have more freedom but less security, in theory.
  • When you work for a company, you have more security but less freedom. Also, in theory.

The reality is that often is safer to go as a freelancer. In fact, if you lose one client you have another couple backing you up. And regarding freedom… well, you have the worst possible boss: yourself.

When you work for a company it’s true that you have less freedom of choice, but the security thing… You can see the latest news, companies are firing the people who contributed to making millions. Is that security? I feel more safe as independent, honestly.

It’s about work-life balance

How to deal with security and freedom? Think about your work-life balance. And with that term, I don’t mean the same that everyone means. I don’t mean the time you spend at work versus the time you spend with the rest of your life. That is not the way I see it.

To me, work is part of life and not a separate thing to balance against life.

  1. Where do I want to live?
  2. Why am I doing this?
  3. Who are the people I am dealing with every day?
  4. What are the challenges I am facing right now?
  5. How will I solve the problems I have?

In this order, in my case. Work-life balance to me is about working on the balance of work-related things in my life.

Right now I am a freelancer with great clients. Tomorrow I will be leading a team in a big company. Or tomorrow I will run my own agency. It doesn’t really matter.

The important thing is to focus on the present because that influences this very moment. It’s a matter of security and freedom, looking at them with the lens of discernment. Work-life balance it’s not about what it could be. It’s about what it is.

We will live more!

Published by Paolo on 14/09/2023

Any technology and platform, like all human things, has a beginning, a development, and an end.

Some of the technologies we use today to make games, and the platforms we distribute them on, will be gone in 3-5 years. It’s hard to keep up with time, which is why so many video game creators from the past no longer deal with it.

If our intention is to try to last longer in the industry, we must develop a true love for the profession and also try to avoid situations that can restrict our potential.

  • I’m not a mobile level designer, I’m a game designer
  • I’m not a Unity developer, I’m a game developer
  • I’m not a realistic-style concept artist, I’m a game artist

Specializations are great at the beginning of a career to find your first job. If your personal brand says “casual games economy designer” and it works, that’s fine.

But inside, in our moments of study and passion, we cannot and must not limit ourselves. Trend passes and the company that develops that particular technology doesn’t survive. If we love the main branch of our work, the generalist thing, there is no problem.

We will be able to see the practical benefits even in a completely different environment. We will live more!

Shape up your game development!

Published by Paolo on 13/09/2023

I am studying Shape Up these days, a new way of working with remote and asynchronous teams created by 37signals. Game development is software development so I believe that Shape Up can be adapted.

Instead of working on a product backlog, that oftentimes becomes huge and gives guilt (a good feature now can be not a good feature in 3 months), you work on giving form to the ideas. In game design, we call them concept documents. In Shape Up they call them pitches.

Your job as the creator should be to develop your taste and motivate the appetite of the team. Shape Up is based on betting on specific pitches. At every iteration, instead of reordering priorities on the product backlog, you sit at a table and decide on which concept document you will bet on.

Your team is composed of adult people, they should be able to self-organize to complete a project in a 4-6 weeks fixed time frame. Maybe this time window may vary with game development, we have a heavy art pipeline.

The constraint here is the time to complete a project. Other processes require the team to be involved in too many meetings and to estimate the time of each task. With Shape Up you don’t need any of that, so you can just focus on bringing value to the table.

Seems to me more agile than agile!

Raw ideas, good ideas

If an idea is a good idea you will see it very often. From your collaborators, community, and critics.

There is no need to store all the ideas on a list.

Instead of doing that, land ideas down preparing concept documents. Spend time on giving values to good ideas, not on storing every idea.

Concept document structure

  1. Problem (Use case) – What motivates this idea
  2. Appetite (Constraints) – How much do you need to spend developing this idea
  3. Solution (Overview) – bullet point list with core elements needed to properly realize the idea
  4. Rabbit Holes (Risks) – Detect all things that are not central to the concept and can slow down the development
  5. No Gos (What is NOT) – Define well what is NOT included in the idea

At every iteration, you sit at the table and review all the concepts. Then you decide with which you proceed. It’s a bet, you need a taste.

Get rid of product backlogs

Product backlogs kill productivity. They are a list of things to do that grows over time. You spend time looking at them, you may also feel guilty.

Get rid of product backlogs! Some raw ideas that seemed interesting 3 months ago probably are not anymore. Your team is designers, artists, and engineers. They need autonomy to work on concrete, well-shaped ideas. They are not ticket-pickers.

What to do instead? Develop your appetite for ideas, and train your taste.

  • What motivates you?
  • How would you define sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami?

Find the right partners

Published by Paolo on 12/09/2023

My grandfather told me once: Stay with those who are better than you. He intended humanly better, of course, not to those who have more futile stuff.

Understanding who is humanly better than us is an art and often we make mistakes. The important is to strive to stay with the best that we meet on our road.

Partners are the most valuable predictor of success. This is valid in all areas of life. Want a better career? Find the right partner. Starting a business? Find the right partners. Looking for a job? Find the right partners. Launching a new game? Find the right partners.

When you hire a freelancer, you are the client of a 1-person business. At the start, we have to test each other from both sides.

  • Will this person be the right one to delegate this job?
  • Will this new client pay me on time?

Oftentimes, after a couple of weeks, we may become partners. The company found someone to produce faster. And the freelancer found a business from which to learn to spot and solve more problems. This helps us to be faster with future clients, too. In fact, we see every week different kinds of situations and challenges. Many sources of data and very different readings of those. Wide picture.

Treat freelas like partners!

My suggestion then, is to treat your freelancers not simply like service providers. The best clients I have ask me “How are you doing?” “How do you feel?”. Speak to us also of other struggles you have, maybe we can help. This creates bounds. This fosters a partnership. This creates value.

Maybe you do not need our service anymore at some point. Our job is done. We can still be a partner, though. You can recommend us to other businesses, for instance. Write to us the updates on your product. “Hey, I am coming to this conference next month, what about you?”.

Be a good partner first, and you will find the right partners. Gigs, businesses, and jobs come and go. What the people think of us stays for a long time.

Indie Dev Day recap

Published by Paolo on 11/09/2023

This beautiful week was Indie Dev Day. I have seen this fair born and evolve, this year the growth has been astonishing.

Cities like Barcelona allow us to follow our passions. There are many entities that allow people to try and make their way into the industry of their dreams. We have free rights, healthcare is the classic example, so we can try without running too many risks.

What is talent? I did the math. I counted 101 stands with Spanish studios. Let’s say 1 out of 5 (I am being optimistic here) manages to find success.

What is success? As a talk from The Game Kitchen rightfully said: “Success is when you earn 1 euro”. You make the game, a bunch of people during years. Your time has a value, maybe you have salaries. Expenses. Then you start selling the game, and part of the revenues go to the platform and publishers. Eventually, you recoup and maybe you earn the first euro. Profit. 1 single euro. Can you do that? Well, you had success.

Now 76 teams, made out of 5 people on average, will not have success. 76×5 = 380 talents. Why talents? Because they struggled for success, they learned things the hard way. And, my bet, is they will be very grateful and compromise employees for companies. They have been on the other side, making hard choices.

I had the opportunity to try various games presented in more than 80 stands. There are three main trends:

  1. Conceptual games of simple artistic expression. They are presented as an installation rather than something with a commercial release.
  2. Content-based games. A story to complete, levels to pass. Time and energy are invested in content that is only experienced during a moment. You need a great vision.
  3. Games based on repeatable systems. Especially rogue-lite and coach co-op games. Games that invite you to play and repeat, and above all to connect with the community. Online, to understand which are the best builds (rogue-lite). Play with your family and friends at home (coach co-op).

These games I have to say are my favorites. Especially if RPGs, the genre that accompanied me to this profession.

Recommended games to check out:

Perception, reality and imagination

Published by Paolo on 08/09/2023

Our perception shapes the reality that is presented to us. This is a double-edged sword, and any person working with creativity knows it.

We get the information using our cognitive system and we form meaningful patterns. Perception is the system that holds those patterns. On the one side, we have fewer things to store in the memory. On the other, our cognitive system doesn’t have to understand everything. It can reuse those patterns quickly!

Challenges

Working every day as game designers, our perception of games forms lots of patterns. And so does the reality we think we know about the Players in our games. And we are players too, maybe in other kind of games.

We work almost always from a desk, too. And a desk is a dangerous place from which to see the World, as John le Carré said in a novel.

To mitigate the risks of perception:

  1. Be aligned with the business, understand how the system works. Listen to your producers. How can our design be impactful?
  2. Be aware of the context and processes that will deliver the final piece of software. Understand the code architecture, and how art pipelines work. Something that seems like “a little change” can turn into weeks of work.
  3. Get in the players’ shoes and empathize with them. Understand what they do in our game and why. Be informed on what they will be looking for.

Nowadays we have a lot of information available! When I start a new project or the design of a feature, I start by researching the solutions already adopted. Be aware of the business. I use Liquid&Grit which offers reports and has a db full of captures and videos. In that way I speed up my work, every design takes me 20% less than before.

Then I switch to YouTube, looking for gameplays to watch and take notes. Many games nowadays have a Reddit page and a Discord server, too. It is not that hard to put ourselves in the Player’s shoes. I need to really get their jargon, and understand what they look for. I need to form new patterns with which to read reality.

Advantages

Perception helps our memory system. We form patterns we can reuse in a different context. And this helps our imagination as creators. For instance, when we have to create the plot for a story. 

The image below is a joke, it’s Friday! I am a lover of fantasy and was a heavy D&D player. Because of that, I have already many patterns formed.

  • The left side is a quick overpaint I made with GIMP on a very popular photo of one of the lowest moments in the history of sport.
  • The right part was generated with Midjourney using the prompt: “a dungeons and dragons scene where a mind flayer has taken the head of a female ranger in his head to attack her”

I am a game designer

Published by Paolo on 07/09/2023

I remember the opening of Jesse Shell’s book, The Art of Game Design. There is a mantra: I am a game designer.

When I think about game design I identify 4 main areas:

  • Systems design
  • Gameplay (or UX) design
  • Level design
  • Narrative design

To be more concrete, all game design is system design. Level and narrative design create gameplay and shape the player experience (UX, if you prefer). Narrative design has many things to share with level design too.

The narrative design delivers the most evident pieces of the game, from the Player’s perspective. The system is less visible but rules them all. In the middle, there is gameplay and level design.

Rules, which are part of the gameplay to me, influence the design of the UI. The UI is that part of gameplay (or UX) that connects with the narrative. UI is evident and tells something to the Players. So that is narrative to me.

There are many points of view on that, and that’s good. The simple term “design” has a broad meaning. And the geo where we work influences our vision too. Companies from the US tend to focus more on hyper-specialization. Here in Southern Europe, we do EVERYTHING. Also the coffee!

Then there is the personal factor. I am a game designer. That to me means:

  • work with everything from system to narrative
  • grab a course on narrative design and a year later on level design.
  • strive to master Excel, Unity, Unreal Engine and all the tools to create systems and gameplay
  • take screens and create wireframes and docs detailing rules and mechanics.