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Author: Paolo

Three possible steps to professional autonomy

Published by Paolo on 25/03/2024

I live in Barcelona, not in Montreal. The video games sector here is growing because of foreign companies landing. There are still very few profitable local companies. Plus, the Spanish government has a lot of work to do to give the push that the sector deserves to become an industry.

But I work as a game designer, that’s my profession. So I was years ago in a limbo. On one side, there were no positions for me (apart from big companies, which are not what I look for). On the other, I wanted to make games.

I decided to be the best game designer I could be. I follow three basic steps:

Be realistic: I would very love to help make the next Ocarina of Time. But that is not the case of my reality here. My reality is big corporates whose processes are made to filter out people like me. And small companies willing to find their formulas for profitability. Those companies are 80% mobile and casino. So I started specializing more in those.

A mix of analysis and creativity: from one side I have the skills to analyze what’s in the market. Because when you work as a game designer for a company they want you to find formulas to apply. Especially in mobile free-to-play. So I had to accept it and become a PRO in analysis. But I am a designer in the first place, so I worked on my creativity side. I had to improve my skills in actually designing documents and spreadsheets. Also, I had to dominate the engines, as a designer.

Share every learning: I know that it can look silly. Someone says I want to become an influencer. But that’s not the case. Sharing is caring, as they say. When you share also a small learning you learn to communicate and you leave space. Your commenters will give you insight and also in your private job you will become better.

Four alternatives to job interviews

Published by Paolo on 22/03/2024

The other day I made a post on my LinkedIn right after posting about the same thing here on my blog. Happens many times that the second post is better than the first one. Reactions are good and I had interesting conversations with people because of that.

If you are looking for a job and you ask any expert, the things they would say you will include:

  • Apply to job offers and get interviews
  • Become a specialist in a field
  • Show up, show up, show up!

This is the playbook, the standard thing. This process will put you in the game of people looking for the “top talent”. The best of the best. I was reading a post boasting that a job they were offering had already more than 300 applications from veterans from top companies. Horrible thing, what are you waiting for? Is that a selection process or a battle royale?

Today I want to propose 4 alternative ways of getting yourself through. No one of them is easy, or evident.

  1. Offer something unique. Something you know that only you and a few people like you can offer. To do that, you should work a lot on understanding what you can offer.
  2. Have people that follow your steps. People that when you are there they are beside you. Start a community around something.
  3. Be famous for something. This is probably the least easy solution.
  4. The easier: become everything you miss to make the job you want to do. Do you want to be a game designer? Become a producer, a marketer, and a programmer too. Make your things become an entire company (with very small projects) and put them out there.

Either of these four things is better than spending hours every week making interviews and assignments that, believe me, rarely bring you to land a job.

Be a gatekeeper

Published by Paolo on 21/03/2024

Back in the days, when video games starting to be a business, gatekeepers were physical locations (the arcades). You reached your friends there and you played what was present based on the distribution in that area.

Then the console era started, and the shops became the gatekeepers. They decided to put a game more or less visible on the shelves.

Today is extremely easy to develop and put a game out there, there is no friction for that. Also, it’s getting harder and harder to get the attention of the people. The friction imposed by technological limitations was helpful for the few brave enough to decide making video games.

Today, everyone can be a game developer. Also modding has become easier and you can earn solid money with that. Look at the last news from Epic on UEFN, for instance. There is no friction anymore, so where is the secret of going forward?

Tech today lets us become gatekeepers of our own content. We need to find ways of finding and serving very well our audience. It can be small, but it should be happy and engaged. That’s where the secret lies for the companies of the future.

How to use a resume and portfolio

Published by Paolo on 20/03/2024

Reviewing the resume of a senior takes time. That’s because we all lie, especially when we need the job. So it takes time to spot the truths within a resume. The same is valid for a portfolio of juniors. It takes time to build them, and it takes time to review them.

That’s why relationships with seniors are very important. A portfolio can be discovered or sent to a company, but they will probably have little time to check it in detail. Instead, if you use the portfolio as a tool to communicate with people you have a relationship with, everything is easy.

Oftentimes when a company needs juniors, seniors already know who to call. Many seniors, like me, are in constant touch with junior talents. And that’s also why you don’t see many offers for juniors out there. Because it is not necessary.

Think of your resume or portfolio as another tool for communication. Don’t send them only to job applications. Job applications are worthless, I have personally never seen a job application go well in my entire life. Use your resume and portfolio as a vehicle to find your voice and spread it out there. Create meaningful relationships.

Starting Free Flow Fridays

Published by Paolo on 15/03/2024

Today I want to start a new appointment on my blog: Free Flow Fridays (FFF). I want to just leave my mind for one day without thinking about being insightful, or worrying about the SEO and things like that.

This week I was reading and listening to the news and the whole World is in crisis. Everything is suffering a crisis now, from religious institutions to the climate. The industry where I work is in crisis too, and my country is in a crisis too. What can I do as a game designer? The challenge is pretty hard, but one thing I know: I have to bring fun and good things to the World. This starts by selecting also the tools I use. For instance, GenAI tools available are trained on datasets that steal intellectual properties. I will not use them.

Speaking of which, I am not scared by the advent of generative AI, I am pretty sure it is a bubble about to burst. Still, I have to be prepared for the worst as always. I believe that nothing can beat good storytelling in games. And I am sure that good stories will always be uniquely from humans, never from bots. So I intend to insist on that side of game design: game writing and more in general narrative design.

In the last few months I have been suffering fewer clients too, that’s why I am taking a couple of courses to improve my tools and workflows and get more productive in the future. I don’t believe honestly that with 60 years companies will look out for people like me, so I want to prepare my future. There are 3 possibilities I foresee:

  1. Build a profitable company and sell it. Unless something changes, I don’t see myself doing that.
  2. Invest my game design skills into other fields more stable. Honestly, I don’t see myself working for a bank using my incredible spreadsheet skills.
  3. Teach. That’s my thing. I love to explain things, I love the idea of helping create a better future.

I see myself teaching and making my small games before retiring, so yes that’s what I want to work on in the next months. Maybe by starting an Italian book on game design, who knows?

An idea for a future RPG

Published by Paolo on 13/03/2024

I would start a new RPG development by creating the World and its rules. Then I would start from the smallest possible system to see if the people is actually interested in it. Only then I would proceed. To me make a game without knowing anything is too risky.

Another reflection is that I don’t own Baldur’s Gate 3, but I see some of its characters all over the place. And I can just look at that beautiful piece of art from the outside. As a follower, I cannot influence anything of the World of BG3. In 2024 is absurd, considering that I can interact with the president of a foreign country from my smartphone. Do I have to buy BG3 to interact with its World?

I am currently playing Elden Ring. When I have time, since I have a baby to care. As any RPG there are chores to do. Why can’t I do these chores from my mobile phone? I don’t have anything to interact with the world of Elden Ring when my PS5 is off. In 2024, that is absurd to me.

An idea for the future is to build an RPG like a separate entity, a proper virtual world. And that world can be accessible by multiple sources. A mobile game, a console game, a PC game. But also a TikTok account, a Discord server. Technology is there, you can make donations and send gifts via lots of platforms to the creators. So why don’t we use it to create a fully interactable world?

Farewell Toriyama-sensei

Published by Paolo on 11/03/2024

I remember staying in a very big room watching cartoons. My mother was cooking, but she was aware of what I was looking at. The story of a young kid with a monkey tail and a stick that extended at request. He seemed unaware of Bulma’s curves. “What are you looking at, Paolo?” said my mother.

Many years later, that room looks smaller. My mother still remembers Dragon Ball. I don’t think I understood the storyline at that time. I just enjoyed the visuals and colors. Everything was so rounded, as well as vehicles. That character was similar to me, he was a little kid but so strong. He wasn’t interested in adult things, just in his quest for dragon balls.

Years later I was buying my first manga comics, one of my favorites was Arale. The creativity was shaping in my mind also with these things. Today I am a game designer and I ask myself: would I be a creator without the existence of Toriyama-sensei?

I don’t think so. God bless you, Akira.

T34 – The Dark Zone (Good Old FRAG)

Published by Paolo on 07/03/2024

I installed UEFN and tried out some Fortnite maps created by others. I was conflicted regarding how shooters have evolved these days. On one side, there are tons of mechanics and dynamics in Fortnite. On the other, the thing is getting very complicated! Too many things altogether, games back in the day were simpler.

So I decided to start a new project, codename “TH3FR4GGERZ” where for the moment I am rebuilding classic deathmatch maps for the kids to play what I played (ok, boomer).

I started from The Dark Zone from Quake, which I played tons of hours back in the days at LAN parties (ok, boomer x2). Do you remember it?

  • UEFN is an incredible tool, it’s Unreal Engine but it permits you to set up rules playtest, and publish very quickly without having to worry about code and other things.
  • Fortnite is a game where new and old audiences meet together. This is great as a designer because there are many things I have to understand about these new audiences that are not immediate. For instance, unlike games from my time, the Players receive EVERYTHING right from the start in the most successful experiences.
  • I can revisit classics and finally have an excuse to understand all the steps that led us, the FPS players, here today. Nostalgia level: 9.999.999
  • If you are a Fortnite player, please join: 4321-3870-5686
  • FFA
  • No build
  • No stamina, run forever

First Playtest for The Dark Zone

Published by Paolo on 05/03/2024

After a couple of days working on my first map and getting confidence with UEFN, I have a first version of The Dark Zone, a classic Quake deathmatch map to test.

I want to test specifically three things:

  • The dimensions: I had to scale the map up because of many reasons. Usually, in Fortnite, there are more players. Also, I want to express a sense of reverence towards the classics of the genre. Plus, the metrics of Fortnite permit the Players to move more agile across a map. Players can slide, run, crouch, and many things more.
  • The lights: the standard lighting system for Fortnite is very plain, but also better in terms of contrast. Still, I want to represent the darkness of these classics but at the same time make the visuals always readable.
  • Weapons: Fortnite has too many mechanics and weapons, and I have to convert somehow the weapons from Quake to a Fortnite counterpart. That can lead to a lot of balancing issues. I need to test it.

The future of mobile games

Published by Paolo on 04/03/2024

Mobile phones are nowadays in everyone’s hands. Kids are playing mostly from mobile devices (tablets are a big player, they are used also in many schools). Still, when I listen to people talking about the future of mobile games, the discussion is always going around two things:

  1. effective way of stealing ideas (playbooks)
  2. how to hack the marketing machine and get people to install your game more cheaply (performance marketing).

Well, this can be a tactic for the short term, sure. But for the long one, we need to look at things with a critical perspective: mobile games are always the freaking same. We don’t see nowadays the kind of innovation we saw when Supercell, Rovio, and King arrived on the scene. We are still repeating (and improving) formulas, that’s all. And it’s very boring. The most interesting novelties are coming from UGC experiences inside of Roblox, from one side. From the other, we see an exasperation of FOMO, dark patterns, and grinding for the addicts. We are not going too far like this.

We need more game design, more research, and more risk betting on something novel. Of course, the discourse around distribution is very important, but we are distributing always the same and listening to people who are not building interesting games. That’s a huge problem for our industry.

Generative AI will never improve profit margins for companies, AI design and art are just scams. We need to return to the basics, at the drawing board, thinking really in finding interesting formulas for people looking for fun.