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Tag: professional

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.

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.

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.

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.

Interesting interview to mr. Owen Mahoney

Published by Paolo on 03/12/2025

Mr. Owen Mahoney is one of the few outspoken gaming CEOs out there that speaks actual game development language. I listened to this interview and one thing has made me think a lot, also because it’s not well explained.

Mr. Mahoney talks about the importance of looking at the future intentions of a team or company to understand its shape. He makes the specific example of the founder of Embark, who wanted to make something new, something different. But that’s always the case whenever there is a sales opportunity. We do want to show what we did, our experience, but we also want to say, “Hey, we are building the future here; do not miss the opportunity to go with us towards it.”

How can we really understand when we are in front of a good company? Now I want to switch my discourse from the perspective of an employee or a consultant. How to understand that the client or employer we have in front of us is the right bet for our next 2-5 years? That’s a matter of gut feeling, but is there a way to make a sort of due diligence? That’s what I would like to ask Mr. Mahoney.

What I did while waiting

Published by Paolo on 01/12/2025

I read this article that expresses something I started saying at least 7 years ago: social media are new forms of online role playing games.

Back in 2015 I was working for a soccer games company and I pitched them a farm game but with soccer. My pitch got approved, but we didn’t manage to arrive to the first playable of the game for a series of reasons. Regarding my responsibility, it was because basically I had no experience in managing a big budget project within an already estabilished company. Plus I was in a hard moment of my life and well, things didn’t get good for me.

But the idea evolved in my mind and years later, in 2019, I pitched another game based on the same concept of a youth soccer academy to a local videogames incubator. My vision was exactly that the game should perform like a social media. There was an infinite feeds of event, and many characters posted their updates. By interacting with those posts, you basically managed the evolution of the school and the success of your team.

I still believe in that vision, but it didn’t worked because I had no money and didn’t had good founders for that stage. I got people that just wanted a job, and it wasn’t the case.

I am thankful for all these experience and I believe in waiting for the right moment. Maybe the right moment for me to put out something truly mine will come, maybe it will not. The important thing is to have the possibility of designing games every single day, in the end.

Start making memorable levels

Published by Paolo on 29/11/2025

If you are making levels professionally, you cannot just jump in the engine and placing shapes and mechanics here and there. You need a way of plan and communicate your design choices ahead. The big picture of the level and how it fits into the overall scheme of things is very much needed.

That’s why we use beat charts, a spreadsheet that puts everything in perspective. In my case, I have these fields:

  • Level ID: Unique name for the level, it should also correspond to the actual scene or map name inside of the engine.
  • Layout: a screenshot (or a link to a screenshot) of the level so that you and your teammates can directly recognize them when you have dozens levels.
  • Skill atom: the original unique thing the Player should learn or confirm during this level
  • Twist: if there is a special twist, describe it here. This can be filled later and just planned with a true/false text
  • List of mechanics: each column a single mechanic and a true/false if that mechanic is present inside of a level. Put the columns in order of appearance
  • Difficulty: the % of players who will not pass the level or die at least once.
  • Narrative: a short brief of what you are conveying to the Players (it can be a story, but also specific emotions)
  • Mood: useful to suggest your mood to environment art or in general artists. Try to put a mood board for them to understand. You can reuse the same mood boards over and over, of course. In this way you will also predict the weight of your design choices.
  • Music: similar to mood but put your musical references focusing on the feeling the Player should experiment during the level.

A clockmaker’s craft

Published by Paolo on 25/11/2025

Many confuse casual games with simple games. Casual games permit the satisfaction of instinctual needs in small (2–5 minute) play sessions. However, many hardcore players of these casual games can play them for hours. In fact, they are the players who actually maintain the business.

I’ve worked on a bunch of them, and I feel like a clockmaker. They may feel simple, but they are deep: you move one gear and you must check all the others connected to it. You need patience to achieve the sweet spot (the perfect balance).

To properly study your competitors, you need to analyze them in immense detail. You may even need to record a session and review it frame-by-frame to fully understand the game’s circuit and how it works.

Vulnerable latitude

Published by Paolo on 24/11/2025

I have met plenty of professionals who don’t actually love working in games, including game designers. I’m sure this is not news to you, and I also believe that everyone has a right to work in an industry as big as gaming, even if only for a while.

Yesterday, I met one of these people, who told me, “Videogames are your beach!” (using a Brazilian, Rio de Janeiro slang phrase). And I agree; I genuinely love my profession.

I have proof of that because I often put myself in a vulnerable financial position just for the sake of engaging in game design. A client might offer me shares as part of my compensation. If I like the client or the project, I accept, even if I know I may never see any money from it. I know that my task will end, the client will close the collaboration, and I will lose all shares.

I know this, and I consciously make that choice because I love what I do.

But I deeply respect the professionals who don’t care too much—the ones who pass through the industry like tourists, earn some money, and move on. They will have the opportunity to explore different things, and their minds probably won’t be 110% focused on games all the time, unlike mine. I respect that attitude very much as well.

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