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Category: Game Design

Start from Personas

Published by Paolo on 19/12/2022

When you study game design, you usually focus on documents and prototypes for small games. The first steps that are taught in educational centers are purely technical.

Then you are in the market without the skills that make you a professional designer. Which are not the techniques, but are those oriented toward the video game business.

Normally a team reports to one or more managers who maintain a business vision. Our role as designers is to understand how to realize this business vision. We have to think more about endorsing the product than creating something directly. Players will receive the product packed and polished. Technical skills are important, but our ability to understand the business is critical.

Personas are one of the methods that allow this communication across the whole team. I share with you this workshop that aired last Saturday. The audio is bad, but the content is excellent.

If you want to work for companies as an employee or consultant, you need to come up with frameworks that solve concrete business problems. Thinking about who will really play and how to structure a product for them requires effort and is not intuitive.

Removing loot boxes is a mistake

Published by Paolo on 13/12/2022

Journalists and many game developers hate loot boxes. Players of games that feature this mechanic, however, love them. Just see the comments on this video:

It is true that very often considerable amounts of money are invested in order not to get what one wants. This leads many people to overspend and feel guilty. But in general, the thrill of opening a surprise is loved by the Players.

Eliminating these elements from a gaming system is risky because it damages the spend depth on the service. In practice, players will be able to spend much less money to get what they want. Given the number of people paying for a free-to-play game, this measure can be detrimental and seriously damage the service.

I think that this choice was made without taking data into consideration and without listening to the people that plays the game: the Players.

Surely there is a part of the players who will have left because of the disappointment of spending money and not getting what they want. This move maybe is a way to re-engage part of the churn. But successful games are built on Players, so people who stay and play, not those who choose to leave.

  • They could have tried split testing workarounds instead of announcing the new design before of getting the numbers proving that it actually works.
  • They could have those new ideas running in parallel with the loot box system.

This is NOT how we use to work in free-to-play. It seems like a AAA brand awareness move. I believe that they chose to follow their instincts. They are the experts, of course. For me, it is a big mistake.

Create tools only for good games

Published by Paolo on 06/12/2022

As game developers, we often focus on the wrong things which can lead to not achieving our objectives. We might worry about having the wrong team or not having enough time or money, but there is one thing that we don’t talk about enough: production choices.

In f2p, a mistake is to focus on developing development tools without first having a profitable game. For example, if you have a game with characters with their stats, you might develop a tool that allows you to update and set those statistics. But if the game itself doesn’t work, then that tool will have been a wasted effort.

In the past, it was common for developers to create an engine for a series of games. It meant investing a lot of time and money into something that hadn’t been proven to work. The development team would then focus on making the best engine rather than the game itself.

The great masters of game development have always said that the key is to focus on the game itself. The tools should be developed to support the game, not with plans for possible “plan B” games in mind. There are countless examples of games that were unknown or failed, but had great tools behind them.

In short, it’s important to focus on the game itself over the development tools. Only by doing so can we achieve our objectives and make great games.

AI to improve my workflow

Published by Paolo on 05/12/2022

Recently, I began a new collaboration that I hope will yield positive results. I apologize for not writing in a while due to the overwhelming amount of work I have been facing.

act like you are an interactive romance story

I am currently testing the ChatGPT tool and find it incredibly fascinating. I believe that this type of technology can help me become more productive and improve my abilities.

Using ChatGPT, you can write prompts and generate well-done, yet basic, content. To create truly human and original content, you will need to add your own input and edit the generated content.

Overall, I believe that using ChatGPT will save me hours of work and allow me to focus on other important tasks.

Connect and open your mind

Published by Paolo on 29/11/2022

If you want to stay in this video game industry for a long time, I recommend you connect with many people. I take part in various Discord and Slack groups and this allows me to have a broader view of things. Sometimes simple things happen that make me completely change my paradigm.

During a casual conversation on game design, I discovered this article on how to write good GDDs.

I start with the UX when thinking about a new design. But after discussing it with the writer of this article I have changed my mind. The message of today is this:

I used to think that my client, as game designer, is the Player. But I actually have two clients: the Player and the Product Manager. My duty, during the development of a game, is to provide solutions to the Product Management so that they can deliver value to the Players through the game.

Ethan Levy

He passed me this interesting speech of his from 2018, and I recommend it to everyone.

Respect the art of game design

Published by Paolo on 28/11/2022

I met a prospective client the other day who needed simple service. Given a set of published games, derive a design document that specifies everything that should be included in the final game.

The goal of the document was for a programmer to take it and figure out exactly what to do to produce the final game.

I told him his dream is beautiful, but that remains so. Making a game is not an assembly line; the specification documents that other developers need to work with must be produced based on real development needs.

The best way to be successful in video games is to maintain a certain degree of realism and respect for this art that is so difficult to master.

Mobile cloud as a feature

Published by Paolo on 15/11/2022

The classic way to start a new mobile game is:

  1. For some reason, I arrive at the virtual store
  2. I choose the game to install and tap the Install button
  3. I wait for it to install. Some games are huge.
  4. I start and there is a stage where the screen is dark
  5. I wait while looking at a splash screen for a few seconds, less than 15
  6. In case there are updates this time increases
  7. I am introduced to the game.

The games of the future should be like this:

  • For some reason, I arrive at the virtual store
  • I choose the game and PLAY
  • I wait less than 2 seconds
  • I am introduced to the game

It seems like an impossible feature, but that’s what will make the difference for me.

Reviews are your best friend

Published by Paolo on 10/11/2022

Whenever you are starting a new game project or if you are working on LiveOps for an old one, you have a free asset that is very useful: reviews.

Only a small part of Players are willing to leave reviews for your games, especially in free-to-play. Videogames can ask directly in-game to leave a review, but not everyone does so. They do not represent in any case the dominant opinions, but they are useful to spot opportunities for your game.

  • If you read critical reviews and you notice something that repeats a lot, that something can be converted into a unique selling point for your game.
  • If you read positive reviews and you notice something that repeats a lot, that something should be a must-have for your game.

Use Steam or Data.ai to filter out positive and negative reviews. Remember Pareto’s principle. Use always 80% of other games and innovate on the 20%.

  • 80% you should take can be read in positive reviews that repeat
  • 20% of novelty can be read in critical reviews that repeat

Analyze the reviews of the main game you are taking as a competitor, but also of its clones and competitors!

What? There are NO clones of that game? You are probably choosing the wrong competitor and you will hardly manage to have success in its field.

I broke it!

Published by Paolo on 09/11/2022

One of the trends I see in mobile game design comes from the hyper-casual wave of games: games that you can break.

Link to original Tweet

It helps the game get viral, players feel smart and it’s clever. Especially in multiplayer games, it works great!

One may feel that designers made bad work, but it’s not always the case. Often there are surprising discoveries in the process!

Can your game be broken by the Players? If not, can you make some mechanics less controlled to open up to that possibility?

Renovation Mechanic

Published by Paolo on 18/10/2022

According to the Cambridge Dictionary the renovation is the act or process of repairing and improving something, especially a building so that it is in good condition again.

Industry experts don’t stop talking about the trend of renovation mechanics in casual games. Why do they work? According to this brand new video, because they are a driver for Player progression.

Game design disciplines

Renovation mechanic is so popular across teams because gives work to all the design team:

  • Narrative design plays a critical role in delivering a memorable story
  • Level designers can use the environment to convey the story (environmental storytelling)
  • UX Designers are key to deliver a smooth experience, making the switch between puzzle match and renovation as smooth as possible
  • Systems Designers help find the right economy to support all the actions according to the Players’ session daily number and duration.

Acting for the renovation

In casual games, the act of renovation consists of:

  1. choosing a task to complete
  2. use one or more stars to perform it
  3. introductory dialogue
  4. select a style for the furniture
  5. renovation cutscene
  6. story dialogue
Town Story: Renovation Match-3 Puzzle Game

The story is usually delivered as a consequence of the act of renovation.

Repairing and Improving

Have you ever asked yourself WHY is this mechanic so popular among casual games? To me it is because those games are about putting things in order.

  • In match-3 games you put things in order, in line
  • In popper games you clean the patterns that you spot
  • In merge games you make space on the board

All those games have extra goals that consist often of an obstacle. The frustration of not beating a level for that obstacle is a driver for monetization but also of churning out, as this brilliant LinkedIn post by Yasin Hatiboğlu.

All those levers fit perfectly with repairing and improving, with the metaphor of renovation.

Building

Last but not least, in service games for mobile phones there is something very present in Players’ minds. You have a world waiting for you that you are helping build somehow. You don’t just have a game to complete, those games are infinite.

The fantasy of free-to-play games, the aspirational aspect of those, almost always contains this: it’s your help and your choice that help build the World you have in your pocket.