For the next year I dream of an industry always more diverse and fresh.
I hope that all communities and also minorities will feel more included in it.
I hope to see also people from other sectors joining the industry bringing some fresh air.
I hope to see more junior professionals with an opportunity to really show off their talent.
I really hope to see this thing expanding as it deserves!
If you are reading this post it means that probably you are following my blog. This post is just to say you that I wish you a merry Christmas, thank you for reading every day!
I want to really contribute to the games industry in a meaningful way. I don’t know if I will ever work on a game changing video game, but I know that I can inspire others in doing that. I believe that the industry is going better and better but that we are in the desperate need of new bold ideas.
That is why we are seeing all this excitement around new concepts and technology, such as the metaverse and/or the crypto. Love them or hate them, but the subtle concept to me is that the World is looking for something different than AAA, indie and free-to-play. Something to push the industry forward.
My intention, really, is to help this something to came out from the nowhere. Maybe in a dark cave, with a bull and a donkey! That’s the true spirit of Christmas to me: respect the humble things because from there a true revolution can start.
Merry Christmas!
I am writing this post from my hometown Naples, in Italy. This is the city where the Pizza was born when the queen of Italy, Margherita di Savoia, was going to the south of the country to visit the people here. That is why the first, and maybe most famous, pizza in the World has the color of the Italian flag and is named Margherita.
This city has two active volcanoes, Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei. As you can imagine it is not the safest place in the World. Still it is my mother, here I grew until 28 and here is where I had my basic education.
With the Pandemic, my job literally exploded. I now work for a company but I offer my services to a client here in Naples. They offer me their office space also when I am here. The client is AppIdeas, they are a strong team doing hypercasual games for publishers.
This year we had also a success, the hit Level Up Runner reached more than 1 million people. You may want to check it out!
I really hope this is the start of a new sector here in Italy. Right now there is not so much, especially in the South. Someone has to start helping, I think. I will definitely try it!
Do you keep a handwritten journal for your gameplays? I think it is a fundamental part of my routine as a game designer.
We use everyday a lot of different tools, each one with its subscription models and stuff. But nothing can substitute a journal. On a journal you are alone with your inner self. In a journal you can identify clearly your personality. If you don’t keep a journal is super hard to not become a follower of trends and methods you don’t fully understand.
Do it now! Start a Gameplay Journal.
For every game you play and every time you play it, write a new entry down. What should you write? Well, it’s your journal. I can say you what I write down. This work in my own case.
First of all, I describe in detail everything that I remember. I describe without giving any opinion. “I like this, I don’t like that” is not really important. The important thing is what did I felt in any occasion.
When I am speaking about a new mechanic that I can identify, I sketch also a flow of its rules and how that works. I do it quickly, I don’t have to double check it and pass it to a developer. So that it’s just a way to train my quickness, somehow. I felt that I complete tasks at my day job way faster since I do that.
Finally, I try to reason on design choices and its audience. I also try to stress my assumptions imagining possible risks for the design approaches I find.
When you write down with your bare hands the brain makes connections that are not possible to make with a computer monitor writing with a keyboard. Keep use pen and paper, you will never regret it!
Data means nothing without the ability to get meaningful information from it.
I still see a lot of discussions around pure data everyday, most of them completely pointless.
“I am sure this works, data says it clearly!”. False, data is raw. Data says nothing. Data has to be put in context.
“You think our players would like this? Let’s prove it with data!”. You will never prove anything with data, you should write down concrete hypotheses and then take the raw data and transform it first in information and, only after, in insight.
“Yes, I also like this. But I want to see the data first!”. If you want to make real games you should consider just being bold sometimes. If you really like something, put it on! Players will appreciate that. If results are bad, I swear, it will probably depend on other things.
If you use the data-driven approach, you risk to really miss your point because when anything becomes the subject of our analysis the result of this analysis will be influenced by this fact. You should use data to get information to inform your design decisions, not to drive them.
Play-to-earn, the metaverse, NFTs, cryptocurrencies are not here to destroy the gaming industry. I agree that there is a lot of unjustified hype around those new technologies. Early adoption is always like this.
The main discourse is too centered on two points: technology and money. And this is NOT where there is the real value of all this. Investors are joining in with crazy numbers. Millions invested in companies without a single game published. It’s weird, but believe me: it’s not the end of the gaming industry.
Historically, video games (together with military techs and porn) have always been pioneers for new techs. It is normal, since they offer a pretty safe testing field to try out things. So that it is completely normal to have continuous hypes and fashions.
But I learnt working in free-to-play for years that players generally put their attention and money in something they really enjoy. So don’t worry. The gaming industry is not about to end soon.
If you are thinking that all those novelties are a disaster for our beloved industry, I kindly suggest you to go deep studying the new trends! Those judgements and fears always come from ignorance.
If you want to get a job as a game designer do the job, don’t look for it. You have to be already working as a game designer if you want to hope to being paid for that.
I remember when I was compulsively looking for a job sending resumes. Poor me.
“I sent 5 resumes today, I have done my job.”. That was my comfort zone.
Some job offer put “having participated in at least 5 projects from start to end”. Some other was more intrepid: “having participated in the complete development of a TOP250 grossing game”. The good old days of 2013!
I started, every single morning, waking up early. Having my shower and breakfast. Dressing up with my best clothes, putting my shoes and my clock on. Working all the day at my desk, at least 8 hour per day. Imagining I was going to my office. I discovered the superpowers that “faking it” enable. I started studying seriously from books at night before of going to bed.
I maintained a document with all the job offers and companies here in Barcelona. I studied their games and imagined to work on those. In fact, those games had already their players and their competitors.
Deconstructing games is a process mostly mechanic at start. Start from the simple screen flow, make a brickfile. Spot their competitors and do the same. You find a feature that some competitor has and the game you are studying doesn’t? You have your design task! Use what you learnt from books and step by step build your own design framework. This is your secret, in your method there is your value.
Probably those companies you are monitoring will never hire you. They are still looking for the “best talent”. A game designer who worked on successful games. The dream, the rockstar. Nevermind, it’s YOU that want to work as game designer. They are too busy in filtering out people like you. So don’t wait for a company to let you in. Just do it.
Try to create and maintain meaningful connections in the industry. I created a meetup, the Barcelona Game Design Meetup. My intention was to join game designers also from other companies. I ignored their strict policies most of those company had, instead. I also ignored that often people working for those companies are NOT the most motivated persons. They just do their job. They work as game designers, but often they are not intimately designers. I met a lot of wannabies and a few professionals. Making connections is still very useful. I just enjoyed any opportunity to talk about game design. Any opportunity!
The other day I was listening to a YouTube video (yeah, listening) with 2 people that I consider industry experts talking about leadership in videogames.
One of the two quoted this sentence from Orson Welles:
“…in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
His point was that, as a leader, you shouldn’t try to create a peaceful environment. In fact, great things come out from hard times.
This post is not to enter in the center of the question. In fact, those persons are people with at least five years more experience than me. And in companies with great products where I dream working someday. So that for the sake of this post they are right.
But I ask myself: what do I want to do with my job?
Do I want to become a name like Leonardo or Michelangelo? Or do I want to create something that brings fun in every place it is placed, like a cuckoo clock?
My name is Paolo and I am a game designer. I live in Barcelona, Spain.
I work as an employee for a company called Tangelo Games, where I am a senior game designer.
I also have a consulting business for small clients, I manage some projects and offer help on creative solutions.
Since the work has been growing a lot in recent months, I decided to start a blog to express myself. My insights, privileged moments of awareness.
I hope you can find some inspiration to make great games in these pages!
Feel free to contact me I am a pretty open person!