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Tag: design

On analysis and deconstructions

Published by Paolo on 07/11/2023

In the last decade lots of satellite businesses built around the games. I have to say, especially since the boom of free-to-play, late 2012. One of them is analysis and break downs.

There are lots of services that offer data and screenshots of existing games, successful or not. A company or a private may pay a subscription to get access to those and save time in theory. Make better forecasts.

I have learned over the years that business managers hate uncertainty. Also if it is almost impossible in games to predict a success, economists and marketers hate what we game designers love the most: getting lost into a forest of creativity. Iterate, until the game is perfect. Business people prefer instead to rely on data from other companies, other contexts, other teams and follow their lead. If you want to work as a game designer for the industry, you have to deal with this bs.

I believe instead that every context is a different context. That our life is short, like very short (probably you will have around 40 summers left, think about it). It’s better to create something unique and maybe fail. Than create something that somehow already exists… and then fail!

It’s interesting to read break downs and analysis, but do not forget: those games we love are made by other people in other countries with other budgets and history. Never forget this and focus on put your own voice out. Own your thing.

MDA from artifacts to services

Published by Paolo on 26/10/2023

MDA is great to start, but as you can read on their paper it was created where the games were considered artifacts.

Nowadays many successful games are services, the model should be updated to me.

  1. considering not just mechanics, but themes and fantasies
  2. considering not only dynamics, but the journey
  3. identifying more aesthetics based on “stress relief”, “entertainment” and “engagement”

Theme or mechanics first?

Published by Paolo on 25/10/2023

There are many approaches to game design, but the most common ones are two: “theme -> mechanics” and “mechanics -> theme”.

Sid Meyer is one of the most famous representatives of the “theme -> mechanics” approach. In that fashion, you start from a fantasy, an experience you want to offer to the Players. Then you describe all the mechanics needed to realize that fantasy. Mechanics should offer meaningful choices for the theme to be properly implemented.

Shigeru Miyamoto is a master of the other approach, mechanics -> theme. His games try to find the most engaging and fun mechanics with lots of possibilities. Those games offer surprising twists, using a Japanese technique inherited from drama: kishotenketsu. The mechanics define new in this way new themes. If you look at the most famous games, the theme sounds pretty crazy. It’s because it is defined by mechanics, not the other way around.

What about us? Should we choose one approach and go for it or look for a synthesis? That is up to you, to me the important thing is to be aware of our choice and not leave it to chance.

Game design with mandinga

Published by Paolo on 16/10/2023

There is a Brazilian word I learned by practicing Capoeira: mandinga.

Like many words from Brazilian Portuguese, its origin goes up to Africa. The original “mandingueiros” were Muslim literates who compared to other enslaved people knew how to read and write. That’s why they were considered like magicians, almost.

“Mandinga é fazer com pouco, muito!”. Old Capoeira masters speak these words: mandinga is to make a lot with a few things.

This knowledge from the history of our World can be adapted to game design, too:

  • When you have budget 10, it’s better to design a game for budget 3. Your team will thank you later. Explain mandinga to the voices telling you you are not being ambitious enough.
  • When you don’t have access to all the best talents in the World, remember that games like Counter-Strike, League of Legends, and Candy Crush Saga were not created by people with huge tracks.
  • It’s better to do one-two things very well than five-seven average. Remember that the value is in the IPs you create, not in the features you add.

Put a little bit of mandinga in your game design!

A prompt to start them all

Published by Paolo on 02/10/2023

If your manager or client gives you a specific goal, you should be able to think of everything you need to consider your tasks done.

Game design is also design, so that is also solving problems. Frankly, it’s hard to predict precisely everything you will encounter on your path.

Use the help of the AI to improve this part. AI will probably give you lots of wrong information, too. But it’s great to not have to start from scratch.

Try out a prompt like this:
“You are the lead game designer for a new game. [add here more detail on the game]. Your manager gave you 2 weeks to complete a {task}. Write in a table format all the steps needed to reach the goal successfully. Please, use this {columns} format.

{task}: tutorial
{columns}: days, tasks title, description, KPI, needs”

(you should edit and tailor this prompt, it’s just an example NOT a template)

When you have the output, work on that table and prepare to make the right promises to your manager/client.

PRO TIP: it’s better to promise 1 thing and deliver 3 than 3 things and deliver 1. Fight for your rights! If you see 5 tasks that you can do in 2 weeks, tell them you can do 2-3. Then surprise them with the rest, in case you manage to be fast! We suck at estimations, and that’s a human feature, not a bug. But the reason for that is for another post.

No more famous designers

Published by Paolo on 26/09/2023

When I read the history of games, I think of its present too. Modern game developers will never become legendary like Miyamoto, Kojima, or Iwatani. We will probably never see a David Jaffe again in the future.

The industry is establishing processes and has become less risky and creative. We will probably never have the chance of being famous again.

And that’s actually a good thing.

Choosing your visual style

Published by Paolo on 25/09/2023

There are two lenses with which to check the visual style of your game. Consider them in this exact order.

  1. The first is the lens of invitation to play. The marketer calls this user acquisition (horrible naming, as always. :P). The people watch a video or an image showing your game and decide to take a step into your magic circle. Users decide to install your game, using that cold terminology of business. You are investing money to reach your audience so the visual style is very important at this stage. You should consider the devices from which the people will watch your trailers.
  2. The second step is the realization of the fantasy proposed to the Players. People made the step into the magic circle and became Players. The game makes them a promise and offers a fantasy. If the visuals unmatch their expectation, they can feel something is not OK. For instance, in my case, I have played RPGs my whole life. When I open a modern gacha-based RPG from Asia nowadays, I see boobs and sexy poses everywhere. That hypersexualization makes me step out of the magic circle. Using the boring business language, I will not retain (really business guys? retain? What a terrible word choice, honestly…)

Common visual styles are cartoon, stylized, low poly, and realistic.

Remember: first there is the invitation to play and then the realization of a fantasy. To balance those two things is an art. The art of game design. Especially the marketing and art department are responsible for that. Game designers help their communication.

Game design connected with empathy and culture

Published by Paolo on 21/09/2023

I was walking with a friend and we were thinking about why so many f2p games aren’t good, from a design point of view. So excluding bad market research, imprecise budgets, lack of planning, and things like that.

There are games that are enjoyed by players more than other games that are essentially identical. Is it due solely to the firepower of marketing? Or is there something in the design?

For me, there is a great responsibility in game design. Game design intended as the collective effort of the whole team, from the head of product to the junior QA.

On the one hand, there is the problem of copying, without understanding why a certain type of game works. A desk is a dangerous place from which to see the World, John Le Carré said.

At the other extreme we find teams capable of empathizing, but who do not share the typical practices of free-to-play. They never spend a cent on a game downloaded for free, they don’t put themselves in the players’ shoes. Even if they have the ability to empathize, they do not.

Games that fail do so for a thousand different reasons. Those that are successful, however, have always a clear reason behind it: a team that believes in the product. And it does so because empathizes with the Players. There is a cultural discourse that must be taken into consideration.

The company culture is shaped by each person who comes in with their own energy. You can define the values you would like in your team, but people are much more complex. It’s about understanding what people are with you and what you can create with that. The empathy starts with you.

  • Empathy doesn’t mean your child likes the game your company is playing.
  • Empathy does not mean achieving a good D3/D1 ratio.
  • Empathy does not mean that the reviews are positive.

Empathy means putting yourself in a player’s shoes and participating in the event you launched this weekend. Become a player of your game, play your game every day. Be present in playtests where unknown people try your game and also other similar games. If your team connects with people, a social casino game can be very stimulating even for a technical artist who wants to create RPGs.

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…