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Tag: design

My creative drive these days

Published by Paolo on 31/08/2023

I am reading this classic book on game design, called Rules of Play. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman. The book manages to join thoughtfulness with a practical breakdown of things.

In chapter 12 there is a note about what drives a game designer. It can be:

  • The will to change some rule
  • Explore storytelling
  • Visual aesthetics
  • Social interaction
  • Explore new technologies.

In my case, the context influences my drive. All those points are interesting to me, I have to feel there is a clear vision to help close up land down. I love to connect the dots, more than strive for a revolution.

There are “the Kojimas”, that come and shape the future with their vision and personality. But those are like unicorns, the majority of us are good to serve and deliver.

About storytelling

Published by Paolo on 30/08/2023

When we use the word storytelling, very often we mean “telling a story”.

Storytelling is the process of communicating through a story. The goal is to give emotion, to persuade, and also to sell something inside of the game.

Game design offers many tools to build the story to reach this goal:

  • Gameplay (or UX) design helps leaving to mechanics some story outcome. We saw the other day the critical success/failure
  • System design identifies resources, rewards, and balances to give proper meaning to each action
  • Narrative design offers concept, worldbuilding, characters, dialogues, cutscenes
  • Level design enables the learning of core concepts (skill atoms) and arranges the environment.

The storytelling process:

– starts from concrete goals to achieve

– identifies what is measurable and how*

– creates and implements the story to excite, persuade, and sell.

When your game is silent, still offers a narrative. Still tells a story. Dozens of games are published every day. The way of communicating through the story is one of the keys for the Players to choose us.

* Not everything should be measurable, that is a common misconception. Not everything that cannot be measured should stay out of the equation. But that’s another post.

A little on my freelancer life

Published by Paolo on 28/08/2023

When I chat with people in my industry, I see that there is some confusion about the freelance career.

  1. The first is that people decide to freelance when they can’t find alternatives. A stopgap solution.
  2. The second is that it is better to specialize a lot to become more recognized as a professional.
  3. The third is that we serve when there is too much work to do and generally for secondary tasks.

Well, like all myths, all the points mentioned have a basis of truth.

A stopgap solution?

I started to freelance because I couldn’t adapt to the typical “job application -> first interview -> test -> ghosted” loop, back in 2016. Instead of wasting time with processes that in 80% of cases lead to nothing, I decided to start creating value.

I decided to devote myself to being a game designer, first on personal projects. Fictional ones. Every day I dressed up, put my clock on, and started working imagining I was earning money for that. Fake it until you make it is about that! I started sharing everything online, I decided to be the best game designer I could possibly be. The first contacts arrived, from companies that had ghosted me! “Hey, would you be interested in a small commission?“.

So yes, at first it was definitely a stopgap solution. But then one discovers that there is a great hidden value. It is not for everyone, I had my fathers supporting me. Otherwise it would have been impossible.

Better to become a specialist?

For me, game design is divided into narrative, level, system, and gameplay. In f2p mobile, the words “system” and “gameplay” are very often changed for “economy” and “UX”. I do everything.

  • I write dialogues and conceptualize worlds.
  • I craft levels in the engine documenting everything.
  • I create systems and economies using simple and understandable spreadsheets.
  • I create wireframes, mock-ups, and flows based on player narratives.

I don’t want to specialize in anything, because it’s not convenient in my case. If you are “the level designer that made the most successful levels in <insert famous game name>“, go for specialization. But I have not (still) had the opportunity to work on a super successful game. And most of the professionals are the same. I prefer to be a Swiss knife, that way my life is more interesting and I get more assignments.

It is true that there are very capable specialists who earn even more. But it is not the only possible way.

Just for marginal tasks?

The third point also has some truth. The first contact comes either from startups or from bigger companies that are overworked. However the clients that remain are those who understand my potential, with whom I have established a relationship.

Having an external expert person in the first place costs less. Secondly, it can help you in case you can’t find the right seniors. Thanks to remote work, I can supervise the work in places where senior professionals don’t go to live. So, in practice, by paying me 1-2 days a week you save the money of a manager (who may even slow things down, if not the right one).

Is freelancing good?

Freelancing is not for everyone and not for every lifestyle. I lead a fairly austere life, without too many frills. But we bring a lot of value. Very often, people who have worked for a company for many years know how to work just for that company. I see everyday the problems of many different realities, so my perspective is broad and I can be faster than normal.

And the extra speed always has consequences, on the body and on the mind. Nothing is free. Some final hint:

  • Learn as many languages as possible. I speak 5 languages. Languages open a lot of opportunities.
  • Never stop learning. My Udemy is always ON and when I can afford I take extra courses.
  • Create connections with service providers to speed up your job. You need partners, as any business.
  • Avoid every kind of friction with people. If you don’t agree with something, say it. But avoid talking bad about people.
  • You need to make professional contacts. Lots of them. Prepare your strategy.

Combat: the center of gravity of game design?

Published by Paolo on 22/08/2023

Lately, I am seeing a lot of high-level solo projects popping around. I don’t know you, but sometimes I am so amazed that I think “What am I doing instead? Am I really a game designer? I mean, look at that!”. I guess it’s completely normal when you have passion for what you do.

One thing in common that I see very much is that the videos shared always show combat. So one may ask:

  • why combat?
  • Are we just violent monkeys always thinking and dreaming about fights and shots?
  • Why does combat have this sort of gravity that always sucks in the best designers?

To me, it’s not that we are doomed, to me it’s because combat fits perfectly in the true meaning of games. Let me explain.

Good reasons to put combat everywhere

We play games for a lot of reasons, but most of them are directly linked to our survival skills. To have fun is, to speak synthetically, to learn. And to learn is to improve our survival skills. Having to beat something or someone is part of the metaphor of survival.

Another good reason to me is that combat is a great way to realize game mechanics into a meaningful feedback loop. If you throw a ball for nothing, that physical mechanic in the long term can be very boring. If you have to hit cans you have a more interesting goal. If the objective is not a can but something that can hurt you, that gives you more motivation. The fun closure happens when you can throw the ball -> the ball hits and you see the feedback -> your score improves after that feedback! So that you can do the same over and over again and improve your score.

Combat has become in recent years also a design specialization. You can see a lot of offers out there for “combat designers”. Combat is for Players accessible and compelling. Many mechanics are easy to model and mix thanks to combat.

So, friends, we can rest assured. We are not awful beings, as humans we intuitively spot and take all possible shortcuts. As Players, we love to aim and kill, because we can train without getting hurt. As Designers, we can show off our craft and present our ideas in a fun context.

Rules and worldbuilding

Published by Paolo on 21/08/2023

The success of Baldur’s Gate represents for many the triumph of things done right. It’s always nice to see that creations made with a love for art can go far.

As a game designer, I also want to join the discussion by contributing my grain of sand. Baldur’s Gate 3 has the advantage of a system of rules that is well-known in a niche of players. When we say “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons” we refer to the license and intellectual property. But from a game design standpoint, it’s much more. Holding a license is not simply holding the right to use characters. It means having a significant part of the design work already done.

When you create any game, you create a magic circle that players voluntarily choose to enter. In the magic circle, they will find rules and a world that they can like or dislike. Creating rules and the world is a very important part of a game.

  • Dungeons & Dragons rules are based on the roll of the dice.
  • There are numerical factors to add and subtract from each roll. Those factors depend on the characters and the context. There is an interesting connection with the narrative.
  • The system also allows for surprises. In jargon, critical failure and critical success. In practice, things can get surprisingly good or bad. And that is how unexpected moments can twist your story completely.

Baldur’s Gate 3 also uses the Forgotten Realms setting. Imagine 2 decades ago. Some Dungeons & Dragons players create a campaign. They draw maps and create legendary characters. They decide to publish this setting so that other groups can create stories and enrich them. That is how Forgotten Realms and many other settings are born.

In game design, we call this worldbuilding. Another expensive part of our trade. Do you think it’s easy to create a world with dragons and magic that is consistent and players accept as decent? Well, it’s not. It’s very easy to get it wrong. Players of tabletop RPGs are extremely knowledgeable in fantasy fiction. They read a lot, they study a lot and it’s not easy to please them. If you meet that niche, chances are that you can also reach a massive audience.

Someone says that if 10 people are true fans of your product, your product has a chance to become a massive hit. Having a system of rules and worldbuilding already available is a tremendous advantage.

The past to get a vision

Published by Paolo on 16/08/2023

There are people who are able to read the situation in the video game industry and create a vision. This isn’t enough to create a successful game, but it’s definitely a start.

Rather than pretending to forecast numbers, they are capable of looking back.

That makes a lot of sense, actually. Whatever kind of game you want to create, study the market for 10 years now. By studying its evolution, in fact, it is possible to understand trends, errors, and choices.

This helps to trace a backward path and identify possible forks that could arise in the future!

A large part of the future audience of a certain genre will be the people who are playing that type of game today. With a few more years, but above all with a lot of knowledge that will come from the past. That will lead to their gaming choices for the future.

Remote presentations

Published by Paolo on 17/07/2023

When I started my career as a junior, I remember spending a lot of time preparing pitches for my ideas. I arrived at the moment of the presentation, I felt all those vibrations. Most of my proposals were debunked.

I learned a key concept: people coming to a presentation must know pretty much all its content. The presentation is useful for confirming consent, but these must be created first. Part of the wok is political: it is a question of building consensus before the presentation.

In the remote world, all this has changed a lot. Now everything is asynchronous, communicating on Slack/Discord and making decisions faster. It’s also more participatory, it’s not about creating a presentation. It’s about writing and sharing documents that will be read and commented on by the team. This will happen asynchronously, everyone reads when, how much, and how they can.

Whoever raises his voice no longer wins, and you have to be very synthetic. I’d say it’s a big step forward, but it comes with a clear cost. It is necessary to establish processes, otherwise, many ideas will fall into the void.

Exciting goals

Published by Paolo on 13/07/2023

The structure of the objectives of a game must be clear, but also and above all exciting.

At the time of classic arcade games, players had to pass the level and get the highest score. This was exciting in that context, where one could brag to friends or show off one’s prowess.

The console age built on that, adding storytelling over the years. Also in other contexts, the players could comment on their achievements. I remember phone calls with friends to explain how to beat a Weapon in Final Fantasy VII. Strategy guides and magazines with reviews were popular. And it was like this thanks to this desire to understand and discover new exciting goals to achieve.

Social games have summed up all this past, allowing us to collaborate to achieve goals. The metagame concept has developed, you can reach certain objectives even without playing. The experience allows even casual players to take part in something fun. There was also a cleaning up of objectives that were getting too complex. This is thanks to understanding and profiling players.

As game designers, we must always ask ourselves where they will play and how much time they will want to invest.

Fun fact: the most engaged casual players and those who will spend the most will

  1. come back every day (regulars)
  2. come for a minute, but stay for an hour.

Expanding the intellectual property

Published by Paolo on 05/07/2023

Years ago the free-to-play game Fallout Shelter was released. It is still one of the most appreciated mobile games nowadays.

The game is based on one of the fantasies from the Fallout series, but, and this is very important, not the central one. The fantasy of the shelters where people take refuge after the atomic apocalypse. A great idea!

In my humble opinion, the best way to use an AAA game’s IP to create a mobile game is not to transfer the original experience to the closest genre there. That’s the way to infuriate the fanbase, actually.

The best way is to find a marginal but recognizable fantasy. A few examples that come to mind:

Horizon: the fantasy of the tribes with their clothes and their colors. A doll dressing game?

Red Dead Redemption: the fantasy of poor towns with their vices. Maybe a dating sim?

I could go on for hours.

Keep always in mind that free-to-play mobile is essentially entertainment. Don’t think about using IP to make more money, think about expanding it.

(I admit this is hard to accept)

The first step for a good prototype

Published by Paolo on 04/07/2023

Imagine you have to inform programmers about the development of a new feature. For the first iteration, it is always better to think of a single use case.

We game designers think in systems. Some go so far as to say “Game design is system design”. A system means having actors in a relationship, creating a space of possibilities.

For a new feature, it’s best to think of a single path to implement first. Someone talks about MVP, a minimum viable product. I have always preferred the expression “prototype”.

Without losing sight of the vision, respect the steps necessary for its development. The first step is best to be on the direct path.