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Tag: design

Working on my vision of making games

Published by Paolo on 16/05/2022

During my career years I have realised that I cannot predict exactly where my path will lead me. Anyway, I can speculate, dream and plan.

If I continued in the world of free-to-play , I would like to be able to work on a vision that I have been forming over the years at some point. A vision on a positive way of creating free-to-play games.

This type of game needs a huge number of people to play, as normally 2% of them decide to invest money and help you sustain the business. Here’s why we see fake ads, intrusive pop-ups that block gameplay, dark patterns, and so on. On the one hand, the number of instals will be increased by improving the chances of finding players. On the other hand, we try to improve conversion to payers.

If we carefully analyse the market we see that there are games capable of generating enormous benefits in a short time. There are also other games that generate less benefits in the short term, but that last much longer over the years.

Think of the case of hyper casual games, games that when they are successful last very little (at most a few months). Think now of free-to-play web games like Drakensang Online, which have been on the market for 16 years.

These days I will talk about this vision that I have developed and how I would apply it. Maybe I can move some interesting energy!

The art of Prototyping

Published by Paolo on 13/05/2022

At the beginning of each game project there is a prototyping phase. Prototypes help teams to agree on a vision, to have something concrete to discuss. Deciding what goes into a prototype is a matter of experience and, I would say, an art in itself!

In most cases, an exciting idea leads a group of people to want to quickly create something well done. The final prototype then focuses on proving a thesis. 

I believe that a football game where the players are books works: we immediately create the typical mechanics of a football game and, instead of the players, we put books on it. It will be awesome.

There are also cases in which a prototype serves to demonstrate what is wrong with the idea. Some skilled designers manage to use prototypes to undermine their assumptions. It is a work of self-criticism, of searching for weak points. It rarely happens in companies, but it happens in independent projects. And it may lead to something truly unique. 

Returning to the example, I believe that a football game where the players are the books works. I created a prototype centred on how silly this concept of books playing football is. I don't devote myself to creating the mechanics of a soccer game, I am dedicated to creating the nastiest version of a book by running with a ball.

And very often, magic happens!

Whichever method you use, the important thing is to establish clear and measurable objectives, and be ready to discard the prototypes if they have not all been satisfied.

I assure you that more than one frustration is avoided!

System designers, learn board games design!

Published by Paolo on 11/05/2022

If you really want to learn how to design game systems, I recommend starting from board games.

System designers are rare and in high demand in the industry. Especially with the advent of new business models and technologies, people capable of breaking down a game into systems and finding the connections between them are really rare and highly appreciated.

The temptation when starting to design systems is to start by opening a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is by far the most used tool for game development. However, there is no need to open it from the start. When you start thinking about breaking a game down, it is best to use all your senses. Better to use touch and sight, above all.

The best way to start thinking in a system is therefore to prototype the system in the form of a board game. When you work as a game designer your job is to study games that already exist. Also to carry out this very important task, I recommend that you synthesize the video game in question (or the more interesting parts of it) into a board game to really understand all its parts.

Creating board games could save you months of development and playtesting!

Study of Soda Supreme

Published by Paolo on 09/05/2022

Last week I saw a post from some LinkedIn influencer regarding a new liveops from King’s Candy Crush Soda Saga.

When I read the description, I decided to study this feature. In fact, as you can see from the announcement on the game’s official forum, the Soda Supreme feature proposal seems heavily based on monetization:

happy language to announce a disaster

Comments to the feature seem to go into one main direction. Obviously the volumes of people playing these games are huge. The majority is silent and we do not know if it has given good or bad results. As a game designer, I just try to understand the vision behind this, willing to learn from the masters of free-to-play.

That Bricorn may be right!

Then I downloaded the game again and tested the feature out:

I always record my gameplays on my channel (no commentary)

Goals and KPIs

When the Player runs the app, after a second a new screen will appear:

Sorry for the “Screen Recorder” thing on top

The pitch is quite clear: you get rewarded by spending gold bars. The fact that you are using the premium currency is reinforced by a new rewards layer.

Who is the real target of this feature? Payers: Players who use gold bars regurarly during their game sessions.

Probably, the team wants to improve the Gold Bars spending across the game. It will improve ARPDAU, average revenue per daily active user, since it is a time based feature.

Rewards are boosters, power-ups and lives:

the last tier is also the strongest one

There are 20 tiers of rewards. The higher the tier, the better the rewards. Rewards help you beat new games, so that if you spend gold bars you’ll probably beat more levels.

A secondary goal for the feature is probably to improve the engagement with the game. Engagement to me is: session length (minutes) and average sessions per day.

Feature Onboarding

The onboarding is heavily text based
  • The game matches you with a tier, according to your spending rate (I suppose).
  • The promise is to earn 1 special tile booster. I can make that simply by playing!
  • I have 42 hours total to pass to the next tier, otherwise my bar will reset. So that they are definitely looking for more sessions per day and more trials.

I am not sure that is the best way to explain the feature. First of all, I would introduce it starting from the first time the Player spends and/or needs gold bar. Second, the first reward is something I can create by matching 4 tiles in vertical. It would be better having more succulent rewards on lower tiers to foster the will to continue purchasing gold bars also for Players who doesn’t spend too much.

How will I improve this feature?

Candy Crush Soda Saga is an arcade version of the classic Candy Crush Saga. The levels are more blasty and also the challenge is designed for quick results (successes or failures). It’s fast, it’s for the younger cohorts of CCS Players and it has many game modes. The Player has always something to do.

Match-3 games monetize by removing pain points and by adding an interesting layer of strategy. A large part of the Players pay to be able to pass a level in which they are stuck.

  • Pain Point: You have run out of movements, but if you buy 5 more you can beat this!
  • Strategy: You may want to buy a booster to free up some areas on a complicated board.

In Candy Crush Soda Saga gold bars can be bought or won in certain situations. They are a soft currency, so that they are subject to inflation. Which is part of the reason why is very hard to scale those games.

The true potential of Soda Supreme

It would be great to adapt this feature to a ticket system for special levels. You spend gold bars and you earn tiers of special set of levels which give you extra rewards. That would be more meaningful and would probably create a better impact on the game’s community!

Anyway I found this feature really interesting, because it has the courage of taking the monetization directly! We should never forget, anyway, that rewards are great to reinforce successes. They works better as surprises and as the result of a concrete demonstration of skills from the Players. Spending gold bars can give access to new pieces of content, instead, and that would be way more meaningful in my humble opinion!

Game design consultants: hire who’s better than you

Published by Paolo on 05/05/2022

Some time ago I tried an experiment. I hired some people to try to teach them my way of making video games. My goal was not to earn money with those games. I wanted to train a couple of assistants because the number of clients of my consultings is increasing.

The experiment did not go as expected. My time is scarce, so I can’t invest it in training people. I quickly realized my choice was pretty dumb. However, I realized something very important.

If we don’t have time, it is better to delegate to those who know more than us. We will thus make a good impression on our clients. We will also learn new techniques.

Everything a Game Designer must know

Published by Paolo on 27/04/2022

A LinkedIn contact shared a mind map that summarises, from his point of view, everything a game designer needs to know.

Link to the original post

His post was shared and appreciated by many professionals in the sector.

In my opinion, instead, the image is misleading. It just looks at one part of game development: free-to-play business. Free-to-play is only part of a very complex world ranging from board games to virtual reality. I know many people in Europe who are dedicated to the development of indie games and I can assure you that, for example, the “Data” part is ignored by them.

This mind map contains what free-to-play game companies expect from a game designer. Which is very different from the declared purpose.

A person with in-depth knowledge in all of these areas is very likely to feel the work of a game designer frustrating. If I know the game-as-a-service business like the back of my hand, I will continually make proposals that probably won’t be heard. Frustration leads many game designers to jump to other roles, such as product management. Pure game designers, instead, are dedicated to something else!

When you work in free-to-play you gain knowledge in all these areas, but a game designer who does his job well devotes himself to two main activities:

  1. Facilitate tools in the team to decide how the game works
  2. Involve the people who will be playing the games in the process

Facilitate game design tools

The game designers are those who help define:

  • the game systems
  • the way in which the story reaches the players
  • the experience in the game levels
  • the actions necessary to activate the mechanics.

System design, narrative design, level design and gameplay design. In the case of free-to-play: economy design, content design, level design and UX design.

It is good to know the business side and the data side to be informed about what to do, but it is very important to be able to realise the very experience you want to offer people in the game. The necessary qualities are of a technical, artistic and editorial nature.

  1. Create and use spreadsheets, touch JSON files and game engines (technical).
  2. Set up a process, help define the essence of your experience and study well the armony of all the elements of your game (artistic).
  3. Document everything and write stories both for internal inspiration and for the Players (editorial).

Involve people

Too often, busy with many daily tasks, team members forget the main component of a commercial video game: the Players.

Most video games in production will not be commercially successful for exactly this reason. The task of game designers is to involve real people constantly to test the assumptions you have about the players and the market. A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world. You need to go outside, watch people play the game and have meaningful conversations with them.

Product managers, programmers and artists don’t have the time to do this. It is up to the game designers to take care of this. If you don’t, the work comes down to constant deliveries over long periods of time and then comes to nothing. It happens very often.

Conclusion

Game design is a very complex activity, but the role of game designers is very practical and creative. It is about analysing the games and helping the team to define the tools to create the game. Then you will create gaming experiences using these tools.

It is good to know a little bit of everything. Of course, if you want to have a meaningful discussion with a product manager you should speak the language of the business. If, on the other hand, you want to have a conversation with the art director, learning about the history of art and the theory of colours can help you a lot.

But let’s never forget the fundamentals. We game designers do a very practical job!

Player’s Advocate

Published by Paolo on 22/04/2022

The other day I was talking to a colleague. He tells me “you don’t have to worry about the decisions that come up, just think about doing your job. What they tell you to do. “. This for me is the best way to have mediocre products, designed for mediocre people with something to spend. Do your job right, just do what they tell you to do.

Game designers very often are exactly like that. True game design includes, instead, keeping promises to players. Game designers connect with players’ fantasies and offer them the experience they are looking for.

Game designers understand that a “daily bonus” is not gameplay, but simply a feature. They understand this and struggle to pass this concept on to those above as well. If your game as a service has been releasing only features and not gameplay for months, guess what: you have a problem!

If you are this type of designer, you quickly realize that the most important thing in your job is to make sure you create great products and services. Because a game is a language to tell a story. And this story must be true.

Your job is to get people to work on publishing a great game. Not garbage. No shortcuts.

If you are not the Player’s Advocate who will be?

You may target a niche if your game is inherently multiplayer

Published by Paolo on 20/04/2022

When creating a free-to-play game you have two choices. Either you target a very large audience trying to structure the entire player journey to make sense for many months, or you play a game that lets you get to know other people right away and let them build their campfires.

In this second case, an inherently multiplayer game, it is possible to target a niche and build a successful service. Even if it is difficult to compete with the realities that handle more complex services where contents and levels are released every two weeks. You will probably not being a top grossing. Still your service can sustain a meaningful business and last years.

Whatever is your target, ask yourself some questions and make decisions:

  • Gameplay: What is the backbone of your service? How does it guide the rest of the game’s features?
  • Economy: How much is a game minute worth in currency?
  • UX: how do you accompany the player throughout the whole experience?
  • Level design: how do you estimate and measure the relationship between fail rate and drop off when designing levels?
  • Narrative design: in what moments of experience do deliver your story?

Players may be tired of throwing their money at gem packs

Published by Paolo on 19/04/2022

According to the Sensor Tower service and some specialised media, the benefits generated by free-to-play smartphone games have decreased. Specifically, spending on the Apple platform is under 2.3%. On Android there was a dramatic decline of 13.8%.

Experts from around the world are also questioning Sensor Tower’s estimation capability. In short, these estimates could be wrong. As a game designer, I have one, single and simple doubt: are free-to-play games for smartphones losing novelty?

Historically, video games have always thought of pushing the limits of graphics and gameplay. If we look at the premium market, with a simple glance we can see how technological progress has supported the evolution of game modes in a superb way. Even there, however, companies have begun to bet on the safe side. That’s why we see so many sequels, remakes, etc.

I’ve been downloading and trying tons of free-to-play games every week for years. I remember when I started in this video game sector, in 2012. The Pareto Principle was applied in a more courageous way: 80% copying a game, 20% introducing new things. This trend has changed lately.

Free-to-play, in order to be sustainable, needs a huge volume of players. To make this possible, acquisition campaigns need to focus on finding a very large audience. Before Apple’s IDFA deprecation, it was possible to find audiences based on concrete actions. “I would like to have inside the people who paid in this other game”. “I would like people who complete the tutorial of these games.”

This led to a new application of the Pareto Principle: 80% copying from one game, 20% copying from another. You avoid risks, you play “safe” in theory.

The result: the games that we see in top grossing are, from a gameplay perspective, always the same. Human beings certainly do not want complete and revolutionary experiences. However, we need to see continuous evolutions, or we will no longer feel attracted to what the market offers us.

A pop-up comes up with an affordable pack of gems, boosters, and some new heroes. The same type of package I bought in 3, 5, 10 games. The novelty effect of long-term gets lost.

How could we try to solve this?

  • Accepting that it is better to aim at a very large audience and, once inside the game, create different experiences for different type of player personas
  • At the same time, put at the center of your game experience something really fresh
  • Try to create games that can be accessed by multiple devices, not just smartphones, to ensure the service scalability.

Pareto principle in videogames conception

Published by Paolo on 28/02/2022

The basic use of the 80-20 rule (Pareto’s principle) in video games is to copy the 80% of a successful or promising game in order to mitigate some of the risks involved in investing time, effort and money in developing it.

Then you have 20% of freedom, where you can put your own secret sauce to the cake.

The risks of this approach come when you do not understand WHY a certain competitor works out there. It may be a successful marketing case. Maybe a special UX is what makes it great. A great level or narrative design may be making the difference. Hard to tell if you do not know basically three things:

The first thing is to deconstruct competitors,

The second thing is to run playtests with competitors games,

The third thing is to study the audience of competitors in a meaningful way.