Tag: howto

These days for work reasons I am playing a bunch of simulation games (sims) of different nature. I am making in my spare time a sandbox simulator of a police dog, and then for other reasons I am playing other sims.

They all have a single thing in common, despite belonging to different genres. In fact, immersive sims come from first person shooters, a specific type of action game. Colony sims come from strategy games. Sandbox sims come from adventure games.

They all share a single reason of why Players do love them: they foster the player agency, letting them create their own story.

Everytime I join one of their Discord for research I feel that. Every player has a different story to tell. That is, in my opinion, the single most important motivation for the core audience of sim games. Simulation doesn’t mean simulator, high realism and fidelity (also if some simulation game puts “simulator” in its name).

It means to have many levers to move to create your own story for your friends, Discord, or a livestream.

There is a trending voice on socials that says that “GDDs are not important,” and that “Who wants to read all of that text?” and so on. I am mostly a writer, and writing is important. Not because every piece we write needs to be shared among our team. But because it’s the best medium (and the cheapest) to have clear ideas.

When you learn how to write, you become a better communicator. You can also inspire others with short sentences on a Slack channel. But to arrive at that, you need to write a lot. One of the reasons I have this daily blog is this one.

I am applying to a Spanish government’s fund for video games, and I was faster in completing all the documentation needed because I have written a lot about my game in great detail. And I am continuing to do it every day as I play the build I have.

I like to read again what I wrote 3 months later and see how the game evolves. There are also documents that I want to keep updated with changes. Others that I like to print and have physical. It’s part of my love for the craft.

The most important skill for a creative person is writing. When you write well, you are able to inspire and explain concepts. I like to write and practice my writing skills. I am not a English native speaker, but still I love to practice my English writing skills and improve them.

I feel that I am more effective on paper than in person. Maybe because I am tall but not intimidating, I don’t know. With my words, I get more authority in what I say, or at least that’s how I feel.

There is a tendency to avoid too much documentation to read and share. I am very much against that, to me, words are important. Words matter a lot, and we should care about that part very much. Both design and tech documentation are very important.

Speaking of which, my game Pawtners Case is going forward. I found an Italian outsourcing company that is helping me with its development. They like to write, I am lucky to have met them. You can watch the last videos here on my Italian substack.