There is something I love in tabletop games rulebooks: they refers to YOU, not to the Players in general.
I think that documentation should adapt a similar method in order to the readers to empathize with the Players. You introduce who are the Players and their traits, behaviors and needs. And then you invite the reader to be one of them.
Using you instead than third persons can really improve with simplicity the effectiveness of your docs.
There was a time when companies decided if you were apt to join the games industry or not. That time is well gone.
I see a lot of messages on social networks, especially LinkedIn, by people looking for the next gig in a company. Someone is looking for the first job. Which is normal and good, LinkedIn was created exactly for that reason.
But, you cannot permit to stay at the border of the river waiting for your opportunity to pass. You have to be what you want to be first. Don’t just look for a job, do the job.
Many years ago it was impossible or very hard to do something without working for a company. Companies acted like a filter, they decided somehow you were worth or not. That is not the case anymore. You have all the material to do what you like to do. In case you have to pay the bills, there are nowadays alternatives to do that.
Be a professional first, then companies will look for you! It’s not the other way around anymore.
Every gaming business founder wants to reach that milestone. 1M players and counting. So, how do you design for 1M?
You simply don’t. You design for 3-7 people instead. Be prepared for the growth, of course. But good design is a personal thing. Is for someone!
Who’s that someone? When you work for a company, that someone is first of all your manager. You don’t design for players, you design with players in mind. But your client is your manager.
You should first convince her!
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:
Put a little bit of mandinga in your game design!
If you want to create a sustainable games business you need to serve an audience.
But game ideas for new intellectual properties almost never come from that logic. A new idea comes while playing a good game, or connecting things belonging to our personal life. Often we need to leave that idea for a while to make it grow. This process can last months, and this time is unpredictable.
Every time I speak with the founders of some indie games company, they say the same. They are constantly working on new ideas while developing the current game. They need to pitch new concepts all the time to publishers. In this way, they can find the funding for the next project, hopefully before completing the current.
When you find your audience with a title, then, is better to focus your firepower. If you understand how to serve a concrete audience you have more chances of being successful again.
In the long term, though, this can become stressful for the creative people of your team. At the last fair, I met a designer of one of the most successful indie sagas of the last few years. And I felt his frustration, he felt like “it’s always the same”. Sometimes those people end up building their own company. Other times, they just leave for new ventures.
Striking a balance between serving an audience and allowing creative freedom is crucial in the games industry. Both are essential for long-term sustainability.
From one side, you have to grow your business, and serving the audience you found is the smartest move. On the other side, you don’t want to lose the members of your team who bring more value on the table. Let express themselves, maybe in smaller projects.
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.
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…
Any technology and platform, like all human things, has a beginning, a development, and an end.
Some of the technologies we use today to make games, and the platforms we distribute them on, will be gone in 3-5 years. It’s hard to keep up with time, which is why so many video game creators from the past no longer deal with it.
If our intention is to try to last longer in the industry, we must develop a true love for the profession and also try to avoid situations that can restrict our potential.
Specializations are great at the beginning of a career to find your first job. If your personal brand says “casual games economy designer” and it works, that’s fine.
But inside, in our moments of study and passion, we cannot and must not limit ourselves. Trend passes and the company that develops that particular technology doesn’t survive. If we love the main branch of our work, the generalist thing, there is no problem.
We will be able to see the practical benefits even in a completely different environment. We will live more!
We always talk about target audiences, game loops, and meta mechanics. Much of a game designer’s job is to help design the tools needed to generate content. Be they the levels, dialogues, cutscenes, source-sink systems, etc.
The first piece of advice is that the work speeds up a lot for the first versions of a feature if we think of a single path. Too many variables to control slow down the development of the first iteration. Better to go direct with a concrete version with concrete numbers.
The second piece of advice is to prepare tools that serve the game you are creating. Thinking too far ahead, perhaps about future games, makes you lose the main focus. The focus must be on creating the best game possible. Leave the vision of the big picture to the product managers, and focus on the design of the game in question.
The last tip is to think modularly. A useful tool must be designed so that it can be unplugged whenever you want and inserted into other projects that could use it. Communicate with the engineers this intention and design a versatile and modular tool.
It happens to many of us to join a company and realize that it is not the place for us. Not for the product, not for the people, but for the type of culture there.
During some selection processes, we have the opportunity to speak with the founders. There is always a moment when they ask us if we have any questions. I recommend these 3 questions to understand where you are going to end up.
There is no right or wrong answer to this question. There are professionals who prefer racing. They want to feel the adrenaline rush and get some results first. Train hard and work hard. They don’t like to lose the race. They want to be at least on the podium and bet everything in their lives on that.
There are other professionals who, like me, want to last 100 years. If some competitor does better, who cares? There’s room for everyone. Take it easy. Do your job with patience, and dedicate yourself to those hours with all of yourself. But remember that life has many facets, not just work.
Fun fact: I worked for a beautiful company that ran a ride. The company was bought by a multinational whose vision was: “to become the best f2p company in the world“. From ride, work turned to race. In a race, people are left behind. I jumped ship immediately. Many of my former colleagues were fired in 1 year, probably for some number on a spreadsheet. Do you read the company vision? Do you meditate on that? That is very important, believe me.
This question is essential to understand what are the things that the company is looking for. All businesses want to make big profits, big and small. This is obvious, otherwise, a sane person would never get into entrepreneurial ventures.
There are many different types of leaders. Ask this question and listen carefully to the answer.
Fun fact: I was in a bar having an informal interview with a company that wanted to land in Barcelona. I asked this question to the person who was supposed to be my future boss. This person replies “I’ll tell you that you’re doing a good job if I’m drinking champagne from PRADA shoes! Hahaha!“. I finished my coffee, said goodbye politely, and left. The company has never been able to create anything here.
This is a question that will make us understand the intentions of the companies. It’s a question I’ve never asked anyone. Today I only interview for companies that really interest me. With solid projects.
But given the recent times, where the job market treat people like commodities. This question is fundamental.
In fact, we need to understand what kind of monster we are entering through the jaws. If this monster will spit us out, shit us out.
Or if we will become part of his organism contributing to its functioning.
People who don’t know how to manage often manipulate the topic of cultural fit to serve their ego. Other times, it professionals who don’t know how to ask questions view this topic not so important.
Remember: you should become the member of a company to improve its culture. No one should never force you in their schema.