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New narrative system for Puzzle-Renovation games

Published by Paolo on 24/10/2022

Puzzle games with renovation mechanic are on top of the charts. They success is tremendous and they are clearly a red ocean market. Many companies try to swim that ocean, so that this week I have decided to make an experiment to celebrate that I got a certification from The Narrative Department.

hooray! I did it! 🙂

The narrative system of Puzzle-Renovation games

The experiment consists of a design iteration to improve the narrative of puzzle-renovation games. I will consider this experiment completed once I have a playable prototype made in Twine featuring the result of this process.

One of the reasons why the Players churn is that they get stuck at some point. The progression curve of levels always goes up, so that with the time the puzzle part gets harder and it’s more difficult to progress through the story.

The issue comes because those games consider a positive outcome the fact of beating a level, but they do not consider all the efforts the Players make at all.

  • At the start of the level, the Player may decide to use a power-up to get help for the level. The first time, the Player will not know how is the layout. Which is why new games warns when there is a hard level.
  • The Player needs lives to start a level. In case they have no lives they should wait or get a lives refill. In order to mitigate this friction, most modern games use lives as an engagement tool. Give the Players infinite lives for X minutes and you will get longer sessions.
  • Puzzle levels are based on a limited number of moves. When they end, the Player can get 2-5 extra moves to beat the level. There is strategy here, in fact the Players study the status of their goals and decide. When the Player is near to the win condition is generally more willing to get extra movements. In order to reach the sweet spot, the number of moves is data driven.
  • During the level the Players may decide to use boosters which are like power-ups but “live”, because they can be got and used on the fly. The Players know the status of the board when they decide to get and use a booster. Boosters add deepness and strategy, they a great driver for monetization.

The Lens of Problem Statement

When the Player completes all the goals, the story continues and the house can be renovated. If we study this flowchart, thou, we can see that the Players can do a lot of things that can be considered positive toward that goal.

They can use a power-up at level start. Get a lives refill. They can get extra moves if they are near the win condition. They can use boosters. All those things are hardly rewarded by the renovation narrative of those games. This is the problem statement for this week:

How can we engage more the Players more interested in the story, rewarding every effort they make to reach better outcomes during the puzzle part?

  • Target: puzzle renovation Players more interested in the story
  • KPI engagement: average session number/day and average duration / session
  • What: create new rewards that help the Players get interesting story outcomes based on puzzle efforts

The game I will use for the exercise is Lily’s Garden, by Tactile Games.

Renovation Mechanic

Published by Paolo on 18/10/2022

According to the Cambridge Dictionary the renovation is the act or process of repairing and improving something, especially a building so that it is in good condition again.

Industry experts don’t stop talking about the trend of renovation mechanics in casual games. Why do they work? According to this brand new video, because they are a driver for Player progression.

Game design disciplines

Renovation mechanic is so popular across teams because gives work to all the design team:

  • Narrative design plays a critical role in delivering a memorable story
  • Level designers can use the environment to convey the story (environmental storytelling)
  • UX Designers are key to deliver a smooth experience, making the switch between puzzle match and renovation as smooth as possible
  • Systems Designers help find the right economy to support all the actions according to the Players’ session daily number and duration.

Acting for the renovation

In casual games, the act of renovation consists of:

  1. choosing a task to complete
  2. use one or more stars to perform it
  3. introductory dialogue
  4. select a style for the furniture
  5. renovation cutscene
  6. story dialogue
Town Story: Renovation Match-3 Puzzle Game

The story is usually delivered as a consequence of the act of renovation.

Repairing and Improving

Have you ever asked yourself WHY is this mechanic so popular among casual games? To me it is because those games are about putting things in order.

  • In match-3 games you put things in order, in line
  • In popper games you clean the patterns that you spot
  • In merge games you make space on the board

All those games have extra goals that consist often of an obstacle. The frustration of not beating a level for that obstacle is a driver for monetization but also of churning out, as this brilliant LinkedIn post by Yasin Hatiboğlu.

All those levers fit perfectly with repairing and improving, with the metaphor of renovation.

Building

Last but not least, in service games for mobile phones there is something very present in Players’ minds. You have a world waiting for you that you are helping build somehow. You don’t just have a game to complete, those games are infinite.

The fantasy of free-to-play games, the aspirational aspect of those, almost always contains this: it’s your help and your choice that help build the World you have in your pocket.

How to analyse any game

Published by Paolo on 03/10/2022

When you work as game designer for companies you will invest a lot of time studying other games. The best thing you can do is to prepare and evolve a personal framework to optimize this job. This post is to detail what I would focus my efforts on.

Specializations

Game design is a huge word, the word for a container. Jesse Schell writes that game design is “the act of deciding how a game should be”. As you can read, everyone practices that. We, game designers, are facilitators of that act.

To me, game design has four main specializations:

  1. Level design
  2. Narrative/Content design
  3. Gameplay/UX design
  4. Systems design

If you work as a generalist, you should focus on all four. If you are a specialist, it is still good having clear the relationships and overlaps with the others

The Experience

The most important thing for a game designer is NOT the game. Really, it isn’t. The game is a medium to an end. And that end is called: EXPERIENCE.

We can write a book only on this term, but for the sake of the article it is important to mention that we game designers should be able to understand the experience of other games under two lenses:

  1. what is the intention behind them
  2. what does them say actually

Understanding the intention is a matter of dealing with lots of analysis, but nowadays developers publish a lot of content. My suggestion is to watch videos and read articles and hear podcasts to try to spot all that’s possible. Playing the game completes everything, and it is very important to play it deeply. For example, if you are really analysing a free-to-play game you should also buy something to understand how it feels.

In order to really understand what the experience says, the best way is to take notes on everything related with your specialties. And when I say everything I mean absolutely everything.

  • Record all game sessions and take screens
  • Copy all texts, level maps and try to empathize with those designers
  • Create documentation and be detailed.

Practices and frameworks

Published by Paolo on 29/09/2022

I discovered recently a great article on how to think in the first steps of the design for a new game. I can’t wait of facilitating some workshop based on this framework.

How to use any framework

  • First you test it with a workshop facilitation. In this way you can understand how the framework you consider is really useful inside of a team. You will see other people interacting with it, which is great.
  • Then you use the framework in question to breakdown and deconstruct existing games, especially competitors.
  • Finally you take notes of all of your learning and create a new framework starting from it. It is almost never a good idea to use a framework in the same way it is. Remember: a specific context and a group of people created that framework, you cannot adapt it to your reality without changes.

Very often we hear about best practices like things we should apply religiously without questioning. That is almost never the case, also because when a practice becomes a best practice, usually it becomes also an old one.

Has “put genre here” died?

Published by Paolo on 28/09/2022

Online discourse regarding the gaming industry is very often monopolized by marketing and business people. Which is normal, since they are “selling” ideas and spreading new and old trends.

What makes me smile often is when I read that a specific genre has died. It is like “hey, everyone! Stop doing this because now people don’t want to play this kind of game anymore.”.

As a designer, anyway, I know that Players look for experiences capable of satisfying fantasies. This has nothing to do with a specific genre. Good games start with an assumption on fantasy. “Be a cat” can be a fantasy (STRAY, an indie game). “Win big at Casino” can be another one (SlotoMania, free to play mobile game). “Dominate your opponent mind” (Chess, classic game).

Starting from fantasy, then you build your actions and mechanics on top. And then you design your economy starting from goals structure. You can eventually add up a setting/world and, finally, the story.

During the process of defining your actions and economy, you should study the market and its trends of course. But I would like to invite you not falling into the trap of riding a trend for the sake of it OR rejecting ideas just because there are not much success cases.

When the market is emptying of a specific genre there are usually a series of reasons. Something that doesn’t work for the most can be a huge opportunity for your reality. Don’t be a follower, write your own story.

Humbleness and feedback

Published by Paolo on 29/08/2022

When someone asks me for a feedback for their game, I try to never give my opinion. In fact, I believe that working in games makes us liable of huge biases that come from experiences which are subjective.

I try to make them questions, instead. Try to understand really what’s behind their choices. Then I tell them what I would ask to playtesters to challenge their assumptions.

I believe that is the best way of giving feedback. From the other hand, the tendency is to say what one would do instead. And the worst is that then someone may follow blindly your advice. Applying that advice in their understanding, not what you said them in first place.

That is why it’s important be humble, somehow. Being humble is being completely honest. In order to be that, the right start is always a certain amount of questions.

Prepare your portfolio!

Published by Paolo on 17/08/2022

Hello people, I am back from my well deserved vacations ready for a new year full of content for free for you! Hope you all did enjoyed a nice vacations with your families and your best people.

The other day an ex student of mine made a question in a WhatsApp channel we are both in: “Can someone recommend where to create a game design porfolio?”

There is no specialized website, as far as I know, to create a portfolio. That is bad, because of discoverability, but is good because forces us designers in thinking out of the box and not using templates and pre-defined layouts.

I personally use itch.io, also if there are a whole lot of things that I cannot put on my portfolio because they belong to specific companies where I signed NDAs. That’s the eternal issue of our job.

Study your target

When you prepare your portfolio, you should think in WHO will read it. Will it be an HR manager? Maybe a lead game designer? Or a CEO? Every people speaks differently and every company does so, too.

  • Look at companies you would like to work for
  • Look at their game designers and try to find their portfolios (you can also ask them on LinkedIn)
  • Create your porfolio using well your references

At the end of the day doing a portfolio is a for of design!

What to put in a portfolio

As I said before, I think there is NOT a general rule, a template, a standard, a best practice. You should find your way and make your own talents shine!

I can tell you what I would put:

  • Start with a video gameplay with most meaningful moment of each exercise/job. People don’t want to have to download anything to see what you did.
  • Add some capture with very special moments, most memorable moments.
  • Notes on what you learn and on your process. You can use the STARR method that is also used by some recruiter.
  • Link to external documents and references. I use Google Drive for that!

FTUE, tutorial, onboarding

Published by Paolo on 22/07/2022

The first time user experience, or FTUE, is a mandatory thing to design for every videogame. Your players are going to have their first time experience, that’s for sure. So that if you leave that to the faith, that first experience will be completely random. For free to play, first time experience is made of tutorial and onboarding.

The tutorial is usually between 3 and 15 minutes and, step by step, all the most important features of the game are revealed to the Players. In order to design the best tutorial, you should look deeply at the theme of your game and at what are you proud of. If we analyze successful games like RAID: Shadow Legends and Dislyte, we notice that the first one puts all the value in the beautiful heroes you can unlock with gachas. The latter, instead, is very proud of its lore. They both work, the important thing is to really understand all kind of players you may want to serve and like them. If you really like your players, I mean as persons, you will definitely design the best tutorial for them.

The onboarding is usually made by the first 2-5 sessions and it’s the stage in which engaged players will fall in love literally with your game. The Players will discover all the systems of your games, and unlock the first things. They will feel they can grow if they stay with you. In order to design the best onboardings, you should focus on the Players’ motivations and try to bring them values around that.

Things don’t work from the very first iterations, so it’s better to make small iterations and improve step by step your tutorial first and your onboarding second.

Deserving the position

Published by Paolo on 19/07/2022

A friend of mine, indie game developer, is trying to join the industry. He managed in a brilliant way getting his first interview. He study their game and made a feature proposal for them.

A few months ago, I sent my CV to the same company and for the same position. I have far more experience than my friend, still they rejected my application. He was smart and proactive. I didn’t, I just applied. He deserves that position!

Today he asked me for a way of preparing for his interview. I suggested him to get informed regarding the main KPIs, key performance indicators. Those are very important when you are giving the core of your service for free.

Then you have to study the company’s game and at least 2 competitors of the same game. Look on Game Refinery and Deconstructor of Fun for more depth on the genre.

This post is for my friend. He deserves the position!

The systems you need depend on the theme

Published by Paolo on 13/07/2022

Game theme is something that in f2p is not discussed too much. That’s a pity, in fact the art of game design is the craft of synthetizing a theme into a playful experience. All games have a theme. Also if you don’t think well on the theme of your game, your game will have a theme!

We often start by thinking in systems, directly. Specifically, we start from the economic system. But that is just one of the systems a game need. Also a f2p game, where the economic system is one of the most important.

Do this instead:

  1. Start with the theme: which is the theme of your game or the update of your game?
  2. Translate the theme to the genre: which genre is the new game/update?
  3. Think in all the systems needed to properly translate the theme into actual gameplay, according to the genre.