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Tag: ideas

Be ready for no-internet scenarios

Published by Paolo on 25/02/2022

In my dayjob I use a lot: Google Suite, Unity3D, Python, Github (and git in general) and a bunch of tools more such Slack, Discord or Machinations.

I work into the cloud, so that every document and every simulation or concept or prototype I produce is instantly available from everywhere.

Those are strange times, anyway. We cannot take the Internet for granted forever.

What if tomorrow you cannot access to the GDD you were workin on? What if you cannot pull the last commit from your devs? Can you work offline for, let’s say, a week?

Probably it’s time to return back to the Office Suite too…

Today is Valentine’s day, do you love your job?

Published by Paolo on 14/02/2022

“Love, love is a verb. Love is a doing word.”

Massive Attack, Teardrop

I love my job because in the first place I love to see myself immersed in creating playful experiences. I love this job because I love people who can then play the games I help design. I love this job because I love the people I can talk and work with every day.

I believe that love for a job, as well as love for other things, has a very important component linked to other people. Starting with ourselves.

Today for Valentine’s Day, the day of lovers here, I want to celebrate the love for the people who make my work great every day and therefore myself. I hope that my daily action will improve your life somehow.

I also share the love scene that perhaps contributed most to forming the will to become who I am today.

Clash of Clans: Forest Path for Brita

Published by Paolo on 10/02/2022

First of all I dissected the current tutorial of Clash of Clans.

Then I took a deep reflection on that tutorial.

Then I sketched the new Villager: Brita.

Today I used the forest paths method by Alexander Swords to sketch out a new narrative arc for a possible new tutorial. You can find here an introduction to the method.

So that I reflected on what the Player is doing and what the new villager, Brita, should do during the tutorial. My high concept formula is this:

see bigger here

As we said, Brita is a trader and a jewelry maker. She will onboard, teach and reward players. She will manage Gems, Gold and also the five magicians. Her main obstacles are the Goblins who want her gold. Her gold is important to her life, so that she will be pretty distrustful toward the Player at tutorial start.

Then I passed to sketch the narrative forest for Brita, based on that:

see bigger here

I love this method because it directly puts in relationship the story with all activities, resources, obstacles and goals.

The new tutorial story will be a story about trust and confidence. You, the Player, are the new Chief of the village. First thing you will do will be to collect gold! Brita will not like, it’s HER gold. During the story, you will successfully defend the village from the Goblin attack and also demostrate her you can lead your troops.

courtesy of clashofclans.fandom.wiki

The Grand Warden represents the Mages and this collective is very important to Brita. In fact, a new detail on the lore will be that Mages are capable of transforming everything in gold. And, as we said, gold is very important for Brita.

The Player will successfully past a trial given from the Grand Warden itself, and Brita will finally have confidence in the new Chief of the village.

Now we have a concept for our new tutorial, next step is to define it!

A connection between art and game design

Published by Paolo on 04/02/2022

Aristotle thought that art should imitate life. Oscar Wilde thought that it is life that imitates art.

Is your game imitating life or are you offering inspiration for other people lives?

This is a critical choice that drives the whole creative direction.

If you want to create something inspiring you should think in something more complex and fascinating.

Fortnite with its shooter parody creates new trends among the people who played it. Think in all those silly dances.

If you want to create a metaphor of the reality, instead, you should really be able to capture the essence of what you want to represent.

Hypercasual games brings this last concept to the surrealism.

Are prizes good for young game designers?

Published by Paolo on 03/02/2022

My social networks are filled with celebrations and local prizes given to people at their first experience. Then I look for the game itself and sometimes I find a demo on itch.io. Some other a bad rated game on Steam.

I lived that. You feel like the new Hideo Kojima for a minute or two and then? Then the reality returns back and you have nothing really. Wouldn’t be better to work for a company learning from people better than you?

Some reality is hard, videogames are hard to make. But you should focus on making games and avoid feeding your ego the best you can if you want a bright future. A prize is a cake for the ego.

Local communities want to foster their local talent, I get it. But is give a small statue the right way of doing that? Should they expect for some kind of return in terms of visibility or actual game revenue first?

Often happens that there are people getting prizes and other making a good career and eventually earning money.

Is it really worth to get a prize?

Ideas have to settle

Published by Paolo on 02/02/2022

One of the things I need when I start a new project or when I work on a new feature, is the time of seeing ideas settling down.

Good ideas are goods after 2-3 days too. After a brainstorming is better to let the board rest a couple of days. Then you and your team will return back to it with a fresh mind and select the best ideas.

And then, again, you let the selection settle down.

It is not always possible, but I noticed that it is way better let ideas settle down. Sometimes you improve them. Some other time you see you enthusiasm as a team go down and reality force (similar to gravity force) do its job.

Clash of Clans: Brita the Villager

Published by Paolo on 31/01/2022

First I dissected the tutorial of Clash of Clans to get its anatomy.
Then I took some notes based on my personal experience.

The Villager is the first character that the Player of Clash of Clans meets opening the game for the first time. I see margins of improvements for this specific character. She helps the Players understand the game’s basics, but especially in the second part of the tutorial she is too formal. The Players will learn the core loop of the game with the help of standard messages. My goal is to improve the narrative function of this character making her more memorable.

The Lens of Problem Statement

The main reference is taken from one of my favorite TV shows: Norsemen. Particularly, my intention is to use as a guide the character of Liv interpreted by Kristine Riis.

Find her description on this website

“Can Liv from the Norsemen become a character capable of engaging the newbies of Clash of Clans better than the Villager?”

Problem Statement

Resuming:

  • Target: Newbie Players of Clash of Clans
  • Challenge: transform Liv in the new Villager
  • Playtest: observe people that never played Clash of Clans react to the new tutorial and check heuristics

Ideation

I created a brainstorm framework using chapter 6 of the book Game Writing – Narrative Skills for Videogames. Mr. Andrew S. Walsh writes an essay on game characters. The chapter invites game writers to reflect on the Gameplay Purpose VS Narrative Purpose of the character we create. 

Summary of brainstorming process with ideas already selected

The new Villager should onboard the Players, teach them the game’s basics and also reward them when they do good.

Narratively speaking, if I imagine Liv from the Norsemen having to do that: 

  1. I imagine pretty exaggerated reactions toward the success (she is capable of doing anything for her status). 
  2. I imagine her getting a little bit in the way of the Players, in order to achieve what she wants. 
  3. She may also reveal secrets, things she believes she only knows. 

Thinking in adjectives, Liv is generally grumpy (except when she wants something). Grumpy can be funny for the Players, let’s keep this adjective for her personality.

Regarding traits, my brainstorm was focused in finding the right governing, conflicting and secondary traits. After reflecting, double checking the pre-existing tutorial dialogues, I believe that the fact that Liv is a gold digger can be a good reference as a conflicting trait. So I decided that the governing one should be something more like Prudent: showing care and thought for the future. I think that it is a positive trait, since this character will also show the future of the game to the Players, in the revised tutorial. In order to further mitigate the “gold digger” trait, using the same book as reference I opted for “honorable” as a secondary trait.

Final Touches

I notice that the last drawing of the villager has a collar. So I looked for Viking professions and I found the trader and the jewelry maker pretty interesting for my purpose.

Finally, a good character has a name. I looked for Viking names and their meaning and I found an interesting link. The name Brita means ‘dignified’ or ‘noble’, which fits the personality of the new Villager!

What’s next?

Time to revise the dialogues of the tutorial and see if Brita may work the way I am thinking of her.

An opportunity for role playing video games and NFTs

Published by Paolo on 25/01/2022

There is something that I have always missed out while playing role playing video games: interpretation.

Producing a story with many branches and possible endings costs too much, then you have to translate it in many languages. That is simply not viable. Reproducing that feeling of “do whatever you want” that is present in tabletop role playing games is hardly achieved by the videogames of today.

You will also need a human (dungeon master) to adapt the scene and the story to the spontaneity of the moment.

What we have

What is possible right now is to provide tools for the people to connect together in a server. Create and explore virtual worlds, also in real time. 

Having a customized avatar that can interact with things and make gestures is also pretty suitable nowadays.

I was just thinking that maybe those new technologies which promise uniqueness and decentralization may grant tabletop role players being rightly represented inside a virtual community.

The journey

You start playing some designed adventure, just to get in touch with the controls and functionalities from a Player standpoint. Then you can look for your first party. 

When you reach a certain status in the community, playing or mastering stories, the game government (developers) recognize your contribution by issuing NFTs.

If you are a player, the more you play, the higher the value of the Character (PC) represented by the NFT. You can sell it and start with new characters. New players may decide to buy a PC and skip the process of getting noticed, for instance. Developers earn a part of every transaction.

If you are a DM the Worlds and Stories you create will become publicly  visible and free for everyone. You may want to pay for the developers to issue you a World-NFT or Story-NFT. Having one of those you can decide to let parties having an entry fee to your adventures, because you got a name in the community. As a dungeon master you should also create and use NPCs. The more you use those, the more your Players will be able to get in touch with them and enrich their background. Developers may decide to issue you an NFT to the highly recognized NPCs inside of the community, encouraging you to create meaningful NPCs.

Your creativity and interpretation, in that way, can be truly compensated!

Can you do the creative work?

Published by Paolo on 06/01/2022

Yesterday a contact on LinkedIn asked for help because he is not able to find any job sending resumes to companies. I told him that that system is completely broken. To me, in fact, it is. I suggested him to focus on his job, to do the job. Then the salary will find him. I am pretty sure about that, especially in a talent eager industry such as the games industry.

Today I read the same guy saying that he would like to create a network of people who can donate maybe 1 euro for him to research and learn new skills everyday. On the same network, on LinkedIn, which is a professional network.

If I imagine to be a company recruiter and I read something like this, in this exact sequence, what can I think about this guy?

Creative work is very different from performing creative activities. If you really want to work in a creative industry like the games industry you should really show off your ability to solve problems, from one side, and be professional from the other side. If you can, you should also worry about what you are sharing with your community.

Working in the games industry is not having creative freedom or being in a hippie community. This is a business that moves billions. You should constantly do the job and learn new things to stay in line with the times. You are there to create serious value bringing fun to people.

The games industry does not exist

Published by Paolo on 03/01/2022

It is what I think. In fact, any software industry is a concept. An idea, an adaptation of something physical that does not have a concrete form in our context.

People does exist. I mean, people making software. People making games. So why do we care so much about the industry? People matters, not abstract concepts.

Life is a great adventure, and as every great adventure you need people to live it fully. Good characters for your plot. Good writers. We should care more and more about the well being of the people of the industry.