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Tag: ideas

Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is dead

Published by Paolo on 04/01/2024

Long live King Kardashian: Hollywood.

I remember this game took people like me in crisis. We read a lot of breakdowns to try to understand why this game was so successful at the time. Almost nobody understood the real value of that “exposed gem”.

The system was very simple and the economy was pretty aggressive. Only whales, VIP players, were treated with actual respect and that fit great into the game’s metaphor. Of course, for someone like me with my gaming background (as a Player) all of that looked like garbage. But hey, lots of people prove me wrong. People wanted to be entertained by that sort of point and click dating simulator with dolls mechanics.

There was a perfect marriage among a dominant mimicry and an alea. You performed actions using energy and in change you could get some special perk. Fantasy, narrative and expression were the main aesthetics.

We all learned a lot from Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. So that at the end it will pass to the game history, somehow. That shitty game!

Play Forms

Published by Paolo on 02/01/2024

If you want to learn how to play like a game designer and you don’t know how to start, the Play Forms framework is a good starting point. It is based on a classic book about play, called “Man, Play and Games“. I have never read it, but there is a lot of material out there if you know how to search.

The framework is based on the conception that play has 4 basic forms:

  • Agon means competition, it can be against the game itself, against virtual enemies or against other Players
  • Alea means chance, the random factor that the Player is not able to control
  • Mimicry means the imitation of something belonging to other contexts, such as real life or fantasy worlds or abstract concepts
  • Ilinx means the vertigo, the senses brought to their limits

Ask yourself these questions while you are playing:

  • Am I competing against someone or something?
  • Does my outcome depend on randomness at some level?
  • Am I interpreting some role or adapting to metaphors that I have already seen in other mediums?
  • Do I feel some of the moments are extremely exaggerated and exciting?

Future: remove uninteresting choices

Published by Paolo on 27/12/2023

An experiment I ran this year was TikTok. I made an account and started recording videos in Italian on game design. In a few days, I was completely sucked into the platform. I stopped playing my games for pleasure, TikTok was my unique source of mobile entertainment. I uninstalled that crazy demon from my smartphone.

The algorithm works just great, understands where I stay the most and keeps serving me what it considers to be the best. There were no surprises, every time I needed some fast stress relief I got it.

From a game design standpoint, the lack of uninteresting choices is a great thing when I am the consumer. This doesn’t happen when I run a social casino suite or a mobile RPG. Lately, it has not happened with Roblox and Fortnite either. It doesn’t happen with Steam.

I run these games and I have to choose: which game mode, minigame, or experience, do I want to play? Rarely did I decide this before running a game. So I spend 10 precious minutes deciding.

And in that context, this decision is not meaningful at all! I want to have fun and make meaningful choices in the game. Not on the main screen.

I am completely sure that the next mobile hit will understand this concept and serve the Players with straight gameplay, according to their tastes. With the possibility of swiping them away. And of course, leveraging content creation. 

Is China really that wrong?

Published by Paolo on 27/12/2023

I was reading the new policies from China regarding games and thinking that somehow I do agree with most of them.

I am not an anti-capitalist. I believe that (also if it has its flaws) commerce is the best way we find as human beings to make fewer wars. I am not in favor of the Chinese propaganda, too.

But I observe my society, I teach at local institutions and I can see the obvious drama… There is a battle for attention that pervades also video games. I see that many people have their attention completely sucked in super cool and engaging gameplay, as well as social networks and other forms of entertainment. Some of my students are completely immersed in “Clash Royale”, or other games, while I show them how to build their future. Is that even fair? Do they deserve that? Of course, it’s their choice… but do brilliant designs manipulate their will?

I did not choose to make games to trap the players’ minds. I choose to make games because I want to create interesting gameplay when they decide to step into the magic circle. It is completely different.

The games market is growing and more and more realities are competing to own the free time of people like my students, and others.

Is that what we want or it would be better to put limits to greed? My answer is that we have to put limits. Complete freedom when lots of products are carefully designed by top talent to keep the attention of people looking for their hourly endorphin doses is very dangerous.

Form follows function or aesthetics?

Published by Paolo on 13/12/2023

Game design takes concepts from broader design also. One of the most important books, “The Design of Everyday Things” (Don Norman), set the base for UX design today.

One concept is that form follows function. When you, as a designer, must decide which form something in your game should have, it’s better to think about its function first. Many games adopt things like this. You can see that a power-up that makes things explode is a bomb, while a water engine in the last Zelda game looks like a hydrant.

But is it always the case? Every game has aesthetics that combine with the fantasy it offers and the motivations it gives to the Players. It’s clear that the casual Player of Candy Crush Saga is looking for immediacy, but the Player of a From Software game may be looking for something more complicated to use, in the name of the “beauty” of it.

Form follows function but it is always guided by the aesthetics!

New Year resolution #1: dealing with my perfectionism

Published by Paolo on 11/12/2023

Yesterday I was thinking about my personal projects. I never closed one in my entire life. Why am I procrastinating so much? Some of them are still interesting to me. Yet, I cannot manage to finish them. That is a problem I want to solve, take this as my first New Year resolution.

Probably one of the problems is my perfectionism. I started these projects from the simple concept of Ikigai. Ikigai means “the pleasure you have in doing things every day”. But then my perfectionism kicked in and somehow I got burnt. For some projects I had also some other people involved, waiting for me to close them. What a shame!

Well, I announce today that this has to change now. Less perfectionism and more acceptance of my limits are the way I intend to take.

Things I cannot accept anymore

Published by Paolo on 07/12/2023

Many game companies after the first interview send you an assessment to complete. You have usually between 4 hours and 10 days available to complete the assessment. Some company gives you free time, as long as you complete it.

There was that TV show on Netflix called Vikings. Among the many storylines, there is one about a person who has a serious handicap. He manages to use his disadvantage to become the king.

I have never passed a single test. Every time I get these assessments my mind goes automatically in “you are working for free” mode. I sent the result of my assessment and someone (I imagine her with a bored face and a cup of horrible machine-made tea) skimmed my assessment. And of course, it was a no. My bad will meets with the bad will of the reviewer, what do you expect? That is one handicap I have. And I made it a strength in recent years!

I have developed and hired outstanding designers for companies. True talents. Within 3 hours with a dashboard and a laptop with a game engine running and a spreadsheet, I can run a complete interview. The people I have hired are still there, crushing it.

When I am on the other side, nowadays I want the same. You send me an assessment, I say you “give it to me”. Then I read it carefully and write down exactly what I should do to complete the exercises and a time and cost estimation. I send everything via email, it’s better than simply rejecting the task. Writing all of this down often takes me 2-3 hours.

Again, nobody pays me for that. And of course, it doesn’t work. Don’t follow my suggestion if you really want that job. I am in a different position nowadays. I am not “open to work”. I work as a game designer every single day, I just don’t let anyone decide if I have a job or not. I want to work with you if you want to work with me, simple as that.

Assessments are free to work that no one pays. They are made to filter people out. They do not consider diversity and they are made to exclude. Companies love to claim “diversity and inclusion”. Well, this is part of it.

I am quite happy as a freelancer, a “warrior without a king”. Still, I don’t close myself up to any opportunity. But I need to feel that the company wants me, not the other way around!

One game per year

Published by Paolo on 21/11/2023

We live around 75 years. We have 75 summers, around 80 travels (in my personal economical condition of course). The people we will meet are relatively few, the projects we can tackle too.

Imagine you start to work at 25 years, because you are born in the lucky side of the World. You have 40 years working. If a game takes 3-5 years, you can make around 8-14 games in your life. Game for companies, that may be successful or not.

Or you can go indie, maybe solo dev, going alone and try to publish one game per year. Small game, of course. In that case you can leave 20-30 good games (the first will surely be a disaster). That can be your legacy as a game designer.

The future of games

Published by Paolo on 13/11/2023

This weekend I was scrolling the infinite feed of LinkedIn and reading updates from many experts. I have to say that lately from one side there are lots of challenges. Many layoffs across the whole IT sector and people looking desperate. From the other, lots of experts are sharing their knowledge online. This is absolutely a good thing.

One of the main topic is about the future of games. Right now, it seems that everyone can make and publish a PC game very easily. But the cost of AAA games production is rising and the value perceived by the players is going down.

There is a demand/offer problem, too many games and it’s hard that the people notices you. To me, the solution should come by adopting a different perspective. Unless you have a strong IP, like Call of Duty, you cannot just make a game and sell it. You cannot afford to assume that people will come buy it. Nowadays, you should first get in touch with people, make them notice you. Then the people will eventually buy your things.

There is a trend among content creators, especially tech ones. They use Patreon to arrive to their audience. They build little by little. Play-to-earn crypto games were scam, but they were making something good: making contact with people super early. Of course, the focus there was money which is never something good to relate with entertainment. Still, I liked this very fact.

The key to me is in being able to create a strategy to go towards the people, the Players. Not the other way around. If you are making a game and then you will invest your money in marketing to spread the word, it’s very possible you join the rest of noise. It’s better to start build your player base right now, instead.

On finishing games

Published by Paolo on 10/11/2023

Every game creator I know, every company I worked for, always wants a thing: that the Players stay with them until the end of content.

On f2p games the more the game stays in the market the more this is hard to reach. For premium games, games with an ending, it can happen. Still, in most cases it doesn’t. The vast majority of people do not complete the games they purchase. And the trend is going worse as we have so many great games published every month.

The question I have is: is that important? One may think that if the Players complete a game then maybe they will buy its sequel. Another can say that if the Players stay until the end it’s because they loved the game.

Well, I think of me and it’s not always the case honestly. There are games I loved and that gave me tremendous emotions that I have never completed. The reason is not important here.

That’s why in game design we like to talk about the moment-to-moment. The important thing is that the Players enjoy stay in our game while they stay. It doesn’t really matter if they don’t complete the game. If we provided them enjoyment, engagement, challenge and motivation during that time that is where the real value of games is.