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Tag: ideas

Combat: the center of gravity of game design?

Published by Paolo on 22/08/2023

Lately, I am seeing a lot of high-level solo projects popping around. I don’t know you, but sometimes I am so amazed that I think “What am I doing instead? Am I really a game designer? I mean, look at that!”. I guess it’s completely normal when you have passion for what you do.

One thing in common that I see very much is that the videos shared always show combat. So one may ask:

  • why combat?
  • Are we just violent monkeys always thinking and dreaming about fights and shots?
  • Why does combat have this sort of gravity that always sucks in the best designers?

To me, it’s not that we are doomed, to me it’s because combat fits perfectly in the true meaning of games. Let me explain.

Good reasons to put combat everywhere

We play games for a lot of reasons, but most of them are directly linked to our survival skills. To have fun is, to speak synthetically, to learn. And to learn is to improve our survival skills. Having to beat something or someone is part of the metaphor of survival.

Another good reason to me is that combat is a great way to realize game mechanics into a meaningful feedback loop. If you throw a ball for nothing, that physical mechanic in the long term can be very boring. If you have to hit cans you have a more interesting goal. If the objective is not a can but something that can hurt you, that gives you more motivation. The fun closure happens when you can throw the ball -> the ball hits and you see the feedback -> your score improves after that feedback! So that you can do the same over and over again and improve your score.

Combat has become in recent years also a design specialization. You can see a lot of offers out there for “combat designers”. Combat is for Players accessible and compelling. Many mechanics are easy to model and mix thanks to combat.

So, friends, we can rest assured. We are not awful beings, as humans we intuitively spot and take all possible shortcuts. As Players, we love to aim and kill, because we can train without getting hurt. As Designers, we can show off our craft and present our ideas in a fun context.

Exciting goals

Published by Paolo on 13/07/2023

The structure of the objectives of a game must be clear, but also and above all exciting.

At the time of classic arcade games, players had to pass the level and get the highest score. This was exciting in that context, where one could brag to friends or show off one’s prowess.

The console age built on that, adding storytelling over the years. Also in other contexts, the players could comment on their achievements. I remember phone calls with friends to explain how to beat a Weapon in Final Fantasy VII. Strategy guides and magazines with reviews were popular. And it was like this thanks to this desire to understand and discover new exciting goals to achieve.

Social games have summed up all this past, allowing us to collaborate to achieve goals. The metagame concept has developed, you can reach certain objectives even without playing. The experience allows even casual players to take part in something fun. There was also a cleaning up of objectives that were getting too complex. This is thanks to understanding and profiling players.

As game designers, we must always ask ourselves where they will play and how much time they will want to invest.

Fun fact: the most engaged casual players and those who will spend the most will

  1. come back every day (regulars)
  2. come for a minute, but stay for an hour.

The right context for the right ideas

Published by Paolo on 10/07/2023

A short while ago I met a friend who holds a manager position in one of the companies in my city. He told me that new ideas are one of the hardest things to come by.

Starting from that sentence I began reflecting on innovative ideas’ meaning. And I have to say that if I meet this person again, I would have my answer instead of listening as I did.

Every day on the various channels I frequent online and offline I am exposed to so many ideas. Some seem brilliant to me. Others, at least at first sight, do not surprise me. But then I didn’t read well or that person didn’t express well what he had in mind.

Ideas are not lacking. So what is missing from many companies that want to innovate? More ability to discern is lacking.

Discerning which ideas are the best is what is missing. To do that, you need to establish a process. Most games fail because they have no audience. But how come they have no audience?

Very often it’s because we put the workforce on things they either don’t care about or don’t have the skills to do.

We all know that match-3 puzzles are a bottomless pit. These are games that can earn a lot of money. But do we have the ability to create and operate such a game? Does our clique like to do this? Or would they rather make a graphic adventure but are forced to make candies that explode?

  • Discernment means the ability to make decisions in n informed and aware way.
  • Awareness means not neglecting the intentions and abilities of our team.
  • Good marketing and game design is not enough, you need everything in the right context.

Expanding the intellectual property

Published by Paolo on 05/07/2023

Years ago the free-to-play game Fallout Shelter was released. It is still one of the most appreciated mobile games nowadays.

The game is based on one of the fantasies from the Fallout series, but, and this is very important, not the central one. The fantasy of the shelters where people take refuge after the atomic apocalypse. A great idea!

In my humble opinion, the best way to use an AAA game’s IP to create a mobile game is not to transfer the original experience to the closest genre there. That’s the way to infuriate the fanbase, actually.

The best way is to find a marginal but recognizable fantasy. A few examples that come to mind:

Horizon: the fantasy of the tribes with their clothes and their colors. A doll dressing game?

Red Dead Redemption: the fantasy of poor towns with their vices. Maybe a dating sim?

I could go on for hours.

Keep always in mind that free-to-play mobile is essentially entertainment. Don’t think about using IP to make more money, think about expanding it.

(I admit this is hard to accept)

More creative less product

Published by Paolo on 03/07/2023

Product managers are a type of profile centered above all in business. It is true that many have design knowledge, but their role requires identifying and mitigating risks. When a new project is led by product managers, it is much better to dedicate oneself to making a +1 game, that is, a game that improves a few things on some other successful game. In this way we will avoid all the frustrations that come from the personal anxieties of those at the top.

A creative director, on the other hand, is naturally inclined to be open to exploring all the ways to arrive at a certain type of experience. When a game is run by a creative director who does his job well, the initial part is fun. In that case it is good not to forget the Pareto principle. Take 80% from something that already exists and create a new 20%. It’s not a norm, there are so many creative directors who have amazing ways of handling a project and inspiring the fantasies that need to be recreated. Some take from other sectors, such as cinema, theater, but also martial arts and so on.

I would like to see more new titles in mobile managed by creative directors and not by product managers. I miss the weirdness, the silliness and all the surprises that games that come from more creative minds give me. I’m sure features like shops, daily bonuses, achievements and special offers could come out of the pop-up hell they’re relegated to. Creativity should not be underestimated.

Physical versions of F2P

Published by Paolo on 28/06/2023

Free-to-play is a business model that helped create entire ecosystems of video games.

Often the monetization plans rely on a few people being able to spend very large amounts of money. Still, the model offers free fun to a lot of people.

[Anyone who spends a thousand, two thousand (or more) euros a month on a video game has a problem they should check. But I’m not an expert in psychiatry, so it’s a personal opinion based on my way of life.]

As a creator, yet, there is one thing that I really don’t like. When a company decides to stop a free-to-play service, the game disappears from circulation.

I would like the companies to release a playable offline version of their games. Just as a reminder, so as not to lose a part of the video game’s history.

Always a game designer

Published by Paolo on 21/06/2023

A lot of game designers when entering the world of games as a service become product managers.

They then go from working “in the product” to working “on the product”.

Probably in this way, they can access better salaries and not have to go through too many filters to see their ideas realized. Being a game designer in an industry where everyone interprets data in their own way is a big challenge. It takes a lot of patience and really trying to adjust to one’s view, even if it’s totally wrong.

I like to focus on the craft of game design. While I have my own way of looking at the data, I recognize that it is likely clouded by personal bias. So I prefer to focus on grounding ideas and bridging teams.

When a product manager tells the team that “we need to put our efforts into improving D1 retention”, the effect is like an orchestra of monkeys with trombones and drums. It means nothing in the mind of anyone who wants to know where to put the effort. The technical artist or programmer wants to know what they have to do, the numbers don’t make sense.

A game designer, on the other hand, knows that the product manager is referring to having a clearer core loop and a more powerful hook. Therefore, I will create a list of assets needed to unlock that technical artist. A series of configurations and flows to unlock the programmers.

For me, the step forward is not to become a product manager. The step forward for my career is dedicating myself to better games. But I will always remain a game designer.

Data informed lenses

Published by Paolo on 15/06/2023

I’m just a regular-everyday-game-designer. The best game design book is The Art of Game Design.

I always use its deck of lenses. In my case:

  • I used them the first years of my path trying to convince people more expert than me (with scarce results)
  • I abandoned them to focus on data-driven approaches. I was readapting industry trends and practices to the games where I was working on. That is what a mid-game designer does in free-to-play.

Now with the experience, I am integrating those into my workflow again! Thesis, antithesis, and now synthesis.

Take a look at this one.

How can we use this in the data hegemony we have today?

You want to make a new game and need to run a couple of CPI tests, IPM, or whatever. You want to find the right experience to design.

  • What emotions do you want to show in your creatives? why?
    • KPI: Number of impressions
  • What emotions are Players (including me) having when they decide to click? Why?
    • KPI: click-through rate (CTR)
  • How can I bridge the gap between the emotions players are expecting and the emotion I’d like them to have in the game?
    • KPI: Installs per mile (IPM)

Data-informed indie development

Published by Paolo on 07/06/2023

I have a soft spot for indie game development. Yesterday I listened to the words of a developer friend who was generous enough to share his battles.

The metrics coming from the Players behavior inside of the game are ignored. This is very different from the game-as-a-service approach.

Game design has an artistic and a scientific component. The latter is based on hypotheses, theories, and experiments. The experiments before were only manual (playtest). After the advent of big data, machines can help us simulate the real world and conduct other kinds of experiments. Free-to-play games aim for a very high volume of players, that’s why you need a data-informed approach to update them properly.

Indie games, on the other hand, keep their focus on creating an original idea designed to please a niche. They are much riskier because there is no data-informed approach that allows a team to learn from one game to be better in the next. The game develops, publishes, and moves on to the next one.

One trend I see in free-to-play mobile is keeping an eye on the indie world for interesting core loops to adapt. Indie developers should in turn “steal” the data-informed approach to improve their processes. They can develop the next game more consciously.

Indie metrics starter pack

Let’s take the example of an indie Metroidvania game in early access on Steam. Let’s say the team has an update roadmap in mind. As an outcome, they want to create a DLC calendar that makes sense.

First Time Player Experience

The first thing to keep track of is the First Time Player Experience. Represents love at first sight, the hook. Its effectiveness can be measured in two ways:

  1. D1 retention: the % of total players who return to play after the 24 hours.
  2. FTPE Funnel: the % of total players who leave the game at each step that belongs to the first experience. We virtually put markers and measure how many people fail each one.

Difficulty curve

Level design is very important in this type of game. It is necessary to have a beat chart designed to measure the failure rate of each segment or level of the game. I suggest to measure:

  • Drop rate: the number of players who leave the game at each level or segment
  • Average completion time: the average time to complete the level or segment
  • Average attempts: the average number of attempts to complete the level or segment

This will measure the difficulty of your game and where you should tweak the levels or segments. In this way, during early access, we can make fixes effectively not just based on what we read on reviews.

Retention for DLCs

Last thing, the metrics needed to create a post-launch DLC roadmap. The best way to create an effective roadmap is to understand which game features people engage with the most. Players may prefer to find secrets or exciting battles. We can measure the retention and engagement of players who:

  • unlock certain achievements
  • eliminate many enemies
  • they discover secrets
  • they spend more time reading the dialogues and exploring
  • they use certain skills

Retention is measured by days. We need to check if a player returns after 24 hours, after 48, 72, etc. Those are, respectively, D1, D2, D3… retention!

Engagement is the number of times the Player runs the game over a 24-hour period. Then we check the average time spent in each game session.

We can use retention and engagement to create cohorts, subset of Players. Then we can think in an effective DLC roadmap to target the most interesting and decide a pricing strategy effectively.

Internal and external storytelling

Published by Paolo on 01/06/2023

Everything tells us a story. Human beings have natural connections that make them very sensitive to narratives.

We create internal ones and receive external ones. The internal ones are personal to each one and depend on a whole series of factors. External ones arrive massively in recent times.

When I was 12 and in my little room playing with my Game Gear, the only external narrative was “orders from above”.

speaking of which, do you remember this game?

Today, when I’m relaxed playing on my smartphone, I’m constantly being stimulated by other narratives. Notifications, messages, calls.

As you can imagine, this impacts the storytelling of the gameplay experience I receive.

Some of my favorite games take 10 seconds to start. They show me the main screen and, while I check the things to do, a series of messages and offers appear. I have to close windows to continue with what I want to do.

In some cases, there is interesting news, no doubt. But everything contributes to creating narratives. It’s not the same as placing a pop-up in front of me or seeing a bird fluttering over the city I’m building and deciding to capture it to discover that it contains a message…

Especially if, at the same time, my wife is reminding me that I have to buy bread and I get an important email from a client.

External narratives are getting complicated and that makes my job more interesting.