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Tag: insight

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!

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. 

Factors, scope and popularity

Published by Paolo on 22/12/2023

Every game plays around 3 factors: skill, luck, and stats.

  • The first is the actual cognitive effort required to play it.
  • Luck is about everything generated at runtime, developers set up rules for generation.
  • Stats are carefully designed values that give the Players the first goal: grow them.

There are skill-based, luck-based, and stat-based games. Games whose principal factor is one of the 3. Within this game is possible to add more of the other 2 factors. You may earn more opportunities, for instance for monetization. On the other hand, you complicate a little the things. This translates usually to a more niche game.

What’s the key to creativity? The capacity of scoping things, removing the superfluous. Many successful games started with this concept in mind. Eventually, they evolved more complicated as their popularity grew. Some of the new Players will resist a little bit of friction to be part of the crowd, to not be left out. It’s important to see where they started if you desire to replicate their success.

Game design is not fortune telling

Published by Paolo on 18/12/2023

One of the mantras of game design is that you should be able to predict the future, somehow. This is something that I read a lot, but that is plain wrong in my humble opinion.

You cannot predict the future. You should read and analyze your audience and try to understand how to bring meaning to them in a novel way. It’s not about prediction, game design is a practical craft. It’s empathetic, it’s about the present (and why not? also the past).

Leave predictions and forecasts to consultants, focus on creation instead.

PRO TIP: creativity is about cutting off things, not add more stuff.

The first production tip

Published by Paolo on 16/12/2023

We can speak ages about games production and how to manage people. But there are things that are universal and very useful.

  • Make a list of features you would like to see into your game
  • Order them by priority. Priority is calculated based on specific factors, it’s a formula
  • take the top 3 in your list and set the next deadline at 6-10 weeks around them.

Easy and uneasy questions

Published by Paolo on 14/12/2023

Do you believe in your project or not?

Someday the game you are making is exciting.

Some other day you feel like nothing works. It’s the worst game ever.

This is completely normal and common. Track these days. Play the build, every single day. And speak with your team. Do you believe you are on the right track?

If you are not sure about that from many milestones, it’s time to question harder topics.

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!

Freelancing is not a therapy

Published by Paolo on 06/12/2023

When a client hires me usually is for a whole project preproduction. It can be the startup for a new game or the research stage for a new feature of a live game. I help them during the whole process of finding the right formula. I work per day, every day is one slot. Every client can get from 1 to 3 slots per week.

Happens that during my service I realize that my help is not needed. It may happen for a lot of reasons. Sometimes I see that the team is on the right track and I am slowing things down. Other times I see that the client that hired me didn’t want my help with game design, so that I am useless.

In any case, my business is not like a therapist. When I realize that I am not needed anymore, I let go the client. I speak with them and explain any reason. It was a pleasure to be there, please leave your testimonial. You will not lose your money, I will not lose my time. Everybody wins.

(and very few of them leave the actual testimonial)

Loops

Published by Paolo on 05/12/2023

Loops are a great way to drive design discussions with everyone on the team. They are a simplified version of a flowchart and the last element connects to the first. I see that there are different definitions of loops and today I want to show you mine.

As with many other definitions related to game design, the fact that there are different versions implies often that you need to make an effort to understand the point of view of who’s driving the conversation.

Game, Core and Meta loops

When I say game loops, I mean the sequence of most used features within the game.

  • The example above represents an action-adventure game like Uncharted
  • Every circle represents a feature, a collection of mechanics that creates one or more dynamics
  • The arrows represent how the game is supposed to lead the Players to the next feature

With core loops I mean the sequence of actions that the Player performs more often during the gameplay

  • The example above is the core loop of a match-3 game
  • Every circle represents a mechanic
  • The connecting arrows can be read as “so that”: As a Player, you swipe tiles SO THAT you match 3 or more tiles you get a new board status SO THAT you can decide which tiles to swipe next.

Finally, there are the metagame (or economy) loops, which represent the construction of the economy on top of the actions. A good economy makes you think about the game when you are not playing.

  • the example above represent (a simplification of) a possible metagame for an RPG
  • every rectangle represents a game feature, mechanic, or concept
  • arrows indicate that a system adds or subtracts elements from the next rectangle. For instance, speaking to an NPC will increment the number of quests that the Player has. Collecting loot will remove inventory space.

Conclusion

There is not a single way of looking at loops, what is important as a designer is to have your voice. Oftentimes clients show me their “core loops” and in my definition, those are “game loops” instead. And there is no problem, the client is always right and I can adopt their jargon easily. The important is to keep my base strong to drive meaningful discussions.

Loops are useful to express concepts and drive discussions, they don’t have to be perfect. They are a medium for a concrete purpose: clarity. I saw very complicated loops, for instance, that do not add clarity. In that case is better to break it down into different feature loops (which are game loops that describe a single feature, when it’s too big).

Finally, the loops should be meaningful. Good loops have a long-term goal associated with them. You decide to repeat the loop over and over to reach that goal. So ask yourself what is the goal for every loop you identify.

AI making games

Published by Paolo on 04/12/2023

“Someday a generative AI will be able to create a release a complete videogame. Can you imagine that?“

Yes, I can. But I am very skeptical about the quality, the value, and the timeline for that.

The creative process is very uncertain and risky. Specifically, you could work for months on something and then earn nothing. Many non-creative people would like to mitigate that risk. I get that for the true capitalist that’s juicy.

Now, think about yourself as a Player. You are downloading a fantastic new game that you purchased. And you know that a machine made the whole game. As a Player, you know you have to beat some useless obstacle not created by a team of people. You don’t have a true mind challenging you and presenting an opera. A machine did that and a company is asking to pay for it.

Can something like that be appealing to the people?

As a developer think about passing your days writing prompts and editing the results. Or better, remove the editing part. You have an idea and TA DA! Compile a superb game. A game you feel you couldn’t even imagine. And you didn’t have to pitch, discuss, get approvals. You didn’t have to struggle to find the right art style, the good coding structure, the best mechanics. You have it all in a few minutes.

Now think about it: how would you feel if you have to sacrifice one of the most important parts of being a person for speed, success, and revenue?

At the present time, I feel that there will be a split in game developers in case of the realization of this crazy prediction.