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Tag: insight

Find the right partners

Published by Paolo on 12/09/2023

My grandfather told me once: Stay with those who are better than you. He intended humanly better, of course, not to those who have more futile stuff.

Understanding who is humanly better than us is an art and often we make mistakes. The important is to strive to stay with the best that we meet on our road.

Partners are the most valuable predictor of success. This is valid in all areas of life. Want a better career? Find the right partner. Starting a business? Find the right partners. Looking for a job? Find the right partners. Launching a new game? Find the right partners.

When you hire a freelancer, you are the client of a 1-person business. At the start, we have to test each other from both sides.

  • Will this person be the right one to delegate this job?
  • Will this new client pay me on time?

Oftentimes, after a couple of weeks, we may become partners. The company found someone to produce faster. And the freelancer found a business from which to learn to spot and solve more problems. This helps us to be faster with future clients, too. In fact, we see every week different kinds of situations and challenges. Many sources of data and very different readings of those. Wide picture.

Treat freelas like partners!

My suggestion then, is to treat your freelancers not simply like service providers. The best clients I have ask me “How are you doing?” “How do you feel?”. Speak to us also of other struggles you have, maybe we can help. This creates bounds. This fosters a partnership. This creates value.

Maybe you do not need our service anymore at some point. Our job is done. We can still be a partner, though. You can recommend us to other businesses, for instance. Write to us the updates on your product. “Hey, I am coming to this conference next month, what about you?”.

Be a good partner first, and you will find the right partners. Gigs, businesses, and jobs come and go. What the people think of us stays for a long time.

Perception, reality and imagination

Published by Paolo on 08/09/2023

Our perception shapes the reality that is presented to us. This is a double-edged sword, and any person working with creativity knows it.

We get the information using our cognitive system and we form meaningful patterns. Perception is the system that holds those patterns. On the one side, we have fewer things to store in the memory. On the other, our cognitive system doesn’t have to understand everything. It can reuse those patterns quickly!

Challenges

Working every day as game designers, our perception of games forms lots of patterns. And so does the reality we think we know about the Players in our games. And we are players too, maybe in other kind of games.

We work almost always from a desk, too. And a desk is a dangerous place from which to see the World, as John le Carré said in a novel.

To mitigate the risks of perception:

  1. Be aligned with the business, understand how the system works. Listen to your producers. How can our design be impactful?
  2. Be aware of the context and processes that will deliver the final piece of software. Understand the code architecture, and how art pipelines work. Something that seems like “a little change” can turn into weeks of work.
  3. Get in the players’ shoes and empathize with them. Understand what they do in our game and why. Be informed on what they will be looking for.

Nowadays we have a lot of information available! When I start a new project or the design of a feature, I start by researching the solutions already adopted. Be aware of the business. I use Liquid&Grit which offers reports and has a db full of captures and videos. In that way I speed up my work, every design takes me 20% less than before.

Then I switch to YouTube, looking for gameplays to watch and take notes. Many games nowadays have a Reddit page and a Discord server, too. It is not that hard to put ourselves in the Player’s shoes. I need to really get their jargon, and understand what they look for. I need to form new patterns with which to read reality.

Advantages

Perception helps our memory system. We form patterns we can reuse in a different context. And this helps our imagination as creators. For instance, when we have to create the plot for a story. 

The image below is a joke, it’s Friday! I am a lover of fantasy and was a heavy D&D player. Because of that, I have already many patterns formed.

  • The left side is a quick overpaint I made with GIMP on a very popular photo of one of the lowest moments in the history of sport.
  • The right part was generated with Midjourney using the prompt: “a dungeons and dragons scene where a mind flayer has taken the head of a female ranger in his head to attack her”

Support their autonomy

Published by Paolo on 06/09/2023

Working on player retention is always a challenge. You must be careful with all the levers you touch. By concentrating on one you can inadvertently change another.

As a general rule, I always recommend thinking in the long term. Very often to improve player retention on the first days, we offer just external motivators. Daily bonus, shop bonus, special offer, weekly tournament.

Anything that controls players’ autonomy is to the detriment of their intrinsic motivation.

  • “Come in every day for 7 days and you’ll get this”,
  • “Hey, check the shop now”
  • “Watch this ad, double your coins”

Especially that part of Players that enjoys our game, can see their internal motivation shrink. This translates into lower long-term retention (60, 90 days).

There are games with low short-term retention compared to the average. Those manage to retain players in the long term because those who stay motivated.

Why do match-3s work well in the long term?

  1. They offer a very intuitive mechanic: combine 3 or more elements of the same type in line to match
  2. Every match counts because it can unlock a cascade
  3. Players can create power-ups: special tiles that help them towards their goals.

Feeling that you can create power-ups with your ability is great for intrinsic motivation. There are many elements that support the autonomy of Players.

If we add rewards and bonuses for playing a match-3, we will see that D1 retention increases. But the intrinsic motivation of our PRO Players, true fans, can decrease.

If we add mechanics to support and encourage player autonomy, in the short term things can get complicated. This can mean lower D1-D3 retention. But in the long term, we could have a more stable curve.

It is much easier to think about rewards, deadlines (tournaments), and bonuses. But the art of game design is a Swiss army knife that offers many tools. If you see that in your pipeline there are only new bonuses and tournaments to develop, ask yourself: “how will that affect the long term retention?”.

I love balancing

Published by Paolo on 01/09/2023

I’m here working for a good client balancing the resources of the game I’m helping design. A great way of closing my week!

Balancing offers a very interesting challenge to my mind. It’s about establishing intentions and predicting player behavior.

Balancing is not putting everything in balance. If everything is flat and there are no cliffs, everything also becomes monotonous. It’s about understanding and working on players’ intrinsic motivation to perform certain activities. Balancing does this through strategic introduction, gating, and withdrawal of game resources.

It’s a practical and concrete activity. Sometimes I have to change numbers on a spreadsheet. Other times I have to tweak numbers in the game engine.

Balancing is putting the game at play together with the Players. They use the mechanics as levers to create gameplay. We use numbers, flags, and other metrics. It’s very cool if you do it empathetic.

About storytelling

Published by Paolo on 30/08/2023

When we use the word storytelling, very often we mean “telling a story”.

Storytelling is the process of communicating through a story. The goal is to give emotion, to persuade, and also to sell something inside of the game.

Game design offers many tools to build the story to reach this goal:

  • Gameplay (or UX) design helps leaving to mechanics some story outcome. We saw the other day the critical success/failure
  • System design identifies resources, rewards, and balances to give proper meaning to each action
  • Narrative design offers concept, worldbuilding, characters, dialogues, cutscenes
  • Level design enables the learning of core concepts (skill atoms) and arranges the environment.

The storytelling process:

– starts from concrete goals to achieve

– identifies what is measurable and how*

– creates and implements the story to excite, persuade, and sell.

When your game is silent, still offers a narrative. Still tells a story. Dozens of games are published every day. The way of communicating through the story is one of the keys for the Players to choose us.

* Not everything should be measurable, that is a common misconception. Not everything that cannot be measured should stay out of the equation. But that’s another post.

Remote or face-to-face?

Published by Paolo on 29/08/2023

Large corporations and Venture Capital investors are returning back to face-to-face or hybrid. Very often there are also interests in real estate investments that lead to that choice.

Other companies see remote working as an advantage. They can:

  • find qualified people in wider geographical areas
  • offer to employees quality of life.

The two positions do not need to be in conflict. Too often I read sentences about one or the other position that make me smile. There are common points on which to work:

  • It’s good for everyone to know that there is a place, an office to go to. It offers professionalism and an optimized space for work, which not everyone has. It is mentally reassuring. I believe it also improves loyalty, somehow.
  • We all know the problem of climate change and we know that a significant part is due to transport. Being able to reduce contaminant transport is one of the measures we must take, as humanity. There are people who deny this problem, and I respect it even if I don’t share it.
  • We are social beings whose evolution has been built on cooperation. Human contact is necessary in any case. There are people who are more or less introverted, in different situations. In all cases, it is good to think about how to improve the environment within the company, and its culture.
  • We all need time to take care of our private life, our family, and the people and animals we love.
  • We all want the companies we work for, or clients, to be successful. In this way, our work and salary will benefit. The problem arises when there are abnormal growths that cause a lot of stress to employees. Those aren’t healthy, and I’m convinced that big investors don’t like them either.

More issues

Having talent from large geographic areas means access to very distinct salary ranges. This can become good or bad depending on how you use it.

  • It can be beneficial for smaller companies, or in areas where there is no developed ecosystem.
  • It can be great for some professionals who would otherwise have a hard time finding work.
  • Employees in areas of higher density, where rents and expenses are high, may feel in danger.

My take

Neither face-to-face nor remote work is dead. On the hybrid solution, I reserve my doubts, since I don’t have enough data and I have never worked like that.

We need to shift focus to the betterment of our society. Working to build companies that add value from an ethical and human point of view. It is not a matter of remote/face-to-face, it is a matter of vision. How can you create value and make this World better? That is the question.

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.

Rules and worldbuilding

Published by Paolo on 21/08/2023

The success of Baldur’s Gate represents for many the triumph of things done right. It’s always nice to see that creations made with a love for art can go far.

As a game designer, I also want to join the discussion by contributing my grain of sand. Baldur’s Gate 3 has the advantage of a system of rules that is well-known in a niche of players. When we say “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons” we refer to the license and intellectual property. But from a game design standpoint, it’s much more. Holding a license is not simply holding the right to use characters. It means having a significant part of the design work already done.

When you create any game, you create a magic circle that players voluntarily choose to enter. In the magic circle, they will find rules and a world that they can like or dislike. Creating rules and the world is a very important part of a game.

  • Dungeons & Dragons rules are based on the roll of the dice.
  • There are numerical factors to add and subtract from each roll. Those factors depend on the characters and the context. There is an interesting connection with the narrative.
  • The system also allows for surprises. In jargon, critical failure and critical success. In practice, things can get surprisingly good or bad. And that is how unexpected moments can twist your story completely.

Baldur’s Gate 3 also uses the Forgotten Realms setting. Imagine 2 decades ago. Some Dungeons & Dragons players create a campaign. They draw maps and create legendary characters. They decide to publish this setting so that other groups can create stories and enrich them. That is how Forgotten Realms and many other settings are born.

In game design, we call this worldbuilding. Another expensive part of our trade. Do you think it’s easy to create a world with dragons and magic that is consistent and players accept as decent? Well, it’s not. It’s very easy to get it wrong. Players of tabletop RPGs are extremely knowledgeable in fantasy fiction. They read a lot, they study a lot and it’s not easy to please them. If you meet that niche, chances are that you can also reach a massive audience.

Someone says that if 10 people are true fans of your product, your product has a chance to become a massive hit. Having a system of rules and worldbuilding already available is a tremendous advantage.

Questions to ask on culture

Published by Paolo on 17/08/2023

It happens to many of us to join a company and realize that it is not the place for us. Not for the product, not for the people, but for the type of culture there.

During some selection processes, we have the opportunity to speak with the founders. There is always a moment when they ask us if we have any questions. I recommend these 3 questions to understand where you are going to end up.

Are you running a race or a ride?

There is no right or wrong answer to this question. There are professionals who prefer racing. They want to feel the adrenaline rush and get some results first. Train hard and work hard. They don’t like to lose the race. They want to be at least on the podium and bet everything in their lives on that.

There are other professionals who, like me, want to last 100 years. If some competitor does better, who cares? There’s room for everyone. Take it easy. Do your job with patience, and dedicate yourself to those hours with all of yourself. But remember that life has many facets, not just work.

Fun fact: I worked for a beautiful company that ran a ride. The company was bought by a multinational whose vision was: “to become the best f2p company in the world“. From ride, work turned to race. In a race, people are left behind. I jumped ship immediately. Many of my former colleagues were fired in 1 year, probably for some number on a spreadsheet. Do you read the company vision? Do you meditate on that? That is very important, believe me.

I’m working for you. What are the elements that will lead you to say “nice job” in 6 months?

This question is essential to understand what are the things that the company is looking for. All businesses want to make big profits, big and small. This is obvious, otherwise, a sane person would never get into entrepreneurial ventures.

There are many different types of leaders. Ask this question and listen carefully to the answer.

Fun fact: I was in a bar having an informal interview with a company that wanted to land in Barcelona. I asked this question to the person who was supposed to be my future boss. This person replies “I’ll tell you that you’re doing a good job if I’m drinking champagne from PRADA shoes! Hahaha!“. I finished my coffee, said goodbye politely, and left. The company has never been able to create anything here.

If you fired in the last year, could you tell me why?

This is a question that will make us understand the intentions of the companies. It’s a question I’ve never asked anyone. Today I only interview for companies that really interest me. With solid projects.

But given the recent times, where the job market treat people like commodities. This question is fundamental.

In fact, we need to understand what kind of monster we are entering through the jaws. If this monster will spit us out, shit us out.

Or if we will become part of his organism contributing to its functioning.

Conclusion

People who don’t know how to manage often manipulate the topic of cultural fit to serve their ego. Other times, it professionals who don’t know how to ask questions view this topic not so important.

Remember: you should become the member of a company to improve its culture. No one should never force you in their schema.

The past to get a vision

Published by Paolo on 16/08/2023

There are people who are able to read the situation in the video game industry and create a vision. This isn’t enough to create a successful game, but it’s definitely a start.

Rather than pretending to forecast numbers, they are capable of looking back.

That makes a lot of sense, actually. Whatever kind of game you want to create, study the market for 10 years now. By studying its evolution, in fact, it is possible to understand trends, errors, and choices.

This helps to trace a backward path and identify possible forks that could arise in the future!

A large part of the future audience of a certain genre will be the people who are playing that type of game today. With a few more years, but above all with a lot of knowledge that will come from the past. That will lead to their gaming choices for the future.