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Tag: myself

My take on Supercell’s CEO last post

Published by Paolo on 17/02/2025

Last week I read interesting thoughts about the latest message released by Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen. This is an annual event that always attracts a lot of attention. It is interesting to watch how the experts’ thinking and the media attention evolve.

Supercell proves to be a company that is as ethical as Nintendo and others. They are the good people in our industry and they should always be respected for this reason alone. I have never worked with them, so I don’t know how they work internally. But the fact that they promote certain values ​​and ways of communicating is enough for me to keep them in my heart.

Every expert has denounced the lack of information this time, and this year I also felt a great lack. The challenges described are due to the fact that the power has shifted from publishers to platforms. Everything else for me is a consequence of this. Especially in the case of companies like Supercell that do their job well.

What I don’t understand is why in 2025 I still can’t play Brawl Stars on my PS5 and my home PC. Why can’t I download it from Steam and the Microsoft Store?

Supercell is leaving money on the table in this sense.

Try Railgods of Hysterra DEMO

Published by Paolo on 15/02/2025

I have had the chance to work on indie games for a year and a half. Many years of working in free-to-play have given me the knowledge, especially in system design, applicable to games with crafting, building, and character growth. I also had the chance to apply techniques I learned by taking narrative design and game writing courses.

The nice thing about indie is that the work is based on solving design problems while remaining consistent with a narrative and gameplay structure. You don’t hear KPIs mentioned, which makes your days more enjoyable.

Another positive thing is that you meet teams that are committed to the game. Generally, you don’t do experiments and you don’t cancel games for not having reached certain numerical results. Games are published, and they can be successful or not. So as a designer, it’s nice to see something that is also yours get published.

One of the games I helped is Railgods of Hysterra. V-Rising meets H.P. Lovecraft. Made with Unreal Engine. You can feed and grow your demonic train and travel the cursed world of Hysterra. I worked for 3 months (usually a client stays with me this time), and I helped with some systems that you can see in the video on my LinkedIn.

The game has a demo available on Steam for FREE, try it! Leave a review, helps out a ton.

Stories come from consciousness

Published by Paolo on 12/02/2025

A guy that I follow on LinkedIn said: “TikTok is already testing TV-like series with 90-second episodes, some titles generating hundreds of thousands of views behind modest paywalls ($5.13 for 10 episodes). Instagram creators are building millions of followers through episodic Reels, while YouTube embraces serialized content on YouTube TV.”

I understand the interest that an AI-generated story can generate.

“hey look at what this new technology is capable of doing!”

In this sense, I understand why there is so much engagement. There is something new and people want to see what it is. There is a long way to go from here to thinking this is the future. The “future” arrives organically, and it is difficult to predict. I work every single day with creativity and storytelling. Like everyone else, I am using tools that promise greater productivity. I am noticing improvements, especially in “unlocking” my mind in certain tasks.

Example: new task, with a poorly defined problem. I send a prompt to Claude, who gives me a wrong and summary answer. I start mentally criticizing the answer, and this makes me think on the right track.

But there is a long way to go from here to thinking that I can create stories that keep people engaged for a long time. These stories come from consciousness. Consciousness is impossible to reproduce in electrical signals because it does not come from there. It comes from something above us.

But that’s my belief.

Working with Chinese developers

Published by Paolo on 07/02/2025

Since October, I have been working with a company based in Singapore. They hired me as a freelancer for a Telegram instant game, and then we switched to a PC premium game for Steam. Singapore is receiving people from China, they bring their wealth there to be successful.

My teammates are from China, and different regions. I have the pleasure of working with people from a different culture. I am learning a lot, and I want to share some of my early learnings.

The first is their sense of work ethic: they consider the work as a way of contributing to society. They work a lot, also extra hours, because they must do so. Once, I said, “I am sorry, I don’t work on weekends”. I got a private message telling me “Do not work on weekends, ok, but please don’t say it.”

They see themselves as a collective, so if you say you won’t work it’s like you don’t want to support the community.

Second learning: they are very formal and polished in their way of communicating. I use Felo as a real-time translator (they have bad English) during our video meetings. Sometimes archaic expressions pop out. We are so used to the f-word in our colloquial English, we think it’s cool and friendly. Well, not for everyone.

Last, but not least, you should be very clear when something is a suggestion or is an order to execute. If you don’t specify, they will understand that’s an order. They are very vertical in this sense, and it’s hard to have straight conversations with them.

I will keep you updated with new learnings!

Working in a team is self-discovery

Published by Paolo on 03/02/2025

Today I discovered something more about myself, thanks to the creative director of the project I am working on with a company.

I tend to not insist too much on my vision. I explain it, defend it, and usually that’s it. When I see too much resistance from the other side, if I have no real power over the decision, I desist and try to meet the boss’ vision.

This is good, but it can lead to a passive-aggressive way of communicating. “I will do like you say, but I do not agree”. At first it may seem like there’s nothing wrong with that, butthe issue is that:

  • it looks like a “ok, whatever” and can damage the relationship
  • it is vague, proposes no real solution, and can damage the project
  • It is not informative enough for the team to make choices on that

Today I have learn something more about myself. Something I want to fix. And that’s why I prefer to work within a team.

I need new metaphors for teaching

Published by Paolo on 29/01/2025

The other day I was talking to friends about my teaching experience. This semester I accompanied some students in their “TFG, Trabajo de Final de Grado”. Their thesis, in short. University has changed a lot in recent years, for a whole series of factors. Society has changed since the time I went to university.

We were talking about the most difficult thing about teaching nowadays. I teach game design and development. For me the most difficult thing is actually teaching!

I am a learning facilitator for those who want to learn, rather than someone who actually teaches. Maybe it’s a question of age and experience.

Today the challenge is adapting to a world where information (and teachings) arrive at all hours from many sources that have pervaded our lives.

I can no longer see the story of the master to follow as possible in this world. I am not a person who goes to the mountain to wait for the worthy disciple to climb it and reach the source. For the type of culture (Christian) I come from, I prefer to be a shepherd and be among the sheep.

But this metaphor must change. Sheeps today have a Pandora’s box between their paws, designed to throw everything into their digestive tracts.

Some days are just hard

Published by Paolo on 28/01/2025

The game design is a communication job and it’s hard. Communication is one of the most challenging things, because it has a lot to do with perception. Our perception is the way in which we see reality. And it changes according to many factors.

You write specifications and something important gets ignored or misunderstood. Your duty is to report that. They can blame you for not being clear enough.

Sometimes I accept it, some other times I snap. Communication is also to say to someone when they are wrong.

Beat your limits

Published by Paolo on 22/01/2025

The majority of job offers I see out there look for people who already are in the same area. Having lateral or different experience can be beneficial in a new project, so why is that?

I don’t have the final answer, but I don’t want always the same thing. I worked a lot on mobile free-to-play and now I am working with premium PC. I am happy with that, the results will come I hope.

It’s good to be “incompetent” at something if you have the will to learn. Identify the systems, engage with the players of that kind of games, discover your own limits. And overcome them.

I believe in game education

Published by Paolo on 20/01/2025

A question that I receive a lot is: “do I need to study game development at a University, if I want to become a game developer?”

And my answer is: no, you don’t need to.

Often, there is a follow up question: “do you believe in game education?”

And my answer is: yes, I do.

It may look contradictory, but there is a sense in it. Nowadays, the access to the information useful to get the right education is very wide. Speaking of game development, you can choose to educate in game development:

  1. because it’s a beautiful craft. You will grow as a person like when you study music, literature, math, and other fields
  2. it’s good to understand how something so pervasive as games work to live better
  3. having teachers explaining us the art of game design and development makes us connect with our inner kid.

Those are just three reasons, but there are many more.

Walking the walk

Published by Paolo on 14/01/2025

I haven’t played Indiana Jones for a while and now I feel that I don’t know where I was, anymore. Probably I will quit this game without completing, which is sad because I like it a lot.

As far as I know, very few people complete single player games. You put lots of effort in making a complete experience and only a minority of the few people in the World that played it enjoy it fully. It’s part of the deal with creativity.

Another deal is that a project can fail, no matter if you have enough experience to run it or not. You can be a true expert and still make something that people don’t want. The other day I was watching a live playtesting of an MMO game made by ex-BigCorporate people with no funds. They were asking to support their patreon and stuff like that.

I thought: “guys, are you crazy or something? Put yourselves in this hard project with no money”.

But everyone has a story, they live their and I live mine right?