Tag: professional

The biggest Italian books publisher rejected The Lord of The Rings, many years ago. The first reaction I had when I saw this post the other day was from my belly.

But I had the time to reflect: to me, LotR is a masterpiece, but it has also a strong “personality”. It’s not an average story; you may like it or not for specific reasons.

Imagine to be the person in charge of selecting the best books. Something like this arrives, you read it and you like it. But its personality is very strong, and your role requires you to be cold and professional.

Today I can read these words and think that the decision maker made a mistake. But then I put myself in their shoes and it’s hard to make a decision with something like Tolkien’s book. A modern Tolkien can write tales in smaller formats on platforms like Substack. With nobody predicting if the text could be right for a specific geography.

It happens also with video games, I have to say especially to us game designers. Part of our responsibility is to pitch new ideas for features and mechanics. All companies have people in charge that filter our proposals. This process filters also good things out, it’s part of the game.

To design and produce you often need a sort of authorization from people in charge. These people, like you, make mistakes. The lesson you take can be that this is unacceptable, but often it’s a matter of communication. If something so special like The Lord of The Rings arrives on your desk, you can make errors. That’s why people that get a proposal should be prepared first.

I don’t know the full story, maybe the Tolkien’s agent just sent the book with a note. When you present something, the receivers should know all that from before. In that way, they will feel already connected and familiar to the thing.

Like new writers on Substack, leave crumbs and taste the environment!

These days for work reasons I am playing a bunch of simulation games (sims) of different nature. I am making in my spare time a sandbox simulator of a police dog, and then for other reasons I am playing other sims.

They all have a single thing in common, despite belonging to different genres. In fact, immersive sims come from first person shooters, a specific type of action game. Colony sims come from strategy games. Sandbox sims come from adventure games.

They all share a single reason of why Players do love them: they foster the player agency, letting them create their own story.

Everytime I join one of their Discord for research I feel that. Every player has a different story to tell. That is, in my opinion, the single most important motivation for the core audience of sim games. Simulation doesn’t mean simulator, high realism and fidelity (also if some simulation game puts “simulator” in its name).

It means to have many levers to move to create your own story for your friends, Discord, or a livestream.

There is a trending voice on socials that says that “GDDs are not important,” and that “Who wants to read all of that text?” and so on. I am mostly a writer, and writing is important. Not because every piece we write needs to be shared among our team. But because it’s the best medium (and the cheapest) to have clear ideas.

When you learn how to write, you become a better communicator. You can also inspire others with short sentences on a Slack channel. But to arrive at that, you need to write a lot. One of the reasons I have this daily blog is this one.

I am applying to a Spanish government’s fund for video games, and I was faster in completing all the documentation needed because I have written a lot about my game in great detail. And I am continuing to do it every day as I play the build I have.

I like to read again what I wrote 3 months later and see how the game evolves. There are also documents that I want to keep updated with changes. Others that I like to print and have physical. It’s part of my love for the craft.

The most important skill for a creative person is writing. When you write well, you are able to inspire and explain concepts. I like to write and practice my writing skills. I am not a English native speaker, but still I love to practice my English writing skills and improve them.

I feel that I am more effective on paper than in person. Maybe because I am tall but not intimidating, I don’t know. With my words, I get more authority in what I say, or at least that’s how I feel.

There is a tendency to avoid too much documentation to read and share. I am very much against that, to me, words are important. Words matter a lot, and we should care about that part very much. Both design and tech documentation are very important.

Speaking of which, my game Pawtners Case is going forward. I found an Italian outsourcing company that is helping me with its development. They like to write, I am lucky to have met them. You can watch the last videos here on my Italian substack.