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Paolo's Blog Posts

Starting Free Flow Fridays

Published by Paolo on 15/03/2024

Today I want to start a new appointment on my blog: Free Flow Fridays (FFF). I want to just leave my mind for one day without thinking about being insightful, or worrying about the SEO and things like that.

This week I was reading and listening to the news and the whole World is in crisis. Everything is suffering a crisis now, from religious institutions to the climate. The industry where I work is in crisis too, and my country is in a crisis too. What can I do as a game designer? The challenge is pretty hard, but one thing I know: I have to bring fun and good things to the World. This starts by selecting also the tools I use. For instance, GenAI tools available are trained on datasets that steal intellectual properties. I will not use them.

Speaking of which, I am not scared by the advent of generative AI, I am pretty sure it is a bubble about to burst. Still, I have to be prepared for the worst as always. I believe that nothing can beat good storytelling in games. And I am sure that good stories will always be uniquely from humans, never from bots. So I intend to insist on that side of game design: game writing and more in general narrative design.

In the last few months I have been suffering fewer clients too, that’s why I am taking a couple of courses to improve my tools and workflows and get more productive in the future. I don’t believe honestly that with 60 years companies will look out for people like me, so I want to prepare my future. There are 3 possibilities I foresee:

  1. Build a profitable company and sell it. Unless something changes, I don’t see myself doing that.
  2. Invest my game design skills into other fields more stable. Honestly, I don’t see myself working for a bank using my incredible spreadsheet skills.
  3. Teach. That’s my thing. I love to explain things, I love the idea of helping create a better future.

I see myself teaching and making my small games before retiring, so yes that’s what I want to work on in the next months. Maybe by starting an Italian book on game design, who knows?

An idea for a future RPG

Published by Paolo on 13/03/2024

I would start a new RPG development by creating the World and its rules. Then I would start from the smallest possible system to see if the people is actually interested in it. Only then I would proceed. To me make a game without knowing anything is too risky.

Another reflection is that I don’t own Baldur’s Gate 3, but I see some of its characters all over the place. And I can just look at that beautiful piece of art from the outside. As a follower, I cannot influence anything of the World of BG3. In 2024 is absurd, considering that I can interact with the president of a foreign country from my smartphone. Do I have to buy BG3 to interact with its World?

I am currently playing Elden Ring. When I have time, since I have a baby to care. As any RPG there are chores to do. Why can’t I do these chores from my mobile phone? I don’t have anything to interact with the world of Elden Ring when my PS5 is off. In 2024, that is absurd to me.

An idea for the future is to build an RPG like a separate entity, a proper virtual world. And that world can be accessible by multiple sources. A mobile game, a console game, a PC game. But also a TikTok account, a Discord server. Technology is there, you can make donations and send gifts via lots of platforms to the creators. So why don’t we use it to create a fully interactable world?

Farewell Toriyama-sensei

Published by Paolo on 11/03/2024

I remember staying in a very big room watching cartoons. My mother was cooking, but she was aware of what I was looking at. The story of a young kid with a monkey tail and a stick that extended at request. He seemed unaware of Bulma’s curves. “What are you looking at, Paolo?” said my mother.

Many years later, that room looks smaller. My mother still remembers Dragon Ball. I don’t think I understood the storyline at that time. I just enjoyed the visuals and colors. Everything was so rounded, as well as vehicles. That character was similar to me, he was a little kid but so strong. He wasn’t interested in adult things, just in his quest for dragon balls.

Years later I was buying my first manga comics, one of my favorites was Arale. The creativity was shaping in my mind also with these things. Today I am a game designer and I ask myself: would I be a creator without the existence of Toriyama-sensei?

I don’t think so. God bless you, Akira.

T34 – The Dark Zone (Good Old FRAG)

Published by Paolo on 07/03/2024

I installed UEFN and tried out some Fortnite maps created by others. I was conflicted regarding how shooters have evolved these days. On one side, there are tons of mechanics and dynamics in Fortnite. On the other, the thing is getting very complicated! Too many things altogether, games back in the day were simpler.

So I decided to start a new project, codename “TH3FR4GGERZ” where for the moment I am rebuilding classic deathmatch maps for the kids to play what I played (ok, boomer).

I started from The Dark Zone from Quake, which I played tons of hours back in the days at LAN parties (ok, boomer x2). Do you remember it?

  • UEFN is an incredible tool, it’s Unreal Engine but it permits you to set up rules playtest, and publish very quickly without having to worry about code and other things.
  • Fortnite is a game where new and old audiences meet together. This is great as a designer because there are many things I have to understand about these new audiences that are not immediate. For instance, unlike games from my time, the Players receive EVERYTHING right from the start in the most successful experiences.
  • I can revisit classics and finally have an excuse to understand all the steps that led us, the FPS players, here today. Nostalgia level: 9.999.999
  • If you are a Fortnite player, please join: 4321-3870-5686
  • FFA
  • No build
  • No stamina, run forever

First Playtest for The Dark Zone

Published by Paolo on 05/03/2024

After a couple of days working on my first map and getting confidence with UEFN, I have a first version of The Dark Zone, a classic Quake deathmatch map to test.

I want to test specifically three things:

  • The dimensions: I had to scale the map up because of many reasons. Usually, in Fortnite, there are more players. Also, I want to express a sense of reverence towards the classics of the genre. Plus, the metrics of Fortnite permit the Players to move more agile across a map. Players can slide, run, crouch, and many things more.
  • The lights: the standard lighting system for Fortnite is very plain, but also better in terms of contrast. Still, I want to represent the darkness of these classics but at the same time make the visuals always readable.
  • Weapons: Fortnite has too many mechanics and weapons, and I have to convert somehow the weapons from Quake to a Fortnite counterpart. That can lead to a lot of balancing issues. I need to test it.

The future of mobile games

Published by Paolo on 04/03/2024

Mobile phones are nowadays in everyone’s hands. Kids are playing mostly from mobile devices (tablets are a big player, they are used also in many schools). Still, when I listen to people talking about the future of mobile games, the discussion is always going around two things:

  1. effective way of stealing ideas (playbooks)
  2. how to hack the marketing machine and get people to install your game more cheaply (performance marketing).

Well, this can be a tactic for the short term, sure. But for the long one, we need to look at things with a critical perspective: mobile games are always the freaking same. We don’t see nowadays the kind of innovation we saw when Supercell, Rovio, and King arrived on the scene. We are still repeating (and improving) formulas, that’s all. And it’s very boring. The most interesting novelties are coming from UGC experiences inside of Roblox, from one side. From the other, we see an exasperation of FOMO, dark patterns, and grinding for the addicts. We are not going too far like this.

We need more game design, more research, and more risk betting on something novel. Of course, the discourse around distribution is very important, but we are distributing always the same and listening to people who are not building interesting games. That’s a huge problem for our industry.

Generative AI will never improve profit margins for companies, AI design and art are just scams. We need to return to the basics, at the drawing board, thinking really in finding interesting formulas for people looking for fun.

Talent and Effort

Published by Paolo on 01/03/2024

Talent is something that you have or you don’t. You can cultivate it or ignore it. You can also never discover your talent in your whole life. You can work on something, play with something, or make something without any talent. If you do anything with talent, everyone notices it.

Effort is a choice. If you don’t put effort into something it’s because you don’t want to. The context can influence the effort you put into something. You can also measure the effort and its results.

Four scenarios:

  1. You have talent and you choose to put effort into something. Best case scenario, you are the Nick Cave of what you do. Or the Maradona. Whatever you prefer.
  2. You have a talent for something, but you don’t put effort into it. You will never discover what you’re capable of. You can live with that, no worries.
  3. You don’t have talent but you want to do something. You put the effort in. The majority of successful professionals are like that. The important thing is to be aware of that and stay humble. Also, respect (and steal) talents when you spot them, which is not always easy.
  4. You don’t have talent and you don’t want to put any effort. This is a significant portion of people living in this World, as far as I perceive. In the case of creativity (art, writing, design, engineering, science, faith) an impressive business is building for them: generative AI.

Unprofessionalism

Published by Paolo on 29/02/2024

The recent news in the games industry comes with a bunch of social actions that are unprofessional. In this post, I would like to point those out (without saying names, of course).

The first thing is using bad words and cursing while posting about something. It doesn’t make you feel smarter, also if your content can be more viral. Believe me.

The second behavior is to speak regarding something you don’t know. “Company X laid off YYYY people, shame on you!”. Why are you doing that? Do you really know why it happened? No, you don’t.

The third issue is with people sharing WIP projects on social. Finish things, and show what you are proud of. It’s OK to share that you are working on something if you are looking for help, but it’s not OK to show something incomplete hoping that someone will hire you.

Last thing, we all like humor and cynicism but if you are constantly posting just that you are not putting yourself in a good light. You can look smart and experienced at the start, but then it’s tiring.

Do this instead

  • Try to evolve your communication style and channels
  • Analyze what you post and the results you have
  • Speak always politely, be always gentle

(I wish I could follow these things myself. Unfortunately, it’s not always possible because of the context and design of certain platforms)

Is the games industry even a thing?

Published by Paolo on 28/02/2024

Over the past six months or so, the very concept of “making a career in the video game industry” has completely evaporated from my mind.

There is no industry, because there are no guarantees or responsibilities. Whoever breaks it (for example by bargaining much more than you should) doesn’t pay. Indeed, the annual bonus is guaranteed by adjusting numbers on an Excel. Most often, numbers represent people.

The famous “industry” is nothing more than a mass of people who don’t even play video games and who create companies essentially to sell them. In the renowned “industry”, video games are almost an accident, they are not the important thing.

People who dream of video games, who study, who work their asses off, are tossed left and right like cattle. In the illusion of being able to create experiences that make other people dream. I understood this many years ago, thank God.

But it’s just an illusion, it doesn’t exist. The best thing is to do it in your small way and create your opportunities. Much safer, even if it doesn’t seem like it at first glance.

How to define USP?

Published by Paolo on 27/02/2024

I have watched today probably the best video on game design I have ever seen in the last few months. The speaker makes a definition for USP, unique selling points:

USP = (appeal + fantasy) * readability

  • The appeal is the level of beauty, polish, etcetera your game can have. It is what makes the game appealing from looking at screenshots/videos
  • The fantasy is the opportunity the Players will seek inside of the game. It can be something very real, but also something they couldn’t do in real life.
  • Everything is multiplied for the readability of the gameplay. Which is the capacity of your game to be understood from a simple quick view.

I love this definition and this formula, also if I am aware that creativity doesn’t work with formulas. But it’s a way of starting from a base. Test the art side (appeal x readability) separately from the gameplay (fantasy x readability).

What I want to say is that according to the properties of multiplication, we can say that the readability is a responsibility shared among art and design. Art takes care more about the appeal, while design more about the fantasy. These are my 2 cents on the general reasoning of the video. Watch it here: