Skip to content

Paolo's Blog Posts

I am a game designer

Published by Paolo on 07/09/2023

I remember the opening of Jesse Shell’s book, The Art of Game Design. There is a mantra: I am a game designer.

When I think about game design I identify 4 main areas:

  • Systems design
  • Gameplay (or UX) design
  • Level design
  • Narrative design

To be more concrete, all game design is system design. Level and narrative design create gameplay and shape the player experience (UX, if you prefer). Narrative design has many things to share with level design too.

The narrative design delivers the most evident pieces of the game, from the Player’s perspective. The system is less visible but rules them all. In the middle, there is gameplay and level design.

Rules, which are part of the gameplay to me, influence the design of the UI. The UI is that part of gameplay (or UX) that connects with the narrative. UI is evident and tells something to the Players. So that is narrative to me.

There are many points of view on that, and that’s good. The simple term “design” has a broad meaning. And the geo where we work influences our vision too. Companies from the US tend to focus more on hyper-specialization. Here in Southern Europe, we do EVERYTHING. Also the coffee!

Then there is the personal factor. I am a game designer. That to me means:

  • work with everything from system to narrative
  • grab a course on narrative design and a year later on level design.
  • strive to master Excel, Unity, Unreal Engine and all the tools to create systems and gameplay
  • take screens and create wireframes and docs detailing rules and mechanics.

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?”.

Trees and leaves

Published by Paolo on 05/09/2023

When we talk about free-to-play casual puzzles, we generally hear about a predominantly female and adult audience.

However, we have no idea how many kids play the most popular match-3 games. If you notice, the narrative theme is very childish in most of them. There is a reason for that: a connection between adults and children. Adults also download games for their children, and children influence the choices of adults. It’s fun to play a game that your kid also plays, right?

There are successful puzzle games with adult themes (see Gardenscapes, Lily’s Garden, Project Makeover). But pay attention: the most popular (Candy Crush Saga, Royal Match) offer childish fantasies. The concept of reign, candies, smiles, and so on.

When you think about your audience, also think about their child version. It works like a tree: on the trunk, there are the children, and the branches are all the directions they can take in life. The leaves are the adults.

You may want to think in the whole tree if you are aiming to build the next free-to-play hit. Every adult was a child in the past, there are fantasies that still resonate with us when we grow.

It’s always good to start from the trunk if you want to have a massive audience!

Designing tools

Published by Paolo on 04/09/2023

We always talk about target audiences, game loops, and meta mechanics. Much of a game designer’s job is to help design the tools needed to generate content. Be they the levels, dialogues, cutscenes, source-sink systems, etc.

The first piece of advice is that the work speeds up a lot for the first versions of a feature if we think of a single path. Too many variables to control slow down the development of the first iteration. Better to go direct with a concrete version with concrete numbers.

The second piece of advice is to prepare tools that serve the game you are creating. Thinking too far ahead, perhaps about future games, makes you lose the main focus. The focus must be on creating the best game possible. Leave the vision of the big picture to the product managers, and focus on the design of the game in question.

The last tip is to think modularly. A useful tool must be designed so that it can be unplugged whenever you want and inserted into other projects that could use it. Communicate with the engineers this intention and design a versatile and modular tool.

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.

My creative drive these days

Published by Paolo on 31/08/2023

I am reading this classic book on game design, called Rules of Play. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman. The book manages to join thoughtfulness with a practical breakdown of things.

In chapter 12 there is a note about what drives a game designer. It can be:

  • The will to change some rule
  • Explore storytelling
  • Visual aesthetics
  • Social interaction
  • Explore new technologies.

In my case, the context influences my drive. All those points are interesting to me, I have to feel there is a clear vision to help close up land down. I love to connect the dots, more than strive for a revolution.

There are “the Kojimas”, that come and shape the future with their vision and personality. But those are like unicorns, the majority of us are good to serve and deliver.

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.

A little on my freelancer life

Published by Paolo on 28/08/2023

When I chat with people in my industry, I see that there is some confusion about the freelance career.

  1. The first is that people decide to freelance when they can’t find alternatives. A stopgap solution.
  2. The second is that it is better to specialize a lot to become more recognized as a professional.
  3. The third is that we serve when there is too much work to do and generally for secondary tasks.

Well, like all myths, all the points mentioned have a basis of truth.

A stopgap solution?

I started to freelance because I couldn’t adapt to the typical “job application -> first interview -> test -> ghosted” loop, back in 2016. Instead of wasting time with processes that in 80% of cases lead to nothing, I decided to start creating value.

I decided to devote myself to being a game designer, first on personal projects. Fictional ones. Every day I dressed up, put my clock on, and started working imagining I was earning money for that. Fake it until you make it is about that! I started sharing everything online, I decided to be the best game designer I could possibly be. The first contacts arrived, from companies that had ghosted me! “Hey, would you be interested in a small commission?“.

So yes, at first it was definitely a stopgap solution. But then one discovers that there is a great hidden value. It is not for everyone, I had my fathers supporting me. Otherwise it would have been impossible.

Better to become a specialist?

For me, game design is divided into narrative, level, system, and gameplay. In f2p mobile, the words “system” and “gameplay” are very often changed for “economy” and “UX”. I do everything.

  • I write dialogues and conceptualize worlds.
  • I craft levels in the engine documenting everything.
  • I create systems and economies using simple and understandable spreadsheets.
  • I create wireframes, mock-ups, and flows based on player narratives.

I don’t want to specialize in anything, because it’s not convenient in my case. If you are “the level designer that made the most successful levels in <insert famous game name>“, go for specialization. But I have not (still) had the opportunity to work on a super successful game. And most of the professionals are the same. I prefer to be a Swiss knife, that way my life is more interesting and I get more assignments.

It is true that there are very capable specialists who earn even more. But it is not the only possible way.

Just for marginal tasks?

The third point also has some truth. The first contact comes either from startups or from bigger companies that are overworked. However the clients that remain are those who understand my potential, with whom I have established a relationship.

Having an external expert person in the first place costs less. Secondly, it can help you in case you can’t find the right seniors. Thanks to remote work, I can supervise the work in places where senior professionals don’t go to live. So, in practice, by paying me 1-2 days a week you save the money of a manager (who may even slow things down, if not the right one).

Is freelancing good?

Freelancing is not for everyone and not for every lifestyle. I lead a fairly austere life, without too many frills. But we bring a lot of value. Very often, people who have worked for a company for many years know how to work just for that company. I see everyday the problems of many different realities, so my perspective is broad and I can be faster than normal.

And the extra speed always has consequences, on the body and on the mind. Nothing is free. Some final hint:

  • Learn as many languages as possible. I speak 5 languages. Languages open a lot of opportunities.
  • Never stop learning. My Udemy is always ON and when I can afford I take extra courses.
  • Create connections with service providers to speed up your job. You need partners, as any business.
  • Avoid every kind of friction with people. If you don’t agree with something, say it. But avoid talking bad about people.
  • You need to make professional contacts. Lots of them. Prepare your strategy.

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.