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Paolo's Blog Posts

Answers that matter

Published by Paolo on 23/01/2024

Every time I say to someone that I design video games, the common question is this. “Can you show me the game you made?“. And my answer is that I can, but my games are not Mario or Quake.

this is one of the games I helped make. Probably the most successful one, for sure one of the dumbest

Others in this industry would give the same answer. It is what makes an industry, in the end. You don’t ask a car worker “Can you show me a car you made?“. The worker is one of the dozens who worked on a car. Still, you ask that to a game designer because we have this idea of a very personal thing. Which indeed is true, but reality is deeper than that.

The reality is that you hardly work on a project you love. And the few people who work on those projects are the ones that achieve recognition at a certain point. I mean, if they insist and persist in their goals.

I want to celebrate everyone that is building in this moment. Because you will be the future of the industry. You decide to build something in which you believe. You can be an indie or a new team inside of a big corporation. Many sides of an industry that permits different exits.

I cannot really show anything, because I have always worked on games belonging to ideas and vision which came from others. Maybe that is the right answer to the first question of this article.

Skill-based puzzle games

Published by Paolo on 19/01/2024

Once there was Bejeweled Blitz! dominating the charts of free puzzle games. But then Candy Crush Saga brought many interesting changes that appealed to a broader audience. And you need that if you want to be profitable and scalable.

Still, when the business people see something that doesn’t work, the game designer sees an opportunity. And to me, there is an opportunity in skill-based puzzle games. Games where the rules impose the norm of not thinking too much. Tetris was maybe the first successful example. And it’s still there.

There is this game pretty popular online called Watermelon Game. It’s very simple and gives lots of space for the Players to think. Maybe a skill-based version of that would work? Like a Bejeweled Blitz! but with a merge mechanic.

I’m writing this in case someone does it and has success. It’s always good to feel “I said it!”.

UI driven skinner boxes

Published by Paolo on 17/01/2024

Skinner boxes are artifacts where the user taps a button in the hope of getting something. In the original ones, the user was a lab rat willing for food. In Monopoly GO! the user is a Player looking for dopamine rushes.

Skinner boxes work very well, because of two factors. The first is the variable ratio variable schedule rewards. It means that the user doesn’t know if and when the reward will arrive. The other factor is that they are simple to use. That means that also a lab rat can do that.

There are many ethical questions around Skinner boxes, but humans can choose to play a game or not. The lab rats, instead, have no choice. Of course, we can consider the addiction to dopamine a form of slavery, there are no easy answers.

In games, Skinner boxes are often associated with a series of tasks to perform. Usually, the UI leads the Players on what to do next, so they don’t have to worry. They can continue to follow the series on their television set or the class while playing the game. Their dopamine system will stay stimulated and it will feel pleasing.

A sit at the table

Published by Paolo on 16/01/2024

Companies hire game designers (and other profiles) to build their business. Game designers have a specific focus on features and content. When we design features, the best way of showing their value is to focus on the benefits of that feature.

  • Business leaders love to hear about the impact of a certain feature, more than the quality of it.
  • It’s better to speak about the benefits of reducing cognitive load instead of selling a “cleaner” design.
  • One of the goals of feature design is to improve the long-term profit, more than improving the gameplay.
  • Things like accessibility, inclusivity, and so on are useful to reach untapped markets. They are not just a good thing to do.
  • Managers love to hear how to improve the path to purchase, more than vague concepts like flow.

If more designers take this approach, we will see less of them switching to Product Manager roles just to get a sit at the table.

Top game design voice badge

Published by Paolo on 12/01/2024

I have been on LinkedIn for 14 years. I use that platform a lot because of my personal branding activities. When I was fired from Digital Chocolate, because of a bad relationship with my direct manager, I decided to become the best game designer I could possibly become. Part of my strategy involved starting to share my ideas and discoveries of this complex micro world.

In fact, you need to explain things to others to become a recognized expert. It’s not just walk the walk, you need to talk the talk. Also, the language of business is not my native one, so I needed a tool to improve my English. I needed to find my own voice.

And the results are good, I have a healthy small business with my clients. Also, when I go to local meetups often I am reached by people that I don’t know who thank me for something related to my writings and videos. I can say that I feel I am in a good way. Of course, many things can happen and I can screw everything up with a mistake. In fact, pushing your ideas out there is no easy task.

Collaborative articles

For all this, I have never received any badge of any sort. But then LinkedIn published a new feature, called collaborative articles. That feature is probably meant to substitute experts in certain fields in the future. I honestly hate it. So I decided to take action.

Every morning I do this:

  1. I select randomly 5 collaborative articles on Game Design
  2. I copy one of the questions, also a random
  3. I paste it on Bing AI
  4. Then I copy and paste back part of the answer

Tadaaa! In just 10 days I got my badge. It was just grinding, nothing more. These social networks don’t care about the true value of their content.

We need a simple controller

Published by Paolo on 10/01/2024

Games should be simple to play, for everyone. They can also be difficult, and offer a challenge. But the play itself should be a very accessible act.

A gamepad with over 20 buttons is not simple. We need some courage and go back to the origins. With adaptation to the novelties.

8 buttons for NES pad were more than enough, but the shape was not optimal.

Oculus controller solves the ergonomic problem, but has too many buttons. I would save just the trigger and add a touchpad on top

The touchpads of Steam Deck are a good reference for the top part.

Can you imagine that?

  • Connect it with any device, smartphone, PC or console
  • comes with a dongle to stream on any screen
  • takes gestures too

Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is dead

Published by Paolo on 04/01/2024

Long live King Kardashian: Hollywood.

I remember this game took people like me in crisis. We read a lot of breakdowns to try to understand why this game was so successful at the time. Almost nobody understood the real value of that “exposed gem”.

The system was very simple and the economy was pretty aggressive. Only whales, VIP players, were treated with actual respect and that fit great into the game’s metaphor. Of course, for someone like me with my gaming background (as a Player) all of that looked like garbage. But hey, lots of people prove me wrong. People wanted to be entertained by that sort of point and click dating simulator with dolls mechanics.

There was a perfect marriage among a dominant mimicry and an alea. You performed actions using energy and in change you could get some special perk. Fantasy, narrative and expression were the main aesthetics.

We all learned a lot from Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. So that at the end it will pass to the game history, somehow. That shitty game!

Are you on the right path?

Published by Paolo on 03/01/2024

This is a question that pops out often while you are making a new game. Especially when you lead business discussions as a game designer. You often need to see your work greenlighted by some marketer or business guy. That’s because they are often at the top.

But the question focuses on the outcome, on something that nobody can control. Often, there are “fortune tellers” in companies that win the internal battles just because they can be very convincing. But nobody can predict the revenue of a game in development.

You can have the top talent and a system that is informed with data. With that, you can cope, adjust, and leverage the unpredictability. That’s it, and it’s more than enough!

Do you want to know if you are on the right path? Are you making the best game you can with the resources you have? Then, you are.

Play Forms

Published by Paolo on 02/01/2024

If you want to learn how to play like a game designer and you don’t know how to start, the Play Forms framework is a good starting point. It is based on a classic book about play, called “Man, Play and Games“. I have never read it, but there is a lot of material out there if you know how to search.

The framework is based on the conception that play has 4 basic forms:

  • Agon means competition, it can be against the game itself, against virtual enemies or against other Players
  • Alea means chance, the random factor that the Player is not able to control
  • Mimicry means the imitation of something belonging to other contexts, such as real life or fantasy worlds or abstract concepts
  • Ilinx means the vertigo, the senses brought to their limits

Ask yourself these questions while you are playing:

  • Am I competing against someone or something?
  • Does my outcome depend on randomness at some level?
  • Am I interpreting some role or adapting to metaphors that I have already seen in other mediums?
  • Do I feel some of the moments are extremely exaggerated and exciting?

My GOTY

Published by Paolo on 01/01/2024

Data speaks clearly. In 2023, the game that I absolutely played the most was Vampire Survivors.

Small team, simple idea, true indie gem. Simplicity at its finest. Nothing more to add, this was my personal GOTY.

Happy New Year everybody!