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Fifty Shades of Game Designers People often argue about what came first, the chicken or the egg. And game designers - about what's more important, creativity or mathematics. But why choose when you can have all at once? The role of a game designer is somewhat fluid. There are those who manage projects, handle documentation, and assign tasks to the team, while others focus on narrative and plot development. Some design levels, and others crunch the numbers. In the indie game industry, you might not need as many people, but having the division between a technical game designer and a creative one can be incredibly beneficial. In our team, I handle management, mathematics, and documentation, while Katsiaryna Ladziata takes care of the story and text. This division has helped me push several projects forward from a standstill. That's how it works: Katsiaryna: Picture this: Victoria, a modern young woman, accidentally travels back to Victorian Britain and has to pass herself off as a Victorian lady to survive! Me: Oh, splendid! But hold your horses. Let's give our modern Victoria a guidebook of Victorian manners and customs to navigate through the past. Katsiaryna: Brilliant! So, organized chaos? Me: Exactly! We'll weave in some historical accuracy and a dash of humor to keep it lively. Katsiaryna: Lovely! Let's embark on this adventure together. Me: Jolly good! Off we go, but let's make sure Victoria doesn't accidentally invent the smartphone in the 19th century! Moreover, combining work sessions with travel not only accelerates progress but also makes work easier and more enjoyable.

Like many designers/developers I love a side-project 😂. For family games nights I created a topic ‘randomiser’. It turns out that Lizzy (now 4yo) loved hitting the big yellow button, so we added her spelling list to it, which has worked well. Finally, I took a next step and made it editable so it can be automised to pretty much anything. We’ve used it for chores, game starters, who’s getting the next drink, etcetc. I’ll write a little blog post about it soon but the link is here incase it’s useful to anyone. For now here's a daft meme about it... #randomiser #design #development #sideproject

Today I will tell you one truth.  If you have ever had a desire to make your own game, but you don't know what to do and where to start?  Then this article is for you! 👍 1️⃣ First of all, don't keep the idea in your head and write it down somewhere. Wow, half of it is already done! Don't forget to compliment yourself. 🤗 At this stage, the idea either becomes something clear and usable or collapses into simple questions and conflicts. Think about it, if the conflicts are unsolvable, it might be worth changing something. Thoughts, goodness, are quickly generated and prototyped in the head, so while in the current state the idea is easy to change.... 😉 2️⃣ Now for the fun part: For those who think they are not a game designer to do this kind of stuff - try to schedule your idea as if you need to realize it in the future. Highlight all the mechanics that will be in your game and fix them. Don't forget also the toolkit you'd use if you were “making a game for real”... 😈 But don't limit yourself to thinking about the future, write in such a way that you don't have to think about such trivial things. When you're done writing out everything you had in your head, take a look at what you got. YAY, you have a finished GDD, and you are (GASP😨) a GAME DESIGNER!!! Praise yourself one more time and a little more later. 👍 3️⃣ Have you been game designers? Now it's time to get to realization! The easy part. You have your documents ready to go, where you've clearly stated what you need and how it works. It shouldn't be too hard for you to implement it all. 👀 4️⃣ Be happy! After all, you now have a fully realized game! Don't forget to add it to your portfolio and be cool and happy.  And most importantly, let your friends play it to gather feedback and become a little better! Most importantly, remember that the main fear arises from the unknown of something, and if this unknown is closed with specifics, everything becomes 100 times easier! 😎

Today I'll write about the basic mistake of all game designers! 😖 So you're a game developer, you dream of making cool stuff, mediocrity is not welcome.  Since you're a good developer, you decide to explore the market before making anything. Your eyes catch the tastiest hits and novelties that gather millions: Clash of Clans, The Witcher 3, PUBG... 😳 The first mistake one makes at the very beginning — envy. Instead of trying to come up with something new, you evaluate the old and fixate on it. That's how you get a kind of clone parasites who also want to get a piece of that success like the original. 🥶 You have to realize that the market is very flexible and dynamic. And when some game comes out and takes a shot, even if you start development the day of release, you're unlikely to jump on that train. So next time, before you think about how you can copy a successful product, create it yourself!  At the concept writing stage, think through all your USPs and what will make your product different from all the others. Ask yourself questions more often: «What will my game bring to this genre?», «Is there a need for my product from the audience?». And THEN you will have a chance to start your own success train! 🤩 Make cool, make interesting, and most importantly, have fun with it 💜

A game designer thinks in the players, not in the game itself. The game is a medium to deliver a playful experience. Every game designer has some extra to bring to the players. It can be a narrative quality or a special eye for the game feel. Maybe a good reading of spaces to design levels, or the special capacity to abstract in systems. The first important thing is to get to know it with time. The second is that in game design everything is a system. The system thinking is critical. When we design a game, though, we design for archetypes or personas. We design for some common denominator. And then the game arrives to real people, the Players. And everyone has their singularities. It arrives with controls, interfaces, sounds, colors, perception load, and things that are experienced on a very personal level. Each one of us is different, so nuance makes all the difference. What fascinates me about the clear trend of technology right now, not only LLMs, is the possibility of having a personal game designer for every player, somehow. If we focus on the real job (system thinking with a personal extra approach) there is the chance to instruct a machine to deliver a personal experience. Is the machine capable of changing the nuance to meet every single player's needs? Think simply in a level balance: too hard for Peter, too easy for Molly. What if it can be adapted to offer the right challenge to everyone? My feeling right now oscillates between negativity and positivity, don't take me for a blind enthusiast. When I read how the copyright has been assaulted to train certain models, I wanted to retire on a mountain and make offline indie games using VIM on Linux. Still, the possibility of being capable of meeting each one of my player's tastes is definitely exciting. Because, at the end of the day, that's my duty as a game designer.

Game development can be a difficult process; it doesn't follow an instruction manual and there isn't a codebook to refer to every issue you may encounter. This is especially the case for indie devs, who usually work in smaller teams and have to take on work that would usually be spread across multiple teams of people. I was excited to read about how the developers behind "Against the Storm" managed to control the scope of their game with the small team they had. One thing I found very valuable in my courses was learning about how development actually functions, with multiple teams working together and a bunch of different tasks coming together to form a cohesive experience. When working with a smaller development team, it becomes vital to keep the scope of your game grounded in reality. Certain aspects of the game that would normally be just another tick on the board can quickly turn into major issues for a smaller group of developers, especially when some are already managing other parts of the project. The devs behind 'Against the Storm' had to consider the scope of their city builder and its design compared to other games in the genre currently. They were working to stand out among more prominent city builder games; this becomes a more daunting task for an indie team. However, they were able to keep their development process in check and create an achievable vision of their game. Should more devs consider scope when making their games, including AAA teams? It could be said that a lot of times AAA games fall short is because they try to do too much in too little time. Article linked below. #gamedevelopment #gamebusiness #projectmanagement https://lnkd.in/ggiCpXif

My professional goal for this 2024: 1) Help YOU with the game design of your game. My artistic, mathematical, and technical skills make me highly versatile. I can immerse myself in spreadsheets and design levels in your engine. I can design a UX flow on Penpot and write a narrative for your tutorial. 2) Protect and give value to YOUR intellectual property. As you can see, I never speak of the projects I am working on with my clients. That's because I sign down contracts that armor and protect everything. Still, I add value to YOUR game because every week I see 2 to 3 different projects. This makes me anticipate a lot of design issues; in practice, I am faster than a person who works on a single project. 3) Join YOUR team and land down YOUR vision. My expertise in game development is more than 15 years. It's not just writing down documentation, I also prepare the tasks and the assets list needed to put the machine in motion. So, what are you waiting for? If your goals include making great games, send me a DM and grab a special NewYearDeal!

Analyzing Games like a pro is one of the best ways to improve as a Game Designer. Everyone tells you MUST do it, but no one tells you how. Here's a simple (yet powerful) 3-step framework to analyze any game. Here is it: 1. Target A Game Element 2. Evaluate The Context 3. Twist The Context Let's go. #1 Target A Game Element To find a game element, you can search for literally anything: - A small game mechanic - An entire system (combat, movement, etc.) - UI elements - A narrative element (dialogue, environmental storytelling, etc.) - Etc. Pick something you feel has a significant influence on how you're playing. Next... #2 Evaluate The Context Here's a matter of generating deep questions about the context of the game element. For example: - Am I feeling a particular emotion about this element? Which? - Does this element convey a specific meaning? - Does that emotion empower the meaning? - What's the most efficient way I have to interact with the element? - How do other elements interact with it? - Do the interaction generates unique behaviors? The main goal is to understand why designers have made a decision and what problem it solves. And last... #3 Twist The Context Change the context of the game element to make analysis deeper and more usable in your work. Then ask yourself if the target element needs to change (and how) or even if you need to delete it. Keep changing the context and adapting the element as many times as you want to deepen the analysis even more. When satisfied, you can go back to step #1 and find another game element. Recap: 1. Target A Game Element 2. Evaluate The Context 3. Twist The Context A Modern Game Designer doesn’t passively play but actively experiences a game. I you want to dive deeper, here is the full issue with more details on how to analyze games with this 3-step framework. Grab it here: https://lnkd.in/eFhKMvmn If you like posts like this, you might enjoy my weekly newsletter, Game Design Compass. - 1 Game Design Deep Dive - 1 Game Suggestion (a month) - 3 Game Design Resources Join here: https://lnkd.in/dspV_fgz

How The Concept Of "Game Author" Is Practically Useful For Game Designers Generally speaking, the concept of "Author" is just a "Celebrity-like label" given to famous Game Directors. But, we can make an effort and try to find a definition to make the concept actually useful during the Game Design process. Here are the crucial points: 1. The Creative Vision is an essential concept for any Author. 2. Author and Celebrity are 2 different things. 3. Celebrity status often poses a challenge to the Author’s condition. Tomorrow I’ll show how the concept of Author can be a practically useful one for Game Designers on the Game Design Compass newsletter. The more Authors an art medium has, the more it will improve. If you want to join, subscribe here 👇 https://lnkd.in/dwrRncEs

Design friends, I highly recommend checking out "Game Design Foundations: 1 Ideas, Core Loops, and Goals" by Brenda Romero! It’s from 2017, sure, but the content is extremely applicable today. The principles of design, and concepts like mechanics, core, loops, etc. are not going away in game design any time soon. Are you a designer, BUT not a game designer? I STILL recommend it. 😃 Here’s why: Knowledge is power, and in UX design, knowledge is power to design delight. Having basic knowledge of game design will only make you a better experience designer. A good game is delightful play with rules attached. Learn game design and you learn how to engineer engagement, and not just one-time engagement from your users, but consistent engagement over time from your users. This is the goal of most SaaS platforms, mobile apps, ecommerce sites, etc. So do yourself a favor and check out the course, or at least take a look at some game design documents (GDDs) to see what types of considerations go into game design. If you’re not sure how to find a GDD, drop a comment to me under this post and I’ll share an example of one I’m making now for Imagine Design Games. Have a great day, friends! Stay curious 🙌👾 https://lnkd.in/ecPkwJK6 #gamedesign #uxdesign #designstrategy #designthinking