Why do players who skip 30-second cutscenes in most games hungrily watch 2 hour videos explaining the lore of Hollow Knight or Elden Ring? Itβs not that those 30-second cutscenes are terribly written either. Simple: “Soulsborne Storytelling” isnβt Storytelling. Its Archaeology. Think of the player as an archaeologist exploring the ruins of a lost empire. […]
About 6 years ago I ran more than 57 tabletop RPG sessions in 3 months – while working full time as a senior game designer. Nearly all of it was original content. My goal was to challenge myself to learn how to design and iterate faster. By improving the speed at which we can make […]
At Riot Games one of the designers reporting to me asked me a perfect question. “You’re the newest designer on the team… How do you keep getting new features on the roadmap?” I was surprised. I figured the other designers just liked the status quo. Nope, apparently they’d been trying to pitch a lot of […]
Last week, I had just 8 hours to design a combat system for a client. I’m fast, but that wasn’t enough time to design a core gameplay system. However… It was π£π’π³π¦ππΊ enough time to design 3 of them! Surprisingly, and there’s some science on this, designing 3 solutions often takes less time and mental […]
The Yu-Gi-Oh! trading cardgame’s world championships were a beautiful disaster. I’ve never seen anything like this. To understand what just happened, I need to explain what banning a card truly means to a trading cardgame, and what it implies about what’s going on the dev processes behind the scenes. Banning a card from competitive play […]
Got a complex game? Have you tried turning the tutorial into a π«ππ°ππ«π? Curiosity is one of the strongest drivers of human motivation. It can even override rationality and survival instincts. If you put a sign on a door that says “whatever you do, DO NOT OPEN THIS DOOR” we all know people are going […]
When I run into a difficult design choice, where multiple options look good for my goals, I ask myself 3 questions: 1. How important is it we get this decision right? If a decision can be easily changed later, or is a choice between multiple good, workable options, might as well just pick something and […]
Last night, a colleague asked me how I analyze the market potential for a game’s gameplay. I told them that most people over-focus on trying to predict the game genre’s core appeal. Novel experiences become smash hits and create *new* genres after all, so there’s something else going on. I told them this: “You always […]
You’ve probably seen Jenny Nicholson’s phenomenal documentary on the Star Wars Hotel. If you haven’t, consider watching it after reading this piece, as it’s a fantastic look into real-world level design, theming, gameplay, logistics, and where a sense of “value” comes from through the nerdiest lens possible. While explaining the booking experience, Jenny makes a […]
When debating whether something is worth removing from your game, try flipping it first. Ask yourself “if this wasn’t in the game yet, would we be desperate to add it in?” For example, a highly controversial statement from a lead at Mojang Studios was about the iconic Creeper. He pointed out that if the Creeper […]
