Here’s a design principle that I’ve known most of my career yet still find myself writing on whiteboards because it’s that important: “Never give a player a problem when you can give them an opportunity.” Quest based on clearing out a local ogre camp? Chore. Map to the evil wizard’s secret library filled with their […]

For Monetization, player perception is their reality – and it’s amazing how quickly players “assume evil intentions”. Example: Studio is going to release a new PvP fighting game with 30 characters. Buy the game for $60 and you get all the characters unlocked. This is the “good and just” way to make a fair, ethical, […]

Pro tip: You can basically ignore any headline with the word “could” in it. Examples: “Bloodborne could be coming to PC as early as August 2020!” “Activision could be starting plans for a Call of Duty theme park!” “Crash Bandicoot battle royale could be in the works!” “Valve could be about to make a full […]

Strategy is what you do because its good for business. Values are what you do even if it’s bad for business. If your company nickels and dimes their values against other metrics, they aren’t really values. They’re slogans. Strategy and Values are both incredibly important, whether building a game or a studio. Even if you’re […]

An aspiring designer asked me if I thought they were good enough for an associate role. I told them, “Not yet, but you’re almost ready for senior roles.” Here’s what I meant: People often think I learn extremely quickly. Nah, I’m a slow learner. I am very bad at rote memorization, I need to understand […]

No, you will NEVER be able to take your NFT from one game and bring it to a bunch of other games. Here’s why: Imagine you’re running a game studio, and as always you don’t have time to build everything you want. Your team has prioritization meetings every few weeks, estimating the time it will […]

There’s a step in the creative process when you reach a point of near-panic, unmoored from well-known places, where your understanding of the problem outstrips your knowledge of solutions. You’re lost at sea, surrounded by gliding monsters. Then, one by one, you chart the stars. This is not a failure of the creative process, this […]

Myths about “cold showers at 4am = success” exist because people want to sell you something. They want to promise the secrets of success, or claim that their success is based 100% on effort rather than any luck at all. However, it’d be very inconvenient if you could test this for yourself – so they […]

This post originally appeared on LinkedIn and received 39k views before it was removed for, apparently, violating LinkedIn’s policies on “spam and scams”. I find this very interesting. Because many people said it was a valuable reference for them, I decided to repost it here. 1. Understand that games are hard to make and carry […]

I recently got asked about my thoughts on how to create a great tutorial. This is something I’ve talked a lot about but never written a post on. That time has come. Summary Make them Curious: Curiosity is the motivation to learn something. Lots of people talk about the need to provide an obvious value […]