Ratatouille is a wonderful movie about creative work, yet people miss the central message. It’s NOT, “Anyone can cook.” Chef Gusteau’s full line: “Anyone can cook, but only the fearless can be great!” My favorite moment in the movie isn’t the critic’s reaction. It’s this exchange between the chefs Colette and Linguini. β’ ππΌπΉπ²πππ²: I know […]
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 […]
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 […]
