Game Designer’s Notebook @ GDC

This past March I had the honor of speaking at GDC for the first time! I was invited to give a 15-minute microtalk for the Game Designer’s Notebook, an annual session featuring a panel of experienced game designers, with the premise of opening their proverbial “notebooks” to share their secrets.

Sharing the stage with me was the legendary Jesse Schell, best known as CEO of Schell Games and the author of The Art of Game Design. I think between Jesse’s star power and the strength of The New York Times brand, we managed to draw enough of a crowd to fill the room! It was a lovely group energy.

My talk was about designing word games – pulling from my experience as a lead designer at NYT and former lead designer of Wordscapes. I did my best to present the topic in a way that would be accessible and potentially useful to a broad audience.

The session is now available on the GDC Vault, so if you have vault access please consider checking it out and letting us know what you think!

My Feelings on AI

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed on this blog are solely my own, and do not reflect the views or opinions of my employer.

The entire tech world seems to be enamored with generative AI, and the game industry is not immune. Every third post on my LinkedIn feed is advocating for AI in some form.

But personally… I’m not feeling it. When it comes to my own creative work, I will avoid using generative AI for as long as I can.

To illustrate these feelings, I’d like to respond directly to the arguments we keep hearing over and over from AI evangelists.

1. “We Must Adapt to Survive”

This is the classic “necessity” argument. The idea is that the world is moving forward with or without you, so you need to jump on the train if you don’t want to be left behind. Often this argument comes with comparisons to other historical shifts in technologies and their respective casualties, like say how Kodak was left behind in the industry pivot to digital photography.

But while it certainly looks that way; there’s a part of me that wonders: is this the only way forward? And for the entire game industry? It often feels more like a self-imposed constraint: we say we need AI, so we actively reshape the industry to make AI a necessity. This reinforces itself in a feedback loop until it becomes our new hellish reality.

I also question whether or not the train is really leaving in a permanent way. If the industry is unrecognizable in 3-5 years and AI tools are required to catch up… couldn’t I just learn them then? After all when it comes to my ability to utilize AI, I am competing with other humans.

2. “AI is more capable than ever”

This is technically true, but it’s not a flex.

If your only goal is to beat AI of the past, then you have succeeded. But for many of us, that is not a worthy goal. My personal goal is to create high quality, lovingly crafted art that meaningfully impacts other people. My professional quest is a never-ending pursuit of excellence. AI is just nowhere even close; and using it feels like compromising my own standards just to get tech bro-wnie points.

Some argue this is temporary while AI is in its infancy. “It’ll only get better from here – just you wait!”

To which I reply “okay! I will wait.” And while I’m waiting, I’d rather spend my time struggling to create interesting work than spewing mountains of mediocrity to no one’s benefit.

3. “AI is just another tool”

Some evangelists argue that like any tool – the power of AI lies not in the tech, but in the specific human hands that use it.

In an idealistic world, I agree. But practically, it feels more like avoiding blame than anything. It has the same vibes as “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”.

Which is apt, considering AI has already done way more harm than good. Corporations use AI to justify laying off hundreds of employees (followed by investing the money that they were supposedly trying to save directly into AI). Soulless garbage content is pumped out to social media, accelerating brain rot and political discord. Students use AI to speed up or circumvent doing real work; failing to build key skills that they will need later on. Reality is aggressively distorted to manipulate. And to top it all off we waste huge amounts of energy/water to build and run data centers.

What doesn’t help is that the most powerful forces in AI are large tech corporations whose intentions range from ambiguous to straight evil. These are the same powers who have perfected using our data to optimize feeds and target ads at the expense of our wellness. Why should we trust them to use AI any differently?

If you believe in the potential of AI as a tool, then please demonstrate how to use it properly. Create something meaningful that justifies its own existence! Otherwise it’s all just talk.

4. “AI empowers creativity!”

Similar to the tool argument, this angle likens AI to previous technological advancements like computer generated graphics or word processing.

It’s true that any artistic craft comes with repetitive parts that feel tedious. If an animator uses AI to generate the in-between frames, is that fundamentally different than me using a game engine with a built-in physics framework? It’s easy to see the appeal of streamlining workflows to make the creative process faster and funner.

The problem is… so many of the people who say this seem to fundamentally misunderstand creativity. These are the “armchair designers” who think that game development is having an amazing fully formed idea and then telling a bunch of code-monkeys to go make it.

What they don’t realize is that all those details; the thousands of micro decisions you make along the way – that is where the creativity truly lies.

Vision gives you direction, but creativity is what drives you to a satisfying result.

Is there a point where we’ve “optimized” the process so much that we’re no longer making the art? Where’s the fun in that?

Somewhere along the way, we will iron out the human element. John Williams has said that one of the magical elements of studio recording sessions are that no two takes are exactly the same. There is a unique energy that emerges from the micro variations of a given performance; a beautiful randomness that we cannot articulate. Will AI music makers notice? Will they care?

The theory is that by empowering more people to be creative, we democratize creativity and will thus have more creative output. But this is misleading, because people who have access to AI tools (especially once the true bill drops) already have access to the same tools as everyone else. What they are truly lacking is the one thing AI can’t give them… taste.

5. “What AI generates is brand new”

This argument is more defensive, usually given in response to the claim that AI is theft.

It begins with a seed of truth. It’s true that when an we experience art, it leaves an imprint on us. And then when we go to create something ourselves, we naturally pull from those influences, consciously or subconsciously. Any art we make stands on the shoulders of giants who came before us. I can see why this process feels similar to how AI models are trained.

But this is false equivalence. The key difference is that artists will make a good faith effort to meaningfully differentiate. Maybe it’s a combo of old things, or maybe it’s 90% old 10% new. Maybe it’s taking something familiar and adapting it to a new context, or for a new audience! Whatever it is – it is done with human intention.

All of that thoughtful consideration is gone when AI scours the internet for copyrighted works, copy/pastes them to a giant database, and then regurgitates them semi-randomly into a result that is unrecognizable. Just because you don’t recognize the output, or just because it’s a new permutation, doesn’t make it original.

AI will steal without knowing or caring. And because it’s drawing from such a vast pool of data, there is a strong chance you won’t notice either. The most likely victim is the obscure artist page in a corner of the internet.

As an artist, I just can’t accept the risk of accidentally stealing someone else’s work.

So what now?

I share all this not to convince anyone, but as a way to try and process my own feelings. I have no issue with people exploring the potential of AI with genuine curiosity and good intentions. But I refuse to participate in the baseless hype machine that tells us that we mst adopt AI right now – for everything – or else.

Instead, I will watch AI evolve from the sidelines. I will keep creating art by hand and refining my craft. I will prioritize quality over quantity. And I will take extra care in the art I consume. Now more than ever we need great art that reminds us what it means to be human.

Explaining Game Design

Have you ever tried to explain game design to someone outside of games? It can be challenging! Say you are talking to your Auntie Flo who is trying to understand what it is exactly you do.

Here are a few angles you might consider:

1. Party Host Comparison

I believe it is in Jesse Schell’s The Art of Game Design in which game design is likened to hosting a party. I think this is a very apt and relatable comparison for two key reasons:

1. The host of the party is responsible for the enjoyment of the guests. A good host understand this, and every decision is made to this end. A host needs to be aware of many different factors that can contribute to enjoyment, including the unique needs of different guests. They may also need to improvise if something goes wrong; sometimes even sacrificing their own enjoyment for the sake of the guests. This prioritized mindset is very similar to that of a game designer.
2. The host of the party does not necessarily do everything themselves. For a small party, yes they may clean and buy/setup decorations entirely by themselves. But as a party scales, the host usually has to bring in help from friends/families and delegate out the tasks. A professional party/wedding planner is dealing with caterers, DJs, photographers, and more! How the work changes with scale is very similar to how game design changes with scale. The bigger the game and more leader the designer, the more likely they are guiding teammates to achieve the desired game design.

Even if Flo hasn’t hosted a party herself, she has likely attended enough parties to understand how complex the endeavor can be and what the role might entail. And the responsibilities of a host are indeed very similar to a game designer!

2. Change One Rule

To someone outside games, it can be difficult to pick out game design from other elements such as the visuals, sound, and narrative. Luckily there is a special area in the artform that stands out from other mediums: the rules. Even non-game-designers understand that rules can exist independently of those other elements.

What you could do is pick a game that Flo already knows well, and then walk her through what might happen if you change just one rule. Sports and Board Games are excellent for this, because the rules are often written out and debated (compared to a video game). Let’s say Flo loves basketball! Start with a well known rule and play with it. For example…

Consider the Three Point Line. This is a painted curved line surrounding each net, which designates that anyone who scores a basket outside the line will score 3 points instead of 2.

Suppose you removed the Three Point Line? Player behavior and strategy would likely shift. Some specific things you might see include:

• The area around the net would become much more crowded.
• Layups and dunks would increase dramatically next to far away shots, because there is no reward for taking that greater risk.
• Stronger/taller players would become more valuable.

Alternatively, what if you changed it to a Five Point Line? Now the value of making a shot from that same distance is 2.5x a normal 2-point shot. That means that if a player makes 50% of their 5-point shots, they are averaging 2.5 points per attempt which is still better than if they made 100% of their 2-point shots. This shifts the risk/reward evaluation to the point of 2-point shots being a a suboptimal player choice. The likely result is that now the paint becomes a transition/passing zone, only used to create space and set up other players for 5-point attempts.

Both of these changes would likely make Basketball worse. But now you can turn it around and ask: what rule changes could make Basketball better? And how can you playtest to test these hypotheses? This is the core of game systems design.

Catering to the Individual

Ultimately, the approach you take depends heavily on who you are talking to. What do they already know about games? What specifically is confusing them? The best path might be to ask clarifying questions first to identify the problem, then make an effort to meet them where they are.

It may take some time and iteration, much like game design itself.

What Is Game Design?

What is game design? Here’s my own personal take:

Game design is any decision that directly impacts the play experience.

I like this definition because it is broad and inclusive of many different kinds of decisions you make during game dev. Whether you are deciding the look of a character or the responsiveness of a button press, it counts as game design as long as it has a direct impact on the play experience. This means that many disciplines including artists and engineers can do game design through their core work! It also means that game design can be done unintentionally (bad design process, but it still counts). A game’s design is the culmination of many different decisions, big and small.

Some decisions are MORE impactful than others. For example if you turned Mario’s mustache green, that would have a small or negligible impact to the play experience. Whereas if you changed the floatiness of his jump, that would have a rather large impact to the play experience. The degree of impact depends on what elements are core to the design; and in the case of a traditional Mario game, movement and jumping is core. (Now if it were a Mario barbershop game… then the mustache’s color might matter more!).

Even with this broad definition, there is still game dev decisions that do not fit inside the definition of game design. Some clear examples include:

• Refactoring the code to make it more usable for engineers.
• Deciding whether or not to ad a new game designer to your team.

Both of these decisions are important strategic decisions that you might make in game dev. And they may indirectly impact the play experience with their downstream effects! But the decisions are not in and of themselves game design.

I have found this broad mindset to be useful. As a designer I am responsible for the player’s experience, so it’s helpful to know which decisions can impact it. This helps me collaborate more effectively with other disciplines; at times guiding them to make sure their work is having the desired impact. And it may also lead me to play defense against a decision that could hurt the play experience (intentionally or not).

Playing vs Designing Games

When I talk to young aspiring game dev (and their parents), a common misconception is that they will often conflate playing games with designing games. The logic is that because they love playing games, they will love designing games and should go on to make games for a living.

But this is not quite true. Yes, playing games will make you a better designer. But playing and designing are completely different. To help illustrate this concept, I’ve started using a simple analogy: the difference between playing and making games is a lot like the difference between eating and cooking.

Some of the parallels include.

• Just because you love to eat, doesn’t mean you will love to cook.
• The only way to learn how to cook, and whether or not you enjoy it, is to practice.
• Trying lots of different foods will expand your tastes and by extension your toolbox.
• To be a professional chef, you must spend many years honing your craft.
• If you’re light on cooking experience, you probably shouldn’t quit your day job to open up a food truck.

If you take that list and just replace the bolded words (eat ->play, cook -> design, food -> games, chef -> designer, food truck ->indie studio), it works just as well.

I think the analogy works because it’s more relatable than design. Everyone eats, most have tried cooking, and many are exposed to professional chefs in popular culture. The ideas are cross-applicable because both career paths are highly competitive and rooted in a creative artform

I hope you find this useful!

Nine Dev Log #3: 9 Lessons from Making Nine

In March 2021, I gave a talk for Boston Post Mortem about Space Cat 9 (at the time still under its tentative title “Nine”). I I frame it as a “mid-mortem”, because we were still in the middle of development on the game. We went on to release a beta version on 9/9/21, and then went on hiatus because I was starting a new job at PeopleFun and expecting my first child.

3 years later, I now have a toddler and development is still on hiatus! But looking back on this talk, I am quite pleased with how it turned out. The lessons are real and should apply to many other kinds of creative work. I stand by 90% of what I said here, and proudly share this talk as one of the stronger presentations I’ve given. Enjoy!

ps – One day when we eventually ship Space Cat 9, I will do a full postmortem. It will be interesting to see which lessons still hold true, and what new lessons I’ve learned.

Thoughts on the Frozen Musical

In the past few years Marie and I have been trying to go see more musical theater, and one particular type of musical that fascinates me is the musical film adaptation.

Adaptations are tough to get right. Even though animated musical Disney films borrow a lot of concepts from Broadway, you can’t just copy/paste a film to the stage. A great adaptation keeps the heart of the source material intact, but makes key changes to accommodate the unique strengths and weaknesses of the new medium. This involves a lot of creative problem solving, which as a game designer is my absolute favorite thing! How does the creative team choose to solve problems X, Y, and Z? Would I have done anything differently?

This past fall, we got to see Disney’s Frozen: The Broadway Musical and it was a lot of fun. Frozen is one of my favorite modern Disney movies – a beautiful and relatable story, innovative for its time and context, with stellar music that has stood the test of time (it’s nearly 10 years old!). I knew I was going to feel this one on a personal level – and was eager to see how they pulled it off.

Here’s my take!

What I Liked

1. Elsa’s Magic FX

Let’s get the obvious out of the way. The way the Frozen musical uses FX including lighting and particles to visualize Elsa’s magic is super cool. It starts humbly with child Elsa dropping some confetti, then builds to lighting and structures filling the full stage, all perfectly timed with crackly ice SFX. They were able to capture a variety of frost magic types and emotional tones, in a purely visual way that required zero explanation. It was masterfully done.

And how about that dress reveal? We all knew it was coming and yet it still managed to shock the audience into gasps and applause.

2. Replacing Trolls with Hidden Folk

In the musical, the trolls are replaced with the hidden folk, a brilliant move that makes the tribe more human/relatable, and more rooted in Norse/Scandanavian culture. It feels similar to the choices that the Lion King Broadway musical made – not everything has to be literal.

I loved the tribe’s entrance with the musical chant call followed by the musical drone, and the glowing eyes emerging from the darkness. They still have Grand Pabbie serving the same role, but the overall vibe is more mystical and ominous; neatly tying Elsa’s magic to a bigger world out there that we don’t quite understand.

3. Voicing Elsa’s Conflict

One of the common criticisms of the original film is that Elsa is not given enough characterization. The musical handles this in a very musical way: giving Elsa a couple of new songs to voice her internal struggle.

“Dangerous to Dream” does a great job articulating that Elsa isn’t just unhappy – she yearns for a closer relationship with her sister (“I’m not as cold as I seem” / “but I would love to know you”). It’s a nice complement to “Do You Want To Build a Snowman”, in which we only see Anna’s side. The title/tagline “Dangerous to Dream” also places the conflict firmly in its root cause: fear. Fear that is taught to her by her parents, enforced throughout her life, and nearly kills them both. Fear is the story’s primary conflict; Hans is just the beneficiary.

“Monster” builds on this theme but turns it inward. Elsa questions whether her fear-driven actions make her a monster, and whether she is destined to go on a rampage and die. This is the first time we get to see Elsa accept that her actions have consequences. The line “the storm is awake, the danger is real” is a neat twist of “let the storm rage on” in Let it Go. She still hasn’t learned the lesson of the film, but it is an important development in her character and a powerful way to build to the climax.

4. “Let it Go” Finale Reprise

Musicals like to end with a big showstopping finale, so it’s fitting that they brought back “Let it Go” to close the show.

This could have gone very wrong, but the songwriters do take care to change key lyrics and flip the meaning of the original song. The result is a very ending that feels very complete.

“Show us what you can do” is a beautiful encouraging line of acceptance from Anna. This is the first time she is not just allowed but encouraged to be her true magical self. “Let the sun shine on“ is a clever reversal of “let the storm rage on”.

“I take this warmth within and send it up above. Goodbye to dark and fear let’s fill this world with light and love” clarifies that Elsa is channeling love to control her magic and undo the eternal winter over Arendelle. This lesson was maybe too subtle in the film, where Elsa just says “love thaws” (and I know several people who misunderstood what was happening).

What I Disliked

1. Removing the reprise of “for the first time in forever”

One of my favorite and most powerful songs in the original film was the reprise of “For the first time in forever”.

A great reprise revisits an established story idea in a different light. The original iteration of the song highlights how Anna and Elsa feel very differently about the same event: the gates are opening. Anna is filled with excitement and optimism, Elsa with reservations and fear. The song ends with Anna belting out a positive message “nothings in my way!” and transitions directly into humor of falling.

In the reprise (film only), we once again see our protagonists feeling differently about the situation. But this time, it’s Anna asking Elsa not to “slam the door”, and Elsa becoming overwhelmed because she can’t control the curse. And this time… Elsa drowns out Ana with her final notes, in an eruption of emotion and power that mortally wounds Ana.

This is such a powerful song because we get to see the heroic development in Anna; how she chooses to face danger head on with love. We also see how Elsa’s “let it go” mentality was naïve – “I’m such a fool I can’t be free!”.

2. “Let it Go” Finale Reprise

Wait, didn’t I list this above as something I loved? Well it also kind of bothered me too. My main issue is that the phrase “let it go” itself feels antithetical to the theme of the story.

My interpretation of the theme is that we should face fear and pain head on with love and acceptance. Love is the magical healing power that fuels positive change. From that lens, “Let it Go” is a meaningful step in character development for Elsa, but just a temporary one. It’s sort of like screaming into a pillow: great way to get your anger out and clear your head, but doesn’t actually solve any problems in your life.

I think that maybe the songwriters were trying to reframe the line in the reprise as “let loose”. You can see hints of that in this brief exceprt from Anna:

“Let it go, let it go
Show us what you can do”

But I feel this is subtle at best, and doesn’t really work when you repeat the line over and over with increasing power.

What if instead, they kept the melody but changed the lyric to something else, like “let it snow”? I think that could jive really well with the themes of love and acceptance. Now that we know how to control the magic, it’s no longer something we need to be afraid of. Show us what you can do! Let it snow!!

There’d have to be some changes to accommodate this change – like maybe the song comes AFTER Elsa removes the eternal winter (and maybe after a short time skip too, like in the film where Elsa makes a little ice skating rink). But I do think this could be a viable solution to convey the same ideas without muddying up the message.

Overall

Overall I loved the Frozen musical. It did an amazing job capturing the spirit of the original film and adapting it to musical theater. Aside from a few minor gripes here and there, I am in awe of this production.

I think this is pretty much the gold standard for how adaptations should be done – true to spirit of the original without being held back by trappings of the source medium. I will take these lessons with me in my own creative work.

A More Human Blog

Hi! My name is Roh. I’m a dad, game designer, and human.

In my early 20s, I started this blog to complement my game design portfolio. The idea was to demonstrate my design thinking in a way that might impress prospective employers. But the updates fizzled when I got a job and shifted my focus to actually making games.

Today, about a decade later, I’ve decided to give blogging another go. I’m a totally different person now: I have a lot of game industry experience, I have a family, and I’m more well rounded as a person. And alongside my life changes so too have my goals changed. So this will be a very different blog.

The Future

Going forward, I’m simply doing this blog for myself. I have all these thoughts swimming in my head and it gets kind of crowded in there! I find myself darting between topics uncontrollably… and I’ve found that getting my thoughts out in some form helps.

My strongest communication form is probably presenting. I’ve done a lot of public speaking now – and feel very comfortable throwing together some slides and walking through them with a virtual or in-person audience.

But I have way more ideas than I have speaking opportunities. And I don’t want to just talk AT people… that is annoying. I also want to get better at writing: IMO one of my weak points. So I figure it’s time to revisit this blog and open it up to more topics. 

I’ll probably still write a lot about game dev – it is my life passion! But since this a personal blog I can explore other topics too, such as: music, stories, movies, pets, and parenting. I will also accept that my post frequency will fluctuate; as a working dad I am busier than ever. And that’s ok.

I’m not sure how it will evolve but I’m excited to find out! And if anyone should opt-in to my strange journey, well I’m very happy to have you here and would love to hear what you think too. Thank you for reading!

Game Dev Podcast Recommendations

I love podcasts about making games – especially game design! I listen to them while I drive, exercise, brush my teeth, make coffee, do house chores… basically all the time.

In no order, here are some of my favorite game design podcasts!

Ongoing Podcasts

These podcasts are still releasing new episodes on a regular basis.

The Game Design Round Table
What Is It: A podcast by designers, for game designers.
Why I Like It: One of the older design podcasts out there, TGDRT started off a little slow but eventually evolved into something great. Dirk may be the best showrunner around; he is a great listener who actively engages with the audience and is constantly working to improve the show. I particularly love the contrast in perspectives offered by the main co-hosts: casual f2p mobile designer David Heron and heavy tabletop game designer Dirk. And any appearance from Rob Daviau (RISK Legacy, Betrayal at the House on the Hill) is a treat.
http://tgdrt.com/

Designer Notes
What Is It: A podcast about “why we make games”, hosted by Soren Johnson (Civ IV)
Why I Like It: Designer Notes features longform discussions that can span several hours. Sometimes it can get very deep and personal in a way that shorter formats cannot; for example in one memorable episode featuring Amy Hennig, Amy shares some of the heavy ramifications of crunch. It also helps that Soren generous host who lets his guests really shine.
https://www.idlethumbs.net/designernotes/

AIAS Game Maker’s Notebook
This podcast rotates between three different hosts: Ted Price (founder of Insomniac), Robin Hunicke (Journey), and Austin Wintory (composer for Journey). Unlike my other recommendations, this podcast features a lot more AAA developer guests, so it has a different vibe to it and you get a peak into what makes large productions run.
https://www.interactive.org/Interviews/the_game_makers_notebook.asp

Drive To Work
Hosted by Mark Rosewater (Head Designer of Magic: The Gathering), the premise is that Mark records himself monologuing on design concepts during his drive to work at the Wizards building (<40m). I’ve noticed this podcast can be intimidating to designers who don’t really know MTG… but they’re be missing out because Mark is a world class designer and the podcast covers a broad range of design topics. The trick is to just go by title – if it’s not named after a Magic card/set, it should be accessible to anyone.
https://www.idlethumbs.net/designernotes/

Eggplant: The Secret Lives of Games
What is it: Candid conversations with game creators.
Why I Like It: Eggplant started as “Spelunky Showlike”, and originally was a podcast about roguelikes. I started listening primarily as a fan of designer Zach Gage, but stayed around because the conversations were indeed candid and very high quality. The hosts bring a nice variety of perspectives to each discussion and they’ve featured some wonderful guests.
https://thespelunkyshowlike.libsyn.com/

Completed Podcasts

These podcasts are no longer releasing new episodes. But they were a joy for me at the time and I feel it’s worth going through their backlog.

Tone Control
Hosted by Steve Gaynor (Gone Home), this podcast has a fun indie feel to it.
https://www.idlethumbs.net/tonecontrol

Another Castle
Hosted by NY indie designer / NYU professor Charles Pratt, this one holds a special place in my heart because I listened to it while I lived in NYC (often on the subway). It has a bit of that lively indie vibe that I associate with the city’s community, and also a bit of an academic side with its highly theoretical discussions.
https://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/g9duq-38af7/Another-Castle-Podcast

Playscape: Los Angeles
Hosted by Teddy Dief (co-designer on Hyper Light Drifter), this is another indie interviewing other indies show. It starts just after the release of HLD and mid-podcast Teddy moves to Toronto for a Lead Designer position, which is really interesting to hear about in real-time.
https://www.idlethumbs.net/playscape

Humans Who Make Games
Hosted by Adam Conover (College Humor / Adam Ruins Everything), this podcast is just dripping with love, evident in Adam’s enthusiastic curiosity. Adam comes off as someone genuinely trying to learn about the humans behind game dev, which is a refreshing perspective, and the guests are A+.
https://starburns.audio/podcasts/humans-who-make-games/

Nine Dev Log #2: Design Research

In 2015, I attended a Boston Post Mortem talk by veteran developer Steve Meretzky. It was jam packed with great advice, but one bit that stood out to me was that a good designer strives to be an “overnight expert”.

The concept is fairly straightforward: game designers have to make countless decisions that impact the player experience. The more context a designer has, the more informed those decisions are. And one way to gain this context is to prioritize design research in the early stages of development. I have come to believe that good research can significantly increase your chances of designing a successful game.

Members of the God of War team on a Nordic Research Trip (photo from “Raising Kratos”)

Designers at large studios may have great resources for doing design research during pre-production. For example, Sony Santa Monica funded a small portion of the God of War team to go on a “Nordic Research Trip”, to countries in the Scandanavian region.

But as an indie, my options look more like:

1. Play reference games in the space.
2. Research the subject matter.
3. Learn from designers in the space.
4. Learn from the potential audience.

Note that when I say “the space”, I’m referring to the “design space” surrounding the game. This can be very broad, but for the purposes of this post I am going to focus on learning about gameplay systems in the roguelike and platformer genres.

#1. Playing Reference Games

Much of the reason Nine has evolved into a roguelike platformer is because of my past influences. On the platformer side, I grew up playing classics like Sonic, Mario, and Donkey Kong series, and am familiar with some of the modern takes such as Celeste and Hollow Knight. On the roguelike side, I’m a big fan of some strategy games like Into the Breach and Card of Darkness, as well as some action games like Cadence of Hyrule and my primary reference: Spelunky.

But there’s so much more to learn!

Guacamelee 2

Dead Cells

Roundguard

Slay the Spire

In the coming weeks I hope to play:

• Games that combine roguelike and action platforming elements. This is the core focus area and includes games like Dead Cells, Rogue Legacy, 30XX, Noita, and Catacomb Kids.
• Popular games with roguelike elements (Crypt of the Necrodancer, Slay the Spire, Roundguard), which can teach me about procedural generation, progression systems, difficulty pacing, and more.
• Popular action platformers (Ori and the Blind Forest, Cuphead, Guacamelee 2), which can help me make the player feel like an agile warrior cat.
• Notable flops in the above genres (critically and commercially), so I can learn what mistakes to avoid!

It’s worth mentioning I don’t have the money or time to buy and play all of these games. But I can at least play through the early parts of the best ones, and watch streams and reviews of the rest.

#2. Researching the Subject Matter

The origins of the “cats have nine lives” myth is a bit vague.

There are some direct references such as:

• An old English proverb: “A cat has nine lives. For three he plays, for three he strays, and for the last three he stays.”
• From Romeo & Juliet: “Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives.”
• The Egyptian sun god Ra, who sometimes took the shape of a cat (Mau), gave birth to 8 other gods and thus represented “nine lives in one”.

A statuette of Bastet at the MET Museum.

And there are many more stories of cats having “multiple lives” has broader origins, with various cultures referencing 6 or 7 lives instead of 9.

The takeaway was that I had a lot of flexibility, as there was not one specific history or myth that people would associate the game with. I toyed with the idea of an Egyptian theme focused on Bastet vs. Apophis, but decided in the end to settle on a more cartoonish theme of cats vs. mice.

But we can explore the theme further in a future dev log. Let’s move on for now!

#3. Learning from Designers

There is a wealth of knowledge from game developers who have made roguelikes and/or platformers in the past. This information has been dispensed through design blogs, youtube videos, GDC talks, interviews, podcasts, and more. Why should I reinvent the wheel?

The biggest and best reference so far would have to be the Spelunky book by Derek Yu, which dives deep into both the personal story of creating Spelunky and the design challenges Derek faced. It surprised and inspired me to learn that relatively simple algorithms could create such rich emergent gameplay. It was also humanizing to see that even a legend like Derek had real struggles dealing with conflicts both personal (like parting ways with Alec) and professional (like dealing with varying player response to Spelunky’s difficulty and randomness).

There are also some great youtube videos on procedurally generated levels by authors like Extra Credits and Mark Brown, but they are mostly a higher level overview of what the Spelunky book covers. Still, it’s handy to see how these authors chunk complex ideas into accessible presentations.

Finally, the podcast The Spelunky Showlike has been a wonderful reference. The show is rooted in pure love for Spelunky, and they use roguelikes as a lens to which to discuss game design. The result makes them feel like a team of allies in my quest to understand the design space. I trust that they “get” Spelunky, which means the discussion can focus on the challenges of making those games shine. They have also interviewed designers of notable roguelike like Holedown, Card of Darkness, and Roundguard.

#4. Learning from the Potential Audience

The potential audience is the theoretical group of people who might enjoy the game.

A good place to start is with the audiences that already exist. These might include people who enjoy specific games on my reference list or love the loosely defined genres of roguelike or platformer. It makes sense to try and win them over, since there is clear overlap in gameplay systems. Such audiences may also include people who appreciate lighthearted cartoony aesthetics, themes that don’t take themselves too seriously, and action without excessive violence.

But an existing audience also comes with expectations. A roguelike/roguelite fan might expect the deep progression systems of Dead Cells or the emergent physics of Spelunky. A platformer fan might expect the tightly designed rooms of Celeste or the big roller coaster moments of Sonic. I’d like to win these people over, but there’s also a part of me that needs to accept that Nine is its own unique game that doesn’t fit neatly into those boxes.

To learn from these audiences is to find them, talk to them, and most importantly listen to what they have to say. Even when they’re not articulate, their experiences are just as valid. And the good news is that their expressions of opinion can be found everywhere: in reviews, youtube comments, discords, and more.

Much harder to find is the theoretical person who wants something just like your game but:

1. Doesn’t know it yet.
2. Knows it, but doesn’t know how to ask for it.
3. Asks for it, but is ignored. (<- Actually this is the story of some memorable crowdfunding successes).

I can’t talk to this nonexistent portion of the audience just yet. But I look forward to it very much.

Conclusion

It’s tricky to make time for design research. And it’s hard to prioritize in the early stages especially when you are still rapid prototyping. But I think that if you are trying to maximize the chances of making something great, you really want to immerse yourself in the space and strive to become an “overnight expert”.

I’d hardly call myself an expert of course, but the research I’ve done has already helped frame my iterative goals. I have a better idea of what kinds of problems I’m likely to run into, as well as a larger toolbox for solving this problems. And the immersion has reinforced that I love living in this design space.

I’ll be back soon to report what I’ve learned. Thanks for reading!