Spontaneous Game Design
“The intrigue of the story is how I didn’t give up learning, even when I found myself in distant islands in the middle of the ocean.” Spelling and punctuation are copyright. The prehistory is in the Universarium blog.
“I signed up for a course on game design from WG at the Universarium even before the New Year, I was not going to leave anywhere, nothing foretold. It so happened that I am a supporter of lifelong education, fascinated since childhood by sails and the story of pirates, I eventually received the modest title of Bareboat Skipper IYT and wound around 5,000 nm - I can recruit a team and captain on the seas, yo-hoho! And so, through the same acquaintances “turned on sails” on the night of January 25, 2016, an unusual offer came to me - the transition on a sailing catamaran on the Atlantic from the Canary Islands to the Cape Verde Islands and back. This expedition is only for experienced skippers, with night watches and getting food with improvised means. Without going into sea specifics, this route is a little mad, so I just could not refuse.
')
I made a decision within 24 hours and flew away on January 27, while continuing to conduct remote negotiations on the production of two projects. Marketing, retention, improving the business performance of games - this is what I have been doing for the last few years, so a couple of hungry millions of "social" and found me on the recommendations of friends. Negotiations were conducted cheerfully from the buildings of airports and in the marina of Tenerife under the howling of the wind in the rigging, while we were preparing to sail and waited for the crew to gather. The clients were a little nervous when they learned about my plans for the trip, but, realizing that I did not ask for money with me into the ocean, but only demanded to ship me a bit of basic statistics, I calmed down. When they decided to wait a month before my return, I realized that there would be a game design course! Passed the first "homework" and set sail with Canar.
While we will sail for five calm days, enjoying the fair wind, frolicking dolphins and ocean views, it's time to tell about ourselves. I am a person from the industry, although I have never been involved in game design directly. In gamedave come from everywhere - from fast food and from construction, but for me it was downshifting pure water.
Profistory, the language of individual events:
Until 2009, I received an economic education and worked for the money, quite successfully. Four years sales manager, five years in advertising and marketing, cars, apartments, own business, but all the happiness. He played a lot, but there was always not enough time. I drove from myself as frivolous, while not pressing at all - the 2008 crisis helped. I sold my own company, went as a marketer to an IT company interested in games and tried to sign a contract for its localization and operating in the CIS on Silkroad Online, Atlantica online and Dofus. It did not work, he left to live and gather energy in Thailand, simultaneously studying the phenomenon of social games.
Just wildly rested and with a nuclear fuse in the summer of 2010 returned to Moscow to get a gamediz in several companies - failure. "You will not be able to work, because you cannot imagine this routine in reality." "Not the level of the director of business development, you are in marketing." Here is such a "glass floor". In the end, he achieved his goal by showing market knowledge and understanding of where it is developing, and finally saying that I don’t need money, “give any project, then you will see.” They gave money, the position of the project manager and the "killed" browser with an angry computer glitches and three sluggish bodies of the team. Basically, my task was to convincingly tell investors why it did not work out, since the experience with them was immense. However, after four months of struggle and violence, I received the most valuable experience and was already a completely different person - I knew the whole process thoroughly and most importantly knew how not to develop games. For some reason, we do not know how to appreciate a negative experience, while in the West all success stories include failures.
Having closed the project, I spent two years doing my usual marketing and advertising, invested one of the games I promoted, gained experience and co-founded the social games publishing company Digital Partners. I looked for small teams with interesting projects and published them on social networks with direct advertising against the generally accepted practice of traffic overflow. The most successful cases are "Cradle of Magic", "Battle of the gliders" and "Contra City".
In 2012, he took over the burden of power from the company's owners and, for another two years, was engaged in pure management. I made contact with the team, laid off a lot, hired, reorganized the work, brainstormed in the parks under the champagne (for which there was a cheerful drive to the police), delved into the finances, conveyed greetings to cash gaps and statistics of tardiness. In general, the CEO, almost no creativity, new projects, interesting features, high art style.
In the spring of 2014, I traveled to India to transfer development there. I did not accept the proposal to engage in the development of the development office in full and ... I quit completely. Consciously began what the Americans call the gap year - time to collect stones. It's time to look for something new, not to plan anything, go where your eyes are looking, break the routine. In the summer there were a lot of sails, new acquaintances, parties, and for the winter I went to the Philippines - to surf and learn English.
Now I am charged with my own projects, where strong competences in the State Duma are needed. From here and part of the over-motivation - I have a lot of ideas, I know where to get the money and how to assemble a team, the whole development process. I even know how to write GDD, but there is a shortage of something that will create documents ready for production from the dump of ideas. In fact, I drove one of my concepts through the course, creating holistic documentation for it. The prototype is already in the works, and that's great! :)
It’s time to return to Cape Verde from motivation to study, where in the morning of February 6 our catamaran, yellowed from Kalima (wind carrying fine sand from the Sahara) but still sparkling in the first rays of dawn, approached the misty outlines of Cape Verde Islands - Santo Antan and San Vicente. We will spend on these islands only two days, watching carnival processions in cities and villages and climbing to the tops of sleeping volcanoes, in the craters of which epic views of cozy valleys with huts and fields of local farmers open up. "Living like a volcano" happy and safe - this land gives a very rich harvest. Between eruptions.
Part of the fun I deliberately miss - for me this is the only time when I can find wi-fi, watch the video and hand over homework. Then we go along the islands to the east, bypassing them from the south - for two days only impoverished fishing villages from which we are photographed as a wonder. At the extreme island of Sal, there is everything except for the Internet - 1.5 meter sharks are on the way, gas station in the city, fish market, a magnificent port in a quiet, shabby bar. I watch new videos and check the work of other students.
Then we will go to the ocean and eleven days will go against the headwind and three-meter waves. For all this time we will not meet anything that, the coast - not a single vessel within sight. For three days we will try to storm the Tropic of Cancer, until we finally cross it. We will successfully survive the storm, close to the maximum capabilities of the boat, lose the sail, batteries, steering wheel, but we will decide to risk and pull on fuel residues to Canar, without going to refuel in unfriendly Mauritania. Total, about two thousand miles tacks. The crew was worried about the plane tickets, I was for the lectures on game design.
I received the Internet a day before handing over my homework, but I managed to do everything, and on the plane too. Unfortunately, I did not make it to the top ten, but I went to the top 50 according to the results. Of course, it was easier for me to do some tasks, because I had already heard or done all this somewhere, but I learned a lot of new things and approached the training with all the responsibility, as far as conditions allowed. Already returning to the ground, I sat for hours at work to achieve a result that I would have liked, above all. So this course, where you teach yourself, is proportional to your own motivation.
In conclusion, I would like to point out the validity of the course and parry claims to the lack of theory or incompetence of WG in matters of game design. References - this is a theory, and this course gives something more important for work in the industry. It shows the interaction of people in the production pipeline (flow), learns to write sane, to take into account the wishes of other team members and immediately directs you to the result - clear documentation and teamwork. Not forgetting also about commercial success, where any attacks on WG are fun. I have never been a fan of session games, but I started to respect the guys 7-8 years ago, when they believed and sawed the game about tanks, when no one believed.
Real art is not walking in the wind like everyone else, but against! ”- student of the course“ Game Design: Beyond the Side of the Game ”.
“I signed up for a course on game design from WG at the Universarium even before the New Year, I was not going to leave anywhere, nothing foretold. It so happened that I am a supporter of lifelong education, fascinated since childhood by sails and the story of pirates, I eventually received the modest title of Bareboat Skipper IYT and wound around 5,000 nm - I can recruit a team and captain on the seas, yo-hoho! And so, through the same acquaintances “turned on sails” on the night of January 25, 2016, an unusual offer came to me - the transition on a sailing catamaran on the Atlantic from the Canary Islands to the Cape Verde Islands and back. This expedition is only for experienced skippers, with night watches and getting food with improvised means. Without going into sea specifics, this route is a little mad, so I just could not refuse.
')
I made a decision within 24 hours and flew away on January 27, while continuing to conduct remote negotiations on the production of two projects. Marketing, retention, improving the business performance of games - this is what I have been doing for the last few years, so a couple of hungry millions of "social" and found me on the recommendations of friends. Negotiations were conducted cheerfully from the buildings of airports and in the marina of Tenerife under the howling of the wind in the rigging, while we were preparing to sail and waited for the crew to gather. The clients were a little nervous when they learned about my plans for the trip, but, realizing that I did not ask for money with me into the ocean, but only demanded to ship me a bit of basic statistics, I calmed down. When they decided to wait a month before my return, I realized that there would be a game design course! Passed the first "homework" and set sail with Canar.
While we will sail for five calm days, enjoying the fair wind, frolicking dolphins and ocean views, it's time to tell about ourselves. I am a person from the industry, although I have never been involved in game design directly. In gamedave come from everywhere - from fast food and from construction, but for me it was downshifting pure water.
Profistory, the language of individual events:
Until 2009, I received an economic education and worked for the money, quite successfully. Four years sales manager, five years in advertising and marketing, cars, apartments, own business, but all the happiness. He played a lot, but there was always not enough time. I drove from myself as frivolous, while not pressing at all - the 2008 crisis helped. I sold my own company, went as a marketer to an IT company interested in games and tried to sign a contract for its localization and operating in the CIS on Silkroad Online, Atlantica online and Dofus. It did not work, he left to live and gather energy in Thailand, simultaneously studying the phenomenon of social games.
Just wildly rested and with a nuclear fuse in the summer of 2010 returned to Moscow to get a gamediz in several companies - failure. "You will not be able to work, because you cannot imagine this routine in reality." "Not the level of the director of business development, you are in marketing." Here is such a "glass floor". In the end, he achieved his goal by showing market knowledge and understanding of where it is developing, and finally saying that I don’t need money, “give any project, then you will see.” They gave money, the position of the project manager and the "killed" browser with an angry computer glitches and three sluggish bodies of the team. Basically, my task was to convincingly tell investors why it did not work out, since the experience with them was immense. However, after four months of struggle and violence, I received the most valuable experience and was already a completely different person - I knew the whole process thoroughly and most importantly knew how not to develop games. For some reason, we do not know how to appreciate a negative experience, while in the West all success stories include failures.
Having closed the project, I spent two years doing my usual marketing and advertising, invested one of the games I promoted, gained experience and co-founded the social games publishing company Digital Partners. I looked for small teams with interesting projects and published them on social networks with direct advertising against the generally accepted practice of traffic overflow. The most successful cases are "Cradle of Magic", "Battle of the gliders" and "Contra City".
In 2012, he took over the burden of power from the company's owners and, for another two years, was engaged in pure management. I made contact with the team, laid off a lot, hired, reorganized the work, brainstormed in the parks under the champagne (for which there was a cheerful drive to the police), delved into the finances, conveyed greetings to cash gaps and statistics of tardiness. In general, the CEO, almost no creativity, new projects, interesting features, high art style.
In the spring of 2014, I traveled to India to transfer development there. I did not accept the proposal to engage in the development of the development office in full and ... I quit completely. Consciously began what the Americans call the gap year - time to collect stones. It's time to look for something new, not to plan anything, go where your eyes are looking, break the routine. In the summer there were a lot of sails, new acquaintances, parties, and for the winter I went to the Philippines - to surf and learn English.
Now I am charged with my own projects, where strong competences in the State Duma are needed. From here and part of the over-motivation - I have a lot of ideas, I know where to get the money and how to assemble a team, the whole development process. I even know how to write GDD, but there is a shortage of something that will create documents ready for production from the dump of ideas. In fact, I drove one of my concepts through the course, creating holistic documentation for it. The prototype is already in the works, and that's great! :)
It’s time to return to Cape Verde from motivation to study, where in the morning of February 6 our catamaran, yellowed from Kalima (wind carrying fine sand from the Sahara) but still sparkling in the first rays of dawn, approached the misty outlines of Cape Verde Islands - Santo Antan and San Vicente. We will spend on these islands only two days, watching carnival processions in cities and villages and climbing to the tops of sleeping volcanoes, in the craters of which epic views of cozy valleys with huts and fields of local farmers open up. "Living like a volcano" happy and safe - this land gives a very rich harvest. Between eruptions.
Part of the fun I deliberately miss - for me this is the only time when I can find wi-fi, watch the video and hand over homework. Then we go along the islands to the east, bypassing them from the south - for two days only impoverished fishing villages from which we are photographed as a wonder. At the extreme island of Sal, there is everything except for the Internet - 1.5 meter sharks are on the way, gas station in the city, fish market, a magnificent port in a quiet, shabby bar. I watch new videos and check the work of other students.
Then we will go to the ocean and eleven days will go against the headwind and three-meter waves. For all this time we will not meet anything that, the coast - not a single vessel within sight. For three days we will try to storm the Tropic of Cancer, until we finally cross it. We will successfully survive the storm, close to the maximum capabilities of the boat, lose the sail, batteries, steering wheel, but we will decide to risk and pull on fuel residues to Canar, without going to refuel in unfriendly Mauritania. Total, about two thousand miles tacks. The crew was worried about the plane tickets, I was for the lectures on game design.
I received the Internet a day before handing over my homework, but I managed to do everything, and on the plane too. Unfortunately, I did not make it to the top ten, but I went to the top 50 according to the results. Of course, it was easier for me to do some tasks, because I had already heard or done all this somewhere, but I learned a lot of new things and approached the training with all the responsibility, as far as conditions allowed. Already returning to the ground, I sat for hours at work to achieve a result that I would have liked, above all. So this course, where you teach yourself, is proportional to your own motivation.
In conclusion, I would like to point out the validity of the course and parry claims to the lack of theory or incompetence of WG in matters of game design. References - this is a theory, and this course gives something more important for work in the industry. It shows the interaction of people in the production pipeline (flow), learns to write sane, to take into account the wishes of other team members and immediately directs you to the result - clear documentation and teamwork. Not forgetting also about commercial success, where any attacks on WG are fun. I have never been a fan of session games, but I started to respect the guys 7-8 years ago, when they believed and sawed the game about tanks, when no one believed.
Real art is not walking in the wind like everyone else, but against! ”- student of the course“ Game Design: Beyond the Side of the Game ”.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/300528/
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