Nikolaos A.

Game Designer

Game Developer & Designer, experienced in Godot and a little in Unity. 6 years of experience in multiple genres. Skills include : -Game/Level design -Game mechanics analysis -Developing small/medium scale projects (Godot) -Sound design (Music/SFX) -Visual design (vibe/aesthetics/theme) Software I'm using on a daily basis : -Godot -Reaper -Github -Jira Software I'm familiar with : -Unreal -Unity Other skills (not so relevant) : -Drums -Saxophone -Very, very very long designed campaigns for DnD 5e -Music nerd More into detail? Alright, I try to design games with very clear pictures in my head. I imagine myself booting up the game as a person that knows nothing, and I try to use the "info" gathered while playing to answer questions about the game's design. Is this mechanic properly explained? If not, is it on purpose? If it's on purpose, is it to create mystery or to bundle that mechanic up with something else down the road? Is this balanced? Does it matter if it's balanced? Do we want the players to have more freedom to explore mechanics/stat combinations and break the game, or do we want a more closed path? If we want freedom, do we feel ok with players disregarding entire mechanics, or do we want them to experience them? A lot of questions need to be answered before making up a GDD, which include the emotions we want to invoke on a player, the purpose of the game, and how we're going to achieve that. Want to achieve mystery? A dark atmosphere isn't enough. A non-existent tutorial neither. How are we going to make the player question stuff around them? Are mechanics going to be changing? Should X thing that worked in Y way change mid-game to confuse the player? If yes, how will we make the player understand that this isn't a "bug" or a misstep in our own part, but a design? Are we going to connect Y way to Y+1 way? How? There are lots and lots of interesting things you can do in a game, and having broad pictures and scenarios on your head about a game's direction is a good place to start, but a lot of stuff needs to be said & written before we start working on it. I try to avoid development hell, and the number one cause (so far) is a not clear enough path or purpose for the game. Some mechanics/ideas/anything will come down the road during development, some will be discarded because they weren't fun or just didn't stick, and of course a lot of things will change. But the pillars of the game need to be intact, otherwise the game is risking re-purposing it's entire self because we didn't built strong enough foundations.