What Is Cozy Gaming? 🎀

Cozy games are a relatively new game genre/type. They help players to relax. There is no FOMO, time pressure, or violence inside this game.Typical for cozy games to have nature or farming topics. And beautiful visuals.The most famous cozy games are Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing: New Horizons.This photo was taken during the last Game Habitat Playtest Session in Malmö. Around half of the games I saw/played were cozy games! New trend? Especially among small indie or solo devs.The growth of its popularity means that people face lots of anxiety nowadays and they are looking for relaxation and calmness 😌Players say that cozy games can help with mental well-being.Do you play any cozy games? Have a favorite one? 🩷P.S. My favs are Unpacking and Monument Valley.

Eva Piatrushina October 20

Journal

What Is NDA In The Gaming Industry?

What Is NDA In The Gaming Industry? ⚖️ Even if you are not working in the law field, you should be aware of it. (NDA) or Non-Disclosure Agreement is a legal contract that establishes a confidential relationship between two parties.- NDA can be signed right before you start working in the company. It can include different information about technologies or concepts.That's why you probably know people who can't share about what game they are making or in some extreme cases even can't name the company they are working at 🙊- Also, you can even meet NDA during the recruitment process. From my experience, I can say that I've signed several NDAs before conducting interviews with AAA gaming companies. Smaller studious are rarely doing this.- Same with game testing (Closed Beta, for example)Have you ever signed the NDA? Know any related […]

Eva Piatrushina September 24

Journal

How To Know Who Are Gamers In 2024?

How To Know Who Are Gamers In 2024? 🔬 I was asking myself that question too.Knowing the audience can help to adjust the content, events, mechanics, or even game pitch for the players.A couple of weeks ago I found Newzoo How consumers engage with games today 2024 edition.This report helped to understand what drives people to play and pay for games and what keeps them hooked nowadays.Included topics:- gaming trends,- player behaviors,- spending patterns.What was brand new for me?See the funniest fact in the picture 👻 Still can’t believe the fact about fightings.The free report is available: Newzoo More: https://vginsights.com/

Eva Piatrushina September 18

Journal

How Six Lego Bricks Can Help You Encourage Creativity

How Six Lego Bricks Can Help You Encourage Creativity 🦆 And teamwork as well!Did you know that Lego can be used for problem-solving, team-building, and idea generation? I didn’t.LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® METHOD is used in Samsung, IKEA, Microsoft, etc. There is even an official certification for that!A part of that is a Duck challenge. Participants are given 6 pieces (on the photo) and their task is to create a duck within a short period.Seems easy? Yes! But you didn’t expect how different ducks can be. If you are working in a team it can be a challenge to agree with your teammates about the vision 🤝Thanks, Giorgio Giussani for this amazing gift and for sharing about this practice. He holds workshops as well, all credits to Giorgio! ❤️Did you know about the Duck Challenge? Or a SERIOUS PLAY?P.S. All ducks […]

Eva Piatrushina September 13

Journal

How We Made a Game Design Checklist for AAA GaaS

In this article, I want to share my experience making a checklist for World of Tanks PC in Wargaming and explain why you as a Game Designer or your team need to do a similar initiative. Let's start with a small glossary: AAA (Triple A) is a classification of video games produced by major publishers. As a rule, these games have high quality and a large budget. For example, I can name League of Legends, The Witcher 3, or Fortnite. GaaS (Games-as-a-Service), live game, or live service game is a business model to monetize video games after their release. This model implies the regular delivery of new game content (including events and systems). Examples, are Genshin Impact, Dying Light 2, or PUBG. Pre-production in game development is a planning phase where the main focus is on creating feature concepts, making […]

Eva Piatrushina August 14

Journal

Why Having An Antisocial Monday Can Be A Good Idea?

Why Having An Antisocial Monday Can Be A Good Idea? 🦔 I often see posts about different Social Monday / Saturday / any day of the week on LinkedIn. If you don’t know what is about, check any hashtags such as # socialsaturday.It’s a good idea that helps people to expand their network and meet new people via LinkedIn.But what if sometimes I just don’t have the mood to socialize and feel this pressure to be productive 100% of my time to do “successful success”? And of course, feel guilt when I’ve decided not to use this opportunity.Previously I used to push myself to do it. Later I understood that mental rest is as important as other types of rest and work itself.Having time alone increases creativity and empathy, and helps to understand yourself better. If you are still not […]

Eva Piatrushina August 14

Journal

Current state of VR in the gaming industry?

What is the current state of VR in the gaming industry? 🤖 VR (virtual reality) offers a fully digital environment for its players. The most known VR games are Beat Saber and Half-Life: Alyx. By Peak Online (CCU) on Steam the most played are No Man’s Sky and War Thunder. But my guilty pleasure is chill Bartender VR Simulator, hehe.VR gaming still grows (and will be). Gaming takes the highest (22.5 %) share of the market in VR. By region, North America takes the lead in it.More and more games with online multiplayer are appearing in VR. We can even play VR extraction shooters.Have you ever played VR games? What do you think of them? 🎮P.S. When I was younger I thought that later I would play VR games like from Sword Art Online anime.hashtag#gamingindustry hashtag#vr hashtag#gaming hashtag#gamedevelopment

Eva Piatrushina August 10

Journal

Parking Lot And Cool Game Design Meetings

What Does Connect Parking Lot And Cool Game Design Meetings? 🚗 During the last Game Design Workshop, I got familiar with a project management technique Parking Lot where you ‘park’ not relevant to the meeting topics. This really helps to focus on the current goal, save time, and not to flood.It can be a hypothetical parking lot or a real one (for example, a whiteboard with stickers). We had it on the wall in the corner of the room.When you see that the current question is not directly connected to the meeting’s topic, you just stop the discussion, write down the issue, and go back to the main part.📝 After meeting you can go back to these ‘parked’ questions. Thanks, Charles Lees-Czerkawski, for explaining and making a nice replica of a real parking lot sign for the workshop!Have you ever […]

Eva Piatrushina June 17

Journal

Which European Country Is The Most Popular Among Game Devs?

Which European Country Is The Most Popular Among Game Developers? 🎮 Last week I was reading a report by Dataspelsbranschen / Swedish Games Industry. And found out the number of gaming studios by country.🔝Top 4 (more than 500 studios)UK > France > Sweden > Germany When I was moving to another country I wanted to consider EU countries with vast gaming industries. So, Sweden was an amazing choice! The report proves that.If you want to read the full report plus know more about the gaming industry in Swedenhttps://lnkd.in/d46pr4XBDo you think the top remain the same in several years? Or should we expect changes?🤔P.S. Love diagrams and reports.

Eva Piatrushina June 4

Journal

What Designers do in the Gaming Industry.

What Does Designer in the Gaming Industry? 🖌️ The most common myth is that a designer draws sometimes. That is not always true.There are different types of designers in GameDev. Game Designer, Balance Designer, Combat, UX, Narrative, AI, Level, Economy, etc. But design is always about making decisions🛤️In smaller companies, designers can have a wider area of responsibilities, while in bigger have a narrower specialization. An example of this can be the presence of 3C or Rewards Designer.Designers can use different tools like Figma, Unreal Engine, Confluence, Excel, etc. So the result of their job can vary. Some can make documents or scripts, while others’s audio or spreadsheets.Are you aware of the designer’s responsibilities? Which is the most interesting for you? 🔨P.S. Sometimes it is easier to explain to your family that you are paid for playing games.

Eva Piatrushina April 22

Journal

What are Game Design Tools?

🛠️ What are Game Design Tools? I had an interesting conversation with Kateryna Shchotkina where she asked about some job vacancies with the requirement to know Game Design Tools.Game Design does not equal Game Development in this case.The answer may vary from different factors:- Game genre. Working on Match-3 is not the same as on shooter.- Designers’ responsibilities on this project. Some do coding, some combine designer and PM roles.- Company Policies. Not all companies have licenses. But the most common are- 📖 Content Management Tools (Confluence, Docs). For documentation and knowledge sharing.- ⚙️ Engines (Unreal, Unity, Godot, Twine). For making gameplay and prototyping.- 🗂️ Project Management Tools (Trello, Jira). For task and progress tracking.- 🧮 Spreadsheets (Excel, Sheets). For organizing and analyzing data.Do you use these tools? Or can you share yours?P.S. Tools from IKEA are saviors! You can […]

Eva Piatrushina April 19

Journal

GameDev is Not That Sweet

GameDev is Not That Sweet 🍭 This and more ideas came to me after reading Significant Zero: Heroes, Villains, and the Fight for Art and Soul in Video Games by Walt Williams.Book with ****ing strong language (since industry may be harsh) is written in such a way that when you read it you feel like you’re sitting in a bar with your buddy. After reading about the creation of BioShock, Mafia II, and Spec Ops: The Line, etc, I got a desire to replay them.📕 My favorite ideas from the book:- Our main value is not in ideas but in the ability to implement them.- No matter what industry you work in, never turn down a free T-shirt.- Game development is not a nursery.Thanks, Daniil Varshaver for giving me this book and signing it. Sounds like an interesting tradition, exchanging […]

Eva Piatrushina March 18

Eva Piatrushina

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