Congratulations to all Game Awards winners! We've been so lucky to get so many great games this year. Here's hoping the trend continues!

The amazing adventure that is Standard Procedure - the studio I co-founded with a group of super talented friends - is pausing for now. 1/3

Another one in the bank! GG T1! #Worlds2025

Dim Sum Games is soft-launching Tiny Tactics GO! It's a huge achievement from former Riot Hong Kong and Singapore colleagues. I tried the game during early tests. It's a lot of fun. Accessible, yet deceptively deep. The character design is so good! Give it a try! dimsumgames.com/tinytacticsgo

I just saw Riveting Realms is releasing an "early access" version of their camera plugin for Unreal. www.rivetingrealms.com I've contributed to the design of 2 camera systems in my career, and authored camera data for a few more. In my experience, the complexity of cameras is often overlooked. ➡️🧵

First short trip out of Auckland: Muriwai. 🤩

Goodbye Singapore! It's been a very eventful 11 years. High highs, low lows. C'est la vie ! Throughout my journey I got to meet amazing people. Colleagues, friends and people that I now consider family. What a ride it's been! On to the next adventure! 🛫🇳🇿

I wish the games industry did a much better job at educating its audience on the cost of development. We'd get healthier, less hostile conversations about free updates for premium titles, updates for live games with small communities, crowdfunding campaigns, etc.

I discovered 𝗡𝗲𝗯𝘂𝗹𝗮 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝘄 yesterday. It's a rhythm game that is clearly made by people who understand and love music. You play as a girl following the path of a dog, each movement being synced to a music track. It does 2 fundamental things differently that make it feel so musical. →🧵 #gamedesign

Working on my project's budget and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 came up since... it's all people talk about these days! But also its scope is comparable. With all the discourse about the size of their team, I deep dove into behind-the-scene interviews and the game credits. Well... 😯😮🤯 Mad respect.

Tetris + deck builder + roguelike + puzzle sounds like a random combination. Yet it's been mixed expertly in Drop Duchy! It's amazing how tightly woven its game design elements are and how deep they get. Props to @jboger.bsky.social. Try it out, it's a lesson in game design. And it's super fun!

I'm seeing a trend on this platform of game designers discussing the merits or lack thereof of game design models/methods as if they were recipes or plans to follow. Any model/method is nothing more than a 𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗹. What you do using it and whether it's relevant in your context is up to you! #gamedesign

Genuine question: Are GDD as a single monolithic doc a thing in indie teams? I regularly see discussions here that seem to indicate so, and it's very surprising to me because in AAA, it has long been accepted as a bad practice. #gamedesign #gamedev

Oh wow! 😍 Ubisoft released their colourblind simulation tool in open source! As an advocate for accessibility in games, and a colourblind person myself, I love the initiative! ubi.li/jAnK7 #gamedev

My friend Rahul had me over on his channel to discuss game design leadership, how to grow into a lead position, and a few other topics. Have a listen! youtu.be/dZX70LAA-Gg?... #gamedesign #gamedev

Designing for competitive games is difficult: 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗷𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆. TeamFight Tactics 🐧 has very competitive players but a big part of the player base plays more casually. Here's how we tackled this for the Soul Brawl game mode (summer 2023) 🧵 #gamedesign #gamedev

This made me think of a different unpopular(?) gamedev opinion: not all ideas are suited to quick iterative prototyping. In fact, long-term engagement systems (e.g. progression) can easily get biased towards short-term satisfaction and lose their entire purpose if done this way!

Four games I've worked on

🤣🤣🤣 When I was working on Raving Rabbids: Alive & Kicking for the Kinect in 2011, we quickly realized that the skeleton detection was very... permissive let's say! 😅 In fact, we used it to our advantage! 1/2 #gamedev

In 2019, I was given the opportunity to flesh out the Assassin's Creed universe with a fictional language. Our ambition was bigger than just interesting lore. We wanted to delight fans with a mystery. 🔍 Here's our approach and how it worked for us 🧵 #gamedesign #gamedev #conlang #assassinscreed

I think I might be obsessed with Arcane. 😅 The release of the music video for Ma Meilleure Ennemie two days ago threw me back into the vortex! I'm spiraling down re-reading and re-watching everything about the show. Listening to the song on a loop. Send help! 🖐️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-Rp...

GDC 2025 starts today. Though I have never had the opportunity to attend GDC in person, I love watching GDC talks! There's one particular GDC talk that stuck with me. 🧠 "𝙒𝙝𝙤 𝙗𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙙 𝙋𝙖𝙪𝙡?" 𝗯𝘆 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝘁 𝗚𝗗𝗖 1999 www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQLo... #gamedev #gamedesign #GDC

Watching Skull and Bones 🏴‍☠️ gameplay from E3 2017 last week sent me down memory lane. I rewatched E3 2018 too. It's an open world PvPvE pirate game just like what released in 2024, yet they are so different! There are MANY factors, but one stands out to me as a designer. 🤔 ➡️🧵 #gamedev #gamedesign

In 2014 when I joined Skull and Bones 🏴‍☠️, one of the key goals was to add depth to Assassin's Creed Black Flag's naval combat to make it the core of the game, and suitable for PvP. The most common playstyle was boring. 😒 A thread about shaping player behaviour. 🧵 #gamedesign #gamedev

In 2012, Watch Dogs made an impact at E3. With expectations raising, Ubisoft Montréal needed additional support. Ubisoft Paris joined on several topics, including making activities for the open world. A cautionary tale about making the right choice for the wrong reasons. 🧵 #gamedesign #gamedev

I think this might be an interesting story for people interested in #gamedesign and #gamedev

Let me tell you about a dirty little development secret. 😈 On Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, we designed ourselves into a corner: the game structure required a fixed number of mini-games. Production was getting late, we had to find fun and fast to produce ideas. A fun story about player perception 🧵

Fun anecdote! The RR:TiT team was francophone, so the actual phrase was "plus on est de fous, plus on rit". Our producer - the amazing @nin70.bsky.social - made it an acronym: PONPOR. Wait… Where does that N come from?!? 🤪 Regardless, we were asking each other at every decision if it was "PONPOR"! 😂

A key responsibility as a game design leader is to crystallize a 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿'𝘀 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 and ensure the team knows and understands it. A clear target fosters efficient teamwork and allows team members to contribute their best. 👁️💪 Lessons from my career in 🧵 #gamedev #gamedesign

Mastery and self-expression are common motivations for players, best satisfied with 𝗴𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗵 i.e. the size of the meaningful possibility space. In simpler words: how much room to express skills. 💪 Here are my tips to create depth without sacrificing accessibility 🧵 #gamedev #gamedesign

Happy new year! 🎉 As I reflect on how to keep my resolutions for 2025, I realize I've asked myself this question a lot – and in fact have found elements of answer – but in a very different context! As a game designer, I've studied how to keep people engaged. Advice for long-term player engagement🧵

𝗘𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗴𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆 can be a desirable design goal, as it lets players appropriate the game - deepening their connection to it. By definition, you don't design these interactions. You design a possibility space players can find interactions in. Advice to maximize that possibility space 🧵 1/8

Gamedevs, post your first shipped game and your latest shipped game. It gets tricky for the latest since my role at Riot was transversal to the whole studio, and not dedicated to any single project. This is the last release I contributed to hands-on.

A popular mantra for designing games is to "𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝘂𝗻". 🏃‍➡️👾 The general idea is that you should prototype an idea as early as possible and let play drive the design. But as many catchphrases, it’s highly open to interpretation. A 🧵 to get the most out of this philosophy: #gamedev #gamedesign

I had to snip out my favourite moment from #TheGameAwards. @laratlarian.bsky.social's words echo the heart of every developer. The industry needs to listen. We just want to make cool stuff for people. #indiedev #gamedev

Hello game dev community! I'm currently building my own studio and an exciting project. Unfortunately reality caught up to me and I'm running out of savings. To keep this amazing new venture going, I'm opening up for consultancy as a side gig. #gamedev #gamedesign #consulting #conlang #freelance

10 years later, ready on the same starting line. Let's see if I can still run 42.195km! 🦵

I have followers now? 😭 Hello Bluesky!! I'm JT, the tech lead for @kopiforge.bsky.social, an indie game dev studio in Singapore 🇸🇬 We just launched the demo for SEDAP! A Culinary Adventure: store.steampowered.com/app/2650730/... We're still babies, so hope you will support us on our journey!! 🥺