This comprehensive framework will provide you with practical insights into your game’s player experience.
Each lesson builds upon the previous one, creating a logical sequence that works as a system to improve your player retention and satisfaction.
After each lesson, I’ll give you an exercise to help you implement immediately what you learn and get results.
Lesson 1: How to stop losing players from confusing gameplay
Lesson 2: How to keep players motivated to keep playing your game
Lesson 3: How to use agency to make players feel their decisions matter
Lesson 4: How to improve player enjoyment with these 3 Principles
Lesson 5: How to merge gameplay & story seamlessly
Bonus Lesson 6: How to prevent self-doubt from sabotaging your design career
Bonus Lesson 7: 5 strategies to outcompete other design job candidates
Bonus Lesson 8: How to get more design job offers: Portfolio & Interview Insights
This framework is a set of principles that you can use to diagnose where your gameplay is losing players and stop the leak.
If you can deeply internalize these principles, you’ll develop a design judgment that will guide you in consistently creating immersive and enjoyable gameplay, which will open up a world of opportunities.
You can apply this framework to your personal projects or any in-studio game you are working on.
This framework is based on these following core beliefs:
Examples of games that have applied the framework:
[GAME] World of Warcraft: MMORPG with 8.5 million average monthly players, won Gamer’s Choice Award – Fan Favorite MMORPG, VGX Award for Best PC Game, Best RPG, and Most Addictive Video Game.
[GAME] StarCraft 2: Playtested and provided design feedback during prototyping and development
[GAME] Diablo 3: Playtested and provided design feedback during prototyping and development
[GAME] Overwatch: Playtested and provided design feedback during prototyping and development
[GAME] Hearthstone: Playtested and provided design feedback during prototyping and development
[GAME] League of Legends: Team-based strategy MOBA with 152 million average active monthly players, won The Game Award for Best Esports Game and BAFTA Best Persistent Game Award.
[OTHER GAMES] Under NDA: Developed multiple unreleased projects in R&D
Game Design Instructor: Coached and mentored associate designers on gameplay and mechanics
[GAME] Ori & The Will of The Wisps: 2m total players (423k people finished it) with average 92.8/100 ratings by 23 top game rating sites (including Steam and Nintendo Switch).
[GAME] Unreleased RPG project
[PROJECT] Tochi: Creative director (hybrid of game design, production and leading the product team)
[STUDIOS] Studio Pixanoh + 13 other indie game studios (under NDA):