About Funsmith Fireside Chats - by Game Design Skills
Every 2 weeks, we have a conversation with a current practitioner of the game development industry such as video game designers, producers, artists, and entrepreneurs to bring you the experience-based insights to help improve your game design and development craft and thrive in the game development industry.
#13 - Brian Feeney: How to Prove Your Game Ideas With Fast Prototypes
Join us for an exceptional Fireside Chat with the incredibly talented Brian Feeney, Design Director at Riot Games. Brian has helped build some of the most unique worlds in the gaming industry, including his work on League of Legends: Wild Rift.
In this episode, we talked to Brian about how he got started as a game developer and how his early years of reading video game strategy guides helped him expand his imagination and view gaming differently from others. In addition, Brian has an incredible skill for prototyping, specifically paper-prototyping, and he walks us through his process and lessons from his development choices.
Plus, if you’re a big fan of League of Legends, there’s a rousing conversation around “healing” in the game and how game developers make those choices.
Best of all, Brian breaks down some of his favorite tools and software for prototyping if you’re looking to get into the game design industry. Indeed not an episode to miss for aspiring game designers!
FULL EPISODE NOTES: https://gamedesignskills.com/podcast/episode-13-brian-feeney
(For mentioned resources, people, links, and additional ways to enjoy the episode)
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0:47 - Brian Feeney’s game dev background and experience
2:17 - Why is Brian Feeney known as FeralPony in the game dev community
7:10 - How did Brian get into professional game design
14:10 - How to better understand game development from a user perspective
17:36 - How AAA designers use paper-prototyping to prove expensive ideas
19:58 - Legends of Runeterra paper prototype
22:02 - Paper prototype examples made by Brian
26:25 - The reward paradox of good game design and UX design
30:24 - How to use design pillars to prioritize game design trade offs
33:35 - Behind the scenes design decisions behind “healing” in LoL Champion Soraka
48:31 - Early stage prototyping tips for new indie developers
52:36 - Tools and software good for early stage product game development
58:03 - Prototyping vs. pre-preproduction - how to handle each stage
1:04:44 - How to prevent burnouts in your game dev team
20 Dec 2022
#12 - Nathan Tiras: Important Lessons for Managers in the Video Game Industry
We had the honor of speaking with Nathan Tiras, a unique and thoughtful game tester and manager with one fantastic career! His lessons from past work and insights on being the best manager are priceless for anyone trying to succeed in the video game industry.
After befriending Brandon Beck, CEO of Riot Games, Nathan Tiras landed a position as a game tester for League of Legends. His years of experience helped him build a reputation as a committed and passionate manager, eventually helping him become the Director of Game Testing at Singularity 6.
Nathan speaks to us about how he learned valuable lessons from his managers and teammates at both companies.
We also go in-depth about the best managerial styles for game development, new forms of revenue for gaming companies, trust between developers and players, and even his favorite games to play with his kids.
Additionally, Nathan offers a rousing review of the book Mindset by Carol Dweck.
This episode is an excellent conversation for listeners in the gaming industry and anyone trying to lead their team to better success.
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FULL EPISODE NOTES: https://gamedesignskills.com/podcast/episode-12-Nathan-Tiras
(For mentioned resources, people, quotes, and additional ways to enjoy the episode)
Hosted by Alexander Brazie and Ariana Isbell
1 Nov 2022
#11 - Rian Trost: How to Be a Video Game Tester in the Game Dev Industry
Rian Trost is a veteran of video game QA from Sony to Blizzard, he’s helped make some of your favorite games work. If you ever wanted to build a career in testing and QA, you don’t want to miss this!
Rian Trost started his career at 19 years old testing his dream game Tribes at Sony. After finishing QA work on Star Wars Galaxies, EverQuest Online Adventures, and PlanetSide, he moved to Blizzard as a QA Lead. His years of experience offer amazing insight on what it takes to test video games, work in QA, and how to build a career with very little to start.
Rian offers great insight for anyone interested in working in QA as a tester including the expectations of a QA tester, how to excel as one, and how QA testers and designers work together. Along with some behind-the-scenes QA talk, Rian also offers his thoughts on the changing gaming industry and how to follow your passions to land the jobs you want.
Hosted by Alexander Brazie and Ariana Isbell
FULL EPISODE NOTES: https://gamedesignskills.com/podcast/episode-11-rian-trost/ (https://gamedesignskills.com/?p=4960&preview=true)
(For mentioned resources, people, quotes, and additional ways to enjoy the episode)
23 Aug 2022
#10 - Travis Day: What it Takes to Be a Video Game Designer
[This is the last interview with my colleague Travis Day before he passed away recently. This episode is dedicated to him]
As a two decade game design veteran, Travis Day has a unique perspective on game systems! Known as "The Items Guy" for the extensive catalog of items he created for World of Warcraft, Travis has some stories that will surprise you with how much drama an item drop system can cause!
Travis Day is a lifelong gamer who chose to turn his passion into a career. He has been making video games since 2005, when he started working at Blizzard. After a long term there, Travis began working as a game designer at Phoenix Labs, and eventually moved on to Tencent, where he is currently a senior systems designer.
In this episode Travis talks about what it takes to work in the video game industry. We'll go over topics such as
What he looks for when interviewing potential hires
Advice on how to become a strong team player
And life lessons that can aid you throughout your game design/dev career
FULL EPISODE NOTES: https://gamedesignskills.com/podcast/episode-10-travis-day
(For mentioned resources, people, quotes, and additional ways to enjoy the episode)
2 Aug 2022
#9 - Peet Cooper: How to Thrive Professionally as an Aspiring Game Artist
As a 20+ year video game art veteran, Peet Cooper has had the privilege of working with some great IPs including Star Wars, Call of Duty, Diablo, World of Warcraft, 007, League of Legends and more.
He has worked on every sub-discipline under the umbrella of "game art" which includes, but not limited to concept art, animation, illustration, level design, 2D/3D environment art & character art, art direction, and game art leadership.
In addition to starting his own game studio, Peet's current primary focus is helping people become stronger artists, game devs, and collaborators by providing education and mentorship.
19 Jul 2022
#8 - Osama Dorias: How to Become a Lead Game Designer & Thrive
In this episode, Osama Dorias shares different leadership and managerial styles to improve collaboration in a diverse game dev team setting. He also dives into how to deal with prejudice and ignorance in the workplace as a game development professional, especially if you’re still in an entry level position in an organization and thrive.
Osama Dorias is the Senior Partner Relations Manager at Unity Technologies. In the past, he's worked as a lead game designer at studios such as Warner Brothers, Gameloft, GEE Media, Ubisoft, and Minority Media.
Currently Osama teaches game design at Dawson College, where he loves to empower people in expressing themselves through game making. He has hosted game jams, workshops and other community activities to this end, which culminated in co-founding the Montreal Independent Games Awards.
FULL EPISODE NOTES: https://gamedesignskills.com/podcast/episode-8-osama-dorias/ (https://gamedesignskills.com/podcast/episode-8-osama-dorias/)
(For mentioned resources, people, quotes, and additional ways to enjoy the episode)
12 Apr 2022
#7 - Milton Guasti: Remaking Metroid 2 Solo & Getting Shut Down by Nintendo
You might know him as Doctor M64 or as the creator of “Another Metroid 2 Remake.” - Milton Guasti (Currently at Moon Studios) gives us a play by play of the process of redesigning one of Nintendo’s classics, from changing the map and character art to fit a bigger screen, to keeping the heart of combat pure while at the same time making it more sophisticated and fun.
Milton Guasti is a .NET C# developer, with knowledge of web development, and extensive experience in designing and developing multimedia applications. He also has a background as a Sound Technician specialized in Recording and Music Production, with experience in editing, mixing and mastering.
FULL EPISODE NOTES: https://gamedesignskill.com/podcast/episode-7-milton-guasti
(For mentioned resources, people, quotes, and additional ways to enjoy the episode)
27 Mar 2022
#6 - Dr. Kelly Tran & Kevin Caldwell: Design Video Games That Make Learning Effortless
According to Elon Musk:
"Generally you want education to be as close to a video game as possible, like a good video game. You do not need to tell your kid to play video game. They will play video games on autopilot all day."
Dr. Kelly Tran and Kevin Caldwell are the founders of Evolved Play, a “Games and Learning” company that focuses on designing ethically and creating software that helps kids develop not just as players, but as human beings. Specifically to help learn life lessons in a seem less and effortless way.
In this episode, we discuss the differences that come with developing games for kids, especially the ethical considerations of creating products for children and balancing monetary gain with mindful design.
Our two experts (the first design duo we've had on our show!) explain their backgrounds and what motivated them to purse this path of weaving learning and kids games together.
9 Mar 2022
#5 - Barry Hawkins: Using Empathy to Improve Game Development
Barry Hawkins is a product development consultant with experience in orchestration at scale for lean, agile teams that practice iterative development. He has done this with software product development companies ranging from 5-person start-ups to hundreds of team members practicing distributed development within loosely-coupled, cross-functional teams.
In this episode, we will discuss management styles with Barry and learn how to be the most effective leader you can be, whether your team is just a few people, or as big as Blizzard and Hulu! He has great advice for anyone looking to take on a leadership role in their place of work on how to best support their colleagues.
23 Feb 2022
#4 - Paul Forest: What Do Technical Artists Do In Game Development?
Paul Forest is the current Pipeline Technical Director at Amazon Games with the latest release New World. He’s a veteran technical artist and director, who has worked on games across consoles such as
Playstation 1
Playstation 2
Playstation 3
Xbox
Xbox 360
PC.
Notably, he has worked on World of Warcraft and has contributed from the expansion pack Wrath of Lich King all the way to Legion. Overall, Paul is also a rare polymath who’s able to hone his skills as a superb artist and a skilled programmer, in addition to a great understanding of game design.
In this episode, we are exploring what a technical artist actually does and why this role is so important in the making of graphic dense Video Games. We’ll also go into the technical steps necessary to turn a design concept into a playable version with proper graphics, modeling, and animation. Paul will also share some wisdom on how to grow and thrive as a game development professional, no matter which role you’re in.
8 Feb 2022
#3 - Candace Thomas: QA to Principal Game Designer in AAA Studio
Candace Thomas is the former Lead Game Designer on World of Warcraft and Diablo 3 at Blizzard Entertainment and the current Principal Game Designer at Riot Games. In addition to mentoring many game designers, she has a range of design experiences through 15+ years of experience in the video game industry such as
Single and multiplayer combat,
Enemy design and AI
Game modes and narrative
In this episode, we will explore insights from Candace on how to get into the game development industry, her experience starting from a play testing position all the way to becoming a Lead Game Designer for one of the biggest games in the world and sharing collaboration stories with Alex at Blizzard.
15 Dec 2021
#2 - Alexander Brazie: Becoming Game Designer at Only 13 Years Old?!
Note: We ran into some recording errors, so there will be parts where our guest co-host David's voice is cut off. We are able to put the captions including the few in-audible parts. This will be fixed for upcoming episodes.
Click here for episode 2 full details and notes. (https://gamedesignskill.com/podcast/episode-2-alexander-brazie/)
Alexander Brazie has been a full-time video game designer for over 16 years. He has worked on games that have sold hundreds of millions of copies, including World of Warcraft, League of Legends, and more recently, Ori And The Will of The Wisps. He has helped train professional game designers at Riot and on Activision’s Call of Duty’s design team, as well as consulted on games like Starcraft 2, Hearthstone, and Diablo 3.
In this episode, Alex shares the ups and downs of his journey starting from an excited gamer to a fully fledged game designer working or World of Warcraft at Blizzard and League of Legend at Riot.
15 Nov 2021
#1 - David Zheng: How to Get Noticed by Game Design Hiring Managers
Click here for episode 1 full details and notes. (https://gamedesignskill.com/podcast/episode-1-david-zheng/)
David Zheng is the behind the scenes Co-Founder of Game Design Skills. He’s a growth marketing strategist and an avid self learner who has acquired a range of skills during his entrepreneurial journey.
In this episode, we had a nuanced discussion on how to increase your chances on getting your foot in the door in the gaming industry as an aspiring game designer. How to get get noticed by hiring managers and best practices for your game design portfolio.
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