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Current People
Team and Culture Principles
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1.
Open Communication and Collaboration:
Promote trust and respect under clear leadership, emphasizing cooperation and consensus-building while balancing individual and collective success, effectively addressing conflicts, and preventing detachment or the formation of exclusive cliques.
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2.
Transparency and Trust:
Prioritize transparency, honesty, and trust with your audience, team members, and external partners, being upfront about limitations and potential shortcomings, and following through on your promises.
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3.
Diversity and Perspective:
Encourage diversity of thought and perspective in the development team and in the product itself; avoid homogeneity and echo chambers.
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4.
Work-Life Balance:
Emphasize the importance of work-life balance for the development team, encouraging a healthy and sustainable work environment, and avoiding crunch and overwork, demonstrating a willingness to adjust priorities and cut features as needed to achieve this goal.
Game Development Principles
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Narrative Design
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5.
Authentic Character:
Create authentic characters with agency, a will to live, and visceral reactions that allow the player to establish an emotionally resonant relationship. Interpret the player as the volitional force behind the character's actions, and avoid creating characters that feel like mere puppets.
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6.
Clear and Cathartic Conclusions:
Ensure that the game provides clear, cathartic conclusions that tie up the player's journey and can be replayed, while avoiding never-ending loops that can lead to unmemorable or unfair conclusions.
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7.
Player Agency:
Offer diverse tools, and choices that allow players to tailor the game to their style. From easy beginnings to deeper customizations, ensure every player can explore new possibilities, through inventive gameplay or hidden features waiting to be discovered.
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Gameplay Design
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8.
Engaging and Meaningful:
Create immersive gameplay that embraces the power of play and emotional themes like loss and love. Foster meaningful decisions and sacrifices reflecting players' values, rather than wasting their time with addictive or frustrating mechanics.
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9.
Exploration and World:
Design intricate game worlds that encourage exploration, with static maps to enhance familiarity and foster a sense of cognitive closure. Avoid unpredictable and restrictive mechanics, and disposable procedural maps.
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10.
Beyond Entertainment:
Utilizing holistic design, we blend team expertise and metaphorical connections to real-world issues, producing engaging games that offer both entertainment and grounding in societal themes.
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Art and Aesthetics
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11.
Minimalism:
Use minimalist assets, focusing on motion, light, and perception, to allow players to fill in the details with their own experiences.
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12.
Simple and Intuitive Interface:
Create games with simple and intuitive interfaces; avoid hermetic, complicated and confusing controls. Use contextual hints whenever possible.
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Technical Performance
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13.
Safe and Effective Processes:
Utilize iterative development processes with regular player feedback to enable quick and effective adjustments, and to avoid getting stuck in an unmanageable situation or a rigid development cycle.
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14.
Empowerment and Risk-Taking:
Develop new skills and innovate through experimentation, embrace the latest open tools to empower everyone in realizing their visions. Pursue this approach to explore diverse, creative landscapes, preventing stagnation and formulaic results.
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15.
Hands-on Knowledge and Care:
Encourage team members to prioritize deep hands-on knowledge, and genuine care for how the player engages with the game, while steering clear of superficial passions, or misplaced priorities.
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16.
Profiling and Quality Assurance:
Prioritize the assessment and iteration of the game's technical performance and stability to ensure a smooth player experience; avoid both early optimization and neglecting the technical aspects of the game.