GAMEDEV INSIGHTS #3 – Game Design – Bartosz Rakowski

Welcome to the third episode of GAMEDEV INSIGHTS!

Gamedev Insights is our regular series of interviews with experts from various fields of game development. Today let’s talk about growing professionally as a Game Designer. A role that most people percieve as a Holy Grail of game development and a dream worth pursuing

What is GAMEDEV INSIGHTS about? 

We are pleased to invite professionals from a wide range of game development jobs. 

We are doing that so they can tell us (and you obviously) about their experiences working in the gaming business. 

Our mission is to give you resources to grow in your current position and to address difficult problems that a web search may not readily answer.

Please welcome our guest – Bartosz Rakowski -Senior Game Designer from Roll7

Here is our guest’s short BIO:

Bartosz has eight years of experience in Game Design, with six successfully released games under his belt. He is a seasoned System Designer and an expert in Combat Design.

Before we start remember that if you’re looking for new job opportunities in Game Design, we’ve got you covered. Check out our jobs for Video Game Designers

Ljubica Garic (Senior Recruiter – 8Bit):

So hi everyone and welcome to the third episode of Game Dev Insights, a space in which we host Game Dev folks to discuss their work and experiences in the games industry. I am Ljubica, I’m a senior recruiter here at 8Bit and today I’m really excited to host Bartosz Rakovski, a Senior Game Designer with over eight years of experience. Bartosz, welcome to Game Dev Insights. We are super happy to have you.

Bartosz Rakowski (Game Designer – Roll7)

Yeah, likewise. Thank you.

Ljubica 

So Bartosz, what sparked your interest in the video game industry?

Bartosz 

Yeah, I was privileged to receive a PC at a very young age. I was free at the time. It was IBM 386 and was loaded with plenty of games. So yeah, I was really into it. I think I was playing them probably too much for my age, but my parents weren’t discouraging me from it. So it was really nice. That sparked my initial interest, but I was not actually focused on making the games. I was not even thinking about the possibility. For me it was like very technical stuff, and reserved for programmers. But then when I was little bit older, I received a cover disc at some of the Polish magazines and it had Games Factory program on it and it is a really simple tool.

Actually it was developed further through the ’90s and now it’s called Clicked Infusion. but back in the day it was called The Games Factory and I was actually taking templates from the game. I was still too stupid to actually create something from Grounds Up, so I was altering the existing templates and then I was thinking, okay, maybe it’s kind of possible. And then when I was older there was an RPG maker software and it was actually really cool because it didn’t require any technical knowledge and I was ripping Sprites from Dragon Ball games.

I remember doing some small games and then I was kind of satisfied with the outcomes. I was not 100% sure that I’m going to make games myself, but then I wanted to be a part of the whole community. So I was an editor for video game websites, writing news reviews. I was part of the Rom hacking scene on Nintendo DS where we were translating games into Polish. Unfortunately, nothing came out of it, but I was really happy to be a part of the whole community, video game community.

And then actually the only skill I had at that time was just that I liked games and I had good English because my parents were kind of facilitating it from the very engaged to go to classes outside of the school. There was a university, English P,hilology with some Game Design Courses and that’s how I started. And then I learned Unreal 3 and it kind of rolled from there. At that point I knew, that I’m going to make games and I don’t need to be a programmer to achieve that.

Education

Ljubica

So how has your education helped you as a Game Designer and what advice would you give to people who want to become Game Designers? Like, what type of education should they pursue?

Bartosz 

I’m not familiar with current game design courses. Whether they’re good or not, I can only talk about my experience. But I personally wouldn’t advise pursuing higher education in game design. I think this is something you can learn on your own and it really boils down to the game design theory and to learning the tools. I think that’s very important thing. And doing it on your own, you can always be up to date with the current trends, with the current engine versions and whatnot. So I think that’s important, but I still think one should pursue higher education, but maybe something that you’re really passionate about.

I know people working in the game industry that are psychologists, philologists like me. Pursue different career like biologist, and this may actually help your work because, for example, writing thesis is a perfect preparation for making research when you are doing the game. Writing papers is a perfect way of articulating your thoughts and ideas and it will also help you create better Game Design Documents. So pursue the higher education that you’re really passionate about, learn game design stuff as well, and you’re going to be in a good path to actually achieving something and being a role.

Finish projects like during game jams or something small and you’re going to end just fine.

Ljubica 

That’s awesome. That sounds really good. So, talking to a lot of people that still haven’t joined the industry, of course they have painted a picture of what it’s like to work at a games company. So for you, I imagine that you had some ideas how your work is going to look like before you join your first studio. What were the biggest surprises or the biggest lessons that you’ve learned?

Bartosz 

Especially for smaller studios: as a Game Designer, you need to be prepared that you’re going to do a lot of stuff. The smaller the team, the more things you have to do as a Designer. So probably at that point, I wasn’t as prepared to do so much technical stuff. And one of my first projects was actually a flight simulator on mobile. But it required plenty of technical knowledge.

Researching stuff, it’s also very important and I didn’t know about it. The research is so important, like researching airplanes, how they work? So that was kind of different from my expectations. I don’t think that probably people still think that’s the case, but Designers are not like “idea people”. They are not coming to game and they’re not providing ideas for the company to implement. Game Designer is mostly solving problems that just occur during the development. So yeah, that’s the most important difference. I think that Game Designers are not idea people.

Ljubica

Okay, yeah, that sounds a bit harsh.

Bartosz 

Yeah, it does. But I think that’s what’s interesting about this job. I think coming up with stuff in the long run, I think it can’t be boring. There’s so much you can actually think of. I think you need to get your hands dirty at some point.

Working on skills

Ljubica

Bartosz, what do you actually do to keep your skills sharp, to stay competitive on the market and knowledgeable about what’s happening? You mentioned the importance of doing your research, learning lots of technical stuff. Beyond that, what is it that you do to stay good in your line of work eight years later?

Bartosz 

The most important thing is to play games. If you’re a Designer and you’re not enjoying playing games, I think it’s going to be a tough moment in your life. So I think playing games is very important, but not just playing them. Actually, you need to approach them knowledgeably, so you need to actually analyze them. I myself, and I think it’s a very good approach, is to have some sort of journal. So I have my game design journal, and I usually write stuff about games and they’re not like reviews, but they are kind of like design things that I liked about the game very often the things I didn’t like. About the game. How I can solve the problem like the game is maybe not good enough in some design thingy and how to make it better.

And I think it’s very important, like, every game you play, you don’t have to finish it. It’s very important to actually analyze them and just divide them to small little pieces you can analyze. The other thing that kind of facilitates this process is having some sort of subscriptions, like, hopefully company pays for it.

So Game Pass, the PlayStation subscription. I think it’s really nice that you have huge library of games and you can play them on demand. So I think that’s a nice thing to have. And don’t be so game centered. It’s really nice to take inspiration from other media and just get interest in the things around the game. So let’s say your game is revolving around sword combat. Maybe research some people that do medieval reconstructions or teach how to fight the sword. I really like personally, those kind of comic book albums. It’s actually only released in Poland and France at this moment, to my knowledge. Which is kind of like really nicely released comic book album with lots of artists, interesting articles, but they’re kind of like plenty of short forms, so you have plenty of inspirations, especially if you like Sci-Fi. It’s a really good thing. It’s kind of like Love Death and Robots, like this Netflix series, but kind of in a comic form. So that’s a really nice thing.

Inspirations

Ljubica 

Awesome. Can you name any other graphic novels, like TV shows or games that are maybe like, your go to source for inspiration?

Bartosz 

I think it should be done per project basis. If we focus on our work, it’s really nice to, you know, pursue the thing that you actually like, but I think it should be done on project basis. For me, it was really convenient because my previous project, Rollerdrome, was heavily influenced by French comic book artists, especially Mobius, and I love this stuff. So it was a pleasure actually reading Incal once again and enjoying that. So maybe that’s another advice.

If you’re really passionate about something around your game, so it has an IP that you really like. I think it will be very valuable for you and the team to actually dive into the project, because then you can draw inspirations from the thing that you really like, and that’s a win-win, right?

Ljubica 

Awesome. So now that you mentioned an artist whose work you are very fond of, are there any Designers maybe whose work you are inspired by?

Bartosz 

Yeah, I think I’m still going to go into this French territory. By the way, I even wrote a bachelor’s degree thesis on French Game Dev, so I’m really into it. But my favorite Game Designer, I think, is Éric Chahi, the man who made Another World and Heart of Darkness. Especially Another World. They are not only, like, pieces of art, they are very well designed games and kind of a very nice blend between really good action game and cinematic experience. He’s the best for me.

Ljubica 

Okay, but what is it about the French games industry that picked your interest? How is it different to UK, to Northern America, like, to any other market?

Bartosz 

European stuff, has a different vibe. I don’t want to go into stereotypes or cliches, but especially French games are kind of artsy and experimental in a way. That’s why I like them so much. And they are really like, French, are really into their own pop culture. So plenty of games from other European countries are really Westernized, so they really go into the American market, and they don’t have their own national identity. And French games and I mean, the old French games especially, they had their own identity. They draw from the French comic books. So, yeah, that’s what makes them interesting for me.

Communities

Ljubica 

Okay, cool. So while you were explaining what a Game Designer does, like, solving problems, doing lots of research and lots of analyzing, it sounds like a lonely job. So I was wondering, do you maybe have any online community of Game Designers with which you bounce your ideas off or clash your ideas or simply just validate whether you’re on the right path?

Bartosz 

Yeah, I wouldn’t say a Game Designer job is kind of lonely. It may be sometimes when the team is small, and probably you’re one of the few Designers on the team. But there are some, especially in Warsaw, there are initiatives like getting people together, like Designers talking about stuff. So that’s cool. But for example, my company organizes meetings in the design department, and it doesn’t matter which project you’re on. We come together, we discuss our own stuff, we watch GDC talks, we talk about them. So I think it’s kind of the employer’s and lead’s responsibility to gather Designers together and just make them exchange thoughts and ideas because it’s going to contribute to the games better.

Job changing

Ljubica 

You said that at first you joined a smaller mobile game studio and that you were working as a generalist. Today, you’re working at a much bigger studio, and as you said, you’re focused on combat and system design. So how exactly did this transition happen? How did you actually find your area of game design that you are comfortable with?

Bartosz 

From the beginning, I was really into combat design, but reality is different. And actually, I don’t think it will be possible for a person just getting into the industry to be in the perfect position from the get go. I think it may not happen. You need to be prepared to take a few steps in your career to reach that goal.

I wanted to be a Game Designer. So let’s start with you being a Game Designer. Just pick a studio, ideally the one you really like, and then start from there. And then just finish a project and pursue other studios. I think that’s the best way. So, for me, I started in the game company that was in the city that I lived. I was also studying at the same time. That was comfortable for me. So it was like a match made in heaven. And then I finished a few projects there. And to be in a Combat Designer’s position, I know I needed to work in a studio that makes games with combat. So that’s why I joined People Can Fly, and I was working there, and I was kind of doing stuff around combat, but it was more system design, more focus around the player.

But having finished a AAA shooter, this opened possibilities for other roles. So Roll7 was looking for a combat guy, and as I was really passionate and I finished a shooter, I had enough knowledge and skills to actually pursue that role. So that’s why I’m here in Roll7, and I like it very much.

Ljubica 

Okay, awesome. Glad to hear that! Your advice is maybe to start broad and then to actually find your niche?

Bartosz 

Yeah, absolutely. Especially like in combat design. Not every game has a combat, so it’s kind of like a niche position. So yeah, I think that’s the best. Don’t start looking for the exact specialty. It needs to be acquired with time.

Trends

Ljubica 

My question now is are you noticing any trends that are driving the development of PC or console games today? Are there any rules that people are now following or something that they are sure are using as a pattern for success? How do you see the PC console market at this moment?

Bartosz 

Especially in indie market, it’s really hard to kind of be very unique and that’s why marketing is so important, right? Probably hundreds of games are released each day. So how can you compete with that? And probably most of them are probably of good quality and some of them are probably brilliant, but they’re going to disappear in the amount of stuff that’s releasing and yeah, that’s problematic. That’s why people kind of want to work with algorithms on TikTok or other social media. And for example, the Vampire Survivors game was really popular and it just spurred amounts of clones because “I like this game and it’s similar hashtags or whatever and I can just use this tide to actually promote my stuff”. So that’s kind of the viralness of some of the releases. This is kind of like a trend that I can see. There are like trends that I really don’t like as a Game Designer and they come from monetization. So the idea of battle passes, I know, that there’re tha games that are free in the end, so maybe that’s like an advantage. But sometimes Demonetization is really brutal.

The video game market is so broad and there are so many niches you can actually incorporate into your own game. It’s a really hard question but yeah, there are plenty of niches and the gamer demography is so wide and from a very young to old age and there are like mobile game players. You actually compete with everything currently and everything is so accessible. So like video games don’t compete with video games anymore. They compete with Netflix, they compete with other on demand services. Game dev is hard. But I think the marketing folks have the toughest time currently.

Testing

Ljubica 

And because you are working on premium games, how do you actually test your game designs? If they work, if they don’t work, if the players are going to like it, how do you then incorporate that feedback into your process?

Bartosz 

Yeah, it all boils down to the budget really. First of all, you can start with the lowest-budget version. You actually let your friends play your game, invite them and in the times of remote work, it’s kind of easier. So yeah, even my girlfriend has signed NDA and I can ask her for advice and just test out new stuff. That’s a really good thing. But when you have more money, of course, then focus tests are really important, ideally with different probe of different demography and you need to do them very often to test out whether your game design works. And I think that’s the most important thing. Some people utilize an early access, right? So that allows them to actually, to put it cynically, it kind of create a free beta testers of your game. But on the other hand, you have a community that kind of revolves around your game. They can see your progress. That’s a huge advantage.

So the most important thing are play tests and the more data you can withdraw the better. So while doing Rollerdrome we had eye tracking, so we can actually see where the player is looking while playing the game. Very important because looking from the combat’s perspective, if I see the player is looking at the enemy and I can see that she or he doesn’t know where the enemy is, that’s the kind of failure on enemy design, enemy placement, maybe art style. So the more data you can withdraw, the better and the more play test you can actually pay for, the better. So it all boils down to the budget.

Feedbacking tips

Ljubica 

So regarding now the player feedback, have you ever worked on a project that received really bad reviews and how do you actually deal with that as a Game Designer?

Bartosz 

Actually, I was lucky enough to work on a game that had at least average to good response from the players. I don’t remember someone being super negative, maybe like a singular persona. But you need to be prepared that not everybody is going to like your game. Maybe AAA games are more privileged in that matter. But especially making indie game with specific mechanics, you can’t be sure that everyone will dig it. But if the feedback is negative, it’s still feedback, it’s still information, it’s still data. So you shouldn’t be discouraged. It’s going to make your game play better.

Ljubica 

What’s the best piece of feedback that you have received received so far?

Bartosz 

From the top of my mind, I think the best feedback I received is actually… You know people in their feedback, they sometimes tend to provide solutions. That’s not what we are looking for. Probably when you’re working on a game, you have plenty of solutions in your head, but you need to pinpoint the problem. So I remember someone was really descriptive, for example, the certain moment was very hard, but they explained why it was different for them. And what explicitly was difficult about this. In this case, it was like an encounter and it really helped. Also some of the people playing action games, they tend to suffer from dizziness like vertical problems. So yeah, this feedback is really valuable. Especially if you see bigger amount of people complaining about this, then you can actually do something in your game to minimize that and redo the tests. So yeah, that’s also a very valuable feedback because if people are going to be sick playing your game, you’re going to have a tough time.

Top projects

Ljubica 

That’s really good advice. I’m not actually sure if you can answer this. If you cannot, it’s perfectly fine. But I wanted to ask you what’s your favorite project or game title that you have worked on, that you have worked on so far and what actually made it fun for you?

Bartosz 

Yes, probably it’s going to be my latest project, which is the Rollerdrome. And I think for me it was match Made in Heaven because: French comic book aesthetic + combat loop, which is kind of Doomesque and combat philosophy that’s really close to Doom and that kind of shooters. So all checkboxes were ticked for me. And I loved it. I kind of like arcade sports games as well. And the game features main hero riding on roller skate. So, yeah, that’s my favorite project so far.

Ljubica 

Okay, awesome. And what is your dream project?

Bartosz 

That’s a difficult question. So I think, evaluating the dream project can occur actually after the release. Maybe it’s a strange way of answering that, but after you release the game and it’s in the final shape, I can actually say that “okay, that was my dream project”. Game development has ups and downs. So then probably when it’s released, I can actually say, yeah, that’s was the the best project I’ve worked on because the process is very important. And then when you can read on Reddit that someone loved your game and the best scenario: it changed their life. So I think that’s very important. When something stays with the player, so they finish the game and something stays with them after them playing it, that’s the greatest gratification Game Designer can have, personally.

Games with impact

Ljubica 

So are there any games that you have played recently that you feel have changed your life or made a really big impact on you? Like the games that you mentioned that you played as a kid?

Bartosz 

Yeah, despite the games that I already mentioned, I think one of the game changers for me was Metal Gear Solid. I think that the third one was the had the biggest impact because I didn’t know that the game can be so cinematic and so well done on the gameplay department at the same site. And it also has kind of like this pop culture sentiments I really vibe with. So that was very influential game for me. It was really well polished. I think the Snake Eater, the third installment of Metal Gear Solid, it was very influential.

But if we’re talking in a broader perspective, are there any must have games for Game Designers to play? I think you need to be project specific, and I think that’s also a very important thing Game Designer must know is actually you need to know where to look. And that’s how you kind of create your research upon. If I want to make a boomer shooter: Doom Eternal is like the best, the recent most polished example of that. If I want to make an open world game, I need to look at the Rockstar Games because they have so many people working on that and there’s so many tech and design put into it, and it’s so polished that you can take so many inspirations from that and just look at the project you’re currently working on and pick the proper game and a similar genre. So I think that’s very important.

Recruitment in gamedev

Ljubica 

But since you are a Senior Game Designer, are you in any way involved in hiring new team members, specifically hiring new Game Designers?

Bartosz 

I wasn’t present during any recent hirings, but I was not present during the interviews. But actually I was evaluating recruitment tasks, especially like, technical ones. So, yeah, I was part of that.

Ljubica 

Can we talk about that a bit? Because I’m honestly interested to hear your perspective on what are the most common mistakes that Game Designers do. What are deal breakers there? What are some good practices that one can incorporate when preparing themselves for the technical task or for the interviewing process?

Red flags

Bartosz 

I think the biggest offense is actually doing a tutorial project, like from a YouTube tutorial or whatever, and just not altering it and just presenting it as your project as a part of your portfolio. Because when you evaluate X amount of projects, you all know all of these tutorials. So there are not so many Arcanoid clones tutorials on YouTube. So you can actually watch Few and you can see that the person actually did nothing. Just copy the tutorial. It’s important to do tutorials for your own sake, for learning, but presenting it at your own project, it’s not a good idea. So, yeah, one should be aware that there needs to be, especially from a Designer, you require some creative input. So I think there’s nothing wrong in taking a tutorial from the Internet, but you need to alter it, create like, a twist around it. That’s very important.

Ljubica 

Any other red flags in the technical tasks for interviews?

Bartosz 

Like in the resumes? As a team, we’re sometimes looking at the resumes as well. Showing your knowledge about something like a skill representation in a scale from 1-5. Maybe it’s not a red flag, but we were kind of baffled by it. For example, you had a software and you just have a scale from one to five and like, I know Unreal Engine in the scale from two to five. And what does it mean? It doesn’t mean anything. The only quantifier of your experience and your skills are the projects that you worked on. I can write in my CV that I know blueprints in Unreal. But what does it mean? What does it mean to know Blueprints? I can watch a few tutorials and I can say that I know Blueprints to some extent, but actually only the real quantifiers are the finished project. So don’t write that I know Photoshop and the scale from four to five because it doesn’t mean anything, especially during the recruitment.

Ljubica 

I must agree. So whoever is watching this, please put it out of your portfolio, your CV. Sorry. Okay. But how can one work around the fact that maybe they’re not able to show their projects because of the NDA? So how do you show off your skills if you are not able to show the project?

Dealing with NDAs

Bartosz 

I know that’s an issue. That’s a problem. Especially when the game was not released. Maybe before you recruit to the company, maybe you can agree upon that. You can share some of the work. But I must say that it’s probably not possible if the project is not released and you’re, for example, an artist, it’s going to be really hard to actually work around this. You need to finish projects. That’s one advice. And probably you need to do something in your own time and have a portfolio to prove it. But yeah, finish projects. Finish projects.

Ljubica 

Okay, so finished projects. Okay, cool. Looking back at these six release projects and God knows how many projects that are left in the drawer somewhere, is there like anything that you wished you had done differently regarding your game design decisions?

Bartosz 

Yeah, I would say because it’s very important to know that I was talking previously about finishing the projects. But the truth is that the game is not I know it’s kind of far fetched, but the games are not finished. We kind of abandon them during the development and they are more polished or less polished, but you kind of abandon them. You need to release them because money publisher wants it released and other stuff. So when the game is released, I very often watch someone playing on YouTube and I say, “oh my God, why did I do this?” Because player is stuck somewhere or the game is hard in some places.

There are always things that you will regret and that’s the way you need to live as a Game Designer. Games are not perfect. Like nothing’s perfect and you just need to live with it. And you shouldn’t be ashamed of yourself because usually you did the best you could at that time at that place. You probably have some regrets. But yeah, if you’re a Game Designer, know that you are not alone.

Final thoughts

Ljubica 

Okay, that actually sounds like a great piece of advice. Just like to any Game Designers out there or people in general. Okay. So Bartosz, thank you so much for being our guest here today. It was really a pleasure to chat with you and to get to know you better. And I’m sure many of us will be inspired to take a deeper look into the French games industry and their graphic novel scene.

Bartosz 

Yeah, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you for having me. It was a great chat.

Ljubica 

Awesome. Thanks a lot and talk to you soon. Bye.

We have now reached the end of our third episode of GAMEDEV INSIGHTS. 

Whether you’re a Game Designer or just interested in the industry, we hope this discussion has given you food for thought about where you want to take your career.

Huge shoutout for Ljubica Garic – Our Senior Recruiter, who has been a great advocate for our team. That gal deserves extra recognition. 

If you have any inquiries about current openings at 8Bit or want to talk about anything related to GAMEDEV INSIGHTS, please don’t hesitate to contact her.

Please let us know if you have any questions, comments, or recommendations, or if there is a special issue you’d want us to address. 

If you would like to appear as a guest speaker on our broadcast, please get in touch with us. 

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