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Faerie Festival has concluded and I'm excited to share that I got to work with the wonderful Neopets team to bring it to life! In this article, I'll break down some goals we had with this event and how it was designed. About Faerie Festival Faerie Festival is an annual event on Neopets dedicated to celebrating Neopia's Faeries! Every year it's hosted in a different location by a different Faerie. The Problem We also have another Faerie-related event called 'Faerie Quest' that started in these last few years and this confused users with the Faerie Festival event we would host. We received feedback from the community that, despite its name, the festival event felt lackluster in comparison as well. The Solution For this year we decided to combine these two events into one and call it the 'Faerie Festival' to make things more exciting and limit confusion. We set the below event goals: Combine the Faerie Quest event with Faerie Festival Add teasers for....PLOTTTT Convert and bring back past year's Faerie Festival pages and activities Our Creative Director worked on creating the story for the event, and I worked on creating the flow and wireframes while keeping in mind the story beats. Once we had the general outline, we went to work on how we can get players involved with the story. In the story, Fyora has the Faeries Illusen and Jduhora tag team to plan the Festival...but things don't go so smoothly. They both decide to go off on their own and do their own planning themselves...even sending out separate invitations to each of their festivals! We thought this could be a great opportunity to get players more involved and immersed in the story. So we had players get actual invitations from Illusen and Jhuora themselves, and...they had to pick a team! What team would you pick!? This proposed an interesting design problem of how we were going to give invitations to players, some ideas we had were: Neomail Social Media Picking a team directly through the Faerie Festival page through the dialogue system Pop Up To make things easier on implementation we ended up going with a pop-up! User Flow FigJam Brainstorming and Overall Event Flow Wireframes Below are some wireframes that I designed to highlight the invitations, item submissions, and prize shop. The Result Overall the event was received really well by the community and brought about some cool prizes for players to get! Players could also use this event to clean out their inventory and safety deposit box.

This blog is part 3 of a series of blog posts for the Path of Kami Post Mortem. Here’s a link to the first and second parts if you’re interested! Each one covers a specific topic and can be read on its own. This blog will cover the efforts put towards marketing Path of Kami Journey Begins, what worked, and didn’t work, along with some helpful resources. Introduction Welcome to the marketing portion of this post-mortem series! I’m excited to share this part of the post-mortem because it came with some interesting challenges. Being a small team, I had to wear many hats for Path of Kami and one of them was being in charge of marketing, social media, and public relations. I'm excited to share what helped me and pass it on. Stay tuned for the resources section at the end. It has lots of goodies! Game Marketing Stats Launched Nov 9, 2022 Wishlists at launch: 9,268 Very small marketing budget! Sales numbers at the time of writing this (8 months after release) Lifetime Steam revenue (gross): $5k~ Lifetime total units: 1,202 Lifetime total DLC units 176 What worked for us Created accounts and showed progress early on We created accounts pretty early to grab the usernames under Captilight, we also showed work-in-progress shots early on. This helped us to slowly build a community and following around us and the game. We decided to make accounts for the studio instead of the game itself so we could have a following for when we released future games. Created a marketing plan Once we got to a point where we were ready to post our Steam page we put together a marketing plan. This was a living document we used to plan out marketing efforts such as: Marketing goals Marketing messaging Strategy Pricing Budget Wishlist projections Marketing Beat Roadmap Competitor Analysis (market and player research, Steam page, etc.) Platforms (including common Steam tags used for similar games) Marketing channels Launch Day Prep Checklist This was super helpful to track what needed to be done and track performance, we surprisingly got pretty accurate with our wishlist projections which helped a ton. Localized game led to more marketing opportunities We localized our game into 10 different languages which led to having more press on non-English websites, we got a considerable amount of press in Japanese, Spanish, German, and Russian sites. One of the Japanese articles was on a popular site and it got us 500~ wishlists in a day and brought in lots of traffic to our Steam page! The article continued to get us wishlists and traffic for a few months afterward. This also gave us a chance to be featured by content creators around the world who didn’t speak English. We also got to attend a variety of events as well like Megamigs (which encouraged having games in French), and MAG Erfurt. Partner with Game Round for Global Playtesting We were able to do two rounds of global testing with Game Round to test the game, getting player feedback and finding bugs. This also helped with giving us marketing beats and something to talk about before the game launched. The Game Round team is wonderful to work with and have its own marketing team that will promote your game during testing. Depending on the stage your game is at you can also opt into their content creator program where content creators can give feedback and play your game on their channels. We did this and it helped introduce our game to new audiences. Participated in events We entered into several events that helped boost wishlists and bring traffic to our socials and Steam page. Some events that helped were Steam Next Fest (for showcasing a demo), Devgamm, and The Game Development World Championship. We did quite a bit of in-person events as well but they didn't perform as well as online events. Highly recommend doing all the free online events if you can! Steam Next Fest was the best for getting traffic and wishlists. What didn’t work Ads on socials Traction on ads were ‘okay’ not sure if it was worth paying for, for us at least, and would be something we research a bit more on our next game. This was my first time setting up ads and I used recommended settings from backerkit. Ads on Twitter didn’t give any traffic or engagement to our steam page, Facebook was okay. Instagram ads performed the best for our game. We figured out that people tend to be more willing to sign up for newsletters than wishlist a steam page on an ad. So towards the end we used ads for our newsletter to learn more about a Kickstarter campaign we were planning for the game in the future. We pushed wishlisting the game and when it was launched on there. Too long of a marketing push and ‘hype’ period We worked on the game for three years and we marketed the game for the majority of the time. Although we got pretty creative with having constant things to talk about, by the time the game released people thought it was out already or was tired of hearing about it haha. The hype for the release wasn’t as big as some of the marketing beats we had during development despite the support from content creators, indie press sites and ad promotion. Next time, we plan on cutting down on the marketing ramp up time and balancing marketing beats so once hype is all time high for the game, we’ll release shortly after. Releasing steam page before game had ‘final’ art We were so focused on putting up our steam page early on we didn’t have final art for our character and were still working on tweaking the game shaders/lighting. Our initial Steam page images looked a bit prototype-y. I think this hurt us a bit, I feel if we waited a bit to launch it with final art it would have made a bigger impression and would have gathered more wishlists on launch day. Next time, will make sure main character is final and art is in a good spot before putting the page up. Resources Here is a marketing template I put together that can be used to help plan out your game Chris Zukalous Marketing Blog, he also has an amazing steam page setup class! Gross Revenue Forecasting: This tool estimates your game’s Steam revenue over a few years based no your week 1 sales. Note: This is a range of what COULD happen. Game Data Crunch: Great for market reserach! SteamDB: Also great for market research! Helpful sites for social & community events: Gleam Name Picker Namecheckr Launch Day Checklist by David Wehle, Developer of ‘The First Tree’ Unit Sale Estimates for Pitching by Digital Owl Template: Budget, Cash Flow & Projections by Richard Atlas at Clever Endeavour Games The GameDev Business Handbook - Budget Supplement Steam Trends 2023 by evlko and sadari

Earlier this year I had the chance to work on the 2023 Festival of Neggs event for Neopets! In this blog, I'll discuss the process I took to design the game and UX for the event. Let's get started! About Festival of Neggs Festival of Neggs is an annual event to celebrate Neggs on Neopets! (Note: Neggs are food items that you can feed to your Neopet, some having special effects on stats, abilities, and other effects.) The event is hosted by Kari, the Negg Faerie, and each year the setting, activities, characters, story, etc. change. For 2023 the team decided to host it at the Virtupets Space Station! During each day of the event, players participate in a scavenger hunt where they are given a clue to a location to find a Negg to collect. Finding the Negg will reward players with a prize. This year we had a fun Tarot Card micro-game as part of the event that I had the pleasure of working on. Tarot Card Micro-Game During the event players speak to Orion, a fortune teller, who asks you to collect energy to complete his divining. We wanted this to be an interactive experience to make players feel immersed in the story and feel that they are contributing to the divining. So we made this into a higher, lower card game! We also used this opportunity to promote a new tarot card deck we released, reusing the art from the deck in the game! Gameplay The tarot card deck consists of 22 Major Arcana cards. We didn't want to overcomplicate the game by adding other arcana cards so we kept the deck on the smaller side. We also didn't want to frustrate players by getting locked in the game so we made the requirements for continuing onto the story accessible by giving two different ways to continue on. How to play: Two cards are displayed in front of the player, one facing up and one down. Players have to guess if the hidden card is higher or lower. If players guess incorrectly, they lose! To continue on in the story, players can either guess 12 cards in a row correctly or played 3 games (whether or not they lost) After completing the game and moving on, the game is available throughout the event and players can go back to play again for fun if they want. Process After setting up the game requirements, I started wireframing the game and other pages needed to demonstrate the scavenger hunt. Afterward, I created a flow chart with the wireframes within a Miro board to share and discuss with the team throughout implementation. Wireframes Flow Chart The Result The event lasted 16 days and the tarot card game was positively received by the community! Below are some screenshots from the event. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the design breakdown for the 2023 Festival Of Neggs!

Hey everyone! I had the chance to talk with the All Inclusive Podcast folks a bit ago and wanted to share on my blog for anyone that's interested! In this episode, we talked about Captilight, our work on Path of Kami, my involvement with Girls Make Games, and how we can make workplaces can be more inclusive. I hope you enjoy the episode, thanks for stopping by!

Sometimes I get asked how I got my job at Neopets so I thought I'd share my story on how I did it. In this blog, I'll also share some job hunting/interview tips. The hiring process can vary based on the company, role, etc. as with any advice you hear, would take this with a grain of salt. So let's jump into it! Background At this point in my career, I had been working as a game designer for around 5 years and was looking to 'move up' into a higher position, something more in the senior or manager realm. Although I had been working as a game designer for a bit, a lot of my work revolved around UX and interactive experiences. I also had a web content background from working at my local government office in the IT department for a few years, so I was familiar with web development. Job Hunting Throughout my career, I have worked fully remote or hybrid roles and I was interested in sticking to that. So I primarily focused on searching for remote-friendly roles and used websites that focused on that. My go-to job-hunting sites were: - Hitmarker - Work with Indies - Remote Game Jobs - and LinkedIn Along with those sites, nowadays I also recommend: - Grackle HQ - Game Jobs - Game Jobs Direct I was searching on LinkedIn when I came across a job ad for a Lead Game Designer position at Jumpstart Games for the Neopets Product. I was excited to see it because I had played Neopets for a bit in my childhood and didn't know the site was still running. So I applied through LinkedIn and started playing Neopets again to see how the site was fairing. Tracking Job Applications Something that's good to do if you're planning on job searching is to put together a Google sheet or Excel sheet for all the job applications you'll apply to. This helps a ton with managing multiple applications and seeing where everything is when talking to multiple people. I usually break mine down into: Sheet 1: Applied Positions (Position Name (link to job post), Company, Date Applied, Response, Interview, and a details section) Sheet 2: Interview Prep (interview questions to ask throughout the interview process can be generic and specific to the company you're talking to) Sheet 3: Ending Interview (interview questions/ things to do specifically for the end of the interviews) I'll share more about the questions I usually ask throughout the blog :) . The First Interview I received an email shortly after applying asking for a phone interview to learn more about the role and company. I was super excited to hear back from the team! I did some additional research on the company and Neopets and wrote down some questions to ask the interviewer. Below are the questions I normally ask throughout the interview process if they haven't already answered them: How big is the team? Who will I be directly working with? What type of projects are currently being worked on? If the company does service-based work I ask what the work balance is between internal and external projects. (This is good to know how much internal IP the company actually works on versus working with clients). If the company does games and non-games projects I like to ask what the workload between the two types of projects there are. (This is to get an understanding on how much work is actually 'games' vs AR/VR and other types of projects). What are the biggest challenges that someone in this position would face? How did you get started at ? What's your journey been like? In the first interview with Neopets, we discussed what the role was about, the history of the product, and my experience. Throughout the call, we spoke about some challenges the product faced and I noted down the paint points the interviewer mentioned. I thought the call went well and when the interview ended I sent a thank you email to the interviewer thanking them for taking the time to meet with me. Standing Out After learning more about the role, the team, the company, etc. I knew this would be a job and company I'd love to work with and I really wanted the job! So I thought about how I could stand out. The interviewer noted a pain point with users during the call about how some players didn't like the way their Neopets appeared in the new html5 template compared to the classic website. I got to work on putting together a quick design and prototype to address the feedback. This would be a way I could showcase my skills, how I can creatively solve problems, and how I was a great listener :) . While wrapping up the design proposal I put together, I got an email for another interview, the design test!! Design Test For the design test, I was video chatting and screen sharing with two interviewers while using Miro Board to design. Before we got started I told the interviewer I had a design I worked on based on our last discussion I'd like to send after the interview and asked if that would be alright. She said yes! For the test, I was presented with an older Neopet web page and I had to redesign it within a Miro board on the spot within the alloted time and talk through the design with the interviewers. I was super nervous! It was my first time doing a design test like this so I focused on designing and talking throughout the work, explaining decisions I was making throughout the call. When I wasn't sure about something I would ask questions and work together with the interviewer. Design Test Tip: Don't be afraid to ask questions! It's a great opportunity to show how you can work with the team and how you're a team player :) After completing the design test I answered a couple more technical questions and asked a few of my own and we parted ways. The Design Proposal Shortly after the design test was completed I sent another thank you email along with my design proposal. Then I sat and wallowed in my pit of anxiety while I waited for a response. xD Below is the design proposal I sent! Looking back at this, it didn't totally resolve the issue players were having but it did bring an interesting solution that could get discussions started. The Third and FINAL Interview! A week or so later I got an email for a third and final interview which I was told would decide who the candidate would be. This ended up being a video chat meeting with a majority of the development team with around 10+ people! We all did introductions and the team did a speed run of questions back to back asking about games I liked, my design process, my experience with Neopets, and more. I also got to ask questions and it was the most wholesome interview I ever had!! We joked, laughed, and the team was also learning new stuff about each other. The team was SO nice and it was amazing meeting everyone and seeing who I could be potentially working with. After the interview I sent another thank you email because...its good to be polite <3 The Verdict (dun dun..DUNNNN) SPOILER ALERTTTT, I got the job! Shortly after the interview, I received an email saying I got the position and would get an offer letter soon, which I accepted!! And that's the story of how I got to work at Neopets, I hope it was helpful in some way and helped show what the interview process could be like for a design position. Thanks for tuning in!

This series of blog posts is part of the post-mortem on Path of Kami Journey Begins. Here is a link to the first part. Making games as a business One of the first things to think about is why you want to set up your own game studio and keep in mind going in that it's a business. Whether your bootstrapping or planning to work with publishers or investors, going solo, or building a team, you’ll have to start thinking about making games as a business. Coming up with a business plan is essential, looking into how your studio can make money and fund current and future games. You’ll have to account for recruiting, payroll, legal, financials, marketing, and more. Luckily there are people out there that can help! But all of these have to be thought about when founding your game studio. Legally setting up your game studio Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and everything I’m sharing here is based on my own personal experience, I recommend consulting with a lawyer for setting up your game studio. After getting an initial idea of the game we wanted to make, I worked early on with our friend John from Laster Law to get things set up properly. I recommend getting an attorney early on and ensuring they specialize and have experience in the gaming industry. Some things to think about: Company structure and entity (corp, LLC, etc). Entity types can vary per country, I recommend researching what’s in your country and consulting with a lawyer on what would fit best for you. For Captilight we ended up filing as an LLC and I’ve seen a lot of other game studios do that as well. In the U.S. once you file your business you’re provided with an EIN number (Employee Identification Number) this might take up to a week to get and is very important so keep this in your records! You’ll need this to set up a bank account for your studio. I’ll talk more about this later. If you're founding the company with multiple people, deciding ownership percentages and roles, etc. Get the following paperwork on hand: Contributer/independent contractor agreements, Intellectual Property Assignment, NDAs If you plan on offering services along with working on internal projects the following are good to have as well: Master Services Agreement (MSA) and Statement of Work (SOW). Some firms offer discounted startup packages that come with the above documents, so shop around and see what's available! The firm we worked with had a package that helped set up our LLC and offered the above documents. Once you have an EIN number, an employee identification number, you’ll be able to set up a business bank account and credit card. I highly recommend keeping bank accounts separate (personal and studio), even if you're not spending a lot of money. Similar to personal credit cards, you’ll have to build your business credit. Once you start paying for services and growing a team I also recommend working with a bookkeeper to help keep your financials organized and ready for tax season. Company logo and branding What is ‘Branding?’ This is how people talk about your company when you're not in the room! Your company’s identity. This is different than marketing. Marketing involves the tactics and strategies to communicate the brand vision, I’ll share a specific post later on talking specifically about the marketing side of things and what we did for Path of Kami. Branding is the visuals in how your company is represented, how someone should feel when approaching your company, its games, website, etc., and what your company stands for. The company ‘vibes.’ By this point you should have a company name, next will be getting a branding kit set up along with your company logo and website! Remember to also set up popular social media such as Discord, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, etc. You don’t have to use all of these but it's good to grab the username/handle in case you’d like to in the future or to make sure no one is posting weird stuff with your company name. As you start marketing your game and doing market research you can pinpoint what your target audience uses the most and use those platforms moving forward. Building your team Depending if you’re offering rev share, stipends, or hourly pay/salary you may go about looking for team members in different ways. I recommend starting small and building out your core members first. If you’re looking for contributors and offering rev share I recommend putting a call out for team members on Reddit, social media, game dev discords, or ask around your friend group. If your offering hourly or salary pay I recommend posting job ads in game dev discords and job sites such as: Remote Game Jobs Work with Indies Game Jobs Game Jobs Direct Hitmarker LinkedIn Compensating Your Team There are many ways to compensate your team, if your financially able always go with outright paying your team! I know it's not always financially possible to do this though so here are a few options depending on the financial situation. Whatever situation you're in, I recommend being completely transparent with your team and while your vetting/hiring members so they have a clear picture of what they are going into. Rev Share Rev share is providing team members who contributed to the project a percentage of game sales. This can be tricky because some team members may contribute more than others and some members may leave before a product is released, so setting rules beforehand is recommended! Be transparent with the rules and have them always available to the team to avoid miscommunication and confusion. Slice of Pie You can also share equity for the company using Slice of Pie. Slice of Pie is using a formula based on the principle that a person's % share of the equity should always be equal to that person's share of the at-risk contributions. At-risk contributions meaning a person’s time working on the project, money put in, ideas, supplies, etc. This can be great for founding members! You can also use the slice of pie formula to calculate rev share percentages to keep contributions dynamic to the amount of work people put in on the project as a whole. Check out the resources section at the bottom of this blog for resources on slice of pie along with a worksheet. Contract Work You can also offer services based on your team’s expertise, this can help pay your team and for future work on your game. Something to keep in mind is to not get too lost in the contract work and to make sure to balance this with the game development to make sure your game and internal projects are still moving forward. Have a backup plan Making money in games is hard! It’s rare to make money on your first couple of games so I recommend not putting all your eggs in one basket and have a plan for keeping your studio running so you AND your team are still in a good spot. Tools Below are some tools that have been helpful to use, I also posted a helpful video here as well going over a few of them. Documentation (Confluence Alternatives): Nuclino, Notion, Hack N Plan, Tettra, Google Docs Time Tracking/Reporting: Clockify, Function Fox Project Management: Notion, Hack N Plan, Clickup, Asana Communication: Discord, Slack Resources Founder's Kit by Hey Glitch with Pitch Deck Examples, Business Structure Info, Legal Documents, and more you can use to start out and reference! Learn more about Slice of Pie Slice of Pie Worksheet for calculating percentages Hope this blog has been helpful, thanks for reading!

As part of the Fluffy Dog Studio team, I helped organize and participated in an internal 2-day game jam with the team. The studio was broken up into 5 person teams and was given the initiative of creating a game for the following theme: "Simple and Oddly Satisfying." For the project, I worked on the game and UX design, along with mentoring team members on level design and world-building. The game is available to play on itch io. First Day Brainstorming One of the first things we did on the first day was to brainstorm a game idea and production plan. The team came together and pitched various ideas. I pitched the idea of a 'relaxing mowing game.' The game idea was inspired by viral tik tok videos of people mowing random stranger lawns for free. It was oddly satisfying seeing people mow the lawns and thought it would be a great fit for the theme! The team liked the idea and we moved forward with it, coming up with additional ideas for the game. Below is some brainstorming notes the team put together during a brainstorming session. We brainstormed game mechanics, UI/UX, art style, and worldbuilding along with assets we could utilize from the Unity Asset Store. We also brainstormed ideas for the future if we decided to move forward with the game after the game jam. Design and Implementation After brainstorming, we worked on ironing the UI/UX design, game mechanics, and level design. The team also worked on getting core functionality and features built for the game in the Unity game engine. Since this was a 2-day game jam, our goal was to design and implement the core features for the game on the first day which was: Mowing the grass Counter for mowing area Creating 3D Art for Lawn Mower Gathering assets for modeling, and music Worldbuilding Level 1 Second Day Polish With the core features done on the first day, we used the second day to add polish and prep for presenting the game to the team. We worked on the: Main menu Level Switching and adding more levels Lawn Mower Animations and VFX Implementing music Final Game Below is a gameplay video of how the game turned out! Hope you enjoyed this article, thanks for reading it!

While working for the Neopets team I had the pleasure of working with them to revamp one of the biggest and most popular yearly events on Neopets: The Altador Cup! If you're not familiar with Neopets, the Altador Cup is a month-long tournament where players can join a team based on a Land in Neopia and compete against each other in various games. Competing in the games gives players points they can use at the prize shop to get items at the end of the event. These items can be cosmetics, food, collectable objects and more. The event is separated into 3 different stages: Pre-Event: Press Tour Main event: Main Tournament, Staff Tournament, NeoCash ("NC") Tie-In Event Post Event: Prize shop Design Goals Taking the event from Classic to HTML5 and making it mobile friendly Modernizing the pages and visuals while still keeping the charm of Neopets QOL and UX improvements to improve the overall Altador Cup experience Research and Pain Points One of the first steps I did was to research past events and gather past event feedback. I took a look at each page and wrote down what could be improved upon. Unfortunately due to the scope and timing of the event, we weren't able to update the games themselves and focused more on the hub pages. Once I got a general idea of the user paint points and areas that could be improved I started wireframing utilizing some past assets we've created putting everything in Adobe XD. Below I share a few of the designs and what changed. Wireframes Overall I noticed that some of the classic pages varied drastically in layout which made the scope high for the art team. They would have to make assets specifically for each page. I aimed to have all the designs as part of a hub page, with a navigation bar, using the same layout to minimize the scope for art and development time. This also helped with making navigation easier and keeping all the pages within the different stages of the event consistent and cohesive. Press Tour Leading up to the Altador Cup we spend a week doing a "Press Tour" where we introduce a few teams a day with their rosters, team bios, and yearly team support NC items. The layout was updated to showcase the information and content in a clearer way. Some ways I did this: Displayed sign-up starting timer in a dedicated panel Removed see-through background art on panels which caused visual clutter Moved Team/Land icons below the press tour feature in a dedicated panel to make them stand out Final Implementation Above is a screenshot of the implementation, we ended up keeping all the team icons in one row instead of two to save on space! We also removed the news and other article modules, having them displayed after the press tour. The background also gave an immersive feel making players feel like they are on the field themselves! Sign-Ups On the Sign Ups page, players can browse the available teams and join them by tapping on a team icon below or on the map. After going through a variety of pop-ups they are added to the team and the page refreshes to display the main tournament page with a counter showing when the tournament will begin. The design for the sign-ups didn't change too much, the goal here was to keep it consistent with the layouts of the other pages. The teams were kept similar to how it's displayed on the press tour page. I also worked on doing a visual update to all the pop-ups. An example of one of the pop-ups is shared below. For the pop-ups, I aimed to create visual breaks to make the content easier to read and sift through. Separating the content into panels/sections and using headers helped with this. For mobile, in the initial wireframes, some information was omitted and content was moved around to account for the smaller screen size. Final Implementation For the main page, similar to the press tour page, we moved the icons from two rows to one to save space. For mobile, the team icons were placed in a carousel so players could easily navigate to the different teams. Above is the implementation for the team pop-up. As a team, we discussed how we didn't want to omit information on mobile and looked into solutions to how we could bring it back. We were able to add the information back in by utilizing tooltips to display the team-specific information. Main Tournament And....now we have the main tournament! This is when players will play a set of games on the site and get points for participating that go towards their teams. The different teams are then ranked based on the points, this is periodically updated throughout the event. What changed Layout to be consistent with the new design Visual enhancements such as containers, backgrounds, and headers to improve readability and make content easier to digest Added plaque with player's team, their username, and rank so they can quickly see their progress while ranking up On mobile, had content be minimizable or expanded Final Implementation We made a few updates while implementing the design, we removed the extra article module and kept the news one. We thought that should be sufficient to share anything about the event. We also ended up not adding the minimize options on mobile, we felt the content didn't feel too long to scroll through and didn't want players to miss any items or news. I hope you enjoyed getting the behind-the-scenes on the revamp of the event, thanks for stopping by!

Introduction In 2018 I started working on early concepts for a casual puzzle game about a wolf and his pack. In 2019, I founded Captilight Games and started working more extensively on the game that is now Path of Kami: Journey Begins. Path of Kami: Journey Begins is an exploration game with light puzzle elements. The goal is to ascend to the spirit world and to get there you must travel through various lands in the mortal realm by discovering secrets with creative uses of your spirit fire powers. It’s a game that follows a spirit of a wolf and touches on topics such as family and death. The game launched on Steam, Itch io, and Gamejolt in November 2022 in 10 different languages. I personally worked on the game roughly for 4 years ~ but officially as a team it took 3 years to complete. I took on the role of Creative Director, wearing lots of hats working on the game and level design, worldbuilding, narrative direction, production, marketing, and the business side of running a studio. I learned a lot along the way and thought I’d do a post-mortem sharing what we did, what worked, and what didn’t work, and pass on any information that may be helpful to other devs! This blog series will be separated into 3 different parts: Game Production (this article focuses on this!) Creating a game studio And marketing! I’ll touch on topics like our approaches to game design, how I got the studio up and running, building a team, building a community, and marketing the game. I hope these blogs will be helpful, feel free to leave comments, questions, ideas for other blogs/topics, etc.! That being said my first blog is about the general design and development of the game. Special Thanks First I'd like to thank everyone who worked on the game in any capacity and to our backers who supported it! Thank you so much for believing in the project, and the Captilight team, and taking the journey with us on our first commercial game. It wouldn’t have been possible without you all! Game Production Overview With Path of Kami, we were aiming to provide a relaxing game experience where you could enjoy exploring various environments and learning more about its characters and the game world. I like to describe it as a 3D hidden object exploration game. As we started working on it we realized we had to change the story, and came across some technical limitations with the watercolor art style we wanted. The development was bumpy early on, we took a significant amount of time on concept art, narrowing down the design and trying to nail down the watercolor art style we were going for. We quickly learned with the resources we had and the budget, we would have to lower the scope of the game. We had a core team of up to 5 people and at most 10. We all had full-time jobs and were working on Path of Kami in our spare time. All in all, I think it was a bigger game than what we should have done for our first game haha but we got through it by scoping the game down and cutting extra features that weren’t part of the core gameplay experience. Quick Facts Note: The below stats were taken at the time of writing this blog and are taken from Steam only and does not include units sold from Itch io or Gamejolt. Path of Kami was Captilight’s debut game and was our first commercial release We’re a small team that had ~ 5 core members and at largest ~10 We self-published Genre: Exploration, Adventure Wishlists at launch: 9,268 Current Reviews: 20 Steam Rating: Mostly Positive Price: $4.99 Pre-Production In pre-production we worked on getting concept art, game design documentation, and prototypes together to help get an idea of the core gameplay mechanics and feel of the game. We also worked on a visual prototype to help us experiment with the watercolor art style and tweak it to what we have today. Towards the end of pre-production, we also worked on a demo that we could use to showcase in online and in-person events. In the marketing portion of this blog series, I’ll talk more about how that benefited us. If there are specific things you’d like to know, let me know in the comments! Game Design and Story Inspiration and Design goals Initially, the game took heavy inspiration from art games like Journey, GRIS, and Child of Light. As development started we started looking more into Okami and Zelda games for inspiration on art and gameplay. I talk a bit more about the inspirations in my ‘Inspirations for Path of Kami’ blog if you’d like to learn more. Some design goals we had: Keeping the game light-hearted and relaxing Making a ‘bite-sized’ game Providing an immersive experience with no UI on screen Integrating narrative with gameplay Production Design themes, the core gameplay, and design challenges From the beginning we wanted the game to be about relationships and the connections between family and friends. The game mechanics and story revolved around those themes. Initially, the game was about a wolf and his pack of friends, with the friends helping the MC ascend to the spirit world. But it brought about technical complications with our puzzle mechanics having to account for how the AI behavior would work with having a wolf pack and a somewhat open world. Additionally, having AI and other characters made the scope of the game increase. When we brought on our Narrative Designer, Els White, they helped us update the story, lowering the scope and having it be more authentic. It had gone from a story about a pack of wolves to a more personal story between the main character, Kazeyo, and the Wisp. This allowed us to focus on a single relationship which gave a deeper and more intimate story, also helping us lower the scope of the game. If you’re interested in learning more in-depth about what the changes were and how the lore came about you can learn more about it in Captilight’s blog, ‘Lore Evolution in Path of Kami’. The core gameplay involves exploring and lighting lanterns with your spirit fire powers to solve puzzles and get collectibles. The maps were separated into areas with a set of puzzles, some being optional. Solving a set of puzzles would give players a key. After collecting a set of keys, players would be able to access a new area. Later in the game, we introduced elemental fire types that interacted differently with the puzzles to add variety i.e. air elemental fire moving or rotating platforms while earth would create or destroy them. While exploring and solving puzzles they would also get collectibles that would provide extra lore about the world. There were also lots of platforming segments and other environmental hazards that could lower the player's health. One of the design goals we had was not having any permanent UI on the screen, we wanted players to feel immersed in the game and didn’t want UI obstructing the view of the world. This gave us an interesting design challenge: how to display the health of the player? Our solution was a combination of conveying health through art while pushing the narrative of the story and character. In the game, the MC passes away from a snowstorm and the game officially starts with the MC waking up as a spirit in their wolf den. To convey health we played on the spiritual aspect, as health would decrease the more ghostly the character would look. During playtesting we realized that some players would still want a more direct way of knowing how much health they had left so we added a set of floating orbs around the MC’s neck. Along with appearing more ghostly, they would lose an orb when losing health. Tools we used Discord: We used this for communication, team meetings, and work hangouts. Hack N Plan: Project management tools Clockify: Track time spent working on game and used for timesheets to pay team Unreal Engine: Game engine we used to build the game TortoiseSVN: Source Control for the game Digital Ocean: Hosting for the source control Canva: Graphics, marketing materials, roadmapping If you're interested in learning more about the tools we used and how we organized our project, check out my video "How to plan and organize your long term game project." So let's summarize how the production of the game went! What Worked :) Visual Prototype The visual prototype helped a ton with defining our unique art style and experimenting early with what would work best for the game. Puzzle Manager & other tools The development team put together a set of tools such as a puzzle manager and cinematic system for designers to be able to quickly create and implement puzzles and cinematics. This helped save a lot of time for programmers so they could work on other aspects of the game while giving designers more control over the puzzles. Modular Kits The art team built modular kits for the environments in the game which helped a ton with world-building and quickly setting up environments Relaxing Experience With the feedback we got on the game I feel like we did a great job at keeping the experience casual and relaxing for players, achieving one of our main design pillars and goals! The audio team worked very hard on providing ambient music and a soothing soundtrack for the game which really added a lot of depth and pushed the mood we were aiming for. (Check out the soundtrack preview above!) Launching with ‘release essentials’ While working for a game publisher I learned there were constant negative reviews for certain game features that players wanted and made sure we had them for launch day. Players would leave negative reviews because a game didn’t have input binding, widescreen support, and other features on launch day. Below are the features we implemented to help prevent this: Input binding Keyboard/Mouse AND Controller support Wide screen support Window mode Achievements Multiple Languages [didn’t see a lot of negative reviews for this but I highly recommend launching with multiple languages because it increases your reach, you’ll also have tons of people commenting in Steam discussions about adding their language :) ] What Didn’t Work :( Scope of the game not matching team resources When scoping the game, we scoped high in hopes that we would be able to get a publisher or additional funding. Although we were able to fundraise some money for the game, it wasn’t enough to fund the team full-time to work on it. Even with scoping down the game and it being relatively ‘small’, it took us a long time to make. This is partially because we were all working on it less than part-time. Spent too long developing the game This kind of ties into the point above. We ended up spending 3 years working on the game. With this being our first game we should have scoped something a lot smaller so we could release something fast. Usually, your first game doesn’t make too much money so we could have spent a shorter amount of time developing this to quickly have a game under our belt and get experience as a team releasing something first. We also could have utilized asset packs more to shorten dev time. Getting stuck ‘in the box’ We focused a lot on art and worldbuilding, kinda losing sight of the big picture. We also approached the development linearly as the player would play it. The game ended up being stretched too long and made it so we had to do an abrupt ending to the game. To fix this we could have regularly tried looking ‘outside the box’ and looking at the game as a whole from start to end. Taking a look at how much time we should spend for each level and take extra time on the ending of the game. Game Genre We marketed the game as an exploration/adventure puzzle game and these genres are pretty saturated on Steam. They are also known to not make as much money as other genres, although since this was our first game we weren’t expecting to make much on our own. Steam also tends to like more strategy-type of games, I’ll probably talk more about this in a later blog. To top it off we later learned that publishers also tend to not like puzzle games as much as other genres as well. I hope this was insightful, thanks for reading and stopping by. Until next time~!

This blog talks about how to do 'Authentic' Networking in Games to create meaningful connections and a support network for yourself. Want to skip the wall of text and go straight to the good stuff? Check out the takeaways section at the end :) What is Authentic Networking? The idea for this blog came from my last article on how to break into the games industry. I wanted to do a dedicated article on this because I think it's an important topic to discuss, especially being new to the industry. First, let's talk about what networking is not. One of the biggest events in the game industry in North America is the Game Developer Conference (GDC). I went for the first time in 2018 as a student and it was eye-opening! I met amazing new friends, got to see inside game studios for the first time, and attended a lot of events. I went to one of those events with a group of friends, and while talking, a person walked up to us and started handing out business cards. My friends and I looked at each other wondering if anyone knew this person; no one seemed to. After passing them out, the person asked, "What do you guys do?" We said we were students, so they walked away. They didn't say hello, how are you, thanks, or nice to meet you, haha. Looking at this person's business card and portfolio, I found out they were also a student. I guess we weren't worth the time! That, my friend, is a bad example of networking. Now let's talk about what some good practices are! Geniune conversations Networking isn't about 'what they can do for you.' To create meaningful connections it's good to go into networking with the idea of making new friends and with the mentality that both parties would be helping each other out. It should be a two-way street; a genuine person-to-person conversation, getting to know the other person and actively listening and participating in the conversation. This also means you shouldn't build a network of superficial connections, which leads us to the next point. Quality Over Quantity Let’s say you do a ‘Speed Networking’ exercise where you speak with 10 different people for 5 minutes. Later that day you have a conversation on an expo floor with someone that lasts 20 minutes. During the conversation, you found you both had similar interests, played the same games, and lost track of time while talking. Which person would YOU remember the most? Who do you think they'll remember? :) Not only does a genuine conversation with someone make them more memorable, but it also creates a deeper understanding and connection with them. Take your time when meeting new people and, instead of constantly seeking out new contacts, nurture the connections you already have. Think Long-Term Networking is a long process and doesn't instantly yield results. Keep in touch with the other person and ask how they are doing. How's that side project coming along? Did they just get a new dog? Did they see “XYZ” movie you last talked about? Getting to know each other and talking about each other's work over a period of time will build trust. By building trust it makes it possible for people to feel comfortable and confident to recommend you for jobs. After all, they are putting their reputation on the line for recommending you, so they'll want to make sure you'll do a good job. Anyone can get you in the door I talked about this a bit in my last article. No matter someone's title, anyone at a company could help with getting you a foot in the door. If you're a designer and meet an artist or marketing team member at a company you're interested in, they can still refer you or get you in contact with the person you need to talk to. Before asking for a referral though, have a genuine conversation with them and get to know them. Takeaways Authentic networking is genuinely getting to know a person for who they are and isn't just a way to get contacts to advance your career Quality over quantity. It's not a numbers game; take the time to nurture connections Networking is long-term, continue to follow up and build on the relationship through time Anyone can get you in the door; even if your contact isn't the person you need, they can get you to someone who you're looking for Hope this helps you with your next networking event! Have ideas or questions you'd like answered in future blogs? Let me know in the comments! Thanks for stopping by! <3

Are you looking to break into games or starting your games career? With this blog, I will cover how I was able to break into the industry, along with sharing some helpful learning resources, game communities, and resources to help find jobs. If you're in a rush or just want to get straight to the point, check out the TLDR section at the bottom of this article :) My Story: How I Got Started There are several different ways to break into the industry and it can be a mix of luck, hard work, and networking. Today I'll share how I did it and hopefully, that may help give some insight or be helpful to you! To give some context, I went to school for Game Design at the University of Central Florida. There, I was active in my university's game dev club and was also involved in an organization that brought together the local indie game community. I wasn't that involved early on because I was busy with university classes. I mostly went to the occasional meetup and spoke to some of the local devs. During this time I started exploring Discord communities and joined a bunch of indie game dev ones. A majority of them had job boards for volunteer work and through one of these boards, I reached out to one developer. I let him know I was a game design student and wanted to volunteer my time to get experience. Luckily he said yes and decided to take me on! The indie game studio worked on mobile games so it gave me an early look at mobile game design and what development looked like. This went on for a couple of years. The developer mostly wanted to get some fresh ideas and get help with testing. So I worked on sending multiple game pitches, one eventually got chosen by the team and went into development. It was also recognized as an indie prize finalist at Casual Connect Asia in 2018. So that was an early credit I could add to my resume and portfolio while still in university! Towards the middle of my academic career, I started getting more involved in the local game dev community by attending meetups more regularly. I also began participating in online and in-person game jams (some being hosted by the local game dev community). Along the way, I started making friends with the people who ran the local game dev organization (it was called Indienomicon btw). As I got to know the people who ran it, we all became friends and I ended up joining the board, helping to manage their social media, and coordinating the events and meetups. There I met my first-ever mentor, Kyle, (though he probably didn't realize it at the time :P) If you're reading this Kyle, HIIIII! At the time, Kyle had a startup called 302 Interactive that had just been formed with his childhood friend Bobby, who also ended up being an awesome mentor for me, and mentioned how he needed help with a little bit of everything. We talked and I explained how I was happy to volunteer here and there to get some experience while in university. I ended up helping with designing their website, handling social media, and as the studio started getting contracts, helping out with design on AR / Gaming experiences (and started to get paid to do it!) Time passed, and as graduation was nearing I started putting together my work from my student and volunteer work, game jam projects, and solo projects. Luckily, thanks to all my volunteer work and game jams, I had quite a bit of experience and projects under my belt that I could add! I also put together a resume and was feeling confident about my experience when applying. Sadly, nothing clicked!! I was able to get interviews with big companies, such as PlayStation and Gameloft, and got fairly far in some of the hiring processes. I even managed to take some design tests, but to no avail. I was starting to get worried, thinking about how I would have to move back home. What if I couldn't break in!? I kept trying, improving my portfolio however I could, and kept applying for jobs. A couple of months before my graduation Kyle reached out and asked if I had any jobs lined up. The answer was a whopping no :( and shared how disappointed I was. He then mentioned his studio was getting more and more contracts and asked if I'd be interested in a part-time design analyst position. To which I said...HECK YES!! And that's how I got my first official paid gig in the industry. I went on to work at 302 for close to 4 years, moving from part-time to full time then getting promoted from design analyst to game designer. During that time the studio also grew from 3 to 15 team members!! The studio is still growing today and their working on some pretty cool stuff. TLDR; Get involved in your local game dev community, if you don't have one check out online ones! I'll list a few under Game Dev Resources below. Network! Like REAL AUTHENTIC networking, not just checking out someone's job title and thinking if they are 'worth it.' No matter someone's title, anyone at a company could help with getting you a foot in the door. Learn more about this in my 'Authentic Networking' blog. Do projects outside of school. I've seen a lot of portfolios with students that went to the same university that worked on the same project. Although it's still good to have student work in your portfolio when you're starting out, try to diversify your portfolio so it doesn't look too similar to others. This will help you stand out, because yes...we do notice! Working with Indies and Small Companies can be a great way to get your foot in the door and help you get the experience you need to get into your dream company Game Dev Resources Below are some helpful resources to learn more about game design and other areas of game development: Game Design Wiki - A collection of resources for game designers Other Learning Resources - 2023 GDC Vault, Course Era, Udemy, Unity Tutorials, Unreal Tutorials, Atlassian University , World of Level Design, How To Market A Game, Game Developer, Game Production Great sites and resources for finding jobs: Job Sites: Remote Game Jobs, HitMarker, Work With Indies, and LinkedIn Unofficial Game Dev WFH/Remote List JD's Game Jobs List 2021-2022 Game Dev Paid Me Doc Game Dev Studios Careers Page List Discord Game Dev Communities The House of Peeps - A Discord Art/Gamedev community focused on connection, warmth, and inclusivity IGDA - International Game Developers Association Game Production Indie World Order Ask GameDev How To Market A Game Indie Game Business Game Jam resources: Global Game Jam Game Jams hosted on Itch io Thanks for reading and stopping by! I hope this article was helpful. What other topics would you like to hear about? Let me know by leaving a comment or @deana_isabel on Twitter :)

Collectibles can be found throughout the Path of Kami world and represent Sacred Objects you can collect. These objects are used to foreshadow certain events or give lore information, you’ll notice every time you pick one up there’s flavor text sharing more information about it! When encountering collectibles you’ll also hear ancient whispers...there’s something very spiritual about these sacred objects! Later on some will even affect gameplay. Collectibles take inspiration from folktales, Japanese culture, and national treasures! Without sharing too much I can give you an early look of some of the collectibles you’ll encounter. Magatama Beads You’ll be able to find emerald green magatama beads throughout the maps! These are curved, comma-shaped beads that appeared in prehistoric Japan from the Final Jōmon period through the Kofun period, approximately ca. 1000 BCE to the sixth century CE. They are also known as talisman of good fortune. You’ll be able to collect enough to make a necklace! We put this in the game as a reference to its significance throughout Japan’s history, including being one of the three Sacred Treasures that are said to prove the Emperor’s divine lineage. Dotaku Bells You may recognize this name from one of our reward tiers for our crowdfunding campaign! Dotaku are Japanese bells smelted from thin bronze and can be plain or richly decorated! There are many theories on how Dotaku bells were used but there has been an agreement that they were produced during the late Yayoi period. Dotaku were buried, singly, in pairs, and in large groups—occasionally with bronze mirrors and weapons—in isolated locations, often on hilltops, perhaps to ensure a community’s agricultural fertility. Later dōtaku had relatively thin walls and would not have resonated, so it assumed their purpose was primarily ritual. - Met Museum In Path of Kami we plan on having 5 bells, referencing the largest number of ritual bells excavated from a single site in Japan (Kamo-Iwakura site). Kettle Tetsubin (鉄瓶) are Japanese cast-iron kettles with a pouring spout, a lid, and a handle crossing over the top. These are used for boiling and pouring hot water for drinking tea and other liquids. These Kettles are traditionally heated over charcoal. You’ll be able to find one in the demo! As always there’s always a special meaning to the collectibles, before grabbing it remember to take a good look! I hope this helps give you some insight into the types of collectibles you’ll find in Path of Kami and the thought behind them! Thanks for tuning in, Deana [Originally posted on IndieDB]