What is this newsletter about?
JB has been in the world of top-tier game design since 2015, working 6.5 years at Ubisoft before launching his own game studio and leading design in parallel at studio 2.21.
His posts are all about deep dives into the systems of game design and how when successful they entertain their customers and conversely when they fail to do so. The goal is to bring his experience as a hands on practitioner to breakdown and divulge that to a laymen may be obscure and hard to understand, to reveal the system designs and mechanims behind the experiences we play.
Why its worth your time
The gaming industry is at the cutting edge of behavioral psychology and experience design. It is also one of the most sophisticated in terms of data, analytics, tooling and technology.
Games are incredibly entertaining and inmmersive experiences, commanding massive amounts of time and money from consumers. This revenue fuels the R&D investment which keeps gaming companies so far out ahead of other consumer verticals in terms of data, technology, and behavioral design.
Understanding consumer behavior and how to build systems around that is what every software company is essentially engaged in at some level or another. The more you level up your understanding and skills in this area the better you will be in your career aims regardless of your industry of given path.
This is where JB comes in nicely. His experience and ability to breakdown and easily laybare how game systems work and the psychologies at play are awesome mini-playbooks to learn lessons from.
Its almost a cliche at this point to say leveraging gamification can be powerful in your work, but putting that to practice is exceedingly difficult. Having someone like JB invest the time to breakdown into easy illustrations is a great way to follow along with whats happening in gaming and broaden your perspective.
Where to dip your toes in
JB is still early into his writing, so his archives breadth is not massive. A great starting point is Lessons from smart watermellon. A deep dive into the design system of a very adorable fruit puzzle game.
Full details on JB
JB's game studio - Sleepy mill
