This week, Geek Native had the privilege of chatting with Dusk Wave Arts game designer Patrick Padla about all things Barheim, the process (and pitfalls) of game designing, beer, and other fun things!
Patrick (pictured above with the giant pencil, cute cats and lament configuration on his desk) was really generous with his time and gave us some really honest insight on what it takes to design a good game – and I really enjoyed this interview.
Check it out below!
B: Hi, Patrick! How did you first get into designing games?
Patrick: I actually came from a somewhat jack-of-all-trades background. I delved into the fields of 2D and 3D animation, worked my way up as a programmer, and eventually, an opportunity came up that allowed me to train as a game designer.
Knowing how games work and what it takes to make them allows me to make designs that not only are fun and exciting, but also feasible for the rest of the team to work on.
B: Woah, that’s pretty impressive! Loads of skills under your belt, nice. What’s been your favourite DWA project to work on so far?
Patrick: Truth be told, Barheim is currently my favorite. Being able to work on the game from the ground up was an amazing experience, and despite a few speedbumps along the way, it helped me grow to appreciate what it means to be a game designer. Not to mention, it helped me see how well our team could work together to create something amazing.
B: What makes a really well – or a really badly – designed game, in your opinion?
Patrick: At the end of the day, the most important aspect of a game is that the player has a fun experience. As long as the player can get lost in the experience, whether that be through a fun gameplay mechanic, a good story, or immersive environment, that’s what makes a good game.
There could be game breaking bugs, a bad user experience with the controls/UI, or writing that doesn’t feel natural or makes the player cringe. We want to avoid those things as much as possible, otherwise those hiccups could take the experience away from the players.
B: What are some of your favourite mechanics to work around in terms of designing a game?
Patrick: When it comes to mechanics, I actually like those that you can keep expanding without having to look for new mechanics. For example, in Barheim, I wanted us to focus primarily on the mixing aspect of the game before expanding to other features.
First we started off with putting ingredients directly into the cannon. Pretty straight forward. Then we used a device to turn an ingredient into something else. Afterwards, we jumped to combining ingredients. And eventually we started mixing and matching those core mechanics.
Then when it came to the boss fights, we wanted to make the experience unique, but at the same time a culmination of all the mechanics you’ve learned along the way. This gave birth to the Boss Queue mechanic.
All of these still stemmed from the core gameplay flow: Check the incoming orders, grab ingredients, process them as needed, shoot them at the enemy. Even without adding new features, that stemmed a lot of possible combinations and mechanics already, but still kept the game cohesive for the player.
B: Excellent – I know Girdy’s had a lot of fun playing, too! What drew you to the tower defence style when working on Barheim?
Patrick: We were looking to design a game that was casual enough for players that they could pick up the game quickly, but complex enough that they would still keep coming back for it. Combining the tower defense style along with the time management mechanics of brewing drinks struck the right balance for that.
Additionally, we wanted to make something straightforward that we could still manage within our projected production time.
B: Tell us about the process for designing Barheim – and how long did it take from development to completion?
Patrick: Basically we worked on the core mechanics first. We wanted to go deep into the design rather than go wide. So we focused on developing the mixing mechanic as a main focus, and using the brew cannon as the prime delivery system.
Eventually, we were able to exhaust and test how much of the mixes we wanted to introduce in the game and balance it so that it maintained just the right amount of challenge without being too complex. All in all, from conceptualization, to design, to development (and the amazing work from the rest of the team), up to level design and balancing, we finished production just within a year.
B: That’s pretty good going! How did you as a designer work with the programmers to get your ideas to fruition and get Barheim to come to life?
Patrick: Besides working with the concept, we needed to look for gameplay that was feasible from a programming standpoint. As much as possible, we wanted to limit a bloated scope of features, so we worked on the core features first.
Once that was set up, we coordinated with the devs on what could be done, and what tools they needed to give the rest of the team to work with. Props to the devs for making the level design tool we used that allowed me to focus on making fun and challenging levels, but be able to change this on the go when necessary.
B: Were you involved in the sounds/soundscape for Barheim, and does music influence game design?
Patrick: As a team, we relied more on our amazing audio team for that. But from a design standpoint, we worked with them to make sure the sounds we needed helped with the game experience.
We needed sounds that clearly showed that the player loaded up the cannon, drinks were complete, and if the boss was almost defeated. In addition to visual queues, audio queues to help players be aware of the current situation is just as important.
B: What would be a dream game you’d love to get the opportunity to design for some day?
Patrick: As a fan of giant robots, I’ve always wanted to design a game that puts you in the boots of both a mech engineer and mech pilot, all while being able to hold your own in a fight. I’ve always been a fan of games like Titanfall and Armored Core, so a game like that would be my dream design one of these days.
B: That sounds incredible! I hope you get to do that someday. What advice would you give to someone looking to start out designing games professionally? Any big pitfalls to avoid?
Patrick: The biggest thing you need to become a good designer is that you need to know a LOT of games. Keep playing games. Good games, bad games, games that you’re good at, games that you’re bad at. Bottomline is that you learn to develop a mindset to look for what works and what doesn’t.
The biggest pitfall is JUST playing the good games, because knowing what didn’t work helps you learn what you should avoid doing, or what you should do better.
B: Are you a beer drinker yourself? If so are there any interesting brands you can take this chance to recommend?
Patrick: I’m more of a cocktail guy myself, but recently had to cut down due to health issues. But if I were to suggest a beer, I’ve always been a fan of the ever reliable San Miguel Flavored Beers (Apple is my Go-To).
B: Cool. Are you working on anything exciting at the moment that you can tell us about?
Patrick: I definitely can’t go into details, but we’re moving on to work in tandem with some members of our team from the other side of the world now. So that’s something to look forward to.
B: Amazing! Thank you so much for your time, Patrick! It’s been a real pleasure.
And don’t forget, Barheim is out on Steam right now!
What games are you most looking forward to playing next – and is Barheim on your list? Let me know in the comments.