Pre-Production - Marie Mejerwall

SERVICE SUMMARY

CREATIVE COACHING:

GAMES IN PRE-PRODUCTION

Marie has a long experience working with games in concepting and prototype stages, and have been coaching several teams in incubator programs through this phase. Which type of coaching sessions Marie runs often depends on if the game has funding or not: Games without funding are normally focused on improving their chances to get some. The sessions Sharpen Deck and Simulated Pitch Session are very popular in these instances. Games with funding are often more focused on their vision, and making it as iconic and coherent as possible. Initially, the vision is built, and sessions Refine Game Pillars, Establish Experience Goals and Redefine USP:s are useful for this purpose, with slightly different takeaways. Focus then goes towards the game’s features, and this is when sessions Design Structure & Scope and The Steam Page being the most prominent ones, that help hone in on the core of the game and add high-value features that makes it shine. Before heading into production, Marie helps their teams with their roadmap in session Build Production Roadmap to ensure they are well set up to make their vision come to life whilst adhering to tech development, content production and staffing plans.

TYPICAL GOALS

Sharpen game vision and deck

Increase odds to pass milestones or get funding

Design a rich and cohesive feature set

Stand out and get edge on its competitors

Create an efficient roadmap that allows creativity to flow

POPULAR SESSIONS

General Advice

Session where the team presents their current plans and design challenges and gets Marie’s advice on how to best move forward.

Sharpen deck

Sessions where we review your design presentation or deck together and Marie gives feedback and suggestions both on what to improve, what to cut and what to add.

Simulated Pitch session

‘Simulated’ session where the team pitches the game to Marie who acts as a publisher or investor. She will ask the team tough questions, and then review everything together afterwards to make improvements.

Refine Game Pillars

We refine (or create) game’s pillars to be clear, connected, inspirational, aspirational and unique and to guides the design team in both what features to design and how to design them.

Design Structure & Scope

We use the game’s feature list to lay a puzzle to visualize and evaluate the design structure and determine what’s core, what’s missing and what to cut or put on hold.

Establish Experience Goals

We empathize with the player feeling and emotion whilst playing the game and establish experience goals that aligns the team around what they are creating, and how it should turn out.

Redefine USP:s

Workshop where we discuss your USP’s, compare your game’s feature set to its competitors, lend ideas from other genres and find more USP’s that could make your game stand out.

The Steam Page

Session where we learn to design Steam Pages to imagine what the game will be for launch – and see what additional features could make it stand out more from its competitors.

Build Production Roadmap

Exercise where we map out how features interlink, and decide to which quality they should be implemented at which time. We then rearrange based on risk and resources available, and ensure we leave room for innovation.

New sessions are created on demand and as per Marie’s expertise.

TESTIMONIALS

"Leaves nothing to chance"

"Marie has a been coaching one of our teams in early stage of development and she and her model is very thorough, leaving nothing to chance when it comes to work out a vision for their upcoming title."

Per Holmén

Sweden Game Startup

"Brought new perspectives"

"Marie helped us to understand our game World of Pirates better, to analyze our competition, and to identify key features for our next development steps. She researched thoroughly in a short time and her game analysis brought to light new perspectives for our game. We are looking forward to our future collaborations!"

Edwin Tuzar

Zartu Games

"Great experience"

"It was a great experience having Marie over for a game design bootcamp. She took the team through several creative exercises that challenged the status quo of our game vision and triggered interesting thoughts. She showed great flexibility by jumping into any topic we needed and even did several of her talks at our request. We really appreciated and respected how she could help us on so many fronts." [...]
"After a week of bootcamp, our team is now well set to tackle our coming milestones, but her expertise could really be helpful again in the future. “

Game team

Supercell

"Understands the players"

"Nowadays, in our crowded and competitive market, it is essential to understand the motivation of our players in order to serve them best. Marie is perfect for that task, by switching into the perspective of the clients in order to identify room for improvements and to question ourselves about the offered quality. This skill is very valuable as it also includes a more unbiased mindset and the attitude of remaining hungry for improvements."

Henning Schmid

Klang Games

"Highlighted ways to greatly improve the game"

"Marie helped out during the development of KreatureKind, offering her insights into the potential of the game in general and the progression design in particular. After a meeting in which we discussed the fundamentals of the game, Marie played through the current build and offered a detailed evaluation of the game’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as suggestions for improvements.

The input from Marie has been very helpful, and has highlighted ways to greatly improve the game when continuing the development. Her feedback has been concrete and clear, and overall easy to act upon. I highly recommend Marie to anyone looking to improve the design of their game!"