Tag: modular game design

Why Coffee Stain’s Nasdaq Debut Could Redefine Game Development

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Blog, Game Design, News

The next big gaming company to hit the stock market won’t be another corporate giant chasing billion-dollar IPs. It’ll be a scrappy Swedish collective built on chaos, creativity, and community - the Coffee Stain Group, creators of Goat Simulator, Satisfactory, and publisher of Valheim. As the group prepares to spin off from Embracer (soon to be renamed Fellowship Entertainment) and apply for listing on Nasdaq First North, it’s not just a business move - it’s a philosophical statement. Coffee Stain represents a counterpoint to the bloated AAA model, proving that smaller-scale, community-driven development can still thrive in the public market...

System Relationship Maps: Communicate Complexity, One System at a Time

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Analysis, Blog, Game Design

Before you write a line of spec or code, your team needs to agree on how a system works. Not just what it does - how it connects. That’s where System Relationship Maps come in. These are simple visual diagrams that show how a single game system breaks into parts, what those parts do, and how they interact. It’s the fastest way to align designers, programmers, and artists around a shared mental model...

Design Themes: A Player-Driven Approach to Design Planning

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Analysis, Blog, Game Design

Game development is a complex process that often leads to feature bloat, missed deadlines, and chaotic workflows. Design Themes provide a structured methodology to organise features, prioritise development, and scale production efficiently. Instead of treating features as isolated tasks, this approach groups them according to their gameplay function - ensuring a layered, scalable, and focused development cycle...