Think Like A Game Designer - Justin Gary — C.O.R.E. Attributes (Special)

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

In this episode of "Think Like a Game Designer," I take a different approach by presenting a solo discussion without any guests. Here, I focus on a concept I introduced in a previous episode with Stephan Brissaud: the CORE Attributes. These attributes became very popular among listeners, so much so, that I thought it worth expanding upon in a new episode.I'll be elaborating on these core attributes, which I believe are essential for success: Curiosity, Obsession, Resilience, and Empathy. My goal is to provide a deeper understanding of these attributes in your life, offering insights and practical advice.CORE Attribute References:Summary of CORE Attributes:* Curiosity: The spark that drives learning and exploration. Stay curious and keep exploring.* Obsession: The focus and dedication needed to dive deep into a subject. Find something you're passionate about and dive in, blocking out all distractions.* Resilience: The ability to overcome challenges and use setbacks to fuel growth. Learn from your failures and keep pushing forward.* Empathy: This point is about understanding others and adding value to people’s lives. Our creative work has to serve others to be truly meaningful and we need to enroll others into our projects by understanding and speaking to their needs.These attributes have been crucial in both my personal and professional life. In this episode, I share personal anecdotes and practical exercises to help you cultivate these traits.I’d love to hear your feedback and engage with you through my Substack and Twitter. I'm incredibly grateful for this community and the opportunity to share these insights with you.Game Links:* Ascension Legends* You Gotta Be Kitten Me* SolForge Fusion This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit justingarydesign.substack.com/subscribe

Hello and welcome to Think Like a Game Designer. I'm your host, Justin Gary. In this podcast, I'll be having conversations with brilliant game designers from across the industry with a goal of finding universal principles that anyone can apply in their creative life. You could find episodes and more at think like a game designer.com. Today's episode's going to be a little different. I'm not having any guests today. I'm just going to talk about a concept that I introduced in a previous episode with Stefan Briseau, which was one of my concepts, which I called the core attributes, which I believe is one of the key pieces of success. So I'm going to dive a little deeper into the core attributes, talk more about how

you can leverage them in your own life. And I really was excited about the response I got. I just kind of mentioned the principles in that podcast, which is a great podcast, has a lot of great insights from Stefan, but it's something that's really resonated with people. And so I wanted to give an opportunity to deep dive into it and help expand on those principles a little bit more. But first, I got to talk about some cool projects I'm working on. I'm so beyond excited. I have more cool things happening at this stage of my career than I have ever had before. And it's just so much. I really wanted to share it with you, my audience, and hopefully some of the stuff is exciting to you too. But let's get started. First of all, as I am recording this today, it is June 11th,

2004, cases is from the far future. Our game, You Gotta Be Kittmy, has now entered store shelves on targets nationwide throughout the United States. We also have an international launch coming, but in the United States, you can get this game, you've got to be kidding me, on targets anywhere in the country. And not only is this a super fun, really adorable, quick fun family card game,

you can play it with two to ten people. It's like a quick bluffing game, kind of a combination between liars, dice, and Uno, but with adorable cats with all these cute accessories on them. But we actually have a feature where you can print your own pets and add them into the game. We have a custom card creator. You can print them out onto the blank cards here,

And so you can add some really fun things. And it's a great gift item for parents or family who have pets of their own and you can kind of add them in. It's just a really fun game, really exciting, very, very accessible. A lot of the games I work on are, you know, let's say a little on the nerdy side, trying to be things like Ascension and Soul Ford Fusion and these games I love. But you got to be kidding me is great because if you're a gamer, you can play this with your non-gamer friends. You can play this with families that Aten Up. So if you get a chance, please go to Target, go check it out. I think you will love it.

It's just a really fun thing I'm super proud of. So that's one thing. And then just last week, because this is the new thing, just last week, we just launched the third set for Sulford Fusion, which is the last winter. And it has a lot of really cool new mechanics, including a corrupting mechanic for the forgeborn, which kind of gives you a little mini-quests to complete,

new exalts, new cards, new abilities. And again, every single deck is one of a kind. So you'll never see the same deck twice. I have a, you know, this is one of those things that you can get an infinite amount of play value out of. And if you don't know already from listening to the podcast, This is also a digital game. And we actually just launched our in-app store. So you can get SoulForge Fusion on Steam.

It's still in early access. So we have a lot of new features and new exciting things coming. But for now, for the first time ever, you can actually buy these boosters for the last winter in the store. Or you can go to Stoneblay.com. You can buy codes there. You can buy the physical games there. It's available in lots of local hobby shops as well. But, you know, this is a game that I co-designed with Richard Garfield.

It uses tons of cool new technology. We're continually developing new things. You cannot take your one-of-a-kind decks, bring it into algorithms, generated campaigns, battle against bosses, level it up. You can battle against other people online. We have tournaments we're running all the time. Our church, our organized play managers running events through our Discord, and we have cool prizes and things you can get.

So it's just a super fun game, a brand new release, lots of new content, great opportunity there. Okay, so those are the two exciting things that just launched in the last week. Now, what's coming up in the next month? Well, fun stories. So first of all, I am going to release my first new, Ascension set in over three years. I can't believe that. It's crazy. We used to do two Ascension sets every year, but we got kind of distracted by the fun of Ascension Tactics, which we did

Ascension Tactics and Ascension Tactics Inferno. So Ascension Legends is the new game, and it is coming to GameFound. So this is a crowdfunding platform. It's not the same as Kickstarter. We've done everything else crowdfunded on Kickstarter, but we wanted to try something new. So if you go to GameFound.com and you search for Ascension Legends or just Ascension, it should come up. You can follow the campaign. We're going to be launching it in late July. So if you follow it before the launch, she'll get some free promo cards when the game goes live and if you back it. So super fun. We have a really cool mechanic where you actually will gain status with these different legendary characters from the games. These are like the most

iconic characters like Master Darth and Emory and some of the coolest characters from the very original game of Ascension, which will be celebrating its 15 year anniversary next year, which is wild also. But so annual, as you gain by cards from different factions, you move up these Ascension tracks and you get these special boons from these characters. And they have really cool lenticular card designs we're working on that'll have the represent the legends. And it's a very fun game. We've got it ready to go.

We'll be bringing some prototypes with us to GenCon. But you can go check out GamePound, back that campaign. We're also planning to bring back all of our old Ascension sets to life, which is kind of wild. We have 16 different standalone expansions for Ascension. And when we handed the game off and we were getting it printed by Ultra Pro, a lot of those games went out of print. And so there's many of those games that you can't even buy physically, where you can still get them in the Ascension app, but you can't really get them in the physical world.

And so we're going to be reprinting those and making them available for the first time ever in as part of this game found campaign. So if you are Ascension fan or you ever thought about maybe getting started, you'll have this will be the perfect opportunity for you to jump in or get the latest thing or get any sets that you missed. It's going to be a really exciting campaign, just to kind of be able to still make cool Ascension sets 14, 15 years after I first started working on it is such a blessing from. I'm so grateful for all the fans everywhere. And I think you guys are going to love what we're creating. So I also mentioned GenCon. We're not only will we be bringing some early prototypes of Ascension Legends, we're also going to be showing off some cool new games that we have not talked about at all.

And so we'll be doing some exclusive demos. So if you actually want to come by the Stoneblade booth at GenCon and maybe find me or ask about what kind of cool exclusive things there are. We only are going to be able to do a handful of these demos. It's not going to be publicly done at the booth. So I can't really talk about what they are yet. But we have some cool teasers and some really cool new games that are working for projects for 2025 that will be showing off for the first time to some exclusive few. So you can see what my games look like before they're really done.

They're in this middle stage of they're really fun and I'm ready to get feedback, but they're not ready for the public fully yet. So come by the Stoneblade booth and you can see that cool stuff there. And I will also be doing for the first time a live episode of the Think Like a Game Designer podcast at GenCon. So we currently have a session happening Friday night at 7 p.m. I will be doing a live session. I will be teaching lessons I have never talked before. I will be taking Q&A from the audience. I'll be helping people with their actual projects, their actual game design questions. I cannot wait to get to see this community there. Initially, we had 50 seats. They sold out instantly. So we're expanding the hall. So we'll get at least another 50 seats, maybe another 100 seats.

So you can come meet your fellow game designers. Come build this community. I will tell you, there is nothing more powerful than community in game design. I like to share great lessons, but I like to share the great lessons from other great designers. But honestly, the best thing, and this has been the best thing not only about this podcast, but about the master class that I've been running once a year, that you get the community of people that support each other is the best thing. So being able to come and meet other people that are struggling with design challenges that are looking to help each other to grow, to help each other to learn is amazing. So come, come see me talk, but come meet other people that are also into the same things you're in. So if you're going to

be at JenCon, definitely come do that. And finally, speaking of the thing like Games on a Masterclass, I am long overdue to run it. As you might guess from all of the projects I'm talking about, including the several ones that I have to be kind of cagey about, we've been very busy. And so running the master class takes a lot of energy from myself, a lot of energy from the team, but it is coming. We are planning to run it for sure this year. So we'll be making some announcements probably at GenCon at that session.

People get a first chance to learn about it, but we'll be running it. I think either in August or September, though that's not guaranteed. So keep an eye out. Follow. If you're not already following my substack, just go to Justin Garydesigns.com. Justin Garydesign.com will all take you there. That will be the first place I announced the details. It will be limited, very limited in the number of people that can participate.

It's an exciting thing. I'm really proud to do. So far, pretty much every single one of these classes has led to somebody that we've hired and brought into Stoneblade. There's no guarantees of that. But, man, it's such a talented pool of people, such a great supportive community that we still connect with that are all together in our exclusive Discord. So, so many things I'm excited about.

Okay. So I appreciate you. You know, if you get a chance, stop. If you're in the U.S., stop by target, pick up, you got to be kidding me. Anywhere in the world, you can be playing SoulForge Fusion, either the physical version of the last winter or the digital things. If you're at GenCon, definitely come see me, come see all the cool stuff that's going on there.

If you like Ascension, check out the Gamefound campaign. But now, let's get back to the lessons. So the core attributes, what are the core attributes? just in case you missed the episode with Stefan, and so that this episode stands alone, this idea came to me because when I think about games like role-playing games, that you have a set of core attributes that define your character that help you to figure out whether you're going to be successful

or you're going to fail, it tasks that you want to do. And so classically, these are like with Dungeons and Dragons, it's things like strength and intelligence and dexterity and charisma, and then you'd have a stat, and you would roll based on that stat, and that would get you your decide whether you were able to, succeed in your thing. And I thought this was a really cool idea. And as I've been working on my next upcoming book about how to kind of gamify your life in a sense, right, applying the principles of design, the principles of what make games great to make your life great, to make business,

to run businesses. I was like, well, what would the core attributes look like in real life? And I thought through some of my own stories and my own backgrounds. And honestly, when I think about what has helped me to succeed and to get to where I am in life, it really was. something that I was able to make fit under the acronym core. So C-O-R-E, these attributes are curiosity, obsession, resilience, and empathy. Curiosity, obsession, resilience, and empathy. And they're really important that they're in this order because this is kind of how we figure out what to do in the world. And this is how we end up scaling our impact. And so I'll just talk a little bit about each one of these. And then there's a lot more details. And I actually have a

questionnaire that you can fill out on the substack. So again, I mentioned that Justin Gary Designs, Justin Garydesigned. substack.com. And you can actually give yourself an ability score here. But let's start with curiosity. So curiosity is your ability to get excited about the world, to get interested in what's going on. So you are a curious person if you like to learn about a wide variety of subjects, if you

like to ask different questions and dig in and figure out how things work. And being willing to kind of go past the first answer. This is one of the principles I talk about a lot. You don't necessarily just take somebody gives you an answer to a problem or you see something that's out there. You don't just take the answer at face value. You say, okay, wait, what's going on behind this? How is this working?

And curiosity is the first thing in this list because it's the spark that gives you the excitement to go on. Right. So when we're early on in life, we're naturally curious. When you're a child, everything you see is fascinating. You see a rainbow. You see a fire truck. You see whatever it is.

You're excited about it. You want to know more about it. And it's important not to lose that excitement throughout your life. Because every other step of this process, I promise you, is going to be way harder if you're not curious and excited about the thing that you're moving forward with. So when you're in an early phase of life or if you're in a phase of life where you're not really sure what you want to do with your life or you're in a job that feels like a dead end job or you're not kind of, you don't have something that's firing you up.

you want to start digging into expand your curiosity. So what I typically recommend that people do is you make a list of the stuff that you actually are excited about or that you were excited about when you were a kid, right, before you really had to do things because you were responsible for them. What would you do that was just for fun, right? So most people listening to this podcast, probably gaming is going to be part of that. But what else, right? One of the types of attributes to, you know, my episode with Elizabeth Hargraves comes to mind

because she's, you know, enthusiastic about birdwatching and combining birdwatching and games became obviously a great thing. Is it music? Is it dancing? Is it singing? Is it, you know, gardening, whatever it is, right? Finding lists of stuff that you're excited about and then start to just, once you see that list, start to investigate things, right? And start to just learn and read about things and practice things just for the fun of it. And it really can help just get back in the mindset of just enjoying life. And then when you are stuck on doing something that's, say, not fun on its own, right? Something that might be boring for you. Maybe this is a job that you have to do. Maybe it's a project that you're not excited about, really trying to get curious about

some small aspect of it that can make you come alive and make you get excited. And the example I like to use for this for me is my meditation practice. I'm a daily meditator, have been for about eight years, and I find it to be incredibly helpful. But man, oh man, was it the most boring and difficult thing? I wanted to, I was a wannabe meditator for at least a decade, maybe 12 years. And the problem was I would just sit and try to breathe and focus on my breath. And then I would just start, my mind would start wandering, I went to whatever random thing happened to pop my head that day, or a person who'd pissed me off earlier or a new game idea,

or whatever it was that was distracting me. And it was very difficult. And I was just like, really bored. So why am I doing this? And the shift I made was, this was actually a meditation teacher I went and spoke with that told me this. Like, look, pick something, a small detail and really get curious, really try to observe.

And for me, it was this moment. between when you have the in-breath and it transitions to an out-breath. Can you pinpoint that exact moment? What's happening in your body? What is the sound difference? How does the air feel when it's going into your lungs versus out of your lungs? And really just try to as closely as possible pay attention to what's going on. And that's really at the heart of curiosity is paying attention.

And once I made that shift, it was so much easier to be able to stay focused and stay intended. That curiosity about every little detail broke things out for me. And I, you know, I encourage you to try this. Just take a 30 seconds. You could even pause this recording if you want. Take 30 seconds. Really just try to focus in on that one specific detail.

That what's the air feel like coming in, going out? What's the difference? How do you feel your lungs move? And you'll find it's a lot more going on, even in this really boring thing like breathing. And when it comes to really difficult tasks and things, getting curious is going to be the best way to solve those problems. Right. When I would lose in a major magic tournament, I would, a lot of times, times people would just complain about getting unlucky and getting outdrawn and having bad beats

and they would move on to something else. And for me, I would spend a lot of time focusing on, okay, why did I lose here? What could I have done? Was there a move I could have made differently five turns ago? Was there a different card I could have represented having in my hand so that my opponent would play a little slower or more cautiously? There's a million little things that I could play out in my head and I would get fascinated. I mean, I would be planning out decklists on the sides.

If you look at my, I recently dug up my old journals from storage and I could see decklists and ideas scribbled on the signs of pages. And I just got really curious. And then that's sort of where we start to get into the obsession phase, right? So that's this is curiosity. Generally speaking, it's about going wide. It's about finding details, finding things that sparked your interest. And then once you find something, and for me, magic is a great example of this, right?

Something that really does make you come alive, you need to dive deep and get really, really obsessed. Now, the word obsession has some bad connotations to it. So I want to get rid of those right away, right? There's obsessions, like, which are like compulsions, right? If I'm obsessed with something, I can't stop it. It's not unhealthy. It's like an addiction. And that's not what I'm talking about, right?

An obsession is the ability to focus on something that matters to you to the exclusion of those things that don't. And that means that you are able to really support a lot of the powers of your mind, a lot of the powers of your focus in a way that most people don't. The world is constantly trying to distract us. It is the biggest challenge that we face today. There's not a lack of information. There's not a lack of resources for almost everybody listening to this. There's plenty of opportunities, but there's a million things that could distract you.

Who knows if you're even really listening to me right now, right? Maybe you've got something else going on. You weren't really paying attention to this. It's very easy to get distracted. And so obsession is about being able to tune out those distractions and to be able to really stay focused on one thing that's really, really powerful, important to you. And so for me, um, the most powerful way that I've been able to become obsessed and become focused in that way is honestly to think about my deathbed. And I know that seems weird, but hear me out, look, we are not on this planet for a very long time. And there's a million

things that could take your attention. But when I think about, I actually will go through this exercise and fast forward in my mind to, uh, what it will be like at my funeral, what it will be like in my eulogy. And what are people going to say about? And when I think about that and I imagine that circumstance, what do I want them to say about me? And then I can zoom back and, you know, who's there? Who actually cares that I died? Then I zoom back to today and I think, okay, am I living the life that's going to justify that eulogy that I want?

And is this stupid thing that I'm worrying about? Am I struggling over some, you know, some slight that someone gave to me or chasing down a rabbit hole on some small project that's really not that important? or, you know, wasting time just surfing the internet on and, you know, reading stuff that's not really going to serve me. That helps me to really focus and pull that in. And then I also create. And so I think, you know, that exercise of just getting clear on like what your values

are, what's important to you. And then bringing that to mind on a day-to-day basis. So I will keep a list in front of me of my values, of the things that I want. And I remind myself of it every day before I use my level up journal and I write down my three most important tasks for the day. So I make sure I always do those three things. And if you don't have the level of journal, you can just use an index card, write down three things.

It's got to be small, right? That's really key. So in addition to here's, you know, I have my version of the level up journal, but I've also used index cards. I've used little sticky notes. So you can focus on those things that matter the most because you very, it doesn't take a lot of important focus tasks to move your life and transform it, right? But if you can do your three most important things every day,

even frankly, just one or two of the most important things every day, in a year you can transform your entire life. And so getting just really obsessed on something. And this is why, you know, if you've hopefully found the curiosity to get something that you're excited about, you now connect it to a mission that's larger than you. You connect it to something that's really important for you, right? How you're going to serve others? What is the things that you're going to want to be remembered by?

That helps you get really obsessed and get really focused and be able to now become not just a curious, you know, explorer, which is a great starting point, but to become a true focused expert to someone who actually executes and gets things done. Then that leads us to the R in the core traits, resilience. Because let me tell you, whatever you want to do that's meaningful in life, you are going to hit resistance and you need to be resilient to stop it. You need life is going to punch you in the face. And you need to be able to transform that from a negative event into fuel for your fire. And this is the classic I really love Marcus Aurelius, his book Meditations and the classic Stoic philosophy. that the obstacle becomes the way.

And resilience in part comes from what I talked about before, which is making sure that you have real meaningful goals, right, things that matter to you. And then it's about telling a story about how the suffering, the hardship, the setbacks that you face really do provide you with a more powerful abilities to move forward. It provides you with fuel. It's like the Nassim Telebrate, a book called Anti-Fragile,

And I love this concept where some things get, when they get strain, they break, right? You have a stick or a piece of glass. You put strain on it, it breaks. It's just worse now. And some things when you put strain on them, they get stronger, like your muscles, right? Whenever you work out at the gym, you're lifting weights and you're tearing your muscles, and then they rebuild and they're stronger. And if you're running really fast, you're overworking your heart and your system,

you get your cardiovascular system, get stronger. The same is true for your mental traits and can be true for your emotional traits. And so when I, you know, and look, people like to throw around the term abundance. And it's great to have this attitude of abundance that, you know, the world's always going to provide what I need and everything's going to be okay and I can I can have this, this attitude. But for me, that doesn't always work out that way. I've done so many projects that just don't work. I've done so many projects that I've fallen flat on my face.

I've done, I've lost millions of dollars in projects, you know, and I've made millions. I've lost millions. I've, you know, had great relationships. I've lost great relationships. I've had all kinds of challenges. But so for me, abundance isn't about not having challenges. It's not about not failing. It's about taking those challenges and those failures and then learning from those

that then provide the seeds for the next opportunity and the next growth that you're going to be able to have, right? I've told the story on the podcast before, you know, almost went bankrupt the first time we launched SoulForge. We went overextended and had to take the project down, almost lost everything, including all my personal funds, massive debt. of it, a very painful experience. But man, did I learn a ton from that. I learned about how to manage a business better. I learned about how to manage my emotional state better. Now, when I face

challenges and there's still plenty of them, they seem small in comparison. I was divorced. I had, I've lost loved ones. I've had all these hardships that were very painful at the time. And I certainly don't want to experience those things again. But because of those, now I'm in a great relationship. And I have, you know, I cherish the time I spend with loved ones. And I have so many more things in my life that I am able to do today that if I didn't have those hardships, I wouldn't. And so for me, a resilient mindset is this abundant mindset because whenever you try to do something and you put yourself outside your comfort zone, either it will work out the way you hope, in which case, great, congratulations, or it doesn't, in which case, great congratulations. You now have that

opportunity to learn. And there's another path for you that it wasn't visible before, but that by taking whatever hardship you face, tying it into something that's broader and more meaningful to you, That's really important to you. And then using that as fuel to make yourself better to give you more opportunities in the future, that's what resilience looks like. That's what abundance feels like. I think a mature vision of abundance feels like. And so this is an incredibly powerful skill.

And let me tell you, this is just one that, like for me, you know, if I'm being honest, like curiosity and obsession, they came naturally to me. Like I was always a curious person. I easily could get very, very focused on getting things, you know, accomplished and whatever task was put in front of me, but resilience was hard and resilience remains hard. It's something I continue to have to train myself to do. And so I train myself through even little practices. I will do cold plunges.

I will do, I will purposely try a new project that I don't think I'm going to be good at. Like trying to learn a language. I've been trying to learn Spanish for years. I'm terrible at it. But I keep trying to put myself into that position so I can learn that, you know, these things are not that bad and I can overcome them and I can grow from them. And so putting yourself in uncomfortable situations is another great way to train resilience. because most of the time the thing you're afraid of is not ever as bad as it seems like in your head. All right.

Let's move to the last one, which is empathy. And empathy is where we go. Most of the traits I've talked about are really internal traits. And empathy is this more external facing trait. Because empathy is about being able to really listen to and understand the needs of other people. And the core attributes are meant to encompass really the heart of what it takes to be successful in life. And I don't fully define successful for you because I think everybody's definition of success is going to be different, right? It could be that you want to have a great family.

It could be that you want to start a great business. It could be that you want to write a book. It could be that you want to travel the world. It could be that you want to just hang out and play video games all day. It doesn't matter, right? I don't care what your plan is, what your definition of success is. But no matter what your definition of success is, I pretty much guarantee you it involves other people. other people are the key to everything that we care about in life.

You're going to want to, you know, you're going to have to work with a boss. You're going to have to find customers. You're going to have to attract a mate. You're going to want to bond with your kids. Even if you're playing video games, probably you want to be playing online with some other people and having some friends to share those experiences with every single one of these things requires you to be able to be with other people. And to be with other people, we have to understand other people and help to add value

to other people's lives, right? Understand add value. That's the two kind of fundamental pieces of, empathy, and they're both pretty difficult. And I will say, let's just to give it a concrete way when you're trying to have empathy with others most of the time, this was a real problem that I've had. Maybe some of you can relate. I tend to somebody brings a problem to me.

My immediate response is I want to solve that problem, right? I'm smart. I'm capable. I can handle this. I'll just, oh, you lost your job here. Here's how you go get another job. Oh, you have this problem. Okay, whatever.

This person cut you off in traffic. Who cares? Like, that's not a real problem. I'll help here you can you can take a ticket Uber no problem right that's not what people want in fact I was really annoyed a lot of people a lot of the time what you want to be able to do is really listen and that's actively listen right so you're actually leaning in you're engaging and nodding your head you're visibly showing signs that you're listening you're not thinking about what you're going to say next you're reflecting back what you hear them say right hey what I

literally will say this and throughout my company all the time okay what I heard you say is when I when we're having a discussion to make sure that I get what they're trying to tell me and not just projecting my own story onto it. And then when somebody says, well, no, not quite right, you say, okay, well, tell me more, ask for more, pull out more information actively. And then eventually they'll sort of say yes, okay, you got it. And then you want to acknowledge and validate. Okay, I could understand how you'd feel this way or you, this impression that you have,

make sense given your context, even if you don't agree. A lot of times you will not agree. This is really useful in relationships. don't just dismiss somebody and start telling your point of view, acknowledge their point of view from their perspective, they're in the right, from your perspective, you're in the right. There's no absolutes here.

And then be able to, and then be able to sort of reflect back and validate that position. And then from there, you can now start to move into a position where you can actually enroll people in your point of view in the thing that you want to do. And then you do that because you're going to take the things that they have told you and things that they have said,

If this is a customer or a player that you may start to say, okay, here's the types of things that they're looking for. And you can start to enroll those when you're making your marketing for your game. If it's somebody that's, you know, you learn that your spouse is really concerned about their appearance and they're really worried about what's going on. You can start to talk about making sure you, you know, praise them on their appearance a little bit more. And you can help to provide a path for them to do the things that they want to do or maybe do some

joint work together to try to be healthier and, right, things where you are. are now able to enroll others in a process that gets your vision aligned with their needs and then helps you to actually move things forward in the world. When I was just trying to design, you know, play magic for a living, for the most part, all I had to do was make, just, you know, be smarter than the other guy. And I was focused on my own thing. But when I really wanted to start making games for other people, when I started to want to start to run a company, when I started to have a bigger impact,

I had to think not about me, but I had to think about everybody else. And that having empathy of understanding other people's needs of like thinking about, okay, what does this do for others? I spend far more time at my company working, you know, extensively everybody works for me. But in reality, I spend most of my time working for them. I want to make sure that they are happy. I want to make sure that they're capable, that they're supported. I want to make sure that we make enough money as a company so that I don't have to lay people off.

I want to make sure that we have all those needs there. And so as a leader, I have become far more of a hard worker and a servant than I ever was when I was a solopreneur or just kind of doing my own thing. And so, and it's a, it's an enriching way to be. It is a powerful way to be able to have a bigger impact. And it's a rewarding thing, even if, you know, a lot of times there's hardships to come with that, right? They can come back to the resilience aspect of it. So I hope that this broader picture gives some more context to the idea of the core attributes. and I hope that you find it useful.

I'm going to continue to write more on this. As I mentioned, I'm working on a book that includes this and other concepts about how kind of gaming principles can apply to life. I will almost certainly be talking about it more on the podcast. It's been really incredible to get to explore these principles with people and to be able to not only refine my own thinking, right? Because a lot of these things I've used in my life for a long time, but I haven't articulated in the right way that can help others.

and that has forced me to clarify my thinking, and now I've seen other people using these principles, and hopefully this is helpful to you. And so, you know, this episode's a little bit different. So if you like this episode and you want to see more things like it, let me know. You can contact me on the substack. You can comment at Justin Gary Design.substacks.com,

or you can go to my Twitter at Justin underscore Gary. There's plenty of great opportunities to reach out to me. But either way, we'll be back next time with some more great guests. And I am so grateful for this community. It is such an incredibly rewarding thing that I get to do this. And I will continue to do my best to provide value to all of you and to understand your needs. And so until next time, thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's podcast.

If you want to support the podcast, please rate, comment, and share on your favorite podcast platforms, such as iTunes, Stitcher, or whatever device you're listening on. Listener reviews and shares make a huge difference and help us grow this community and will allow me to bring more amazing guests and insights to you. I've taken the insights from these interviews along with my 20 years of experience in the game industry and compressed it all into a book with the same title as this podcast, Think Like a Game Designer. In it, I give step-by-step instructions on how to apply the lessons from these great designers and bring your own games to life. If you think you might be interested, you can check out the book at think like a game designer.com or wherever find books or something.