DevilBliss Games Consultancy
Video game evaluations and consultant feedback for indie developers and publishers.
ALL FORMATS
ALL GENRES
ALL ASPECTS
What I Can Do For You
Building videogames is a process fraught with many unknowns, worrisome risks and sometimes deeply unpleasant surprises. It's my chosen purpose in life to remove as many of these potentially nasty aspects as humanly possible by helping developers to either avoid them altogether before the first finger ever hits a keyboard or through spotting a thorny issue nice and early on when it's quicker and cheaper to remedy.
Reassurance is essentially what I aim to provide – both that everything is going hunky dory so far and that a design is reaching its maximum potential, thus heading for a suitably swooning critical rapture and majestic chart-dominating glory.
I'm by no means just concerned with critiquing negative aspects though – I pride myself as a games consultant by being able to get in tune with your creative brain-workings and augment and enhance a game's design with fresh ideas, novel angles and sparkly extra facets that might be more readily apparent to someone not so close to and emotionally entwined with a project.
The DevilBliss Games Consultancy (for that is I) provides an unrelentingly objective and if needed long-winded evaluation of your in-progress game at any stage of its creation, spanning from pre-production concepting across the entire development process right up until final polish and detailing. This includes key aspects such as:
IDEAS
- Novelty of themes, central gameplay premises and individual features within your concept designs.
- Encouraging Heart, Soul, Drama & Fun throughout a game's being.
- Appraising and enhancing viability out in the wilds of the marketplace whilst still at an embryonic stage.
FEEL
- General game balance and level of challenge – i.e does the game coquettishly 'flirt' with a player's level of benign infuriation? Or will it tip over into joypad-grinding frustration? Does it present a fitting level of evolving difficulty for the intended audience, be they rabid hardcore types or gem-crushing 'casual' aunties?
- Usability and ergonomics of control configurations (such as avoiding the dreaded 'button blindness', where a player is maxed out by particular combinations of control input and needlessly crashes their Unicorn Copter, say).
- Responsiveness and 'feel' of the in-game avatar (be it a humanoid, vehicle, falling block and so on) also including how relatable and appealing a character is based on their body language & mechanics (or How To Avoid 'Mr Walky Gun' Syndrome).
FEATURES
- Streamlining / hybridisation of disparate features and systems into more compellingly interdependent and dynamic forms (so they become generally cooler and more likely to woo potential mating partners).
- Ensuring both longevity and replayability are maximised without an excessive tax on your precious resources of time, cash and sanity.
STORY
- Narrative via gameplay - especially imbuing the characters and story with depth and resonance via what occurs during the actual act of play as opposed to being inelegantly spelled out during hands-off cutscenes that require seven hundred confirmatory presses of 'X' to witness.
- Optimising the impact of a story's basic DNA sequencing whilst ensuring that in-game actions have dramatic meaning.
- Script generation and dialogue sharpening plus the logic of characterisation.
- Conceiving and refining a snappy and descriptive title for the game (no more 'Project Placeholder Name', people!) plus providing pithy and vibrant character and gameplay feature terminology.
LOOK
- Visual aesthetic aspects, particularly the coherence and understandability of a game's visual tableau, plus how various artistic approaches help to both attract the player's attention initially and then keep them engaged – let's make sure 'brown corridors' will be a thing of the past together.
SOUND
- Audio detailing and subtext plus aiding and immersing the player via sound (including banging the microphone on your desk when all else fails).
EMPATHY
- Judging a game’s optimum price point in regards to its scope, quality, play length, genre context, market conditions and other voodoo factors.
- Pitch deck feedback and refinement, informed by my time working in various game scouting roles for indie publishers, during which I sifted through hundreds of submissions for their viability and potential.
- Specialist press aggregated score predictions and pre-release mock reviews. Does destiny hold two thumbs up garlanded with five stars atop a justified score of 12 out of 10?
Who Am I?
I'm Christian A. Bliss – pleased to meet you!
For the last two decades I've been immersed in the videogames industry, spanning from the wild west of turn of the millennium games journalism, a stint at the DreamCast-era Sega Europe, twelve years as an in-house third party evaluation for Sony PlayStation as a games analyst, a period as an independent consultant and since 2016 working for a small indie publisher that punched well above its weight.
Over this era and its various roles I’ve played and assessed hundreds and hundreds of games in both code and pre-production design form and helping to nurture them to their full potential. This has left me with what I feel is a deep instinctive understanding of what causes a videogame to turn out either good, bad or indifferent. I've striven to hone this ability to accurately perceive the potential hiccups within a gestating title (from subtle through to serious) and then suggest an achievable remedy for them, all the whilst remaining true to the creator's original vision.
My time in the trenches as a games journalist helped me gain a keen sense of what appeals to or irritates the gaming press. I can also supply authentic mock reviews and aggregated score predictions in light of this experience.
My focus and major source of professional satisfaction has naturally shifted towards smaller independent titles as their star has risen, hence my intention to provide an evaluation and feedback consultancy tuned towards the particular nature and unique needs of indie devs.
I’ve collaborated hand in glove with an array of indie developers in recent times and assisted them in bringing their titles to fruition, including overseeing the sometimes thorny porting process to consoles.
In addition whilst working in various scouting roles for small and medium indie publishers I've been at the sharp end of prospecting for fresh new games in the making, so can offer advice as to what will appeal to potential publishing partners and how to make your game stand out from the horde.
Above all, I am on your side, and that of your game (and of the human being that plays it). My philosophy towards video games evaluation is to be the advocate for the player and feel the game from their point of view, as ultimately they are always the most important element in the entire process.
How I Tend To Operate
Ideally an initial Skype chat over a cup of tea with you (and your team) comes first, so you can get a better feel for me and I can glean where you're coming from creatively and commercially. I always want to be in tune beforehand with what the overarching vision and underlying subtext for the game is, plus establish if there are any specific aspects you'd like the evaluation to cover or if you'd prefer a truly 'blind' appraisal, to see if your concerns chime with my un-prejudiced / un-cued response.
If any design documentation or other materials are available then I'll absorb them as well before actually playing and evaluating the game code in depth. This will probably be done within one working day but if it requires longer to do a properly thorough job then I'll come back tomorrow and continue.
After that I'll discuss any findings with you and your team - In my experience feedback is best delivered as part of an ensuing dialogue so together we'll get deeper into any issues that might exist (but also admire all the cool 'n groovy stuff you've cooked up). If desired the feedback can then also be provided as a written report in light of this conversation.
PEACE OF MIND
And don't fret about me witnessing your innovative and original ideas and passing them on to other rival outfits - you can be secure in the knowledge that utterly tight-lipped discretion is guaranteed, plus I'm happy to sign in my own actual blood any NDA agreement you wish for added reassurance.
Testimonials
Jim Ryan, President & CEO - Sony Interactive Entertainment
I had the pleasure of working with Christian for a number of years. He's extremely experienced, knowledgeable and passionate about gaming, and has a keen eye for the things that make great games stand out.
Contact details
(+44)7952964147
Skype: devilbliss.gc