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Deeply-rooted, universal emotions (aka affects or moods) that drive players' decisions around what to play, and how to play.
Stable player traits that shape how they play and how receptive they are to various features. Examples include: mechanical and cognitive abilities, risk tolerance and need for drama.
The universal machinery in players' heads that your game interacts with, and determines what catches players' attention, what creates anticipation, what supports effective learning and mastery, and so on.
Included for illustrative purposes only: a selection of game design techniques that help create alignment across drives, traits, principles and modes of play.
A comprehensive taxonomy of gaming experiences players are motivated to seek, broken into four broad categories: receptive, passionate, meaningful and purposeful experiences. Every genre and game has a unique "fingerprint" of gaming modes.
Four broad gaming styles with distinct psycho-social outcomes, i.e. what makes the difference between compulsive play that builds resentment, and a healthy passion that builds trust — or even helps the player grow.
FINDING SIGNAL IN THE NOISE
Games research and playtesting services
15 years focused on unleashing creative strategy through data and insights
Getting feedback on your game is easy. Getting the right feedback from the right people is a challenge. Dealing with a mess of feedback, opinions and superficial reactions coming from all sides is a craft that requires a specialized toolkit.
Behind Lugical is 15 years of dedication to developing this craft and toolkit, to make sure playtesting and games user research is a way to unleash creative strategy rather than bury it in opinions, demands, and generic requirements. 15 years spent refining our understanding of what separates the games people liked, from those they will love, recommend and return to for a long time. We know that only genuine creative passion can deliver the experiences that create those long-lasting memories. We know that being in touch with players' rapidly evolving needs and expectations is crucial. We also know that understanding players isn't as simple as asking them what they want, and that is why we do what we do.
We don't offer rigid methods and textbook science. We offer a powerful toolkit that empowers you to make confident decisions when it matters most, and know that you will be able to tell the good decisions apart from the bad.
Grounded in science. Inspired by passion.
All of our services leverage our proprietary player engagement model, which was born out of our tireless passion for player psychology and our long years of experience working directly inside PC, console and mobile studios. It is a model we designed to act as a bridge between players and developers: a complete map of the reasons why people play and love their favourite games that hits the sweet spot between intuitive and powerful. Our model is easy to learn, yet hard to master.
A model of player psychology that is easy to learn, hard to master, and acts as a bridge between developers and their players.
A lot of our work has gone into building a comprehensive map of the most important types of experiences that make players love a game, as well as a deep understanding of the inner machinery that can get in the way. Leveraging these insight is how we can reach beyond satisfaction and "fun" scores to give you a clear view of how well your current build delivers on the specific kind of experiences you designed to keep players engaged. It is how we can go beyond usability to tell you where the emotional drives you build with your mechanics, systems and content get diluted or wasted instead of delivering real value. It is how we are able to tell whether your game has untapped potential to turn more of your players into genuine fans that are motivated to help you succeed.
You can start exploring the model by checking how it breaks down into six broad aspects; just hover or tap on each of the labels to show their definition. More details will be shared publicly over the coming months. Sign up now to receive updates as soon as they are published, or book a free workshop to explore how we would apply the model to your specific game and stage of development.
Book your free research planning workshop
WorkshopFree
Find out how our model applies to your specific game and stage of development through a live workshop.
Ready to support you end-to-end. Exactly where you need it most.
We are a full-services shop, ready to support you at any stage of development with projects tailored to your needs — as every research project should be. This includes things like playtesting, surveys, deep interviews, community discussions, prototype testing, and consumer insights.
Get in touch now to discuss your needs, or browse our selection of featured services below.
Concept
Sharpen your creative instincts by interacting with players in live sessions — or validate them through large-scale surveys.
Pre-production
Stress-test core mechanics and screens in fast iterative sessions — while course-correcting is as cheap as it gets.
Prod Alpha
Tune core flows, systems and narrative arcs to make them resonate more strongly with players.
Prod Beta
Polish the complete experience — finding ways to keep players engaged and leave them more fulfilled when they do stop.
Post-launch & Live ops
Keep your finger on the pulse of your community and get early reactions to your roadmaps — or just find out exactly how your game touched players.
Featured Services
Playtests
Remote Playtest
End-to-end playtest, from recruitment to report delivery and next steps
Surveys
In-Game & Community Survey
Get more out of your feedback surveys by leveraging our engagement model
Interviews
Trailers & Storefront Testing
Make sure your marketing resonates with your audience for the right reasons
Usability
Prototype Testing
Test and tweak your core gameplay without a clean build
Groups
Community Panels
Keep your finger on the pulse with intimate community sessions
Playtests
Competitor Benchmarking
Position yourself against your competitors' real strengths and weaknesses
Surveys
Audience Insights
Discover what your audience truly hungers for using emotional and cognitive psychographics
Analytics
Analytics Strategy
Upgrade your analytics with highly tactical event taxonomy and dashboards designs
Playtests
Retention Studies
Closely monitor players' evolving engagement
What it’s like to work with us.
Because we know bringing somebody new into your process always has a cost, we take project management very seriously. Our well-defined, predictable process and best practices ensure you get reliable results within the timeline and budget we agreed to.
- Step 1:Clear ExpectationsWe quickly and carefully define a clear scope, timeline and budget you can rely on: what will be tested, by whom, how, what you will be left with at the end, and — most importantly — what you will do with it.
- Step 2:Continuous CommunicationWe keep you continuously updated with just the kind of details you need as the project moves along — wherever your team already communicates.
- Step 3:Immediate ImpactWe don't hand over a mess of results for you to sort through. We hand you structured data and findings you know immediately how to act on. Save on the cost of aspirins!
Book a free research planning workshop
Tell us a little about your game and what you want to learn. We will get back to you to set up a time.
Research planning workshop
WorkshopFree