My name is Francesco Falcone, I am an Italian mathematician working his way into game design.

I love designing and implementing new, interesting game mechanics, both in Digital Games and Board Games.

The story so far….

I joined Crytek in 2013 as a QA tester to learn and understand how games were made, and to discover my path in the industry.

It was an enlightening experience, working in a AAA studio with a AAA pipeline. The place was chock full of props used during the development of Ryse: son of Rome, and most of the developers who worked on that title were still working there.

I partecipated in the development of the Mid/Hardcore mobile game The Collectables, a game which brought high-level, dynamic graphics to iOs devices. During that time, i worked side-by-side with Game Designers and Level Designers.
Thanks in part to my mathematical background, I was the go-to tester for game balance, and some of my ideas were actually pushed into the final product.

(click the “portfolio” link above or click HERE to read my game analysis on The Collectables)

After my experience in Crytek had come to an end (by now it was 2014… ) I went back to university to get my Master’s Degree in Mathematics. I used this opportunity to expand my knowledge about Algorythm design, A* AI algorythms, Automata theory, Combinatorics and Probability.
I also attended courses detailing the influence of Maths on Art and Design, as well as courses about divulgation and teaching of complex mathematics to the general public.
I graduated in March 2017 with a score of 107 out of 110.

During the course of my studies, i used what little spare time I had (considering I worked June to September every summer) designing Video Games and learning C# and Unity development. I found it quite easy to pick up, thanks to my background.

I also matured some experience in designing Board Games. Having a limited amount of time and people to playtest with, these projects went on quite slowly. Nevertheless I managed to get a few of those to a playable state.

And now:

Now that I have more time to dedicate to Game Design, I am quickly expanding my Portfolio (click on the link above to take a look). I focus on gameplay and mechanics rather than visuals, but I try to improve those a bit little by little (with my very limited artistic skills).