Reverse engineering as an essential tool for "borrowing" for a Game Designer

What the talk is about

Yuri Sysoev explains how a game designer can "borrow" ideas from competitors' games properly through reverse engineering: working out how and why a finished product was built. He names three benefits: evaluating competitors without spending time designing from scratch, training junior designers to think in a structured way, and building "playedness", meaning knowledge of the genre and market. He splits reverse engineering into software reverse (mechanics, balance, interface, art, level design) and feel reverse (UX, sound and music, narrative, overall impression). He also shows approaches based on the tetrad of game elements and the AARRR table. His advice: set a clear goal and rules, hand art and levels to specialists, record findings with screenshots and video, check ideas against numbers, and gather feedback. Useful for game designers, team leads and producers.