Hi! I’m Paavo Kässi, an award-winning narrative and game designer, poet, essayist, journalist, musician, and former tractor driver. Starting my career in videogame business in 2017, I have since written four videogames. Three of them have been shipped, then downloaded in total more than 100 000 times, and eventually been recognized with several awards.

With more than 6 years of professional and award-winning game design in my career, aesthetical basic idea in writing is this:

In games, a word is never just a word, but an invitation to act, a suggestion to play.

Every time I start working on a new game, I try to push the boundaries of the creative possibilities of the game narration as far as I can. This means that in narrative design, every word counts.

When writing a game, logical thinking is combined with experience-related action.

As a narrative designer and game writer, I have years of experience with designing games that successfully combine entertainment and awareness values. I started my career in 2017 with Deep Sky Derelicts by Snowhound Games, working as the the main narrative designer for the game and its two DLC’s.

My biggest achievement came after that.

FULL ADHD, a visual novel combining scientific theory with dating simulator mechanic and published by Psyon Games, has been downloaded more that 40 000 times in Finland only. Since its publication in Finland in 2021, the game has received numerous accolades, and it’s being localised into different languages, including German and English.

Most of my games I’ve written with Twine, but I’m also familiar with Unity and Godot, and I have also tinkered with Python, Javascript and HTML. This means that even though I might not be a professional developer, I know how the get along with different skills in a new project.

Having not just written games, I have also written about games.

My essays cover topics such as theory and practice of narrative design, metaphysics of videogames and care as social function in games (all the mentioned texts in Finnish). I have also applied game-related design and mechanics in my other artistic work as well, like poetry.

Before I present you the games I’ve written, here’s a picture of me at my former backyard, when I used to live in Helsinki. Nice to meet you!

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My Games

Deep Sky Derelicts (Snowhound Games 2017-2020)

Deep Sky Derelicts is a turn-based RPG with roguelike elements and retro-futuristic comic book aesthetic style. The player explores derelict alien ships and completes quests in a randomly generated environments. The game has been published on different languages (French, Chinese, Polish etc.) several platforms: PC, XboxOne, Switch, PS4.

For the game, I wrote more than 60 different quests with several alternative storylines. The script turned over 500 pages long with the two DLC’s that were published with the game. In order to ”ease” the hectic workload and to create an original feeling with micro stories of the game, I applied different generative and procedural writing methods, such as OuLiPo, as part of the narrative design.

Based on these experiences, I wrote a theoretical essay on narrative design, which was published by Noesis, a webpage with a focus on experimental literature. Since its publication, the essay has been used as a teaching material in game studies of University of Jyväskylä.

Full ADHD (Psyon Games 2020-2021)

Full ADHD is a F2P mobile game, which tells the story of Eddie, a neurodivergent person learning to live with his recently discovered ADD. FULL ADHD is a visual novel that applies the game mechanics of adating simulator with Brown’s scientific model for psychological execution functions. The game was developed in cooperation with medical professionals and experts by experience with ADHD.

The game was really popular in Finland, where it has been downloaded 40 000 times. The game has received several accolades and awards. mm. Vuoden 2021 hyötypelinä Suomen peliteollisuuden Figma Awardsissa ja Reuters Eye For Pharma 2022 Awardsissa Most Valuable Patient Education work -palkinnolla. Peli on julkaistu hiljattain saksaksi, ja englanninkielinen versio on työn alla.

Modigt på Svenska (Psyon Games 2021-2022)

Modigt på Svenska is a F2P language learning game with focus on teaching Swedish for teenagers, published on Android. I worked as the main designer, while also writing the story for the game. The game was produced in cooperation with University of Jyväskylä. For the game, I created my own language teaching algorithm. It was based on my bad experiences with other language learning games, as I wanted to create a gamified design that is practical, intuitive and realistic, saying no to ”Duolingo speech.”

The game is set in the Swedish-speaking areas of Western Finland, where the player gets to meets locals in actual environments. During the pre-production pahase of the game, I made a road trip to the area for location scouting* and also to get to know better of the subject I was working on. A lot of that material was eventually used in the game.

(*=Fun fact: In the picture above, the guy with the green shirt and the start haw is based on a local friend of mine, who worked as my guide. The straw hat belonged to my mother, and my friend wanted to wear it the whole trip.)

TBA (Psyon Games 2023-)

An awareness game and a visual novel about mental health in production. The design is mostly similar to the previous 2D games, however this time 3D effects are used in the game design, making the game narration more vivid and complex.

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That’s my work in the field of game design in a nutshell. If you are interested in my services, don’t hesitate to contact me! You’ll find all the necessary information below Minttu, the main character of Modigt på Svenska standing below this text, wearing the awesome blouse and being ready for new adventures that lie ahead.