Jacopo Papaccio
Lead Game Designer
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Conferences


Procedural Treasure Hunt Design in Skull and Bones

Years: 2025
Duration: 30-minutes session
Location: Montreal, Canada

Game Design talk at Ubisoft's internal event UDC (Ubisoft Developer Conference), centered on a feature I designed.

Skull and Bones features procedurally generated treasure maps combining visual clues, exploration, and narrative puzzles - using Rational Game Design principles.

This talk explored the design and development challenges behind creating a scalable treasure hunt system, from procedural generation and puzzle balancing to generating stories and localizing content into 14 languages.

Attendees learned how to build procedural treasure hunt systems that balance variety, difficulty, and player engagement.​ These lessons are applicable to procedural gameplay systems across different game genres.
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Balancing Game Systems: Rational Game Design

Years: 2023, 2024
Duration: 3 hours
Location: Naples, Italy

Seminar for the University of Naples Federico II.

Students are taught about balancing game systems, focussing on the concepts and processes of Rational Game Design.

After introducing definitions and properties of balance, the Rational Conception Process is illustrated to design balanced game experiences from inception. 

Rational Level Design is dived in to finally demonstrate an example of how to conduct deliberate game balancing using mathematic tools.

At the end of the seminar, students are offered additional resources on the subject and a wide Q&A session.​
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Teaching


Game Design B2 & B3

Years: 2022 to 2024
Duration: 60 hours
Location: Boulogne-Billancourt, France

Course for the bachelor's degree in game development at the Futurae school, for students of the second and third year.
 
I conceived and structured the course as both theoretical (lessons) and practical (workshops, prototyping, support to student projects). 

The lessons cover topics such as Game Design Fundamentals, 3Cs (Camera, Controls, Character), System Design, Game Balance, Documentation, UI, UX, Pitching, Teamwork, and Job Hunting.

The practical side consists of:
  • Workshops where students conceive original games or design features, then present their work as if in a design team.
  • Prototyping done in a game jam fashion, where students brainstorm game ideas and split into teams to prototype them.
  • Support to improve the students' projects with the goal to showcase or pitch them.

Develop at Ubisoft

Years: 2023 to 2024
Duration: About 20 hours
Location: Paris, France
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Develop at Ubisoft is a mentorship program ​aimed at involving students and fresh graduates from underrepresented gender in the video games industry.

At Ubisoft Paris Studio, I participated as a mentor for the Game Design track, which sees mentees design an original game by going through three phases: Design Goals, Pitch, and Prototype.

My mentorship mainly consists of guidance to brainstorm ideas or solutions, review the work done, and provide feedback to improve it. I also offer support by keeping myself available for any exchange, and by sending points of reflection outside of meetings.


Educational Talks


Video Games Development: The Way from Naples​

Years: 2021, 2023, 2026
Duration: 3 hours
Location: Pozzuoli (Naples), Italy

Educational talk named "Video Games Development: The Way from Naples", for my high school Istituto Statale di Istruzione Superiore "G. Tassinari".

The talk covers:
  • How to start a career in video games development from a disadvantaged social environment.
  • An overview of how video games development works.
  • The link between high-school computer science and professional video games development.
  • Tips for success and a message of hope​.
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To create worlds.

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