👋 Hey there! I’m Paul Vauvrey, a design leader from France 🇫🇷 making games since 2008. You’ve found my personal space on the internet. Inspired by the digital garden movement, I post my thoughts, ideas and musings here, in the open. If you want to know more, here’s a short note on Digital Gardens, Groves and Campfires.
👉 Go here to read about some of the games I’ve worked on.
I have 16 years of experience in games, solving design challenges across genres and platforms, and leading distributed teams remotely.
Currently crafting football ⚽️ games at Matchday.
👉️ check my resume on Linkedin
Professional philosophy 💭
“Adaptive leadership is the practice of mobilizing people to tackle tough challenges and thrive” — Ronald Heifetz
I believe that design leadership is fundamentally about effective communication. Articulating a clear vision and fostering a culture of candor and sagacity builds resilient teams who bring out the best in each other, and deliver great products together.
As a certified mental health first aider with mentoring and teaching experience, I prioritize my team’s well-being and growth. I strive to create an environment where everyone is supported, no matter the goals they have or the challenges they face.
What Colleagues Said 🗣️
Working with Paul was an amazing experience. He is very demanding and that helped us, and me especially, to raise our standard: don’t be satisfied by something second-rate. He worked with many engineers and knows how to manage them in a real project: take some shortcuts, find other paths… But never by reducing the quality of the final product.
Stan Kocken, CTO @ Kiro
You can’t claim every day that you have been working with your « work soul mate », and still, that’s one thing I feel everyday with Paul. Incredibly professional, efficient and creative, Paul knows how to find the best solution of any situation, and keep as well faith in his coworkers than a strong leadership to take them far. What I prefer in his communication skills: Paul always make me feel « respected », even in discussions out of my own domain if art. Paul is a must have.
Alexandre Chaudret, Art Director @ Hexworks
From the first months we worked together, Paul managed to transform for the better the productions he was working on, the company’s process & his teams to achieve concrete milestones, such as the release of Othercide. Professional, versatile, experienced and always aiming for greatness, Paul is naturally leading by example. Watching him doing his best at such a high expertise-level encouraged everyone to step-up, helped by his pedagogical approach of management. The video game industry is lucky to have Paul, not to mention the teams he’ll be working with.
Calvin Charbit, Game Director @ Goblinz Studio
Paul is a creative, passionate and talented Game Director I’ve had the pleasure of working with. He is a born leader, gifted of strong design and project management skill sets informed by his experience and data. He is an excellent public speaker, capable of inspiring a strong product vision and motivating his colleagues on a daily basis to achieve greatness. From defining and implementing workflows to troubleshooting communication issues and narrowing down production and management impediments in collaboration with his peers, Paul is an amazing asset which will be key to the success of your project.
Jérôme Smidt, Senior Producer @ Matchday
Companies I worked with 👨💻
Extracurricular engagements 🤝
- 2022 - mentoring underrepresented game industry professionals with Limit Break
- 2016 - helping organise Indiecade Europe
- 2015 - teaching extracurricular game design at Sciences Po
In my spare time ⌚️
Being a dad, husband and dog owner with rarified spare time and a penchant for tsundoku 📚️, I’m always pushing myself to learn new things and challenge the status quo. So far I’ve made:
- a medieval board game for the 21st century
- a brainwave-controlled game
- an art game which lets you explore miniature worlds by walking around with your fingers on a touchscreen
- a Paw Patrol-inspired tabletop rpg to play with my kid during the Covid-19 lockdown
You can find me regularly crowdfunding projects that spark my curiosity. And I love to stop and take pictures 📸 while hiking, or riding my bike and my longboard around.