Everyone, I’m Darian.
And I’m Alexander, also known as Allu.
As we celebrate Clash Fest 2022 here, on our home turf in Helsinki, Finland,
no event would be complete without this never-before-seen look
at Supercell Headquarters and interviews with the game teams
who make the games played by millions of people around the world.
That’s right. This exclusive tour is the first time
we’ve invited the public into Wood City.
In our two-part video series, we’ll be granting you special access
into what life looks like here, in Supercell Helsinki.
So, grab your salmiakki and let’s get this started.
Supercell Headquarters, also known as Wood City,
is the largest wood building in Finland.
Mainly made of locally and sustainably sourced spruce,
Wood City contains more wood than any other building in Finland.
In fact, most of the building is actually made of wood,
except the concrete foundation and the decorative units here.
Believe it or not, over 75% of Finland is covered in forest.
This bountiful amount of nature was the inspiration for the design of Wood City,
with its organic flowing lines and columns of trees.
Although the architecture of Wood City was designed to promote relaxation,
creativity and inspiration with its open workspaces,
plenty of natural light and the breathtaking views
of the surrounding city and harbor...
Tons of technology went into the design of this building.
Within Wood City alone, there are over 450 kilometers worth of networking cable
snaking its way through Wood City.
And that's just one example of how much design,
technology and forethought went into developing our brand-new headquarters.
Let’s start with a tour
and take you to one of the most important places in Wood City.
Welcome to P.E.K.K.A Café!
At Supercell, we take coffee seriously.
In fact, we take it so seriously
that we consume exactly 678 cups of coffee per day. Exactly.
All this caffeinated consumption keeps us alert and engaged,
but we also need a dedicated space to enjoy such roasted delights.
P.E.K.K.A Café provides the perfect place to have a cup of coffee or tea,
or even smoothies, to have meetings with colleagues,
or just to chat about your day.
Delicious pastries, tasty delights provide the ultimate backdrop
as really cool musical playlists just keep the vibe chilling.
P.E.K.K.A Café is surrounded by meeting rooms,
where we bring visiting partners, business associates
and other important people when we need a bit of working privacy.
Each meeting room is filled with video conferencing technology
so that we can chat with those working remotely
and of course with our beloved colleagues in Supercell’s international offices
in San Francisco, Seoul and Shanghai.
Hey, everybody! - Hey!
But you guys want to see the cool stuff, right?
Should we show them?
Yeah!
This is the Clash Royale meeting room!
Rule over your meeting, like the Red or Blue King!
Everything about living out your dreams of nerfing or buffing your favorite card,
well, in this room you can.
But don’t let the in-game facade fool you.
This room is jam-packed with technology,
whether it’s video conference technology that tracks the person speaking,
induction pads to charge your mobile devices
and incredibly fast high-speed wi-fi for everybody in attendance.
In fact, we have meeting rooms themed after each of our live games.
Whether it’s Clash of Clans...
Hay Day...
Boom Beach...
And finally, Brawl Stars.
Hey, Allu! Speaking of game teams...
Do you think we can have a chat with the Clash Royale Dev team?
You know what? I’m pretty sure we can.
All right, let’s go! - Let’s do it!
After you. - Thank you.
Hey. Welcome to the Clash Royale game team.
One thing you’ll notice throughout Supercell is our open workspaces.
That’s a key element of our culture.
At Supercell, we have minimal hierarchy.
That means that every Supercellian is given, from day one,
the trust and independence to do what they do best.
To help facilitate that, no one, not even the CEO, has their private office.
Everyone works in an open workspace that’s designed for their team’s needs.
Now, having said that, let’s go say hi to Clash Royale.
What would you say are the most important attributes or things
that make a good Game Producer?
That’s a good question. I think it’s the ability
to be meticulous or very organized
and also to be able to facilitate discussions,
to be able to understand people and relate to people,
and to create good relationships within the team.
So when you make decisions as a team, what is your process like?
I think obviously when we decide on a plan for what we’re doing next,
we do this for the players.
When we start doing things, obviously everyone has their own roles.
Everyone has their own responsibility.
Then as a team, we decide on what we should do and what makes sense.
You’ve probably had some assumptions or expectations
about what working at Supercell could be like. What were those?
The expectations that I had, which were absolutely met,
were that everyone’s incredibly good at what they do,
and everyone’s very passionate about the games that we make.
The expectation that I had that didn’t turn out to be so true
was that everything would be completely nicely organized
and everyone would be fully confident that they knew what they were doing.
Because it’s kind of a very chaotic,
a very free-form and independent place to work.
What would you say makes a Game Designer a great Game Designer?
Curiosity is probably the most important thing.
Just thinking, “I wonder, what if this...”
And then having the determination to follow that thread
and see where it goes.
Because for me, the thing that makes
the type of games we make sustainable for a very long time
is surprising people.
It’s making sure that our players don’t always know what’s coming next
and that when an update lands,
something isn’t just exciting because they’ve been waiting for it.
It’s exciting because they never imagined it.
As a Game Designer working with Clash Royale,
what makes you most excited?
Oh, man.
I feel incredibly lucky to be working on this game because it’s got,
you know, years of strong history behind it.
It has one of the most
easily-playable gameplay of anything I’ve ever worked on.
It’s incredibly fun to just pick up and play.
And, yeah...
The hope that I can help to bring that to even more people
and use that gift that the people in this team who came before me,
have given me is, it’s really exciting.
How would you describe what makes a great team?
What elevates a good team and makes it into a great one?
That’s a good question. For me, it’s respecting each other’s differences.
It’s so important for the team to be able to talk about anything
and feel safe to express any feedback, any thoughts that they have,
even if they disagree.
And we talk about “disagree and commit” a lot here.
I think that a sign of a great team is the trust that you build together
through sharing anything that’s on your mind
and not feeling like you would be judged or punished for it.
Beyond that, working well together and being able to communicate well.
And generally, respect and trust.
If you described the working culture at Supercell and in your team,
how would you describe it?
I would say both at Supercell and on the team
collaborative, thoughtful, empowering...
That’s how I would describe it, that’s been my experience.
Let’s say there’s a new game feature
and that means that you design something new. How do you start?
Where do you begin? Can you talk to us about the process?
Well, of course, we work very intensely with the team, we collaborate a lot.
UI is an area that everybody, like the coders and also Game Designers,
work on and comment on, and come up with concepts sometimes.
So, it’s a collaborative thing.
Also, when we playtest we might get some feedback
and make some adjustments, and those kinds of things.
I start by discussing the feature that we’re trying to make
and then come up with a first draft design
of how the feature would work and what the loop is,
and what the players must understand.
Then, on top of that, we also try to think visually.
How do we want it to look like?
And from there, we then work on the assets.
Maybe we need some art and characters or things like that.
After that, we polish it and add animations and so on.
So, it’s like a process that evolves.
When do you know that you’ve made something successful,
that your decisions were correct? When can you be proud of your work?
When I hear good feedback from the players, that’s always the best.
When players say that something was great, that’s the best.
Then you know you’ve done something right.
That’s the main goal.
What if you get angry feedback?
Then we go back and try to fix it and make it better.
Hey Allu, you all done here? We still have a lot to show everyone.
Okay, man. Just about done. - All right, let’s go.
That wraps up part one of our exclusive tour
of Wood City here in Helsinki, Finland.
We hope you’ve enjoyed what you’ve seen so far,
and we hope you’ll enjoy the Clash Fest festivities yet to come.
Thanks for joining! We’ll see you in part two of this video tour,
where we’re going to sit down with the Clash of Clans team
and show you the rest of Wood City.
See you later. - See you later.