Becoming Pablo News

[p]Narcos, we've got some news… 
[/p][p]Today, we revealed a first-look trailer and new art assets for Becoming Pablo. We hope it gets you as enthusiastic about the game as it did for us. Let us know what you think!

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Becoming Pablo strips back the noise of drama and violence to focus on the strategy behind amassing power. The most dangerous moments are not the loud ones, but the quiet decisions that determine whether an empire survives or collapses. This is the undersung expertise of tycoons, drug lords, dons, and kingpins, alike. 
[/p][p]And our experience will go beyond the empire of Pablo. We’ll offer up characters and maps across Colombia, Nigeria, and Korea as you network globally. If you like games with strategy, city-building, and resource management, please give Becoming Pablo a wishlist! You can follow us on X and Reddit and join our Discord. We can’t wait to show you more. 
[/p][p]Like we always say, stay safe out there and always watch your cartel.
[/p][p]-The Becoming Pablo Team[/p]

[p]Hello Narcos, [/p][p]
With our team deep in the dev work, we wanted to bring you a peek into the process of building Becoming Pablo and introduce you to more of our team. Here’s a Q&A with our Game Director, Priyank Singh.[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]
Q: Tell us more about your role and how you got started with Becoming Pablo?[/p][p]A: As the Game Director at Tentworks, my role is to maintain the creative vision and overall direction for Becoming Pablo. When Jay, the founder of Tentworks, approached me with the concept, I was intrigued by the idea of exploring a cartel-themed base-building and grand strategy game set in the 1970s. We started with the core idea that player choices should be impactful and lead to emergent gameplay. [/p][p]
[/p][p]Q: What made the team pursue a strategy and city builder game? What similar games have provided inspiration? [/p][p]A: We found that the grand-strategy and city-building genres were the perfect fit to represent the multi-layered operations of a drug cartel. You need to manage the day-to-day logistics while also dealing with loyalty amongst your own people and rivalries with other cartels. While we are focusing on systemic gameplay akin to classic empire-building games, we’re also injecting a high-stakes, narrative-driven campaign featuring popular characters from the 70s and 80s underworld.[/p][p][/p][p]Q: The drug trade is…complex. What systems are built in the game that give players a sense of all that you have to oversee and balance?[/p][p]A: The complexity is exactly what makes the game challenging and engaging. Players must constantly balance high-stakes decisions and control. Key systems include:[/p]

• [p]Operations Management: Overseeing farming, production, transport, alongside managing heat from law enforcement and maintaining loyalty within their camp
  
  [/p]
• [p]Battles: Building a fleet of narcos to defend their turf from rival cartels while capturing additional market territories on the World Map.[/p]
• [p]Cartel Politics: Where you manage your relationships with other factions and make or break deals based on your reputation.[/p]
• [p]Redesigned Battle System: A redesigned system for combat, which we feel is more in line with the turn-based gameplay in grand-strategy games.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Q: You’ve established a base in Colombia around Pablo himself. What are the other locales your team is developing, and how far along are those in terms of progress?[/p][p]A: Our initial setting is indeed Colombia, but we’re excited to confirm that players can currently choose their base from three distinct maps: Colombia, Korea, or Nigeria. There is an exciting world ahead as we expand beyond Colombia, and we have more to come.[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]
Q: What parts of Becoming Pablo are you most excited for people to experience?[/p][p]A: I’m personally most excited for players to experience that this isn't just about building a drug empire, it's about surviving it. From a development standpoint, I’m thrilled about the redesigned battle system and new commander abilities that players will have at their disposal. An invigorated diplomacy & espionage system that makes managing factions and loyalty more meaningful, and themed events that introduce scenario-specific decisions, faction reactions, and branching narrative moments.[/p][p]
[/p][p]Q: Do you think you’d make a good drug lord? Why or why not?[/p][p]A: While I understand the mechanics of power and control, the constant vigil, violence and high-stakes decision-making required to navigate cartel politics would be a terrifying reality for me to be in. I would prefer to manage the virtual underworld![/p][p][/p][p]Q: Any final thoughts you’d like to share?[/p][p]A: We can’t thank our community enough for the support and excitement for Becoming Pablo. We are working hard toward our launch this year and truly value your feedback. We encourage everyone to join our Discord and participate in our playtests. Our team is always there, and we would love to hear from you about what else you would like to see in the game.

[/p][p]That's all for now, everyone. Thanks for hanging out with us today, Priyank! It was awesome hearing about Becoming Pablo from you. And listen up, folks, if you're into it, throw us a wishlist on Steam, and feel free to hit up the Tentworks crew on our Discord with any questions or if you want to jump in on future updates.[/p][p]
Like we always say, stay safe out there and always watch your cartel.[/p][p]
-The Becoming Pablo Team[/p][p]
[/p]

[p]Seeking Narcos.

A new opportunity has presented itself, if you choose to accept. The Becoming Pablo playtest is seeking “entrepreneurial” leaders for a global enterprise. In the playtest, you will lead a cartel by conquering new territories, managing operations, and outsmarting your rivals.[/p][p][/p][p]Key updates can be found below. We recommend you read them before embarking on your mission.[/p][p][/p][p]What’s new to Becoming Pablo:[/p]

• [p]More Developed Diplomacy & Espionage System - engage more meaningfully with factions while managing heat and loyalty, deal outcomes, risk, relationship changes and consequences. Espionage operations are improved with better flow, logic, animations and spy events.[/p]
• [p]Redesigned Battle System  - a newly implemented turn-based battle system with clear combat flow and decision making, new leader abilities, and reworked unit behaviors.[/p]
• [p]Improved Secondary Camps & HQ Interaction - interactions feel cleaner, stable, and more polished. HQ changes include new interaction UI, gameplay flow, character animations and conversations, autoplay behavior, prop/character positioning and a reimplementation of the Family Tree system.[/p]
• [p]World Map Improvements - the World Map is more readable and responsive. Changes have been made to spy animations and integrations, Garrison UI, Territory info panels, local faction overrides. Updates have been made to commander models and territory/region/continent localization for clearer navigation.[/p]
• [p]Gameplay Logic Updates - From mission logic and objective updates, resource predictions, save/load behavior, you’ll find gameplay to be a more stable and smoother experience.[/p]
• [p]Full Visual Overhaul & UI Improvements - updates to map visuals, panels, overlays, and UI elements. Buildings are more polished screen-space interactions (upgrade icons, tooltips, highlights) have been updated.[/p]
• [p]New Notification System - implemented an improved in-game notification system so you never miss critical updates, mission steps, or resource changes.[/p]
• [p]Themed Events - scenario-specific themed events, decisions that impact gameplay, faction reactions, reputation changes and branching narrative moments are now live.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Are you ready to join us? Just click the “Request Access” button on the Playtest banner of our store page, then join our Discord to meet your associates.[/p][p][/p][p]There is an exciting world ahead as we expand beyond Colombia - into Nigeria, Korea, and more to come. Thank you for being among the first to join us, despite the dangerous nature of Becoming Pablo. With our launch coming up next year, we really value your feedback and what more you want to see in the game.

Please provide all feedback and discussion in the “#feedback” channel of the Becoming Pablo Discord server. We’ll be there to answer any questions and respond to your comments along the way.[/p][p][/p][p]Don’t forget to wishlist the game on Steam. As always, we appreciate your time, undying loyalty, and pursuit of global domination. Remember, this is a game of power and survival. One wrong move and…you’re done. [/p][p]
-The Becoming Pablo Team[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p]

[p]Hey everyone, I’m Priyank Singh - the Game Director at Tentworks Interactive. I am heading the design division which takes care of implementing gameplay, narrative, assets, and campaign missions alongside balancing the game’s myriad systems. I’m excited to shed some light on our design process for Becoming Pablo, a game that blends the hands-on fun of base building with the deep challenge of grand strategy. [/p][p]After honing my skills at Zynga, I now lead a talented team crafting ambitious strategy titles. In this devlog, I’ll take you behind the scenes of Becoming Pablo; breaking down our design experiments, player feedback loops, and the creative chaos that brought it to life.[/p][h2]Discovering the Opportunity[/h2][p]Like many other game developers, our journey kicked off with love for the genre paired with some market research. We noticed two things: first, there’s an appetite for new ideas in the grand strategy genre; and second, many strategy game players are scared off by the notorious complexity of grand strategy games. GMTK have discussed this in one of their excellent videos - Can we Improve Tutorials for Complex Games?.[/p][p]That’s when we formed our initial hypothesis. We realized that base building is natural to most players - they love the immediate rewards and straightforward mechanics. So we thought, what if we could use that as an entry point? In Becoming, we decided to start players off with simple base building, then gradually introduce the advanced systems of territory control, diplomacy, and espionage.[/p][p][/p][h2]Base Building Meets Grand Strategy[/h2][p]At its heart, Becoming Pablo is about progression. Here's how it works:[/p]

• [p]Starting Small: You begin with a small camp where your main tasks are expanding and managing your base, producing drugs, and arranging means for export to make money. The simplicity provides quick wins and a natural introduction.[/p]
• [p]Growth and Expansion: As you earn cash, you invest in recruiting gang members and upgrade your operations. The focus is to expand your market without overwhelming you with too many choices early on.[/p]
• [p]The Transition to Strategy: Once you’ve gotten comfortable, more complex mechanics are introduced. Initially you’ll tackle territory capture, then gradually diplomacy and espionage are introduced to deepen the gameplay challenge.[/p]

[p]This “easy to learn, hard to master” approach is at the heart of our design philosophy. We want you to feel that rush of satisfaction early on, then be challenged as the game progresses.[/p][h2]Learning from Playtesting[/h2][p]Feedback from our playtest sessions was invaluable in shaping the game. We experimented, listened, and pivoted based on what we observed. Here’s a key anecdote that shows how player feedback has shaped our journey so far.[/p][h3]Mission Design: What Didn’t Work[/h3][p]In our initial playtests, we decided to put players straight into the deep end by assigning them missions that require interacting with grand strategy elements. Without any tutorial! Unsurprisingly, many players found themselves out of their depths. Here’s what we heard:[/p]

• [p]Players had difficulty completing the objectives even though they understood what the mission asked them to do.[/p]
• [p]Some players felt overwhelmed by the number of choices, which made it hard for them to progress or know how to play optimally.[/p]
• [p]Specific mechanics, like diplomacy and espionage, didn’t register with those who are not regular grand strategy players.[/p]

[p]Seeing these struggles confirmed our suspicion: if we want to bring more people into this genre, we have to give them a softer introduction.[/p][h3]Pivoting with Base Building[/h3][p]Based on the feedback, we revised our approach. We reconfigured the first three missions to focus solely on base building tasks. For a period of time, players didn’t have to deal with the complexities of grand strategy - they simply built their base camp, produced drugs, and managed resources in a straightforward manner.[/p][p]The results were staggering:[/p]

• [p]Hardly any players reported having difficulties with completing their assigned objectives. In fact, only 13% (total n=38) of players mentioned any difficulties.[/p]
• [p]A significantly higher number of players, ~76% increase, mentioned that they were able to progress optimally.[/p]
• [p]A significantly higher number of players, ~64% increase, tried to interact with advanced strategy mechanics.[/p]

[p]We always believed that a gradual ramp-up was the key. So it was incredibly encouraging to see that our approach, mixing accessible base building with advanced strategy, was actually working.[/p][p][/p][h2]Gameplay Modes[/h2][p]Becoming offers two distinct gameplay modes:[/p]

• [p]Campaign Mode: Immerse yourself in the role of a cartel’s leader. Follow a curated storyline through a series of missions that not only guide you through the game's mechanics but also immerse you in a dramatic narrative filled with highs and lows.[/p]
• [p]Sandbox Mode: If you prefer to dive right into the action, this mode lets you pick a starting faction and jump into the game’s systems directly. Your only goal here is clear: become the ultimate drug lord by outsmarting and outmanoeuvring rival factions. It’s open-ended and perfect for those who like to experiment with strategies at their own pace.[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]We have three campaigns planned out so far. Apart from Colombia with Pablo’s story, we also have campaigns with characters like Umar, who leads in Nigeria, and Han Won-ho from Korea. Each character will bring their own unique flavour to the experience, making the Becoming series a global saga of power and strategy.[/p][h2]Wrapping Up[/h2][p]Becoming isn’t just another game for us - it’s a journey! We’re inviting players to enter the world of grand strategy through a familiar base-building experience, gradually unlocking deeper, more complex systems that challenge your wits. Every step, from design to playtesting, has been about refining this delicate balance.[/p][p]Hopefully, this has been an insightful look at our approach to designing this game. Our next few design devlogs will tackle specific gameplay systems:[/p]

• [p]A look at our base building mechanics and how we adopt them in the game.[/p]
• [p]Insights into the diplomacy and espionage systems that enrich our grand strategy gameplay.[/p]
• [p]Behind-the-scenes stories on blending dynamic narratives in our campaigns.[/p]

[p]I really appreciate you joining me on this first dive into the design of Becoming Pablo. Your feedback is vital to our process, so please join our Discord community, share your thoughts and if you haven’t already, wishlist us on Steam. [/p][p]Thanks for reading, and I look forward to sharing more soon.[/p][p]
[/p]

[h2]So… guess it’s my time for confessing, huh?[/h2]
Name’s Rado. I am the art director of Becoming Pablo and a living relic of game dev in the team (by all means, feel free to throw sweets and booze onto this one). I am a foreign addition from Poland, domesticated by the Tentworks team.

[h2]How It All Started[/h2]
The very first game I worked on was more like a “hey, it’s vacation time, we have $200 and pocket money from our parents, let’s make a game and get rich” amateur project by some me and some US students, back in 1996. At the time I was too dumb to know better than to not engage in adventures like that. On the other hand - if it’s true that we learn from our mistakes - recounting the number of ones I did during the last 30 years I’d like to think I’m quite ‘learned’.

I began my game dev road in quite an unusual place - as a historian of art, working with 3D techniques of computer reconstructions of objects of art. Sadly or luckily, I tend to look at it with mixed feelings, as salaries for university lecturers in Poland in the late 90’s were ridiculously low. So I looked long and hard at what was on the table and decided to utilize my rather exotic (back in the day), set of skills, in another field.


[h2]Leading a Team[/h2]
Since then, I went through being a 3D Architectural Viz Artist, Vehicle Modeler, Tech Artist, Art Lead and finally, around 8 years ago, an Art Director. With those experiences in my backpocket, I now firmly believe that there are two types of ‘generals’ or two major approaches to leading a team.

There are ones that just give pointers and directions. They do not really ‘DO’ anything with their bare hands or dig trenches, instead, they tell others about their vision and use their team as a tool for fulfilling their own vision. That’s one type. Sometimes it is super successful, other times super toxic, with an omnipotent figure looming somewhere high over the heads of sweaty laborers. From what I’ve encountered, approaches like these are more common in big studios - those who can afford a guy whose sole job is pointing fingers.

Another type are ones that try to lead by example. Getting their hands dirty (and boy, believe me, once you have to dig in, it ain’t smelling like roses) and actually sitting in the mud with their team. Now, for good or bad, I like working with game art too much to just restrict myself to walking around and giving directions. I prefer jumping into the fray with my team.

[h2]The Challenges of Game Development[/h2]
[h3]Challenges? Oh sure…[/h3]
I mean: just imagine that you have to create a diorama. A huge one. Containing 10,000 parts. You do not know what it will consist of or how it will look, you just have a very vague idea of how it will function. You have a team of various artists you do not know. You do not really know who is good at what, who needs a kiss or a kick in the butt in order to be effective. Nobody will tell you what kind of resources are needed and what timelines are - nothing.

Now, add the fact that this diorama has movable parts, the vision changes along the way, there are delays caused by sicknesses, national holidays, sick dogs and all sorts of random shit can happen. The workers may even hate doing the same thing 10 times in a row (yet some things have to be done 20 times until they get it actually right)… and that’s just the beginning.

So yeah, it is not just “I will walk outside, look at the moon and muse and somehow that will send me the vision”. NOPE - nothing like that, actually.


[h2]So… why do I even bother?[/h2]

Because after going through all the elbow grease, sweat and blood, when you start to finally see the project taking shape and your team, the people you work with on a daily basis being proud of their time spent on the project, it feels pretty much like: this.

To me, the whole process resembles cooking. Some things spill here and there, you have to taste, then add some more of this and that, then taste. So the first challenge: find common ground when it comes to software. As you might know, there are plenty of ways of skinning the cat and even more tools to do so (and I mean 3D packages, not knives of course). Each and every artist has his/her favorite tools and it is a bit like with languages: yeah, you can learn new ones, but if you have a choice, you’d rather use the one you're used to. 

After that step we gotta learn communication and that’s actually the single most important thing in any team. What do I mean when I say “make it more stylized”? What does “warmer palette” mean? What do I mean when I am saying that something needs to be closer to OUR style? It might sound absurd and at the very first glance- obvious, but it is absolutely fundamental. Only then can one actually start working. But then again, it is an entire minefield ahead; how many models do we need? How many polygons may artists use for it to make it look good and at the same time not kill the user’s gaming device? What should be the size of the texture? How many textures can we load at the same time? How to manage loading and unloading of assets in real time… and so on and so forth (as you can see we still have not even started with the ‘artistic’ side of things).


To me, the whole process resembles cooking. Some things spill here and there, you have to taste, then add some more of this and that, then taste again, sometimes throw stuff away or change your plan. This may mean to not do it ‘by the book’, by adding precisely and religiously counted three grains of pepper and one pinch of salt. It does not work that way. So, we are cooking all the time and I really hope you will like the final results.