Talking to Amir Satvat, the first ever guest puzzle writer for LinkedIn Games

Welcome to Gametime, a weekly newsletter recapping the past week of games on LinkedIn, what’s new in the puzzles space, and more — brought to you by LinkedIn Games Editor Paolo Pasco . Click 'Subscribe' to join the community and be notified of future editions.

If you played Friday’s games, you might have noticed a strong video-game theming. This is because that day’s puzzles were guest-written by Amir Satvat , a Business Development Director at Tencent Games, and a Top Voice on LinkedIn with a community of over 99,000 members, centered on building networks among game enthusiasts, and providing resources and career coaching for those looking to find jobs in the game industry. I got the chance to talk to him a bit about his work:

Paolo: To start: why games? How did you become interested in them as a career?

Amir: I have loved video games for as long as I can remember having thoughts and memories and being able to read. This started at age 3 with our Atari 2600 and playing Asteroids. It grew throughout my life to more mature titles by companies such as Sierra, LucasArts, Blizzard, and of course, Nintendo. I have always wanted to be part of the video game industry. I believe more than anything else in this world, games have a unique opportunity as interactive media to bring people together and bring joy to their lives.

Paolo: You developed a large community centered around helping people find a place in the games industry. What made you decide to set up this community?

Amir: In November 2022, shortly before Thanksgiving, a number of friends in the industry I knew before the heavy cuts started were experiencing layoffs. I told my wife that this was unacceptable, thinking about how I would feel if I had lost my job and income right before the holidays with my family. I knew that with the skills in data that had underpinned my BD/strategy career, I could hopefully create some useful resources, which I did, starting with a list of games jobs. But I also knew that I could hopefully make a community come together by keeping things simple and focusing on tools that people could use that weren't over-engineered. I studied what others had done and asked myself at each step, if I were in that situation and didn’t have a lot of time, what would be easiest for me to use? That’s where the community started, with a core principle of making it free and with no ulterior motives. While there’s nothing wrong with generating income from services, I believed the community would have greater participation and clearer incentives if it remained free.

Also, I had always wanted to give back to the games community somehow as a thank you for what it had given to my life, and I concluded there was nothing more meaningful in actually saying thank you than helping those who make games maintain not just their livelihoods but their ability to keep making games.??

Paolo: The mission statement for your games community ends with, "Remember, doing good for others is its own reward." Have there been any particularly rewarding instances of people being helped by the community?

Amir: Absolutely. Whenever I go to game events like Gamescom or GamesBeat , I hear so many moving stories, but some that particularly stick out are from people in early-career stages who have been dreaming about games their whole lives and thought they had no chance, or from people in very serious situations, like those with medical debt or who are about to lose their home. When someone from a background like that reaches out and I can support them in finding work, it reminds me that this isn’t just an abstract exercise. This work can really have a direct impact on people’s lives.

Paolo: What did you find helped you most in growing your community?

Amir: For me, it really comes down to keeping things simple and usable, making it clear that the community’s motives weren’t profit-driven. We were dealing with a very vulnerable population, and because everything was free, it encouraged the widest participation. Many people have been willing to help with their time, information, and resources because they see it as a public service, which I believe is our secret weapon.

Paolo: What do you see in the future for the gaming industry? What advice do you have for people trying to find jobs in games?

Amir: In the future, I think we will continue to see a greater concentration of non-remote roles in a small number of key locations. Given the competition for those roles, this means that, first, folks should be as flexible as possible if games are really what they want to do. Second, I didn’t start in games until my late 30s, mostly because location was very important to me, and I wasn’t willing to move. There’s nothing wrong with building skills in another field before transitioning into games. In fact, that can increase your chances of finding a games role by multiples. I also hope that as indie studios have more success — taking up what years ago was only 5% of top titles but now sometimes being a third of critically rated games — we’ll see more jobs in a wider variety of locations.

To find help with our resources, please visit our three homes on my LinkedIn profile , at amirsatvat.com , and at discord.gg/amirsatvat .

Paolo: What inspired the games you wrote for Friday, and what was the game writing experience like?

Amir: I created the games for Friday to celebrate titles that are very special and have had a major impact on my life. The game writing experience was amazing. I really liked working with Paolo and the team — they were so flexible, communicative, and kind. It was just a great experience overall.

?? Pinpoint: The Saturday, September 28 things you can cross puzzle played particularly difficult, with an solve rate of 57.2%, and an average of 4.3 clues needed to solve the puzzle. This means solvers needed the later, easier clues (“Thresholds,” and “The letter ‘t’ when writing”) to get to the answer. The Wednesday, October 2 Spanish words puzzle sparked some discussion, including an interesting point: “Why can’t I put ‘English words’ for all the other Pinpoints and have it count as correct?” A funny point, but the serious reasoning is: in Pinpoints, we’re looking for the most specific possible category shared by the clues. For a puzzle like (“Lens,” “Iris,” “Pupil,” “Retina,” “Cornea”), these are all technically parts of the body, but we wouldn’t count that as correct, since there’s a more specific category (parts of the eye). In the “Spanish words” case, the most specific category is that the clues given are words in Spanish, which is notable for a game based in the English language. If you answered “English words” for the “parts of the eye” puzzle, you’re picking what might be the broadest category possible.

Friday’s puzzle, by Amir, had the category Nintendo games, with the clues “Arms,” “Sky Skipper,” “Pikmin,” “Splatoon,” and “Super Mario.” Brainstorming with Amir on this topic was a lot of fun—see if you can find the category for these clues, as presented by Amir early on in the ideation phase:

1. Ring
2. Scope
3. Robot
4. Gun
5. Nunchuk

(Answer at the end of the newsletter)

Play today’s Pinpoint?

?? Crossclimb: Some solvers noticed synchronicity between the Crossclimb and Pinpoint for Tuesday, October 1. The Crossclimb (ending with a compound term for a device that can do more than just make calls) ended with SMART/PHONE, while the Pinpoint had the category types of smartphones. If you solved both, I’m curious: what order did you solve in? Did solving the first help you with the second?

Friday’s puzzle, by Amir Satvat, was all about video games. There were a lot of comments from people who expressed concern about their abilities to solve the puzzle if they don’t play video games all that much. I’ll let you in on a secret: even though the clues reference specific pieces of knowledge, they’re written so you don’t need the specific knowledge at all to solve the clue. Let’s look at an example from that puzzle: [Protection ___ (piece of hand-worn jewelry sought after by Link, in The Legend of Zelda)], with the answer RING. Here, the operative words are hand-worn jewelry. I couldn’t tell you what item provides Link protection in the Zelda games, but I can tell you what type of jewelry is worn on the hand. This is a common technique in puzzles, requiring you to not be intimidated by a clue that may reference specific details you don’t know. Instead, look for hints within the clue that can help you figure out the answer.

This is a frequent technique in other trivia venues, as well. Take, for example, the recent Jeopardy! clue, “Leading exports from Honduras include these fruits, historically called "green gold" from their color when shipped.” You’re not expected to know the exporting practices of Honduras, but the clue tells you to look for a fruit that is green when shipped (implying that, later on, it stops being green). The most common fruit fitting that description is the correct answer, bananas. Am I saying becoming better at Crossclimb will help you on Jeopardy!? Of course not. Am I saying they’re completely uncorrelated? Well, I wouldn’t go that far either.

Play today’s Crossclimb?

?? Queens: I’ve been hoping for this for a while, and it finally happened: for the Monday, September 30 puzzle, the global average time finally dipped below one minute, with the average solver needing 58 seconds (!!) to solve the grid.

The puzzle, seen here, gave a lot of starting points, since there were three 1x1 sections. I was able to complete the grid in 6 seconds (a record for me), and I enjoyed seeing people commenting about their fast times, and noting the stark contrast between that day’s puzzle and the previous day’s mind-bender:

• Nice and easy start to the week, might just be my quickest ever! No hints. Made up for yesterday which I struggled with for ages! ??
• I think LinkedIn sympathized and gave us an easy one. :D Also this teaches you a lesson in life as well. After a bout of challenging times you will find respite.
• I think they fired the guy who made yesterday's puzzle and today is the new one's first day.. ??

The last one is very funny—not to worry, no one on the games-making team lost their job! It’s still Thomas Snyder behind the curtain, giving out hard and easy puzzles as he sees fit.

Speaking of the previous day’s mind-bender (titled “Excalibur” behind the scenes), let’s see the grid:

The break-in I noticed was an interesting twist on the standard deduction of “3 colors fully contained in 3 rows = X out all squares in those rows outside of those colors.” Here, we almost do the reverse. Looking at the rightmost three columns, we can notice that the blue, brown, and red regions take up the entirety of those three columns. This means we can X out any square in those three regions that’s outside of the rightmost three columns. The easiest way to think about this is to look at a counterexample. In the below diagram, how can you get a Queen in each of the three rightmost columns without having more than one Queen in the same colored region?

So, we can X out the relevant blue and red squares as follows:

This allows us to use a standard deduction: now, notice that the gray, pink, green, and (what’s left of) the blue region are all fully contained within the topmost four rows. This means any square in those rows that’s not in those four colors cannot contain a Queen. This allows us to place more X’s:

Note that there’s only one place for a Queen in the purple region, so we can make progress from there.

Play today’s Queens

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This week’s topic: ?? Carly Taylor Wins Week 1 of LinkedIn Games: Top Voice Duel! ??

We have a winner! Carly Taylor, M.Sc. has claimed victory in the first week of the LinkedIn Games: Top Voice Duel, outscoring Amir Satvat Amir Satvat in ?? Queens and ?? Pinpoint, while Amir dominated ?? Crossclimb.

Now, Carly’s journey continues as she takes on her next opponent—none other than Bill Young , Top Voice and Head of Games at Twitch & BPS! Their duel promises to be just as intense, so stay tuned for the results in next week’s Game Time Newsletter.

The LinkedIn Games: Top Voice Duel will take place over 5 weeks, with 5 rounds, leading to one final champion announced at the end of October.

Think you can keep up with the Top Voices? Play along on LinkedIn games and see how you do.

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[ANSWER to the Pinpoint earlier in the newsletter: The items are all Nintendo peripherals]