The TFT team grew a lot in 2023, to the point where now I think you could call us a big team.

When I worked at Nintendo, the division I worked at (NST) was around 40-50 people at any given point, and we were working on one to three games at a time. The first MvDK title I shipped was a core team of like 15 people. It was pretty easy to know everything going on, what was being worked on, and who to talk to.

The first few years of TFT were similar. The design team was like 10 people, the total team was like 50-70, and it was pretty easy to know everything being worked on as well. Especially in my position, I would often at least be briefed slightly, so there were no surprises.

Well, like I said, we’re a big team now. A full organizational structure with initiatives and team leads and an executive producer and everything. I sit near the top of the Gameplay Initiative for Design, but our other initiatives I don’t always have full insight into, cause they’re doing their own cool stuff. It’s definitely a shift, and the first time in my career I don’t know everything going on on a project. But I trust the people leading and working on the other areas.

All of this to say, that to even my surprise, we’re shipping an awesome new feature in 14.2: The randomize cosmetic button! Press it, and it will randomly pick a Tactician, Arena Skin, and Boom! Pretty sick! We played with it on PBE, and it gave a chance for some lesser used cosmetics to get the spotlight. It was a pleasant surprise even to me!

It’s…kind of fun to be surprised I have to say. I really wasn’t sure this feature would ever come despite how often it gets requested. So for it to just show up one day ready to go was awesome. So to everyone on the dev team who I don’t always get to interact with who made this possible, thank you so much!! It’s a delight.

Expect my streams to be a bit more random in the future. Until next time, take it easy 🙂