Thank you all for attending. Here are the unstructured notes for those who couldn’t make it. I’ve bolded the key points.
Panel
Paul Stephanouk - Design Director of Candy Crush. Previously EA, Zynga, Bossfight, Schell Games, Big Huge Games. 20 years experience building and running creative teams.
Kelly Tran - Game Design Professor researching games and players. PhD in learning and tech. Personal Twitch - Group Twitch - Website
Jon Radoff - CEO Beamable. Previously Disruptor Beam. Entrepreneur, game designer, metaverse builder. Founder of Game Industry Club on Clubhouse.
Xelnath - Game Designer World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Snackpass Tochi. Founder Game Design Skill.
Kristina Drzaic - Narrative Director and Game Designer. Previously Halo, Bioshock, Bioshock Infinite, Galak-Z, Twitch, Amazon Game Studios.
Dave Neale - Designer of several Sherlock Holmes boardgames and 5 Minute Chase from Board & Dice. PhD Researcher and consultant in the psychology of play.
Philip Martin - Senior Cinematic Editor and Storyteller at 2K Czech. Worked on A Way Out and It Takes Two.
Mohamed Abdel Khalik - Co-Founder Karnak Studios, Creators of The Daily Tut webcomic and Game Director on Tut Trials, an upcoming high action 3D platformer. Currently fundraising.
Notes
When people play coop they usually play one pro and one noob usually creating a skill gap in the experience that designers have to account for.
Narrative as driver means players need to be in same place in gameplay at all times. This creates frustration by having artificial barriers.
There are co-op first games and then there are games with co-op tacked on.
Co-op first games means that designers need to make a really Good AI or just give another copy for free to make people be able to jump in quick.
Rubberbanding exists to keep the flow going if a player lags behind.
Designers need to make players dependent one another in order to create bonds between the players as they progress through challenges.
Games designed from ground up with co-op are good for playing online where as single player games with coop added ontop is not fun for online play.
Asymmetry in skill is different from asymmetry in engagement.
Super Mario Galaxy is good because it gives more down-market gamers to enjoy the experience without interrupting the core player’s engagement thus allowing both players to have fun.
Narrative driven games need cutscenes to align players towards the goal.
Rubberbanding in It Takes Two is different as no two players ever have the same abilities allowing for unique experiences.
Diablo III had strong AI that takes over if a player doesn’t play for a while so there is no interruption to the flow.
In Mario games, the AFK player turns into a bubble and floats closer to the ahead player so as not to interrupt gameplay.
Another technique is to block players through the use of a puzzle before reaching a specific distance as a technique to bring them in closer together creating a manual form of rubberbanding.
Split screen elegantly solves camera angles.
Letting a gap develop in split screen mode can ultimately lead to two different gameplay experiences between the players.
in Pokémon Let’s Go, players can jump in and out. The panel are wondering what ways designers can implement this system without limiting gameplay capabilities of the second player.
The panel questions how to balance variance in co-op with player agency and how much freedom the player should have to diverge from critical path.
Examples such as Gloomhaven in the tabletop space are able to achieve this through a large amount of modularity.
Divinity’s Rock Paper Scissors system entice players to change gameplay style to spec in charm which creates fun narrative moments with good writing. This increases player agency.
Encourage meta gaming is important. It Takes Two blocks until the players agree on how to proceed and leaves that negotiation up to them in the real world.
Back and forth dynamic system makes for a fun experience such as purposely attacking a team member in Divinity or jumping over your friend in NSMB Wii.