Thank you all for attending. Here are the unstructured notes for those who couldn’t make it. I’ve bolded the key points. This is a conversation about AI quality and not AI ethics
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 - Cofounder at Nucleus. Former Game Design Professor researching games and players. PhD in learning and tech. Personal Twitch - Group Twitch - Website
Dan Cook - Chief Creative Officer at Spry Fox. Writer lostgarden.com. Thoughtful essays on game design theory, art and the business of design.
Xelnath - Game Designer World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Snackpass Tochi. Founder Game Design Skill.
Mike Sellers - Professor of Practice at Indiana University. Previously, Lead Designer, Creative Director, and General Manager in AAA game companies, producing MMO, social, and mobile games.
Dan Felder - Senior Game Designer EA. Previously, Faeria and Hearthstone.
Ian Schreiber - Senior Game Designer Oxide Games, previously Assistant Professor Rochester Institute of Technology.
Jonah Grimm - Founder and CEO Grimm Tales, Game Designer and developer Star in The Hollow.
Emma Joy Reay - Lecturer in Game Studies and PhD researcher looking at child-characters in videogames.
Dave Neale - Designer of several Sherlock Holmes boardgames and 5 Minute Chase from Board & Dice. PhD Researcher and consultant in the psychology of play.
Jonah Grimm - Founder and CEO Grimm Tales, Game Designer and developer Star in The Hollow.
Mohamed Abdel Khalik - Co-Founder Karnak Studios, Game Director on Tut Trials, an upcoming high action 3D platformer.
Notes
Project based curriculums are important.
Similar to painting, I could lecture you about line and color theory and composition but you need to actually paint.
Eventually students will improve. Creative fields need to blend theory and practice.
theory and practice intermingle. Students make more projects and start working as teams.
There is such a thing as formal training vs. learning from doing.
you have learn to do better. Perfect practice makes perfect.
Motivation - having scaffolding and framing is important, meaning just like in the real world, students need to adhere to certain frameworks.
Students who are passionate about gaming tend to want to remake a game they're passionate about.
Students begin unlearning passions and broadening horizons.
People can learn on their own these days due to an abundance of resources.
but it is hard to make consistent progress in your bedroom by yourself with no feedback. Feedback is crucial.
Students should work on one project from concept to launch on Steam.
Last six months are important as that’s when they feel they’re done and they realize how hard it is to actually ship a game. They learn what it means to be a professional after the work is no longer fun and don't want to work on the game anymore but need to get it out the door.
Some teams continue after they graduate, others part ways.
I walk through doors everyday but doesn't mean I'll be a good architect.
Designers need to be inclusive to get new ideas and we as an industry need to encourage females to step into those roles.
Professors will cancel projects as they're developed if the team isn't jelling or not making progress.
The class learns to go to a new team or accept new members to their team.
Iteration with constant feedback. Designers need to playtest and feedback so that they can iterate with a purpose.
Designers create a chemical reaction, they design a human experience.
Designers need to learn principles of motivation, value assessment, decision making.
An example is for a designer to learn the psychology of tension, understand theory and change monopoly towards that goal then test it.
"production with intention and reflection." All three are really important.
Students need to learn systems thinking and a bit of talent for psychology.
Students need to explore the world to gain exposure to ideas they wouldn't normally be exposed to.
Students need to constantly question what is an interesting system or thing in the world that they can spin a game out of.
The world is full of systems that can be made into games.
The art and craft - the slog is where the art ends and the craft begins.
unless you're self funding or a trust fund - you have to think about the funding in some way.
Game making is not like calculus where the professor covers the same material and essentially the student can take the class with any professor where the material is cemented and well known and not changing year to year.
When people ask how did you get into games? my story isn't relevant anymore.
Game design is a lot more dependent on who is teaching it. Can they give me actionable feedback that would save me time on my path?
We are in the early stage and still figuring out how this works and we can talk about it.
A good game designer doesn't necessarily mean a good teacher.
You can read all the books about baking but you have to feel the dough between your hands.
Designers haven't been doing it as long and the velocity of change is very high.
Designers spend so much time arguing over definitions.
Everyone has a process, some designers just haven’t figured their out yet.
There is a lot of common ground in how we design games.
It’s important to teach rapid amounts of self awareness and critical thinking skills.
Clarity map to human experience.
1) Internalize it to create motivation.
2) Act on agency.
3) Satisfied with the conclusion intellectually, emotionally or physically.
4) Fit within the content and experience of what you're creating. - Xelnath
Invert the state of things and how would you make that true - if healing is the issue what can you do with damage to fix it?
Making cars feel faster? What about making the game slower and making it more methodological to give a stronger feeling of speed.
What makes for a great exciting experience? Structure of fun. Alternating escalating positives and negatives. Good moment countered by tense or dangerous moment that's bigger than what the player experienced previously and culminates into a strong positive or an epic negative. In LoL players build themselves up for bigger and epic battles over time. It becomes boring when it’s positive all the time and frustrating when it’s negative all the time. Hearthstone does this too by starting at 1 mana all the way up to 10 mana. In Dark Souls the player is challenged in hard battles but then engages in confidence building battles to culminate in an epic boss fight. - Dan F
The brain works in contrasts.
The more constraints the designer has the more benefit they will have creatively.
Design is less abstract and more practical.
Students must ensure that the game meets their design goals.