Panel
Kelly Tran - Co-founder and Game Designer at Evolved Play. Previously, Game Design Professor researching games and players at High Point University. PhD in learning and tech. Solo Twitch - Group Twitch - Website
Ian Schreiber - Senior Game Designer Oxide Games, previously Assistant Professor Rochester Institute of Technology.
Dan Felder - Lead Game Designer Riot Games. Previously Abrakam, Blizzard, EA.
Brandon Dolinski - Level Designer Eidos Montreal. Previously Mass Effect Andromeda and Dragon Age.
Mohamed Abdel Khalik - Co-Founder and Game Director on Tut at Karnak Studios. Consultant on Nightscape at Mezan Studios.
Notes
Pillars are the tenants of the game. Things that hold up the game, they are the stool. without the legs it'll fall.
Lenses to do tie breakers, choose a feature over another, more resources here or there.
No bad mechanic, pillars talk about what the project is about, and plan to do that.
Some say 3 pillars are best, some say 4 or 5.
Avoid Pillars that fall into tasks or technical requirements.
Pillars are adjectives - describe the kind of game this is going to be.
Slow strategic or frantic action - different kind of game experiences.
How is each element of the design influencing the outcomes we want to have?
Pillars should evolve in pre-production but get locked in during production.
Pillars are a tool for guidance so the leadership doesn't need to be in the room.
Pillars are used to resolve disagreements in the game decisions.
Pillars are used to inform early prototypes.
Pillars are used to test hypotheses.
Pre-production is about finding out what the team doing while in production it becomes about how the team is going to achieve that hence pillars need to be locked in.
Sometimes pillars come into conflict.
When they conflict designers need to know which pillars should win.
Absolutely stack rank the design pillars.
Identify core pillars and tertiary pillars similar to primary and secondary stats in RPG games.
Watch GDC - Alex Jaffe - Cursed Problems in Game Design.
Pillars is how designers describe the game.
Different teams approach pillars differently.
Ask “what is useful for me as a designer?”
People feel they have to go through rituals but is it useful? if not then what can we do to make it useful?
Change definition when existing definition doesn't serve us anymore.
It’s fine to create new words and definitions.
If a new designer joined today what would you tell them to loop them in? - Those are the pillars.
Design pillars help guide - helps prevent team from going down dead paths or paths that don't support the vision of the project.
Pillars that help you get actionable feedback - help with evaluation and playtesting - you can ask questions and get answers. Is this prototyping giving me the feeling of my pillars?
Helps with marketing - these are gonna be the unique selling points of the game from the beginning.
Designers get shackled sometimes and feel like they're breaking the rules.
What is the player fantasy and decide on your pillar from there.
Game is about emotion - build a mood board first of emotion and inspiration. what why and how it fits together. is this useful in making decision
A persona is a person that doesn't exist that we assign traits and habits to
Drill down into player experience and stay grounded in that.
Personas - useful in aligning people but limiting that you make assumptions that aren't really true.
Pillars - experience we're trying to deliver
Personas - who are the different players who will engage with this is different ways, different internal motivations
Multiple avenues for multiple player motivations