March 3, 2015, Game Developer Conference, San Francisco—Anthony Burch from Gearbox Software noted that game developers and designers tend to fixate on the plot and action, whereas players become attached to the characters. The issues for the developers is to find a good balance of plot and storyline consistency with character development. People remember and…
March 3, 2015, Game Developer Conference, San Francisco—A panel described the failings of AI systems in various programs. Dave Mark from Intrinsic Algorithm acted as moderator, with panelists including Brian Schwab from Magic Leap, Steve Rabin form Digipen Institute of Technology, Marty Singer an independent developer, Kevin Dill from Lockheed-Martin, and Rez Graham from Maxis….
October 11, 2014, Audio Engineering Society Convention, Los Angeles—David Collins and Dan Briczynski from Sony Consumer Entertainment America talked abut the sound design and implementation for the game “Hohokum”. The game uses graphics like “Yellow Submarine” and general game play like “Snake” The music is a large part of the game and much of it…
July 23, 2104, Casual Connect Conference, San Francisco—David Evans from Phantom Compass presented a rationale for embedding narrative into games. the narrative increased character identification and improves player retention, and is delivered through the game mechanics. In the past, game developers built cut scenes that had no connection to the game play. This silo strategy…
May 8, 2014, NeuroGaming Conference, San Francisco—A panel moderated by Zack Lynch discussed the newer technologies being applied to gaming platforms. Panelists included Amy Kruse from Intific, Joe Hardy from Lumosity, James Thompson from Evoke, and Reidar Wesenius from BRIIM. Increasing engagement and effectiveness? Hardy offered that games need engagement to unlock the brain plasticity,…
August 1, 2013, Independent Game Developers Association Summit, San Francisco-Evan Skolnick talked about the differences between a writer and narrative designer. This is a relatively new function that mixes the jobs of a game developer and writer. Some of the roles and responsibilities of the narrative designer include: mission flow, cut scene planning, mission voiceover…
August 1, 2013, Independent Game Developers Association Summit, San Francisco-Thomas Bartschi from IO Interactive described learnings, both positive and negative, of the audio design for the Hitman: Absolution game. The insights and explanations for their choices and the closed-loop changes in critical game design that affected audio and the game. The audio production had many…
March 26, 2013, Game Developers Conference, San Francisco—A group of lecturers from industry and academia talked about applications of AI in game development. The speakers were: Luke Dicken (University of Strathclyde), Dino Dini (NHTV University of Applied Sciences, Breda, Netherlands), Brian Schwab (Blizzard Entertainment), Steve Rabin (DigiPen Institute of Technology), Jeff Orkin (Independent), Daniel Brewer…
November 2, 2011, International Game Innovation Conference, Orange, CA–Susan Bonds from 42 Entertainment talked about gameplay, participation, and storylines in her keynote talk. The world of entertainment is changing as seen in alternate reality games. Here, the participants are changing their expectations of boundaries. They are changing consumption patterns and increasing group participation in these…
March 2, 2011 Game Developers’ Conference, San Francisco–One interesting piece of hardware being shown at the show was an EEG (electroencephalograph) interface. I talked with Tansy Brook from NeuroSky about their products, a consumer-level sensor that approaches 96 percent of clinical equipment accuracy and resolution at a small fraction of the cost. The approach NeuroSky…