We Make Holes In Teeth

GDC 2008: The "Do, Don't Show" uh, show

So I was pointlessly holding off on posting about this since the actual date hadn't been attached. It still remains dateless - possibly contemplating returning its rented tux and staying home to watch the Mr. Bean marathon - but for what it's worth, here is the announcement for my talk at GDC next year.

I was briefly gratified to have the talk included among the two or three design track highlights, but I'm not willing to engage to too much self-deception: A number of us from the FC2 team originally proposed a panel-style talk, and since that number included Clint and Susan, the proposal had ridiculously high profile up until the moment that the event organizers decided not to do panel talks in general. We were asked to turn it into a solo lecture. Because of the topic, I got to ride the trapeze into the spotlight this time.

On the title: Within about a week of the session announcements going up on the GDC site, I got an email from Noah Falstein. Noah was writing to taunt me with the fact that he had already coined the phrase "do, don't tell" in his regular column for Game Developer magazine (January 2007 issue, I believe). If his work on the 400 Project is any indication, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that he's been sitting around for literally years, systematically ludofying core principles from other media into pithy maxims, his printer churning out trademark applications a few feet away. I'm on to you, Falstein.

At some point, I promise to talk about the actual content of the talk.

Flow and Engagement: Too Human

One of my FarCry2 colleagues, Simon Charbonneau, directed me to this video produced by Silicon Knights to promote some of the game design philosophy behind Too Human. I'm not very familiar with the game -- sadly, more aware of the recent Unpleasantness between Denis Dyack and Epic -- other than its central hook of the Norse Gods as cybernetically enhanced humans. But it is interesting to see how much of this video is given over to tweedy academics talking about psychological models for gamer satisfaction. They get into Flow in very broad terms, and discuss something Dyack calls engagement theory as a rough formalization of elements that need to be present in order for Too Human to achieve its experiential goals.

On a completely superficial note: For a dev diary -type piece, I find it a little odd and over-stylized; heavily derivative of Errol Morris' documentaries down to the Philip Glass -inspired minimalist score. But you know what? Steal from the best, man.