Monday 5:40pm – “Flower: Design Post Mortem”

Flower is known for it’s simplicity, stemming from an idea to evoke the feeling of breathing nature and the sensation of love giving…. so what took us two years? While evoking the feeling of nature and love have known solutions in traditional passive media, designing an interactive gameplay experience that goes well with, or even amplifies that feeling is almost unheard of.

It took the team 12 different gameplay prototypes and almost an entire year to figure out a viable solution. A countless number of times traditional game design conventions we tried out went against our desired experience. Familiar elements like realism, challenge, clear goal and compulsive loops slowly turned out to be anything but helpful. We learned that innovating on a completely new gaming experience often requires game makers to abandon more than what they are comfortable with. In this talk, Kellee will walk through the team’s design process and playable prototypes that led to the final product.

Tuesday 11:20am – “Desiging Women”

Four female industry veterans discuss game design and the interplay of gender, brand, narrative and genre. The panelists will discuss their own work and writing in the area of game design best practices and debate whether they design for gender inclusivity. What examples of practices and assumptions go into their design processes for addressing issues of audience and gender? How relevant is it to distinguish gender and audience for good game design?

The GDCEurope Website.