Building Games That Can Be Understood at a Glance

[@DudeWatIsThis]

>be me >be making my 2nd commercial game >watch this during lunch **>screeching while running back to fix my interface**

[@dvandamme00]

as a game dev, and not a graphic designer, this is a brilliant presentation. hats off for this Jach, excellent work

[@nintendude794]

Who?

[@GastricSparrow]

I love Zach Gage's work, have most of his games on my phone. First time seeing him talk, and it's super informative. What a great dev!

[@midlife.mystic]

Loving this talk. As a UX designer (not a game designer), this talk is reminding me of the importance of considering the "lenses" I use to look at my designs through.

[@Funkopedia]

yeah, typeshift annoyed the heck out of me cause I wanted to find every word.... I wanted to play it MY way. But as soon as I colored all the letters, Zach pushed me to next level as I was yelling wait wait I still see two words! It's tough to reconcile what the designer thinks a game should be and what the player thinks.

[@ThomasGiles]

Awesome talk! Very interesting... I think the 3 reads could work for art pieces in general, too: the silhouette/composition, the colour scheme, the details.

[@_Lucary]

Really useful and interesting concept.

[@peterfiser]

Really good talk, I learned a lot. Thank you Zach.

[@BlackHayateMX]

Absolute genius

[@jordant3512]

Really good talk. Thanks!

[@scottschultz1892]

Absolutely phenomenal talk! And I don't usually leave comments. :D

[@Antelope2000]

Informational is a word. 15:02

[@nintendude794]

“Word is too a word,” I always all ways say. “A single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing” is how their beloved dictionary defines ‘word’-every word is a word.

[@nintendude794]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/gGioXpSljbGNfbs

[@parkerargyle4112]

Love this guy’s work

[@teasysneeze]

Wow. This was exactly the talk I was looking!

[@bazyt1]

great talk - thanks for the upload

[@dnadhruv]

0:20 he says he made ridiculous fishing as well... Isn't that by Vlambeer? Is he a part of part of vlambeer?

[@chiefcaptn1922]

Dhruv Narayan Arora might have just worked on it not sure though

[@Soul-Burn]

According to the wiki page, he programmed the game.

[@Brodysseus113]

A picture is worth 1000 words but what if we made pictures that could be explained in 10 ?

[@carltracy9112]

very good public speaker

[@lookatnow5730]

Reaaly liked this Zach dude, talk was preeety good too

[@suplextrain]

Hm, this is more about visual readability and marketing (UI design). I thought it would touch on how to design games that are easy to learn and not overly complex (as in simple games with a lot of depth). Though maybe that's too much to ask for during a sub 30min talk.

[@gamongames]

It's actually about UX, which influences the learning curve directly. You should watch it again.

[@gracefool]

yup visual readability is incredibly important for game design - it limits you and helps you design better

[@suplextrain]

@gabriela montemor i undertood the content of the video just fine. I just found the title of the video a bit fuzzy, so I went into it expecting one thing but got something different. In other words I wanted something touching more on things like mechanics and systems. While the content of the video will undeniably be useful for some, for me it was useless. That's all.

[@scrub_jay]

@@suplextrain I can't think of any video game mechanic that can't be boiled down to a few words. The thing that makes games overly complex is when multiple mechanics get stacked on top of each other, but even that can generally be overcome by explaining them in a clear and logical way, or by pacing the game so the player doesn't get it all at once. That's the core of this talk -- figuring out the best way to present the critical information. If you find that your info can't be organized clearly, then that's probably a good sign that it's too complex. You're right that the title could be clearer, which is a little ironic considering the content.

[@ChipNova]

Not a so useful presentation... The given examples are mostly tactical games and card games which themselves have a clear graphic representation of what's going on there.

[@DudeWatIsThis]

"Keep trailers short. Show important stuff right away." Me, you, and every human being on the face of the Earth: **skips through 5 random places in the trailer, watching 1 second of each, so your trailer better be good everywhere**

[@mario_actually]

If you liked this talk, check out the Eggplant: the secret live of games. It’s a podcast about game design, that he co-hosts and it’s absolutely fantastic. 🍆

[@grandwtf8018]

If everything was so simple. There is no category of New in the App Store, there is a category Top of new ones. Without marketing, no one will see your game. Because just in App Store new games come out from 1000 to 1500 each day

[@adamharris306]

"What about my big fancy PC game?" (3:39) That game is a Nintendo Switch exclusive, but I guess what you mean

[@beefknuckles]

Naw he's talking about Into The Breach.

[@chiefcaptn1922]

beefknuckles I've been playing games forever and after a couple rewatches i still have no idea what the game Is.. so I feel like he could have done a better example but I get where he's coming from so it's all good i guess

[@arm866]

Don't agree with the criticism of Slay the Spire here. I got into the game after watching a LP on KZbin, and it was immediately obvious and understandable what all the little fiddly bits were, and how they made the game fun.

[@arm866]

Also, he said "informational" is not a real word....

[@kayvanehteshami4888]

informational is in most standard dictionaries like merriam-webster and perscriptivist linguistics is a dated view point that reflects ignorance about how language develops organically. You want to be perscriptivist, might as well speak Middle English

[@paulb4334]

I'm curious what made you watch the game on Twitch. Was it because of his first read of the game? Also I guess a live play is kind of like the Hollywood trailer they mentioned where thw voiceover and mouse movement tells you what is important

[@aster-disaster]

when he said "informational" is not a real word, I think he meant it's not a noun which is how he used it in that sentence, it is an adjective though

[@kayvanehteshami4888]

Austin M. Again everyone except perscriptivists, including authors and English scholars, know a part of speech isn't iron clad and things like verbs and adjectives can be nouns if needed. Language is about expressing an idea, lenient rules help it improve on that naturally. Don't be a perscriptivist/"grammar Nazi"

[@siarheipilat8152]

"And everything feels very natural". Oh yeah? I play Really Bad Chess and I am shocked to hear that there is, in fact, an "Undo" button. I had no idea and found it very weird that they did not make such button. Yes, he hid it into a "fourth read" - great. It looks cleaner. Is it more practical? Well, no. Not at all.

[@Schwallex]

I just installed Really Bad Chess right now. There's literally only three buttons above the board. One of them labeled "Undo". Not an icon, the actual word. And before I even played my first game, the game literally told me, in plain English, "Don't be afraid to undo". With the word "undo" highlighted in blue. I was literally given only two very short sentences of instructions, and one of them was about the Undo button. Now, of course you are free to never read a single word of anything in your entire life. But then don't blame it on Zach.