IGDA San Francisco Event: Jonathan Blow, Chris Hecker, Dolby, May 8th

Q&A session with Jonathan Blow and Chris Hecker and moderated by Alex Wilmer at Dolby Labs on Wednesday, May 8th.
Jonathan Blow Bio:
Jonathan Blow is a game designer/programmer who lives in San Francisco. He is also a partner in Indie Fund.
the-witness.net/
Chris Hecker Bio:
Chris focuses on solving hard problems at the intersection of gameplay, aesthetics, and technology. He is an outspoken advocate for pushing the current boundaries of design and interactivity, in the hope that games will eventually reach their full potential as a medium. To this end he helped organize the Indie Game Jam, the Experimental Gameplay Workshop, and the Depth Jam, and his recent work on Spore centered on using proceduralism and artificial intelligence to enhance player creativity and agency. Chris has been on the advisory board for the Game Developers Conference for many years and is a regular speaker at the GDC, Siggraph, and other conferences. A frequent contributor to Game Developer magazine, Chris was the technical columnist for the magazine for two years and the Editor-at-Large for three, and was on the editorial board of the computer graphics research publication, The Journal of Graphics Tools. He has worked at both ends of the development spectrum, as a one-man indie game developer with his company definition six, inc. and on a hundred-person team at Maxis/Electronic Arts. His professional goal is to help games become the preeminent art and entertainment form of the 21st century. His current project is SpyParty, an indie game about subtle human behavior and deception.
chrishecker.com/Homepage

[@user-tt4dy1ti5v]

00:04 Introduction 01:50 What attracted you to game development in the first place? 02:30 (1977) Atari 2600 game console 03:22 (1981) _Scramble_ arcade game 03:40 (1982) Commodore 64 home computer [C64] 04:12 (1982) BASIC programming on the C64 04:15 (1984) SuperBASIC 04:19 (1981) _Tempest_ arcade game 05:12 (1982) Assembly language on the C64 05:34 Parsons School of Design in New York City 06:08 (2012) Occulus Rift virtual reality headset 07:10 "Programming a computer is just a beautiful, amazing experience." -- Chris 07:15 Can you give a status report on your upcoming games, _The_ _Witness_ and _SpyParty_ ? 09:40 [Jon demos _The_ _Witness_ on an iPad using iOS.] 13:03 [Chris mentions that _SpyParty_ is currently in closed beta.] 15:09 [Chris' analogies for handling a closed beta (club invite) versus an open beta (opening a restaurant).] 16:23 Zynga game studio 16:28 John Cimino, game artist and animator 17:45 Are we still in the golden age of indie games (in 2013)? 24:08 [Snack break] 25:13 Jamie Cheng, designer at Klei Entertainment 26:15 What are you feelings about some platform holders becoming more open to indie games? 27:50 Gabe Newell, president & co-founder of Valve 28:39 Steam Greenlight by Valve -- superseded in June 2017 by Steam Direct 30:00 "...it is a great time to be an indie game developer, if you can do it where you have the control..." -- Chris 30:20 What does Chris Hecker's wordless "Fair Use" rant at GDC 2013 mean? 37:49 [Chris and Jon on play-testing.] 40:25 [Chris on Clint Hocking's GDC 2008 talk.] 41:05 How important is it for you as game designers to convey the intended meaning to players? 44:22 (1973) _Gravity's_ _Rainbow_ novel by Thomas Pynchon 46:37 (1988) _Ulysses_ _Annotated_ book by Don Gifford & Robert J. Seidman 46:37 (1922) _Ulysses_ novel by James Joyce 47:42 (1971) "Aqualung" song by Jethro Tull 47:57 (2004) _Gilead_ novel by Marilynne Robinson 49:09 (2013) _Upstream_ _Color_ film, directed by Shane Carruth 49:20 (2004) _Primer_ film, directed by Shane Carruth 50:15 (2012) _Thirty_ _Flights_ _of_ _Loving_ 1st-person adventure indie game by Blendo Games 50:19 (2016) _Quadrilateral_ _Cowboy_ 1st-person puzzle indie game, designed by Brendon Chung 51:25 (1968) _2001:_ _A_ _Space_ _Odyssey_ film, directed by Stanley Kubrick 51:57 (2001) _Mulholland_ _Drive_ film, written & directed by David Lynch 52:02 (1942) _Casablanca_ film, directed by Michael Curtiz 52:40 Do you think about the emotions and narratives you want to convey when designing your games? 58:30 [Chris on Maxis' philosophy that the game is not fun until it's tuned at the very end of development.] 1:00:30 (2013) _Incredipede_ puzzle-platform indie game, designed by Colin Northway 1:01:05 (2012) _Faster_ _Than_ _Light_ real-time strategy indie game by Subset Games Audience Q&A 1:01:45 Jon, can you compare & contrast your design experience with _Braid_ versus _The_ _Witness_ ? 1:14:58 What are some of your favorite games? 1:15:06 (2013) _Starseed_ _Pilgrim_ puzzle-platform indie game by droqen 1:18:09 "Game design has advanced as a discipline, and that's a good thing." -- Chris Hecker 1:18:15 How do you manage all of the design elements during development without losing sight of the game's core ideas? 1:21:20 Why are game developers not seemingly interested in building games that involve interactions between normal people? 1:24:50 Do you play any non-digital games? And if so, how do they affect your thoughts on video games? 1:31:15 Have you ever started work on an great idea for video game but later realize that a video game is an unsuitable medium for this idea? 1:41:20 Wrap up

[@RagingLion]

"Starseed Pilgrim" That was really great - a good variety of topics that was interesting even if you've heard these guys speak before. I've heard Jonathan Blow talk previously about him creating games to describe things that can't be 'vocalised' clearly other than through playing, but I got a lot more from that thought this time round. It made me want to dig more into stuff drom various media where you never understand everything and uncover new depth each time.

[@MsBickle76]

Thank you so much for sharing!

[@YourPlanetHere]

I've paper prototyped key concepts or design philosophies but there's only so far that will take you. Luckily I'm doing an RPG so I can go to the tabletop to work out other stuff as well but the prototype has been so vital in working out what's ready and working.

[@Mike.Garcia]

Cool bunch of guys!

[@Kingnobody8]

Hey, Jon. I got a lot of respect for you and I loved your talk. I did come off of it with a question though. How do you communicate to the other members of your team what your game is without being able to play the game? The game is being built so there is no 'moon' to point at.

[@PirateZ1]

Bad quality is unfortunate but nonetheless, THANK THEE!

[@sergrojGrayFace]

What's the name of the game at 1:15:00?

[@ekoms108]

It's a boardgame called Go. Just google Go boardgame and you'll find it.

[@MsBickle76]

You should've seen him when he was a younger man. He's still quite the handsome man!

[@YearwigY]

I'm pretty sure this the video they're talking about at 32:00 /watch?v=kXnoW2SvQrQ

[@CaesarsSalad]

You don't paper prototype the whole game, you prototype aspects of the game. If you're just trying to figure out how the shapes in tetris come together and how hard it is(mathematically, that it without timepressure) to close a whole in your structure, then paper prototyping is the way to go.

[@CCuiu]

i did not know jonathan had hair :D

[@sergrojGrayFace]

At 30:30 Jonathan and Chris demonstrate lack of ability they speak about at 37:20. That is, the last clip in Fair Use rant doesn't make any sense for anyone who hasn't watched that particular conference and thus doesn't know it's about some damn game. The name of the rant makes no sense at all either.