Experimental Game Dev Interviews — The First Game Dev Podcast Ever
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  • Podcast Interview: Josh from the MIT Gambit Game Lab…

    Posted on April 3rd, 2008 IndieGamePod No comments

    Another quick interview from GDC 2008…

    Josh, a student at the MIT Gambit Game Lab…talks about creating experimental games.

    Specifically, he talks about developing a Facebook game…

    You can download the podcast here…
    http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/mit-lab-podcast.mp3

    or listen to it here…
    http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/mit-lab-podcast.mp3

    Show Notes:
    0:00 – 5:00
    Josh from Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab
    An experimental gameplay lab
    Focuses on interesting games that couldn’t exist in the market yet
    Created a Facebook game
    Has a resource management game
    Having an ant colony and resource management
    Did a paper prototyping

    Design Process principles is…
    “Fail Early, Fail Often”

    Started with paper prototyping early on.

    Wrestled with whether should have public or private information.

    Tested people in the lab, classmates, etc.

    Do a search for “Eat Wars”

    5:00 – 10:00
    Issues with designing for Facebook…
    There are people with varying levels of commitment
    Have to design for people and their friends

    Need to design for multiple play styles

    Have room now for players that are more aggressive and cooperative

    Looking for ways for players to be more social

    Get more points for convincing players to bring friends in

    Accomodating people’s natural habits on Facebook

    In the future…
    May work on other game platforms
    Looking into Flickr Games
    Opportunities for different types of games is very exciting

    Sychronous vs. Asychronous gaming…
    Need to have a balance between letting folks advance and letting people grief their friends at 3 AM in the morning

    Systems where you can plan ahead and moves at one time and it acts that way later on in the game

    10:00 – 11:30
    Favorite Game on Facebook…
    Scrabulous
    Parking Wars

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