Game/music reporter extraordinaire Jeriaska posted a video of my Independent Game Summit talk on IndieGames.com. This is the first time any of my talks have slipped from the grip of the GDC lawyers to reach the public. 
This talk relates to Marian in a couple ways: First there are a couple examples that reference experiences developing Marian, and secondly the entire development process of Marian is inspired by ideas of “storytelling” and holistic design.
This talk is actually a slimmed down version of one I gave back in September at Austin GDC. Originally this version was going to be just as long, but whoever organizes things over in GDC land ended up turning my slot into a 3-way talk with Adam Saltsman and Andy Schatz. Originally going to be an hour, it was cut to half an hour, then we were told it was going to be bumped up to 45 minutes at the last minute… When we finally delivered the talk, expecting it to be a 45 minute slot, we only ended up with about 35 minutes – unfortunately losing the end of our talk.
We were each going to wrap up our respective sections with a final message, and I think it’s a shame that we didn’t get the opportunity to do so… I’d like to post a rough paraphrasing of my coda here:
“Games are a vast, unexplored space – and this means not a single one of us knows all the right answers on design.
Find your own voice, explore your own creative process.
If it happens to be completely different than mine or Adam’s or Andy’s… or anyone else’s – that’s awesome. Experiencing vivid and diverse points of view is a beautiful thing.
I look forward to seeing what you all come up with!”
I’m really grateful to be in a position where I have the freedom to work on the projects that I want to – using the methods that I find most valuable. I also can’t wait til all you folks get to play the results! (hint: it’ll be quite a while yet)
Infinite Ammo » Blog Archive » Marian Mondays: Sunshine and Giggles wrote a Pingback on April 12, 2010 at 9:03 pm
[...] Previously… [...]
Infinite Ammo » Blog Archive » Mega-Rant: Do Games Have Souls? wrote a Pingback on April 17, 2010 at 3:38 pm
[...] perception is what gives art its meaning. Much like my thoughts on holistic game design, humans don’t perceive other humans as a “pile of components”. We also generally [...]
Spencer Evans wrote a Comment on April 19, 2010 at 3:47 am
I’m an aspiring game designer / developer and COMPLETELY (agree) believe the philosophy of holistic design. However, it is interesting to me that decomposing any given game into parts is necessary during development. Also, the idea that decomposing a game into its parts allows it to become easily identifiable and maybe more to be learned from it.
I also (agree) believe that GAMES ARE just another ART medium to express some thought, idea, emotion, or message. Albeit, games may be the most complex art medium.