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11:00am
Kevin Johnson Double Fine ProductionsJames Spafford Double Fine Productions11:00am - 11:45amRoom 1Embracing Mental Health and Accessibility for Psychonauts 2
Tuesday 9th July11:00am - 11:45amRoom 1Despite being a light hearted adventure, Psychonauts 2 features sensitive themes such as addiction, trauma, and anxiety, which put Mental Health at the forefront of our minds throughout development. This lead us consider our player’s well being like we never had before. and over time, changed our own awareness and attitudes in ways that would have lasting effects not just on the game, but on the fabric of our studio too.
Once we realised that designing with these considerations was essentially another form of accessibility, we found ourselves chasing a goal of trying to make our game accessible as possible to as many people as possible, in every sense of the word.
The result is not perfect by any means, but Psychonauts 2 is the most accessible game in Double Fine’s history, and the process has had lasting effects on our studio’s approach to other connected elements, and will affect all our games from now onwards.
In this session we will explore our journey, the steps we took to create a better understanding of what we wanted to accomplish, and lessons we’re taking forward to continue to evolve our design philosophies around accessibility.
12:00pm
Grant Allen Dlala Studios12:00pm - 12:45pmRoom 4Playing With the House of Mouse
Tuesday 9th July12:00pm - 12:45pmRoom 4When being tasked with creating a new innovative game with a 100 year old icon how do you approach it? How do you pay homage to the past but push things forward, In this session I will talk about the creative challenges that came with working and designing Disney Illusion Island and working with Disney Games to create the wonderful world of Monoth.
Session Takeaway
- Working with IP
- Working with Partners
- Game Design Processes
2:00pm
Paul Cornell WriterJudi Alston Dreaming MethodsRhianna Pratchett Writer and ConsultantCharles Cecil RevolutionDr Jackie Mulligan Game Republic2:00pm - 2:45pmRoom 3Tips and Insights on Narrative Design from Leading Writers
Tuesday 9th July2:00pm - 2:45pmRoom 3Award-winning writers Rhianna Pratchett, Charles Cecil (Revolution, Broken Sword), Paul Cornell (Doctor Who, Marvel) and Judi Alston (Dreaming Methods) share their experiences, insights, learnings and tips for creating high quality narrative games with Dr Jackie Mulligan (Game Republic). The panelists will explore how to make narrative games on a budget, techniques to explore character, using new technology like AI and VR to enhance storytelling in games and trends in narrative design in particular stories being interpreted across multiple media. The session will also include a Q&A.
Host: Dr Jackie Mulligan, Game Republic
Session Takeaway
- Ways to create story-based games on a budget
- Techniques to develop characters in games
- Opportunities and challenges of taking stories into different media
3:00pm
Hilmar Veigar Pétursson CCP Games3:00pm - 3:45pmRoom 1The Longest Game – EVE Online’s Blueprint for Resilient Communities & Enduring Games
Tuesday 9th July3:00pm - 3:45pmRoom 1How do gaming developers and publishers think about their long-term strategy for success? For Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CCP Games’ CEO, the longest game is exemplified by the power of strategy, innovation, and teamwork to create lasting entertainment experiences. In this talk, Pétursson will showcase how CCP focuses on community building and nurturing a positive culture through EVE Online’s growth and evolution with its players over time. By examining these principles and tools, Pétursson will showcase how to plan for the future while maximizing the present, ultimately creating better art and entertainment for all.
Session Takeaway
- Best practice for (and importance of) collaborating with players on the development of live titles.
- How to leverage and apply the inherent nature of MMO games as friendship-building engines to improve and enhance both your product and its community.
- The ingredients and grit necessary to create, sustain and grow a longtail game universe with the potential to go on forever.
4:00pm
Philip Rolfe Sports Interactive4:00pm - 4:45pmRoom 4Under Pressure: A Football Manager Narrative Design Journey
Tuesday 9th July4:00pm - 4:45pmRoom 4Football Manager is a vast sandbox full of endless possibilities, potential, and pressure. Join me on a journey and some of the challenges we face as narrative designers to ensure that setbacks and failure are just as important as progress and success in our parallel worlds, and how different ways of playing the game open up fresh and exciting opportunities for storytelling.
Session Takeaway
- The role of Narrative Design in sandbox games
- The importance of losing/setbacks in the narrative arc
- Solving ongoing Design Challenges in games with no fixed ending
5:00pm
Shahd Sherief Saltwater Games5:00pm - 5:45pmRoom 4Beyond the Chatbot: Leveraging AI for More Captivating Experiences
Tuesday 9th July5:00pm - 5:45pmRoom 4In this session, we navigate the applications of AI across various facets of game design, from narrative, game-controls, to art and replayability. Attendees will gain insights into how AI can elevate game experiences, as well as which types of models to use. We'll discuss the capabilities of LLMs, showcasing their multifaceted roles in game development beyond mere dialogue systems. Through case studies and analysis, we'll ponder successful implementations of AI in games, highlighting best practices while also addressing pitfalls to avoid. Moreover, we'll tackle the ethical considerations surrounding AI integration in game design, emphasizing the importance of responsible AI usage. Session Takeaway
The listeners will leave knowing:
- The different kinds of AI models which applicable to gaming use cases
- What an LLM is, and how LLMs evolved from what they used to be
- LLM usages in games beyond text-based/chat applications
- Pros and cons of training VS prompting and when to use each one
- Archiving prompt responses to potentially use in training
- Potential LLM optimizations
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11:00am
Chris Bateman International Hobo11:00am - 11:45amRoom 1How To Make Easy to Learn Games
Wednesday 10th July11:00am - 11:45amRoom 1Everyone wants to make games that are easy to learn, but they also want to make games that are inventive and original. The hard truth is that these goals are in tension, and the more you innovate and create new experiences, the tougher it will be for players to learn how to play your game. But the flipside is also true: the easiest games to learn are those that do nothing new... and these will swiftly vanish from everyone's attention as forgettable. Navigating between these two extremes is a key skill in the delicate art of game design.
The age-old battle between the game designers and the marketing department takes on a new meaning once this issue comes into clear focus. Game designers often try to push for inventive changes to game concepts that the marketing department frequently cannot understand how to make into selling points. At the same time, game designers are frustrated by the marketing department's insistence on lining up with some existing game style, which feels lazy and unoriginal. Yet both sides want originality - they just don't quite mean it in the same way.
Unexpectedly, the marketing department is genuinely onto something here - but frequently doesn't know how to express it to the design team. Recapturing the original meaning of 'unique selling point' can become a means of delivering innovation in game design while keeping the learning curve manageable. The trick is to ask a different question: which player practices are we borrowing...?
Session Takeaway
- Discover techniques for recognizing the player practices sustaining each market for games
- Create surprising new common ground between game design and marketing!
- Recapture the original meaning of ‘unique selling point’ as a tool for easy-to-learn game design
2:00pm
Daan Hendriks The Chinese RoomLaura Dodds The Chinese RoomLouis Larsson-De Wet The Chinese Room / Sumo DigitalAlex Spencer Edge2:00pm - 2:45pmRoom 1A Very British Horror Story: The Making of Still Wakes The Deep
Wednesday 10th July2:00pm - 2:45pmRoom 1Join Edge's Alex Spencer and creatives from award-winning UK studio The Chinese Room to discover the story behind critically acclaimed narrative horror Still Wakes The Deep. Daan Hendriks (Audio Director), Laura Dodds (Associate Art Director) and Louis Larsson-De Wet (Project Technical Director) will discuss how The Chinese Room created one of 2024’s most atmospheric thrillers – and why they chose a North Sea oil rig for its setting.
Session Takeaway
- The opportunities and challenges involved in making such a distinctly British game, building on the studio's previous work in this field.
- How The Chinese Room researched and cast Still Wakes The Deep to make it authentic to its unique location and period setting.
- Techniques involved in staging atmosphere, tension and drama in a first-person narrative-driven horror.
3:00pm
Morwenna Griffin Unity Technologies3:00pm - 3:45pmRoom 3Designing Surprise: Treading the Fine Line Between Delighting and Infuriating Players
Wednesday 10th July3:00pm - 3:45pmRoom 3Surprise is a crucial part of what it is to be entertained. It can elicit a range of human emotions, from amusement and joy to confusion and fear.
In games, surprise in storytelling is both a powerful and hazardous tool with the potential for a high positive or negative impact on the player experience. Conditions, intensity, delivery, and the players themselves are all factors that influence the outcome of the surprise and must be carefully considered to ensure the desired reaction is achieved.
As part of a Master’s Degree in Indie Game Development at Falmouth Games Academy, Morwenna carried out a research thesis into creating effective surprise and its effects on players, drawing on influences and theories across the sciences and arts, including biology, psychology, narrative, music and game design. The study tested a theoretical framework through a mixed methodology of practice-based and practice-led research and produced some thought-provoking results.
This session provides a fun and accessible overview of the research findings. It proposes a new theory to explain the study findings and a practical model for the intentional design of surprise to understand, identify and minimise the risks that high surprise events can create.
Session Takeaway
- Some of the key physiological, neurological, and behavioural impacts of surprise.
- Some of the ways the human brain interprets sensory data to create assumptions.
- How 1 and 2 may affect and be leveraged in creating engaging experiences.
- The effects of high surprise in contexts of high uncertainty.
- Identifying potential areas of risk in your game.
- Ideas for how mitigate these risks.
4:00pm
Baudelaire Welch Larian Studios4:00pm - 4:45pmRoom 4Romance Storytelling in Games
Wednesday 10th July4:00pm - 4:45pmRoom 4Drawing not only from the experiences of being design feature lead for romance and companions on Baldur's Gate 3, but also a lifetime of growing up having crushes on fictional characters, I will present an analysis of how we craft interactive relationships which create real parasocial affection in players. This will be part history of romance features in video games, part analysis of why we crave this feature in the first place, and part suggestions for improving on past designs.
Session Takeaway
- This talk will establish some genre definitions and taxonomise types of romance design within gaming history.
- Simulation of romance in video games has historically led so many questioning LGBT+ individuals to have a safe environment with which to run experiments testing their sexuality.
- We are very good at showing escapist visions of relationships in video games, but we are not particularly good at showing the 'ugly'. I will analyse some of my work trying to depict arguments, drifting apart, power imbalances, and sexual trauma within video game relationships - and what those themes mean to players.
- The talk will overall try to provide insight into more realistic ways to think about relationship design - we aren't collecting 'sex' cards like in Witcher 1 any more.
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10:00am
Caroline Marchal INTERIOR/NIGHT10:00am - 11:00amRoom 1KEYNOTE: Crafting Multiplayer Story-centric Experiences: What Makes INTERIOR/NIGHT Tick
Thursday 11th July10:00am - 11:00amRoom 1INTERIOR/NIGHT's founder and Creative Director Caroline Marchal will discuss why the studio is passionate about interactive narrative, a genre ripe with opportunities, and where it can go: the chance to break the invisible ceiling of video games and appeal to all generations, regardless of players' skills.
She will show how the studio approaches game development for multiplayer interactive narrative experiences and how they design and write with empathy to generate empathy.
Caroline will provide an overview of the team's bespoke development process with examples from As Dusk Falls, their award-winning debut game, and will also discuss why a good story isn't enough. How you play the story and what it reveals about who you are makes it a deep and memorable experience, beyond pure entertainment.
2:00pm
Indigo Levy Oxalis Games2:00pm - 2:45pmRoom 3Creating a World from a Word
Thursday 11th July2:00pm - 2:45pmRoom 3This session will outline a step-by-step process that starts with nothing and ends in a storyworld; a fully fleshed-out narrative and world that players will want to return to.
I will take the audience through a breakdown of my process - created through my own personal experiences and challenges - which will also involve an explanation on why narrative is so vital to creating successful games, including specific examples of games currently released that have seen tangible benefits through the use of narrative.
I will go through each step I identified and undertook one-by-one, in order to offer an approach to narrative design that can add value to whatever project you may be working on, and help you make informed and rationale-based decisions to better serve your own projects. Notable steps of the process will include things such as designing systems to tell your story, forming restrictions and theories to help create something potentially wonderful from nothing, and coping mechanisms when the daunting task ahead of you seems a little too intimidating…
From experience, a little step can take you a long way. I hope to share some of the knowledge I’ve accumulated in the last two years to help anyone else who may eventually, or already is, walking in similar shoes - with the aim of making a daunting task a little more bite-size and manageable.
Session Takeaway
- What narrative design is, and why it’s so valuable
- A process for coming up with a narrative from scratch
- How to communicate that narrative in your game
- How to develop your design skills in order to make decisions that will most benefit the game
- How to create a narrative that will develop a strong emotional connection between the player and the game
3:00pm
Andrea Boo Way StudioSarah Ticho HatsumiKirsty Jennings Anagram3:00pm - 3:45pmRoom 3Empathy Through XR
Thursday 11th July3:00pm - 3:45pmRoom 3How can the development of XR games open conversations around well-being, neurodiversity, and general human to human connection? The possibilities of immersion and embodiment brought about by XR games unlock whole new worlds for non-main stream games. This session explores these ideas and potential.
Sarah from Hatsumi has a body of virtual reality games that has a proven track record of positively impacting the mental health and well-being of individuals of a wide age range. Boo from Way Studio has been pioneering well-being mixed reality experiences, bridging co-production opportunities between Singapore and the UK.
Together, they will be sharing case studies of games they have made, the lessons learnt, and the processes of making these applications. They are hoping to find collaborators and partners who are also interested in exploring possible social prescribing models to further human relationships, understand human experience, and support community and connection, through making VR and MR games.
Session Takeaway
- Exposure to wellbeing-centric VR and MR games
- Impact of virtual reality and mixed reality games
- Experience design notes when creating XR games
4:00pm
Eloise Singer Singer Studios4:00pm - 4:45pmRoom 1The Art of Cinematic Storytelling in Video Games
Thursday 11th July4:00pm - 4:45pmRoom 1Exploring the craft of cinematic storytelling in video games, multi-award-winning writer and director Eloise Singer will draw upon her experience as a filmmaker and creative director to share her insights into creating compelling story worlds within games.
Eloise will discuss how her background in filmmaking has been creatively significant when developing narrative games. She will also offer insights into creating strong narratives and attaching talent to your game.
Eloise’s latest project, the VR narrative adventure ‘The Pirate Queen with Lucy Liu,’ supported by BFI, Meta, and Epic Games, won the Tribeca Storyscapes Award and the Raindance Discovery Award, and was released on Meta Quest in 2024. The award-winning game featured a writers’ room before the development of the game’s mechanics, resulting in an immersive experience centred around a compelling true story of an otherwise little-known historical figure.
Eloise will share her insights into the impact of this approach, how to create compelling characters, and what you can do to improve your dialogue to help an actor’s performance.
Additionally, Eloise will explore practical techniques for integrating cinematic storytelling into video game narrative design and recognising how creative obstacles can become opportunities.
Session Takeaway
- Discover strategies for integrating cinematic storytelling techniques into video game narrative design.
- Understand how to create engaging dialogue to develop well-rounded characters.
- Learn the importance of attaching talent to your game and how it can enhance storytelling.
- Recognise where creative obstacles can actually lead to creative opportunities.
- Develop practical techniques for creating compelling characters within video game narratives.
