Another IndieCade has come and gone. More than any other game event each year, IndieCade feels like a game version of a film festival, chock-full of smart lectures, exhibitions of top independent and experimental games, and a social scene that brings together the indie developer community.
This year, in addition to enjoying the festival, I took home two of the top honors. The as-yet unpublished board game I am creating with John Sharp, Armada d6, won the Game Design award. Interference, a game installation I created with Nathalie Pozzi, won the Interaction award. As a juried competition of videogames, tabletop games, sports, larps, field games, and other independently produced playthings, I was honored by these wins. (The Metagame was also an official selection this year, but didn’t win anything.) You’ll be hearing more about developments with all of these games in the near future.
I also took part in a number of talks at Indiecade. I interviewed play theorist and practitioner Bernie DeKoven onstage for one of the conference keynotes. Bernie and I had a tremendously fun time discussing his early work in theater and education, the New Games Movement, and how his ideas from decades past relate to games today. (They do!) The image above is from a game he played with the audience – a team-based version of Rock-Paper-Scissors with player-created content and gestures.
“Being a Game Designer: 10 Principles for a Thoughtful Practice” was a talk I gave about my own game design practice. The talk was inspired by the thought that most talks about game design are about games – what makes them good or bad, and how we can make better ones. But I wanted to discuss instead the question of what it would mean to approach game design as a practice – like a martial art – a regular activity for self-betterment. Below is a pic of me with the 10 principles. Bernie DeKoven wrote a quick review of the audience game I played to illustrate principle 2 (Become a Gardener of Meaning).
One of my game design heroes, Stone Librande, gave a talk about my game Armada d6 as part of the Well-Played festival track. It was slightly unreal – like getting a boxing lesson with Muhammed Ali. (Luckily he liked the game!) I also took part in a panel about game mechanics with inspiring designers like Rob Davieu, Adam Spragg, Lau Korsgaard, and Adam Russel. While I loved many of the games I played at IndieCade, Adam’s Renga – a 100-person game played with laser pointers on a cinema screen – was probably the highlight of the conference for me. It felt like witnessing the birth of a new genre.
Between the games, the awards, the talks, and the socializing, IndieCade 2012 really delivered. Not sure how I am going to top it next year, but I will try.
Hi Eric,
Enjoyed the review. I watched the video of Renga, and I agree with your thoughts about the possible birth of a new genre. While, as a relatively low-tech outsider, I don’t know much about what’s going on on the cutting edge of video game design, I’ve thought for a while now that the collective live experience was something that has yet to fully develop in video games. I know there are large tournaments of Starcraft et al that are virtually broadcast and participated in by many thousands if not millions. But if video games are the next step beyond film technologically, it seems to me that part of the appeal of film is in the collective live experience, ie. of actually being in the same place at the same time with a lot of people having a similar aesthetic experience.
The possibility of being able to create that environment of live collective collaboration with the additional dimension of interactivity is fairly mind-blowing in terms of potential.
I imagine what could be possible with a high resolution game screen the size of a movie theatre screen or imax. There could be options to play just on the big screen or on your laptop or both. I think of the different topographic levels of current standard video game worlds, and what could be done with such a huge canvas, allowing players at the same time real world interaction, big picture collaborative interaction on the overhead screen, as well as more detailed individual virtual action on the level of their personal laptop or console. For instance, a simple example: the big screen has the bird’s eye view, and the individual console has the ground level view.
It seems to me there could be a lot of technical variations, in terms of what determines the nature of the larger topography
shown overhead, how the individual games interact with the larger game, etc.
Somebody must already be working on this, or perhaps it already exists somewhere. The video game genre does seem to be moving more and more towards MMO as social event – even – real world – social event. This approach could spawn a whole new industry it seems to me, if it hasn’t already. There would be broader appeal for those people who find current video game play a somewhat solipsistic experience.
I’ve had a lot of fun delivering keynotes in the past. A lot. But this keynote was the most fun, honestly. And I attribute much of that mostness to you, Eric. Your sense of fun, your scholarship, your playfulness, responsiveness. And the rest of that mostness to the amazing people who gave such enthusiastic witness to our shared moment of deep fun.
Hi Eric, thanks for sharing IndieCade with us.
Is there any record of your lecture: Being a Game Designer: 10 Principles for a Thoughtful Practice
I found the topic inspiring, I would love to know more about it.
Thanks.
I am told by IndieCade that a video from the event will be online in a few weeks. I’ll definitely post about it when that happens!
[…] this goal I need to improve myself as a game designer. At IndieCade I attended a presentation by Eric Zimmerman titled Being a Game Designer: 10 Principles for a Thoughtful Practice. In this presentation he discussed his principles of approaching game design as a craft and how […]