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Tag Archive for design

Public Speaking at the IGDA

July 17, 2016 Videogames Comments Off on Public Speaking at the IGDA

I was invited to give a talk to the IGDA in partnership with DAGA in Salt Lake City a couple of months ago. Had a wonderful time! They were kind enough to record my talk (I do a lot of talks, but I don’t always get to see how they turned out from the audience perspective, so this is especially cool for me).

Check it out!

Back when I started, there was no clear path into the games industry. You got there by asking around, talking to people, finding ads in the back of local newspapers, showing up for a night of tabletop gaming with the right group of people. While the idea of working in games has become mainstream over the past few decade, I find that a lot of students still think of it as a rather monolithic entity. They get hung up on the idea of having the *perfect* skill for this job or that job, where the reality is, there are a LOT of different niches in games and, if you have spent the time to develop skills that apply, even if you don’t have a degree, you have a chance to find a home here.

Close your eyes before you jump….

June 1, 2012 Uncategorized Comments Off on Close your eyes before you jump….

http://nagademo.com

Sometimes we all just need a swift kick in the ass.  There are a thousand reasons to put something off, to relegate it to the bottom of the wish list, and until you find a way to assign importance, artificial or not, it’s just going to stay there.

I have a laundry list of game concepts in my arsenal.  Some of them are just a paragraph based around a game mechanic I came up in the spaces between the stuff I have to do, some of them are complete design documents.  It’s time I shoved a couple of these suckers to the top of the “must do” list, or I am running the risk of becoming one of those game industry professionals that did some really cool stuff once, but then vanished into the background.

So I went and did something foolish.  Well, not foolish like jumping off a bridge, or parasailing over a lava flow.  That was stuff for when I was still building my resume of batshit crazy experiences.  Foolish because I already have a fairly full existence.  As a parent of 3, as a business woman, both professional and volunteer, there’s a bunch of shit I *have* to do.  I have to do it so my kids education doesn’t suck, I have to do it because I have contractors waiting to be paid, I have to do it because if I don’t the engine in my car will finally seize up from years of neglect.  Have to have to have to.  We *all* have “Have tos” in our lives.  I’ve signed up for this because it’s a “want to”.  Some busy women get their nails done.  Get a massage.  Go shopping.  Go hiking.  Go out drinking with the girls.  Read a book.

This here, the game design and execution, this is my “want to”.  I’m doubly lucky in that my vocation and my avocation are tucked in aside one another.  This is the kind of thing I do for fun, when I have a few minutes in between board meetings, contract work and Little League.  This is where my mind goes when it has a few free brain cells to spare.

So instead of getting a $100 mani/pedi, or reading Shades of Grey I’m doing something for me.  I’m building a game,  in 1 month.  Starting today. I’ll be blogging about the process regularly, so keep an eye here.  I’ll try to be sure to include screenshots and design snippets as I go so you can see how this all works.  I have a textbook out there, so where I can, I’ll tie this process into that, so I can use this blog later as a “real” example of game design, soup to nuts.

Ready.

Steady.

Jump.