This session will address this design decision in exhaustive detail. Why 0.7 seconds? Why that particular field? What processes and design principles lead to that change? How was it proposed, tested, and evaluated? What were its effects on the game’s balance? How were those effects evaluated to the effects of the infinite number of other changes that could have been made? What were the external considerations, such as community reaction or target demographics, that influenced it? And what can be learned from that change to improve our ability to make changes in the future?

Leighton Gray is a writer, illustrator, metamodernism enthusiast, story consultant, and game developer based out of Los Angeles, California.
She was the co-creator, co-writer, and art director of Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator, part of the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 list in Games, and is currently an art director at Fullbright.

Jennifer Scheurle’s talk aims to talk about all kinds of small and large spatial design tricks to enhance your level design and narrative design in your games from different genres. This is particularly true in first-person games as well as VR games and having control over your experience allows for more precise and conscious design.

She covers some examples from popular games on the market that have mastered this principle as well as use an in-depth VR example of her own from Earthlight VR.

This talk is mainly useful for game and level designers, but also narrative designers and writers can benefit from learning about the small tricks that you can harness to deliver the experience you’re aiming to achieve. This talk contains some basic psychology and neuroscience.

Speaker; Saf Davidson (Freelancer)

Our brains can’t help but construct stories from their experiences. But how big can the gaps between pieces of information be for someone to fail to make an unconscious connection? These information gaps are integral to constructing a well-refined story, but are particularly important for game storytelling. Knowing how to utilize the gaps in information is vital for understanding how to set up an environmental story with the fewest assets, the amount of exposition to provide at the start of a game, or how much needs to be said during an expensive cutscene. Saf will break down how players interact with given information and how to use information gaps within the context of game storytelling. This talk will navigate the spaces between narrative data points, exploring how little information a game can give before the narrative falls apart and how developers can stretch the gaps between information to encourage deeper interaction with their players.

Through trial and error, games artist Wren Brier has devised a workflow for herself that helps keep projects under control and allows for fast and easy iteration and implementation. In this talk she will lead you through her UI creation process and show you how she makes use of six Photoshop tools — from newer additions like Artboards and Generate Image Assets to surprising tricks involving the old and familiar Proof Setup.

Learn ways to make your UI creation process better and faster through examples and video demonstrations. Join Wren and equip yourself with the tools to survive your next project!