Designing for Live Games

This was the topic of my talk at the Nasscom Game Developer Conference 2014 (Pune).

I was heavily jet-lagged after an insanely long flight from Montreal to Bangalore. And then I rushed to Pune for the GDC. Our game Dadi vs Jellies won Game of the Year on Day 1 and this talk was delivered on the morning of Day 2.

The talk is about an hour long (35 minute presentation followed by Q&A). The video is broken down into four parts and I am also adding the slide deck at the bottom for convenience.

Part 1:

• I flip the order and start by asking questions to the audience
• I admit to being Ivankov Dimitrovich
• We discuss babies and where they come from
• Design challenges on live games are discussed
  • Demographics and unexpected users

Part 2:

• Design challenges on live games continued
  • Users behave in odd ways
  • It’s alive and behaving in a strange way!
• We discuss design skills for running live games
  • Become friends with data (Star Trek: TNG reference thrown in)
  • Become the voice of the player
  • Learn to experiment – correctly
  • Learn to balance
  • Create an arsenal – playbooks!
  • Be Pragmatic

Part 3:

• Q&A

Part 4:

• Q&A continues

Slides: