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Editor’s note: Evan’s IndieCade 2009 coverage marches on, with recaps of talks featuring Henry Jenkins, Keita Takahashi, Jenova Chen, and many more. -Demian
IndieCade day two began bright and early with the first panel starting at 8:00 a.m. (read about IndieCade day one here). I won’t go over each conference in detail, but I will lay down a general description of the topics that I found fascinating. In addition, Alejandro and I will revisit some of the panels in later articles.
Emotional Depth and Game Design
The creators of Akrasia, Dear Esther, Spectre, and Aether sat down today to talk about how they managed to convey emotions in their games.
Tyler (Aether), Jamie and Sean (Spectre)
Tyler Glaiel talked about how the mechanics in Aether, a game in which you ride a monster that swings from clouds as a means of intergalactic travel, helped to communicate the world view of a dreaming child.
Dan Pinchbeck, creator of Dear Esther, explained how music plays a vital role in creating emotional atmosphere. Meanwhile, the team behind 2D platformer Spectre explained how sometimes an audience will have an unexpected emotional reaction.
For example, Spectre has 50 alternate endings, but many players finished the game feeling the same way about the game’s protagonist, regardless of what ending they got. From what I understand, the team tweaked Spectre’s design as a result.
A Conversation about Expression and Game Literacy
In short, Henry Jenkins is a media scholar who primarily focuses on social phenomenons caused by technology and digital media. More specifically, Jenkins is concerned with “media convergence,” which is roughly the process by which technology changes the way consumers and producers interact.
Henry Jenkins and Eric Zimmerman (Gamelab)
Among other things, Jenkins spoke about how The Sims’ success was due in part to the playerbase acting as an incredibly large (and unpaid) workforce for marketing and generating content.
Fresh Ideas for First- and Third-Person Shooters
Robin Hunicke (Boom Blox), Keita Takahashi (Katamari Damacy), and Jenova Chen (Flower) conducted a panel about redesigning the shooter genre. I won’t say too much on this now because we want to dedicate an entire post to the creative avalanche that ensued…but here’s a picture to entice your curiosity!
Keita Takahashi (Katamari, Noby Noby Boy)
Game Developers + Crayons = This:
At the end of the day an awards banquet was held at the Sony Entertainment Pictures Plaza for the IndieCade finalists. I have the list of “who won what,” but I can’t post it until later because I am missing one award title (my apologies). In addition, the audience awards are still to come.
Sony Pictures Entertainment Plaza
On the bright side, we got crayons! For drawing on the tables. In the spirit of IndieCade we should use these images as concept art for game pitches. Leave a comment and post a title, a genre-type, and brief description for each photo or combine all three to make one game.
Game one
Game two
Game three
