hi all,
In the post about @Gigiwoo 's podcast series it was raised that perhaps he should have a more conversational tone & I commented that as a trial perhaps he could take questions from people & answer them as if he was on a panel at a conference. Well, he said to go ahead & ask but since it isn’t all about me I’d like everyone to partake.
Unlike his original request for podcast topics please keep these simple. I’m sort of thinking, as I said, that it’s like a panel. You have 1 minute to ask your question on a topic & he has 2 minutes to answer.
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So, kicking off, mine is:
In the first episode about the paradox of choice you mention the power of 3 as being ideal. How do you balance creating depth in a game with trying to limit choices so you don’t overwhelm the player? E.g. A large complex skill tree in an rpg may imply depth but if choices are limited at each juncture, or they are given defaults that may end up guiding them towards a particular skill or class, is that depth just an illusion? If you prevent the player from making changes then they need to understand the whole skill tree so they can make the choices. This to me is another paradox that needs resolving.
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Awesome ted - thanks for starting this thread. I think this is also a perfect way to approach to those questions that may border/blur the lines between design and implementation.
Is this going to be the official thread for this or should we start our own? I think one consolidated thread is probably best, but will follow your lead.
I’m happy for it to be a list of questions here. Makes it easier for Gigiwoo to collate them as well.
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Can I ask a question? 3rd-person self-references are so-last-year.
My question for Gigi is: WHO are you talking to? Your content isn’t bad, it covers a broad section of stuff, and I’m enjoying the podcasts. And yet, still, there are times where your voice comes out as ‘over-emphasizing’. You’ve been called Lecturey (is that a word), ‘mystical’, and over-emphatic. And, having seen you speak, that doesn’t happen when you talk to people in real life. Forcing yourself to ‘sound’ conversational is only partially working. Maybe, if you had a single person you were talking to - like really, a single person. Maybe that would help. Or maybe, borrowing from @AndrewGrayGames , it’s like, “Coder Cal”, “Designer Debbie”, and “Artsy Al”, though none of those have personalities.
This is the weirdest post ever!
(Like, totally, NOT-Gigi)
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I’m going to need some citations for that attribution. The alliterative appeal is great with those, but I don’t think I actually have said anything of the sort…ever, really.
When I talk about a generic, theoretical person who occupies a position, I typically use things like ‘Joe Grammer’ (Programmer), “Deb Signer” (Designer), and “Art Ist” (Artist.) I’ve not yet found a suitable name for a composer for polite conversation; “Compost Ur” just doesn’t work. I have all of the subtlety of an M16.
That’s also why I try to avoid talking about people, even theoretical ones. I try to focus more on ideas.
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I know as an indie designer you will probably do everything but in large scale projects there will likely be multiple designers focusing on different areas (level design, dialogue etc). Does this specialisation cause issues similar to academic or medical specialisation where people are so focused on their bit that they forget the big picture & you end up with lots of perfect bits (in isolation) that somehow just don’t work when all put together?
is there a different skill set required to be a designer for mobile games as compared to a PC/console game or is it just a matter of scale?
That particular naming could have been me with “Fictitious Fred” in the recent past? And the point of Fred is that he does have a personality! You create Fred by describing, in detail, a person from your target audience. Including giving him an actual name typical of that audience (a point I probably muddied by calling my example “Fictitious Fred”).
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How about “Cop Moser”?
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