#practice 2013

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Looking for some design inspiration? The videos from all of the PRACTICE 2013 talks are available on our Vimeo page.

In one of the most enjoyable and in-depth talks from the conference, Robert Yang proposes a new kind of game studies, one that focuses on the choices the designers made making the game. 

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Code is a political text.

Robert Yang

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To truly understand Half-Life, you MUST grasp that elevators are trains and that sharks are flying in water. No, really.

Naomi Clark

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Will this talk talk inspire a textually critical reading of source code?

Ben Norskov on Robert Yang's Half-Life design presentation.

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If you think Half-Life is subtle, you should read a book sometime.

Robert Yang

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Robert Yang's slides for his Practice talk, "Well-Made: Back to Black Mesa"

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The "playtesting" in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

"At the end of each mission, you're given an opportunity to rate, from 1-5 stars, the missing you just played in the game. We did playtest that, but I don't think it's changed substantially since the idea was implemented. Those are real ratings, if you rate something one, someone at their desk at Ubisoft will see that rating."

- Morgan Kennedy

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Finding Playtesters

Davin Pavlas: We let playtesters know they'll be compensated, but the bigger issue is how excited they get. We have to discount some because they're so excited, and answering questions so aspirationally, that their feedback isn't helpful.

Morgan Kennedy: We have a similar problem at Ubisoft. Sometimes, a trip to Ubisoft is a really good day for them already, and so tempering that to get real answers can be hard.

Naomi Clark: I think indies have the exact opposite problem. In order to not get the negative feedback, we have to bribe with pizza...or whatever cheap food we can afford.