I am heading off to the Game Developers Conference once again.
I am giving a talk on the meaning of failure in games: Beyond Balancing: Using Five Elements of Failure Design to Enhance Player Experiences.
If you have been following this blog, you may have noticed that I have been interested in the role of failure lately. This being GDC, the talk is pretty practically oriented, presenting data and concepts, then demonstrating their applicability:
Beyond Balancing: Using Five Elements of Failure Design to Enhance Player Experiences
Speaker: Jesper Juul (Lecturer / Researcher, Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab)
Date/Time: Friday (March 27, 2009) 10:30am — 10:50am
Location (room): Room 2022, West Hall
Track: Game Design
Secondary Track: Production
Format: 20-minute Lecture
Experience Level: All
Session Description
This lecture presents a toolbox for improving failure design in single player games. Player research shows that the primary issue is not the frequency of failures, but how failure is communicated, what happens as a result of failing, and whether a given failure design allows the game to be enjoyed within a player’s time constraints. Using concrete examples, this lecture will show how failure can play a positive role in games, how players of casual games are actually not averse to failure, and how developers can get beyond balancing to improve the failure design in their games.
Takeaway
Attendees will be introduced to new research on how players perceive failure in games. A framework of Five Elements of Failure design will be presented. Attendees will be able to use the framework for improving the design, testing, and balancing of video games for different audiences.
Intended Audience and Prerequisites
Designers, producers, testers, and marketers interested in both rethinking the role of difficulty and failure in their games and in tailoring game design to the preferences and time constraints of their audience. Knowledge of game balancing issues is helpful but not required.