The Science of Fun: Psychology in Game Design
28Slides: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5Nhz0AOPk6jYXZLdDkwb18zLU0/view
By manipulating numbers, mechanics, and stories, game designers labor mightily to make sure our worlds are fun and balanced. But design is about more than just balance: in laying out how a world works, we are preparing a stage for our players, shaping what they perceive, believe, and feel. And as much as design is an art, it is a science, as the rules and principles of game design are built on a foundation of practical psychology, with engaging, well-made game fulfilling basic psychological needs like autonomy (meaningful choice), competence, and relatedness. This talk will explore the role psychology plays in game design, and how designers can leverage this to build more meaningful experiences, as well as maybe cut down on online toxicity!
Matthew Lee, RN
Matthew has been exploring the collision of game design, psychology, and network culture for over a decade. In the long and tangled path that brought him to Australia as a Fulbright Scholar, he’s been an Aerospace Engineer, Drama Therapist, Community Manager, Registered Nurse and a Game Designer.
One of the pioneers of network culture and an early, early explorer of VR (before Virtual Reality meant headsets like the Rift and the Vive), he’s crafted powerful interactive experiences on a staggering number of platforms (and for some clients he can’t even talk about!).
Today, he is the chair of the International Game Developers Association’s (IGDA) Serious Games SIG and runs his own studio in his copious amounts of free time.
About IGDA Serious Games
The IGDA is a global network of collaborative projects and communities comprised of individuals from all fields of game development, advocating on behalf of our membership to ensure better quality of life, perpetuation of our craft and preparing the next generation of designers and developers. It is the largest non-profit membership organization in the world serving all individuals who create games, whether seasoned veteran or aspiring student, indie developer or part of AAA studio, maker of consoles or mobile games, or even a tabletop master.Within the IGDA, the Serious Games SIG brings together developers, academics, health professionals and others with an interest on using games to teach, heal, train, or change.
Our current projects include working on developing best practices for creating and framing Serious Games, facilitating collaborations between commercial game companies and scientists/educators, exploring the underlying principles behind game design, and of course, trying to define what exactly is a “serious game.”