Archive for the ‘ Entertainment Design ’ Category

N00b Proof Your Funware. Tech Support Will Thank You.

It's easier than you might think to confuse even your "smartest" customers with funware, games, leaderboards, and random whimsical weirdness they weren't expecting because users have mental models of how stuff works. Software and web site work a certain way, and offer certain expected features, based on the user's past experiences. When you dump your new funware features into an experience that already has a mental map that is incongruent with funware, you are responsible for designing an informative, gentle segue from the old mental model of how your software works to the new one that includes funware. [ READ MORE ]

Nicole Lazzaro: a Useful Theory of Fun

Do you think about the full spectrum of fun when you design user experiences? Do you spend as much time thinking about player emotions as you spend on the game mechanic and rule design? Check out Nicole Lazzaro's work. She is insightful, comprehensive, and she thinks outside the box of the mainstream video game industry. [ READ MORE ]

Game Industry Outsiders Weren’t Surprised. At All.

The typical pro game developer is not surprised when the latest AAA console game sells well, but they seem a few beats behind when it comes to understanding how their craft relates to engaging, motivating interactive entertainment like Club Penguin, Stardoll, IMVU, Second Life's Ozimals, Foursquare, Polyvore, and HuffPost Badges. I don't think the problem is elitism, just that the world of entertainment looks very different from inside the vertical market known as the games industry[ READ MORE ]

Fun Is Not the Holy Grail of Engagement

The holy grail of engagement design, game design included, is not fun. The holy grail is motivation. How do you make someone WANT to keep doing something? There are many ways, and game mechanics are some of the most tried-and-true techniques software designers have to keep end-users doing whatever it is you want them to do[ READ MORE ]

TweetCraft: the Twitter client for World of Warcraft

TweetCraft highlights the fact that most online games still aren't catering to the entertainment needs of social gamers. It's not enough to be connected to friends in-world. For some, there needs to be omnipresent connectivity across online social services, across worlds[ READ MORE ]

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