Blog 3 - First Interview Preparation

A screencap of The Witch, a game written and designed by Elizabeth Swensen. The game is a single-player narrative, wherein the player takes on the role of a young girl labeled as a with. By selecting different options and actions throughout the game, the player can change the way in which the story is told.

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  Why?

For my first interview, I plan to interview Elizabeth Swensen, one of my mentors at the Game Innovation Lab at USC.

Elizabeth is not the head of the lab, but through watching her work and getting to know her a little, I’ve learned that she’s quite the qualified mentor. Aside from being a research associate of the Game Innovation Lab, she also works as an educator at the university and as a game designer. Seeing her work in the lab and having the opportunity to play some of her previous works, Elizabeth proves herself to be quite the knowledgeable and talented designer.

However, aside from her qualifications, another reason I have for choosing to interview Elizabeth is her history before entering the field of game design; prior to becoming a Game Design student at USC and working at the Lab, Elizabeth actually pursued Humanities (specifically ancient languages) in her education. I’m very much interested in learning more about how her path changed, as I feel that my own path has vastly changed over the years, as well.

For some time, I felt that I was lagging behind other aspiring game designers, due to my interest in game design as a career path only arising within recent years, while others had dreamed of pursuing such a path for so much longer. I believe that speaking with someone whose situation is similar will be not only informative to my project, but important to me on a personal level.

2.  Five questions will be assigned to all seniors to ask.  What additional questions do you plan to ask?

Aside from the required five questions to ask, the following are additional questions I plan to ask Elizabeth:

• How much of a balance of creative and technical skills should an aspiring designer aim for? How do you land on this scale?  
• What are characteristics of a game that is successful in immersing an audience?
• It’s often said that time spent on sharpening core mechanic gameplay is sacrificed to instead focus that time on making visuals more appealing. How do you personally feel about this, and how much time do you believe should be spent on sharpening certain aspects of a game?