Blog 14 - Interview #3 Preparation

Richard Lemarchand is a super nice dude-- incredibly nice.

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  What is this person's area of expertise?

I plan to interview a current professor at USC Games, Richard Lemarchand. Richard Lemarchand has worked on major game developer Naughty Dog's Uncharted series, serving as the Lead Game Designer for the first and third installments, and Co-Lead Game Designer for the second installment. Mr. Lemarchand's area of expertise lies in player experience, as he's invested much time in his career to studying how gameplay, narrative, and mechanics come together to hold a player's attention. 

2.  Verify that you have called your interviewee to schedule an interview.  What is the date and time of the interview? 

Currently, the date of our interview is set to be Friday, February 12, at approximately 3:30pm. We are holding our interview in the Game Innovation Lab.

3.  Phrase an open-ended question that will help you find research resources that would help to answer the EQ.

Could you recommend any resources that you believe delves into aspects of game design that best influence the player's experience?

4.  Phrase an open-ended question that will help you think about other useful activities you might do to help you answer the EQ (IC2, possible experts to talk to, etc).

Aside from research, is hands-on experience a viable way to learn more about enhancing the player experience? Are there any specific experiences that best highlight how to construct a positive game experience?

5.  Phrase two open-ended questions that help you to understand your interviewee's perspective on an aspect of your EQ. 

What aspects of game design do you believe are central to enhancing the player's experience and perception of a video game?

What aspects of creative design and technical design do you consider most important to sharpen in order to enhance the overall experience of the video game?

Blog 13 - 10 Hours Mentorship Check-In

I love this place. 

1.   Where are you doing your mentorship?

I am doing my mentorship at the Game Innovation Lab, located on the campus of the University of Southern California. 

2.   Who is your contact?  What makes this person an expert?

Elizabeth Swensen and Sean Bouchard are both game designers and research associates at USC, both of whom are staff in the lab and educators to game design students. Both Elizabeth and Sean attended USC and shared some classes together, both receiving MFAs (Masters of Fine Arts) before going on to work as staff in the lab. Aside from creating incredible work under USC Games, they're also professors within the program. 

Tracy Fullerton is the director of the Game Innovation Lab at USC, as well as a game designer and professor in the Interactive Media Division of USC. Being the director of the lab of this division, she has been involved with numerous projects at USC over the years, working as a game designer or faculty adviser for said projects.These projects include several titles such asThe Night Journey and Walden, among many other impressive works. Before her work at USC, Tracy has been involved with several other game developers and interactive studios, including Spiderdance and R/GA Interactive, both of which she was the founder and founding member of, respectively.


3.   How many  hours have you done during the school year? (Summer Mentorship Hours and Mentorship Hours should be reflected separately in your Senior Project Hours log located on the right hand side of your blog).

48 hours total, including both Summer hours and School Year hours. 


4.   Succinctly summarize what you did, how well you and your mentor worked together, and how you plan to complete the remaining hours.  

When we go to mentorship, oftentimes Sean and Elizabeth tell us all about a Really Cool Thing that is going on on USC campus, always regarding the games program. Sometimes, that includes viewing current Game Program students recent works, sitting in on classes, participating in activities normally reserved for the Games students, and more. It's all very much a learning experience.

As for how well I work with my mentors: they're awesome. Sean, Elizabeth, and Tracy are amazing people. We see Sean and Elizabeth more often, simply because Tracy is a pretty busy person (when we do see her, we are in awe, mostly 'cause she's that cool). I'm very comfortable with Sean and Elizabeth. I always see them every mentorship session, and they're very easy to work with. Aside from being great sources of knowledge and information, they're really great people, and it's fun to learn from them. 

As for the rest of my hours, I plan to continue going to the Game Innovation Lab regularly and learning from my variety of experiences there. I've had some pretty incredible education experiences so far, so I'm excited to learn more. There is also potential to sit in on a Introductory Design class in the program, so that's definitely possible, as well. 

Blog 12 - Holiday Project Update

Writing is not only an exercise of the mind, it's an exercise of patience. 

In other words, writing is really hard sometimes. 

1.  It is important to consistently work on your senior project, whether it is break or we are in school.  What did you do over the break with your senior project?

Over the course of Winter Break, I've been working on further expanding the current world, characters, and story I have set as some of the main creative design features of my Independent Component. I've spent some time drafting my story, designing characters and their roles to be seen in the game, and crafting the overall setting of the world. It's very much like the creative writing process-- planning, planning, and more planning. There's been research done, of course-- I've looked into how stories, characters, and setting all play significant roles in crafting a positive game experience for players, and I'm adopting what I've learned into my planning processes. 

I've also tinkered a bit with programming, specifically C++ and HTML, though I'm not sure if I want to directly use either of these programming languages to create my game, or create the game through other means. It's still something I'm putting some thought into-- I don't want to get too carried away from pre-production of my game and end up focusing on programming. Either way, programming is a helpful skill to have under my belt for the future.

2.  What was the most important thing you learned from what you did, and why?  What was the source of what you learned?

From my time working on my Independent Component and sifting through research, I've learned more of the heightened importance of portraying not only a likeable player character, but one that is deep, complex, and three-dimensional; it's vital that characters have and maintain characteristics that make them meaningful to players.

I've learned quite a bit about this topic from research from a book I've been looking into recently, Better Game Characters By Design: A Psychological Approach. Aside from being an incredibly interesting read, it provides a comprehensive and detailed look into why we as humans enjoy, dislike, or hold importance of a variety of character archetypes and character traits. The way we treat others, and by extension the way we view characters, is explained through psychology; the book conveys that through appealing to this psychology, it is possible to create significant and memorable game characters. 

Though the book also covers story, setting, and other creative design aspects, I've also learned from my research that I personally find characterization to be one of the most (if not the most) important design decisions in a video game. Characterization is something I'm looking forward to learning more about as I continue working on my project. 


3.  Your third interview will be a 10 question interview related to possible answers for your EQ. Who do you plan to talk to and why?

For my third interview, I am planning to talk to Richard Lemarchand, current professor in the USC Games program. Formerly a lead designer at game developer Naughty Dog, I've been told that Mr. Lemarchand's area of expertise lies in player experience-- an area of development I am most interested in.

I believe that the player experience is majorly enhanced through creative design, but I know other design aspects (technical, creative, or otherwise) also play a role in shaping players' experience in a video game. I would like to learn more from him about what are the most important factors in enhancing player experience. I believe in doing so, I can further improve my senior project.