Podcast Interview: Josh from the MIT Gambit Game Lab…

Another quick interview from GDC 2008…

Josh, a student at the MIT Gambit Game Lab…talks about creating experimental games.

Specifically, he talks about developing a Facebook game…

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/mit-lab-podcast.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/mit-lab-podcast.mp3

Show Notes:
0:00 – 5:00
Josh from Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab
An experimental gameplay lab
Focuses on interesting games that couldn’t exist in the market yet
Created a Facebook game
Has a resource management game
Having an ant colony and resource management
Did a paper prototyping

Design Process principles is…
“Fail Early, Fail Often”

Started with paper prototyping early on.

Wrestled with whether should have public or private information.

Tested people in the lab, classmates, etc.

Do a search for “Eat Wars”

5:00 – 10:00
Issues with designing for Facebook…
There are people with varying levels of commitment
Have to design for people and their friends

Need to design for multiple play styles

Have room now for players that are more aggressive and cooperative

Looking for ways for players to be more social

Get more points for convincing players to bring friends in

Accomodating people’s natural habits on Facebook

In the future…
May work on other game platforms
Looking into Flickr Games
Opportunities for different types of games is very exciting

Sychronous vs. Asychronous gaming…
Need to have a balance between letting folks advance and letting people grief their friends at 3 AM in the morning

Systems where you can plan ahead and moves at one time and it acts that way later on in the game

10:00 – 11:30
Favorite Game on Facebook…
Scrabulous
Parking Wars