GDC 2016: How do you make a game that people will play for 30 years? Crayons and Buddhism

By Hugh Langley

Game Design Challenge

At GDC, one conference in particular has become legendary for the wonderfully bizarre ideas it has given birth to – the Game Design Challenge.

The title is pretty self-explanatory: some of the industry’s most innovative developers must pitch a game to fit around certain theme. The last one took place in 2013, where the challenge was to design the final game that humanity would play. This year, the conference reconvened for a special-edition episode: create a game that will last for 30 years.

Game designer Chris Crawford was joined by Nina Freeman (Cibele), Zach Gage (Ridiculous Fishing) and Anna Kipnis (Double Fine Productions), and though only a small handful of ideas were put forward, the ones that were presented ranged from the ridiculous to the genius.

Freeman was first to pitch her title, a game inspired by soap operas in which players would react to a gradually unravelling story around characters that updated daily.

At the end of each daily instalment, the player would be prompted to use emojis to describe how they think the characters feel about one another, letting the players guide the emotions of the characters while the game writers stay in control of the story. “It’s …read more

Source:: techradar.com – Gaming