Agenda

Making fun and engaging video games is hard, and with thousands of games being released every year, the competition is fierce. Although there is no known recipe for crafting successful games, some clear ingredients do exist, which game developers can use to make their own successful recipe. User experience (UX) and cognitive science disciplines combined provide developers with those ingredients --across all types of games, platforms used, or audiences targeted-- to guide them along the development process. Experiencing a game happens in the player's mind. This is why understanding the human brain (especially its limitations) while it is perceiving and interacting with a game is paramount to accomplishing your developers' goals faster and more efficiently. This workshop covers the main characteristics and limitations of the brain (perception, attention, memory), learning principles and how to apply them in games to onboard players efficiently, usability principles to make your game easy to learn, engageability principles (motivation, emotion, gameflow) to make your game engaging, and will touch on UX strategy, methods, and mindset (including ethical considerations).

Takeaway

Understand the main characteristics and limitations of the human brain (in terms of perception, attention, memory, motivation, and emotion), and how they impact game development.
Learn what makes a game engaging (in terms of motivation, emotion, and game flow) and how to foster these components in your game.
Have a clear and concrete understanding of what having a UX mindset and developing a UX strategy entail, from production pipeline to ethical considerations.

Intended Audience

Anyone can benefit from knowing more about the brain and about user experience. This Masterclass will however benefit designers, artists, gameplay/UI programmers, producers, and junior UX practitioners even more.