In the USC Game Innovation Lab, there are Game Developers Conference audio recordings for 2003, 2004, and 2005. Around November, I happened to be showing someone around and looking on the shelf and found this treasure trove. Over the course of the next three months, I listened to all of the game design lectures and a few of the production, programming, visual arts, audio, and business lectures.
There were many good lectures from GDC 03-05. Out of about 120 hours of game design and 30 hours from other tracks that I've listened to so far, here are a dozen of the cream of the crop, which I would recommend listening to, if you don't have time to listen to them all. It's my personal take, but these are the lectures that educated me the most about design of interactive media; not just games, but interactive media for a variety of aesthetic requirements that lie outside the domain of videogames.
A few of the lectures were not audible, so if your favorite is not here, I might not have been able to hear the recording.
It was tough to pick just twelve; there were twice as many that have changed my opinion on an aspect of design. In terms of mastering the fine art of designing interactive media, I found a lot of gems in the following, listed roughly in ascending order of elucidation:
What Makes Music for Games "Music for Games"?
Chuck Doud, Clint Bajakian, Jack Wall, Jared Emerson-Johnson, Peter McConnell
Game Developers Conference 2005 Audio Track
How to map music for interactivity, such as layering, recombining, sequencing, and the genres of music prevalent during play.
Interface Design: Don't Make Them Think or Read
Brent Fox
Game Developers Conference 2005 Visual Arts Track
Usability for beginner and expert users, menu design, applications of cognitive load, how to acquire attention, and button design.
The Early Months of Spider-Man 2: Using Preproduction to Invent Gameplay
Jamie Fristrom, Tomo Moriwaki
Game Developers Conference 2005 Production Track
Great designer is probably right 2 times out of 5, so is probably wrong 3 times out of 5; therefore, prototype. Prototype risky features first. Mark Cerny production method helped.
Orthogonal Unit Differentiation
Harvey Smith
Game Developers Conference 2003 Game Design Track
Units, or actors in a game should have qualitative, non-substitutable differences. To deepen tactics, alternate units should be independent variables.
Killzone's AI: Dynamic Procedural Combat Tactics
Arjen Beij, William van der Sterren
Game Developers Conference 2005 Programming Track
Evaluating cover points, waypoints, potential paths, based on cover, shot availability, and risk.
Intuition and Intellect: Deconstructing the Design of Oasis
Marc LeBlanc
Game Developers Conference 2005 Game Design Track
Select a thesis of design. mechanics, dynamics, aesthetics. drama decomposed into uncertainty and inevitability.
Dynamics for Designers
Will Wright
Game Developers Conference 2003 Game Design Track
Stocks and flows, cellular automata, and solving the right aesthetic problems.
Leker 20-20 Design Vision
Game Developers Conference 2003 Game Design Track
Fail fast. Fail often. Construct a hypothesis and draw conclusions in order to make changes that evolve the design.
Mano a Mano: A Primer on Melee Combat in Videogames
Luis Barriga, Rob Gallerani
Game Developers Conference 2005 Game Design Track
Time stun and animation sequence. Chain interruptible combos together.
Game Design: Risk and Return
Masahiro Sakurai
Game Developers Conference 2005 Game Design Track
The aesthetically effective mechanics of gameplay balance risk and return. Salient example of Smash bros knockout and fireball versus jump on turtle and goopa in Super Mario Bros.
Anatomy of a 2D Side-Scroller
Luis Barriga
Game Developers Conference 2004 Game Design Track
Conventions of damage models, such as collision and damage over time. Speculations into psychology of 2D versus 3D.
Bossy Behavior: Patterns and Techniques in Boss Design
Luis Barriga
Game Developers Conference 2003 Game Design Track
Function of bosses as climactic antagonists and checkpoint of user skill. Make vulnerability feedback obvious. Tune waves of attack. Avoid dominant strategies in safe spots. When observing test, assume boss is broken.
There you have 'em. And no, I'm not sleeping with Luis Barriga.
There is one last one from GDC 2006, which was one of the most relevant to all forms of interactive media. The Game Innovation Lab doesn't have GDC 2006 or 2007 audio recordings yet, but I hope this post echoes the other students who have pointed out their cost-effective educational value for the program.
Advanced Prototyping
Chris Hecker, Chaim Gimgold
Game Developers Conference 2006 Game Design Track
Pick a precise, testable question. Avoid making things. Do in content. Code little. Prototype to change opinions. Prototype the risky items first. Avoid frameworks and infrastructure. Getting feedback frequently increases the designer's autonomy.
I started this post as a short resource report on videogame design from the GDC audio CDs that the interactive media department has, but in review, about one-quarter of the content is just videogame design. Most of the content above applies to interactive media for a variety of aesthetic requirements, not just games. So if your focus is more fine art or serious than commercial play, I still suspect some of these lectures will help you understand how to design interactive media.
For my taste, these are exemplary lectures. I'd be happily educated if I hear more of their caliber (especially while attending graduate classes in interactive media at USC). So, while you're reading this, I'd like to learn from you. Whether GDC or elsewhere, why don't you comment on what lectures or other media that taught you the most about designing interactive media?