my notes from Will Wright's talk at USC's Engineering School
• "Throwing probes" around at the unexplored territories of game design - a way to explore inexpensively and highly creatively.
• "Signal-to-noise" theory: get past/avoid the noise (hype, criticism) and
straight to the signal (the game, the experience).
• "Algorithmic content": content development-to-player experience ratio; content algorithmically generated as opposed to "data drip" (go Todd!).
• Goal: to match development time with player enjoyment.
• Sources of inspiration: the Eames, biology, small online shareware games, Japanese garden design (this reminds me of Jenkin’s views on spatial stories: “…spatiality… for an understanding of game designers less as storytellers and more as narrative architects.”), etc.
• “Fitness landscapes” model from biology as a means to brainstorm possible new "crossovers" and "mutations" of games.