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Episodes
The best panels and seminars about analog game design & publishing.
Episodes
Saturday Apr 01, 2017
Saturday Apr 01, 2017
Playing and Designing at the Intersections: Creating Good Allyship
Recorded at Metatopia 2015
Presented by Kat Jones, Krista White, Elsa S. Henry & K.N. Granger.
This roundtable will focus on how to design and run games from an intersectional feminist standpoint. We will discuss different ways a game can be intersectional including: mechanics, characters, artwork, and more. Drawing on concrete examples from panelists about their own design process, as well as games that have influenced them, we will offer suggestions for designing intersectional games. We will also give some examples of how to make pre-existing games and systems more intersectional. Topics included in the discussion will be: how to fail forward, how to be a good ally, and how to respectfully write about marginalized groups when coming from a position of privilege
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Saturday Jan 14, 2017
Saturday Jan 14, 2017
Cultural Mechanics
Recorded at Metatopia 2015
Presented by Jason Pitre, Julia Ellingboe, and Mark Diaz Truman.
Games are part of our cultures, and the rules we create reflect our own backgrounds. In this roundtable, we explore how mechanics can reflect and/or interrogate culture. How can mechanics explore other people’s experiences? What assumptions do we bring to the game-design table?
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Friday Sep 09, 2016
Friday Sep 09, 2016
Different Voices: Diverse RPGs
Recorded at Gencon 2016
Presented by Jason Pitre, and Shoshanna Kessock
Roleplaying games offer a fantastic window into the lives of others, and let us see the world through different eyes. This panel, sponsored by the Indie Game Developer Network, will discuss some of these games that bring diverse voices and creators to the forefront.
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Saturday Jul 30, 2016
Saturday Jul 30, 2016
Game Mechanics as Social Engineering & Social Engineering as Game Design
Recorded at Metatopia 2015
Presented by Jason Morningstar & John Stavropoulos.
Can a game’s mechanics influence player behavior? Evidence – from XP-grubbing to sophisticated and subtle systems for using player agency to adjust real-world habits – suggests it can. Join Jason Morningstar and John Stavropoulos for a stimulating and perhaps surprising discussion on this topic. Bring your own examples to share!
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Sunday Jul 17, 2016
Sunday Jul 17, 2016
Sanity Points
Recorded at Metatopia 2015
Presented by Elsa S. Henry, Will Hindmarch, Kelly Osborne & Craig Page.
The worst thing that can happen to you in a horror game is either that you die, or that you lose your mind. In games that focus on a world “gone mad”, how do we support real people living with mental illness through our game development? This panel will focus on revisiting systems like sanity points, and discuss how to address breaks with reality and surviving the very worst that horror has to throw at the world without treating mental illness as a comedic happenstance, or as something to be dismissed.
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Saturday Dec 05, 2015
Saturday Dec 05, 2015
Lovecraft WTF
Recorded at Metatopia 2014
Presented by Julia Ellingboe, Kenneth Hite, Darren Watts & Bill White.
H. P. Lovecraft is one of the grandfathers of weird fiction and horror. His racist and anti-Semitic beliefs are no secret. They are the foundation of his fictional worlds. They are interwoven throughout his work and for many readers, impossible to separate from the genius of his writing. Can a Lovecraft-inspired game make his work more accessible? It’s okay to like problematic things. This panel will be neither an attack nor a defense of Lovecraft’s work. In a broad sense, it will be a conversation about how designers might interpret or use source material with themes or images that are problematic.
Apologies for sound quality issues.
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Saturday Jul 04, 2015
Saturday Jul 04, 2015
Accessibility and Disability
Recorded at Metatopia 2014
Presented by Russell Collins, Elsa Henry, and Shoshana Kessock.
The final frontier of game design seems to be accommodating for those who are differently-abled. Designers of games who have a background with being differently-abled will discuss how to design to be more inclusive in this manner. We’ll discuss the foibles, pitfalls and issues associated with designing games that are not accessible.
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Saturday Jun 20, 2015
Saturday Jun 20, 2015
Gaming As Other: Moving Beyond Tokenism
Recorded at Metatopia 2014
Presented by Misha Bushyager, Julia Ellingboe, Ajit George & Mark Diaz Truman
John Stavropolous moderates as our panelists continue the discussion about the challenges faced by ethnic minorities and people of color within the hobby. In this panel, they will tackle how gaming companies, designers, conventions and communities can effectively bring greater diversity to their ranks, mentor emerging voices, and share leadership roles.
Saturday Nov 29, 2014
Saturday Nov 29, 2014
D036 – Accessibility Issues For Game Designers
Presented by Russell Collins & Jason Pitre. Games are about imagination and creativity so the print medium shouldn’t be a barrier to entry. Understanding the needs of persons with learning differences and the options that designers have will keep you from excluding people who are eager to enjoy our hobby. This seminar will focus on blindness, low vision, and dyslexia and strategies to present your game content for those with print disabilities in digital and audio media.
Episode 38: Accessibility Issues for Game Designers [ 55:00 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (146)Sunday Aug 10, 2014
Sunday Aug 10, 2014
“Gaming As The Other: Race in Our Industry”
Presented by John Stavropoulos, Terry Romero, Ajit George & Mark Diaz Truman.
As many “geek” activities have expanded over the last ten years, role-playing has often struggled to include the voices of racial and ethnic minorities. Join Ajit George, Mark Diaz Truman, and Terry Romero to discuss what challenges the industry faces including “Others”, why increased diversity is valuable and important to the future of gaming, and what path both designers and players can take toward building a more robust, inclusive community.
Saturday Dec 01, 2012
Saturday Dec 01, 2012
“Addressing Controversial Topics” presented by John Stavropolous, Bill White & Brennan Taylor. Join our panelists for a discussion on handling delicate and/or controversial topics in your game design. Subjects include political correctness, sexual and romantic interactions and religion.