Lots of interesting thoughts from the opening sessions in the Independent Games Summit. The first session I attended was about the Potential of Indie Games:

Kellee Santiago, the maker of Flow, had some really great thoughts about intrinsic rewards systems in games. She was talking about rewarding the player through the gameplay itself as opposed to extrinsic rewards such as points and achievements. This type of gameplay promotes a different kind of behavior in the player and really treats them as a partaker in the experience rather than simply a consumer. As examples, this can be done by promoting the player’s actions and the skills they develop through in-game feedback, such as the way the character grows in Flow.

The maker of Everyday Shooter, Jon Mak, also had a great demo that showed off the importance of graphics as part of the gaming experience in opposition to the growing mantra of Gameplay over Graphics. The demo was based on what he called “Input/Output Theory” and allowing the player to feel like they truly own the output of the game. He does this by linking every input from the user to the visual output. Even with very abstract gameplay, this lets the user associate the actions they perform with the result of the game, making them feel more a part of the game.

Pekko Koskinen finished up the session talking about Games as systems of behavior. He states that game design can be thought of as an art of fictional behavior, providing a lens through which the user sees a particular experience. Unlike so many other forms of expression, games are not reliant on the media through which they’re presented. Once you know the rules of a game, you can even play it in your head!

We’re excited to see what else the conference has to offer and will continue to post our experiences!

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