2015-06-25 - Game Design

Frank Lantz

The world of video games is big and shiny. Mega companies try to engage ever increasing crowds of gamers and toping sales charts with each new release of their new super franchise. Games have become a serious business and unfortunately some of the values games stand for have been lost in the flood of this new popularity. As a developer it’s hard to find inspiration within the main stream these days, but now and then we find inspiration from people who look at games from a different angle.

In the recent years the most inspirational person for me has been a guy who might be familiar to you, if you follow the independent games scene. Frank Lantz is Director of the NYU Game Center and has been working independently at Area/Code which later got bought by Zynga. Besides his many lesser know games (Parking Wars, or large scale real world games) he is the creator of the brilliant Drop7, one of the most interesting puzzle games in the last 10 years. Besides his love for gaming Frank also has a strong connection to art, philosophy and aesthetics. All fields i’m also interested, but never been educated enough to deep dive in.

Today i want to share my “collection” of talks by Frank which inspired, motivated and amazed me over last couple of years. If you have any interest in the greater ideas of what games are this is for you.

Hearts and Minds

Life and Death and Middle Pair: Go, Poker and the Sublime

Doorknobs and Butterflies, Games after Art

Strange Love: Game Theory vs. Game Design

Games as an Aesthetic Form

Reinventing Gaming

eSports

Go in the new World

Counting Frames