Blog Archive

May 22, 2012: The first review! (0 comments)

And it's pretty positive!  (Breathing on fingernails; buffing fingernails on lapel.)Read the review by Actual Insights....

May 22, 2012: "Playful Design" now available (0 comments)

I'm massively excited to announce that my new book exploring how games can achieve great things in the real world is now on sale!You can download and read the introduction for totally free.  It really sets the tone for the...

May 17, 2012: 10 Tips for Building a Better Game (0 comments)

The good folks at .net magazine have run an excerpt of John Ferrara's new book covering these ten important tips. The book itself, we're thrilled to report, shipped from the printer just moments ago. You can order it now, both...

April 9, 2011: Article: The elements of player experience (0 comments)

I've written a new article for UX Mag that's adapted from the upcoming book.  Building off of Jesse James Garrett's elements of user experience, it proposes a similar model for game experiences.  Feedback on this piece is really valuable to...

August 9, 2010: Interview with Jesse Schell (0 comments)

Last week I spoke with game designer Jesse Schell, the highly influential author of "The Art of Game Design", professor at Carnegie Mellon, and CEO of Schell Games.  His presentation from the 2010 DICE Summit, in which he mapped out...

July 25, 2010: Can games bring real social change? (0 comments)

I'm thrilled to unveil "Fitter Critters", a video game designed to teach 9-to-12-year-olds healthier eating habits.  I developed this game in collaboration with a brilliant team* as an entry to "Apps for Healthy Kids", a contest sponsored by the USDA...

April 28, 2010: Discussing the PlayStation Move with Sony's Dr. Richard Marks (0 comments)

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April 16, 2010: Send your questions about the PlayStation Move (0 comments)

Next week I'll be interviewing Dr. Richard Marks, Sony's R&D manager of special projects, who developed the EyeToy, PS Eye, and PlayStation Move peripherals.  If you're not familiar with the Move, it's a motion controller that uses a video camera...

April 11, 2010: Gamepocalypse Now (0 comments)

Jesse Schell, author of "The Art of Game Design", has started a blog to expand on the themes of his February presentation at the DICE Summit.  In that talk, he predicted that sometime soon game mechanics will become integrated into...

March 28, 2010: The classroom as a game (1 comments)

Lee Sheldon teaches game design at Indiana University.  His methods are a bit unconventional.  His class on building massively multiplayer online games is itself structured like an MMO.  Students work in teams called "guilds", grades are awarded with experience points,...

March 21, 2010: And the Nobel prize for video games goes to... (0 comments)

One of the most interesting practical applications of video game design I've come across is FoldIt, a project out of the University of Washington that has game players folding chains of proteins.  It's actually a lot more awesome than it...

March 14, 2010: White House launches games for health initiative (0 comments)

Can video games get kids to go easy on the Lucky Charms?  The Obama administration thinks they might be able to. In a letter to attendees of the annual Game Developers' Conference last week, Michelle Obama issued a challenge to...

March 7, 2010: Interview with Dennis Crowley, Founder, foursquare (2 comments)

foursquare is a mobile networking application that broadcasts when users check in to various locations around a city.  People can see which friends are nearby, and drop in to join them.  One of the things that makes foursquare really unique...

February 24, 2010: Send your questions for foursquare (2 comments)

This weekend I'll be interviewing Dennis Crowley, creator of foursquare.  We'll be discussing the decision to design what could have been a conventional UI as a game-based experience.  If you have questions you'd like me to ask, please post them...

February 21, 2010: Defining games (the cheapo way) (0 comments)

Many books on game design have a chapter, usually early on, that wrestles with putting a definition to the term "game".  Since that's something for which we all have a pretty intuitive sense, it's surprising how broadly our definitions of...

February 15, 2010: Hunting for coupons at Old Navy (1 comments)

Game experiences are slowly creeping into regular old user interfaces.  A great example is OldNavyWeekly.com.  On the surface level it serves as a normal circular, announcing big sales on the hip clothes.  But it also prominently prompts users to "Click...

February 4, 2010: Interview with Stone Librande, Lead Designer at Maxis (0 comments)

I recently spoke with Stone Librande, who has worked as a designer on games including "Spore" and "Diablo III".  Stone also leads an annual design workshop at the Game Developers' Conference and teaches a college course in game design.  We...

January 30, 2010: Interview with Mike Ambinder of Valve Software (0 comments)

Valve Software has designed top-selling games including Left 4 Dead, Half-Life, and Team Fortress.  I recently spoke with Mike Ambinder, PhD, the company's full-time experimental psychologist, to discuss the professional practices that ensure high-quality game experiences. Q: What's your...

January 26, 2010: Looking for Haiti Relief Games (0 comments)

Two weeks ago Farmville made a special white corn crop available for real money, and passed the proceeds on to Haiti relief efforts.  In a news release, Zynga reports that they raised over $1 million.  I think it's a really...

January 18, 2010: Applying UX skills to game design (0 comments)

Nathan Verrill of Natron Baxter Applied Gaming provides a wonderful in-depth explanation of how he designed Signtific Lab, a game that facilitates prolific high-quality brainstorming around a central question.  While the project was wholly a game, Nathan's descriptions of the...

January 10, 2010: Interview: Luis Von Ahn, creator, Games With a Purpose (1 comments)

In 2003 Luis Von Ahn introduced The ESP Game, which challenged two players working online to independently pick the same words to describe a picture.  But The ESP Game was also designed with a covert purpose: to improve search technology...

December 21, 2009: Introducing the book and calling for your input (4 comments)

Hello world!  I'm absolutely thrilled to introduce my forthcoming book, Playful Design: Creating Game Experiences in Everyday Interfaces.  This title is going to focus how the explosive growth of video games impacts the design of other kinds of user interfaces. ...