Jenova Chen on game design

The following are excerpts from a conversation with Jenova Chen, Co-Founder and Creative Director at thatgamecompany. Jenova’s meteoric rise began at USC after a viral success with Cloud led to a fortuitous meeting with Sony. Jenova’s hit games include the PSN exclusives Flow, Flower and Journey. EL: Can you start by introducing yourself, talking a little bit about what your background is and the games you’ve worked on? JC: I grew up in China, went […]

On Game Design with Ray Mazza

The following are excerpts from a conversation with Ray Mazza, Lead Designer Worldwide for Playfish.  Ray’s titles include The Sims 2, The Sims 3, The Sims Social, and a whole host of Sims expansion packs. Find out more about the multitalented Mr. Mazza on his blog. EL: To start with, what is game design? RM: What is game design? It’s figuring out what is fun. It’s trying to understand the concept of fun and then […]

On Game Design with Dan Chao

The following are excerpts from a conversation with Dan Chao, Lead Designer at Funzio.  Dan’s work runs the full gamut of design, including releases in the Core, Casual, Social and Mobile segments of the industry.  Dan has worked as gameplay engineer on Xbox launch title New Legends, lead designer on the casual game Wandering Willows, and most recently lead designer on social/mobile games Crime City, and Kingdom Age. EL: To start with, what is game […]