On Game Design with Greg Kasavin

The following are excerpts from a conversation with Greg Kasavin, Creative Director at Supergiant Games, makers of indie blockbuster Bastion and the upcoming Transistor. Before helping found Supergiant Games, Greg worked as a producer at EA on Command & Conquer  and served as the editor-in-chief for Gamespot. This conversation originally took place in May of 2012.  EL: What is game design? GK: Game design is the art of making games, put broadly. It’s coming up […]

On Game Design with Richard Vorodi

The following are excerpts from a conversation with Richard Vorodi, Senior Game Designer at Crytek. Richard’s’s hit games include classics like Wave Race, 1080° Avalanche, Mario vs Donkey Kong, Metroid Prime, and more recently, Darksiders II. This conversation originally took place in April of last year. EL: The question I start everybody off with is, what is game design? RV: That’s the big question. And I think that you’re going to get a different answer […]

On Game Design with Rich Hilleman (Part 3)

Rich Hilleman is the Chief Creative Director of EA. He is one of EA’s earliest employees and is best known for helping to build the juggernaut EA Sports business as the original producer of games including John Madden Football, NHL Hockey and Tiger Woods PGA Tour. This is the third part of an interview that took place in April, 2012. Part 1 and part 2 were previously posted to this blog. EL: For the young designers you coach and help […]

On Game Design with Rich Hilleman (Part 2)

Rich Hilleman is the Chief Creative Director of EA. He is one of EA’s earliest employees and is best known for helping to build the juggernaut EA Sports business as the original producer of games including John Madden Football, NHL Hockey and Tiger Woods PGA Tour. This is the second part of an interview took place in April, 2012. You can read the first part here. EL: What do you think is the biggest challenge […]

On Game Design with Rich Hilleman (Part 1)

Rich Hilleman is the Chief Creative Director of EA. He is one of EA’s earliest employees and is best known for helping to build the juggernaut EA Sports business as the original producer of games including John Madden Football, NHL Hockey and Tiger Woods PGA Tour. This interview took place in April, 2012. For more from Rich, check out part 2 and part 3 of this interview. EL: What are some of the games you’ve […]

On Game Design with Andrew Mayer

I spoke with Andrew Mayer, Creative Director at Sojo Studios, about game design and creative direction. Andrew’s 20 year career includes working for PF Magic, Cartoon Network, PlayFirst, Mob Science and Sojo Studios, where he recently launched WeTopia for Facebook. In addition to designing games, Andrew is the author of the steam punk series Society of Steam. EL: So the question I start everybody out with is, what is game design? AM: Okay. How many […]

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 […]

“What is Game Design?” with Paul Barnett

The following are excerpts from a conversation with Paul Barnett, Senior Creative Director at BioWare/Mythic.  Paul currently oversees a number of projects in the BioWare family, including Warhammer: Wrath of Heroes and BioWare Social.  EL: To start with, what is game design? PB: Oh, dear, crikey. If I knew that, then I’d be rich. I’m with Stephen King. It’s probably telepathy. I thought that was the greatest answer to what is story writing is telepathy. […]