What is the practice of game design? Out of all the disciplines needed to make a game, game design is the most critical but least understood. Until now that is… when the NYU Game Center will take a rigorous look at the ideas and methods of game design in a two-day conference this October.

NYU Game Center to Host a Two-Day Conference on the Practice of Game Design, Oct. 28-30
"Practice: Game Design in Detail" Conference

Entitled Practice: Game Design in Detail, the conference brings together an unprecedented gathering of professional game designers from all forms of games.  Through a series of lectures, panels, workshops, and discussions the practice of game design will be explored with a focus on the day-to-day activity of designing games.

 

The conference will hold a pre registration and reception on Friday, Oct. 28 from 7 to 8 p.m.  On Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 29 and 30, the conference will get underway in earnest with breakfast before moving on to a series of lectures, panels, and other events.  Practice will take place at the NYU Game Center, located in the Tisch School of the Arts, 721 Broadway, 9th floor, in New York City.  The conference is open to the general public for a fee of $500.  There is a discount for NYU Game Center members and the NYU Community.  For more detailed information on the activities and events of the conference, as well as instructions for registering, visit http://gamecenter.nyu.edu/practice/index.html.

 

“The conference presents a unique opportunity for the high-level exchange of ideas,” said Frank Lantz, acting chair of the NYU Game Center.  “Game design is a specialized, complex discipline, and Practice will offer the occasion to better understand what we do by taking a close look at the nuts and bolts of game design.”

 

Featured guest speakers will include celebrated board game designer Reiner Knizia; NCAA rules coordinator Rogers Redding; and Zynga Creative Director Chris Trottier.  Panels will cover topics from game design’s relationship to computer programming to state of the art game design process and techniques.  On Saturday, an Open Problem session will be held in which conference attendees present works in progress and share design problems for discussion and feedback.  Also, several opportunities for open gameplay will be available throughout the two-day event.

 

The NYU Game Center, established in 2008, is an independent, multi-school center for the research, design and development of digital games. The Center is housed at the Tisch School of the Arts in the Skirball Center for New Media and is a collaboration with NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. Its goal is to incubate new ideas, create partnerships, and establish a multi-school curriculum to explore new directions for the creative development and critical understanding of games. In so doing, the Game Center will help establish New York City as a place of innovation and creativity within this important field.

 

Press Contact

Richard Pierce
Richard Pierce
(212) 998-6796