View source for A Dialogue On Depth

At [http://indiecade.com/ IndieCade 2011] this year, I led a discussion on the idea of ''depth'' in games with my friend [http://interestingchoices.com/ Paul Sottosanti], who is not only a great designer himself, but who is also one of the two elite [http://www.spyparty.com '''SpyParty'''] playtesters.  We decided we don't really know what depth in games actually is, so instead of trying to give a lecture about it and flail around, we simply asked the audience what they thought.

Both Paul and I did both give quick intro talks about our thoughts on the topic to get things started, and then we opened it up to questions and comments.  I put a slide up at the end of my short talk to try to tease apart some of the things people often conflate with depth, and it had this taxonomy of ideas:

<center>
{|cellpadding="10"
|+'''Depth Topics'''
|-
|align="right"|deep
|vs.
|align="left"|hard mental<br/>hard physical<br/>complicated<br/>meaningful<br/>emergent<br/>wide
|-
|align="right"|single-player
|vs.
|multi-player
|-
|align="right"|player-skill
|vs.
|avatar-skill
|}
</center>
<center>
{{#widget:MyPlick|id=bPrNYioJDsR|width=600|height=514}}
</center>

Here is the raw [[Media:indiecade11-DialogOnDepth.ppt|ppt]] and [[Media:indiecade11-DialogOnDepth.mp3|mp3]].

[[Category:Lectures]]
[[Category:Design]]