The Designer's Journey

by Jean-Marc Vincent (September 2005)

The evening started with Jason Della Rocca (IGDA Executive Director) giving the audience a preview of data recently collected from over 6500 responses to a comprehensive demographics survey sent out to the game development community. The survey, targeting mostly the US, Canada, Australia and the UK, is an attempt to get a better picture of who makes games. If you are a white heterosexual, 31, university/college educated, with a game work experience of approx 5 years and an average compensation of US$57k, you are part of the "norm". Outside these parameters, you are "different". For more on this survey and for an in-depth analysis of the results, check out: www.igda.org/diversity.

Jason's presentation was followed by a talk entitled "A Practical Guide to the Hero's Journey" presented by Bob Bates, freelance Designer/Writer/Producer and current IGDA Chairman. This fascinating presentation, previously delivered at GDC, highlighted the process by which the common structures of worldwide myths -- as identified by Joseph Campbell in his book "Hero With a Thousand Faces" -- can provide guidance in the often painful process of writing compelling stories and characters for games.

Trying to meet the audience expectation for some direct advice on how to incorporate Campbell's discoveries into game content creation,  Bob listed a 9 steps process (pick the premise, create your hero, create a great villain, establish the world, disrupt the hero's world, enter the mythological woods, confront the evil One, capture the prize, the hero,s return) along with the concept of a 3 act structure (showing the hero in the initial stage, show his struggle, show how the hero has changed). In conclusion, Bob reminded the audience that the presentation content was not a toolbox to build a story off the shelf but rather a circuit tester to see if "enough mythical juice was going through the game". For more details, download the presentation slides.

In order to increase the level of interest in the IGDA membership, the traditional prize shuffle was replaced with an enrollment session where all new members received a gift after registering with the organization. The evening ended with the traditional lively networking activities. Also, thanks again to our volunteers Isabelle Marazzani and Guillaume Voghel for welcoming everybody to the meeting.

September Pictures

The 150+ audience listening to Bob

Bob Bates dives into the woods of game design and story...

And, eager audience members wouldn't let him out of the woods for another hour!

Boys from EA: Vander Cabalaro, Hugo Dallaire and ?.

Two of the 11%: Marie-Jo Leroux and Stephanie Marchand of DC Studios

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