Monday, July 23, 2007

Eli Neiburger, AADL: "Tournament Games for Any Occassion: Choosing the Right Games for your Audience

Things to consider when choosing a game for a tournament
  • Audience
    • what age/gender?
  • Appeal
    • fun factor
  • Recognition
    • pick a game people know
  • Logistics/Matches
    • short rounds
    • multiplayer
  • Flexibilibity/Options
  • Victory Conditions
    • something that experts and novices have a chance at
  • Appropriateness/Rating
    • highly subjective, but it is a hot button issue at the moment
  • Accessibility
    • to people who haven't played
    • pick something that appeals to hardcore and beginning players
    • create an atmospshere where they feel comfortable sucking!
  • Hipness
    • something that people feel cool playing
  • Angstiness
    • high appeal, but can't be so dark you can't see it

  • Rabidty of Fanbase
    • if you pick a game that is played in World Championship, you have rule sets easily available.
    • SuperSmash Brothers is a great tournament game
  • Depth/Mastery
    • Pick a game that you can always get better at
    • pick a game that is repeatable

The Genre Landscape
Just like books, there are many genres! Game Rankings.com has a very deep video game taxonomy.

Eli provided a quick tutorial on game ratings, and gave a reminder that online play may change the rating of the game. His slide on Trite Generalizations on why kids play games was terribly funny.

Having no "M" rated games is a great way to sidestep a number of issues. You can limit ages to the range on the box.

He did a speed overview of the good, the bad and the ugly on games within each genre... it was so fast, the best thing to do is grab slides at http://eliworks.com/dav/tourneygames.pdf. Or, buy his book!

No comments: