NYC Indie Game Meetup Presents: Prototyping: The best kind of GDD

https://www.facebook.com/events/437117866333873/

Topic

Arkadium has created a new department call the Research and Development department.  We are responsible for creating prototypes from ideas we get from fellow co-workers.  We are using prototypes in order to analyze if a game idea is fun or not.  We will talk about this new department, why we think prototyping is important and what has worked for us and what hasn't worked for us in terms of  the process of prototyping…

Bios

Julia is a senior game designer on Arkadium's Research and Development team where she helps discover and prototype new game concepts for the company. Previously she worked for several years at Arkadium making casual and social games, including the hit Facebook game Mahjongg Dimensions. She is the recipient of a 2011 Stevie Award for Women in Business and was part of PBS's Get the Math, a children's show teaching how math is used in creative jobs. Before that she graduated from the Cleveland institute of Art. For her thesis, she created an educational game for second graders at a public school. She was an IGDA GDC scholar for 2006.
 

Tom Rassweiler is the Director of Research and Development at Arkadium. He oversees the process for idea generation, game concepting and prototype development for the company’s up and coming titles. Previously Tom managed all the game programmers in charge of creating web and downloadable games, focusing on how to keep game development affordable with growing competition and production costs. Prior to joining Arkadium, Tom worked as an assistant game designer for Wellspring Interactive where he helped designed groundbreaking web-games in collaboration with creative powerhouses such as Neil Gaiman. He is a graduate of Princeton University.
 

David Or is a game programmer in the Research and Development department at Arkadium where he’s responsible for designing and developing new game prototypes for the company. Previously, David worked on programming client Facebook games including Konami’s Twilight Carnival and Publishers Clearing House’s Bingo Charms.  In his spare time, David is a new media artist, developing technology and doing live performances for contemporary dance company, koosil-ja/danceKUMIKO. He is actively engaged in NYC gaming community events.