November Gathering: Interaction design and usability under the loupe

11th of November was IGDA Finland’s Super-Tuesday! We arranged both IGDA Finland Presentations at White Hall and a pub night at Cuba club. This time IGDA Finland Presentations session was organized in association with Remedy Entertainment, Sigchi and Sulake.

The presentation session was biggest so far with over 130 participants, organized in White Hall at the center of Helsinki. The session focused on interaction design and game usability with an impressive line-up of speakers from Insomniac, Sulake, IronStarHelsinki and HeavyMetal Helsinki. Presenters covered areas from scrum & usability, tutorials in games, lessons learned, user studies and usability on mobile. Presentation session was finished with three quick presentations from researchers and usability experts looking for possibilities of collaboration with game developers.

The night was kick-started with Alan Wake trailer by Remedy Entertainment, followed by Inka Vikman’s (Sulake) presentation on scrum process and usability. Sulake has a lot of data about their users. Currently their Habbo service is in 32 countries. Their user base consists of 56% boys and 44% girls. 63% of their customers are 13-16 years old. When it comes to software development processes Sulake has utilized scrum successfully for several years already. Usability practices are not 100% in line with scrum but Sulake has been able to deal with the challenges and merge usability practices into the scrum process.

Mobile community MoiPal was up next. MoiPal is a mobile community with presence at Facebook and MoiPal.com. MoiPal is targeted to teen and tween girls. Joakim Achren, the CEO of Ironstar Helsinki – company behind MoiPal – said that the key challenges relate to mobile phone as a gaming device. Usability-wise it is not the most perfect device for game play with its small buttons, unstandardized UI and unstable GPRS. Their approach is to tie 2-in-1. In 2-in-1 model the users’ can practice MoiPal interaction on web. The UI on the web site will be the same as on mobile.

Ryan Schneider from Insomniac Games talked about Resistance 2’s usability testing process and lessons learned from creating and developing the Ratchet & Clank and Resistance franchises, most recently Resistance 2. In its previous titles leading to R2, Insomniac used focus testing (8-10 players experiencing large gameplay segments simultaneously while developers and publisher watch privately) to obtain player data. However, in Resistance 2 Insomniac chose to combine this approach along with adding usability testing. The dual testing formats enabled Insomniac to obtain broad, general feedback as well as detailed data on important topics such as aiming, audio design, player navigation and UI interface. Insomniac retained Ronin to manage the usability testing process. All in all, usability testing is still a relatively new process to Insomniac, though the studio plans to incorporate it more in future titles earlier during development. With R2 Insomniac started conducting usability tests late in production (post-Alpha).

The last presentation was given by Olli Sinermä who has worked both as a game designer and game reviewer. He wanted to focus on ways to teach a player to play a game; to understand game mechanics and controls. He was complaining that too often tutorials are hard to understand, too complex, boring or just useless. He showed some good and bad examples of tutorials, playable intros, electronic manual or learn-as-you-go alternatives. Lessons learned: keep it fun and a seamless part of the game experience.

At the end of the day Carolina Islas, Harri Lehmuskallio and Jari Takatalo gave short talks highlighting interesting interaction design issues. Carolina is looking for collaboration in the area of mobile augmented reality gaming. Harri Lehmuskallio from Idean presented their spinn-game prototype for iPhone and Jari Takatalo from the University of Helsinki is doing research on user experience in games.

The after party aka IGDA Gathering was held at Cuba cafe. Little over 100 developers made it through the rain to the colorful and warm atmosphere of Cuba. The talked dwelled around the presentations and especially Ryan, our guest from Insomniac, had a busy night chatting with talkative Finns. :) Cuba cafe closed its doors at midnights. After that the party continued at Erottaja, Rymy Eetu and Manala.

Thanks you all for the great night and see you at the IGDA little X-mas parties in December!

November Gathering: Tuesday 11th

Would you like to know what Insomniac has learned from Ratchet & Clank or Resistance: Fall of Man on game usability and interaction design? How to test mobile and online game community MoiPal? What are the best usability and interaction design practices at Sulake?

Welcome to IGDA Finland Presentation session organized in association with SIGCHI, Remedy Games and Sulake! This time the theme is game interaction design and usability.

We have a mind blowing lineup of speakers:

Ryan Schneider (Insomniac) Ryan works as Community Director at Insomniac. Insomniac is famous for Ratchet & Clank series and Resistance: Fall of Man which was one of the PS3 launch titles.

Joakim Achren (IronStarHelsinki) Joakim is the CEO of IronStarHelsinki. Ironstar Helsinki is the first company in the world to have successfully launched a cross-platform game that allows branded virtual goods in both online and mobile environments.

Inka Vikman (Sulake) Inka works as Concept Designer at Sulake. Sulake is an online entertainment company focused on virtual worlds and social networking. They run popular online community service Habbo in 32 countries.

Olli Sinermä (Heavy Metal Helsinki / Pelit magazine) Olli works as lead designer and game analyst. He will talk about usability from game reviewer's viewpoint.

After the presentations we will have open microphone session where YOU can give quick presentations (max 5 minutes) on your usability challenges or solutions! If you would like to have you 15 seconds of fame: let us know by 6th November. E-mail: Sonja.Kangas@igda.fi

NOTE: This time pre-registration to the IGDA Finland Presentations session is mandatory. Please register at: http://igda.fi/?page_id=16 The IGDA gathering aka after party is at Cuba cafe!

* IGDA FINLAND PRESENTATION * Place: Valkoinen sali, Aleksanterinkatu 16-18, follow the IGDA signs Date: Tuesday 11th November Starts: 16.00 Ends: 19.00 — the chat will continue at Cuba cafe!

* IGDA FINLAND AUGUST GATHERING & AFTER PARTY * Place: Cuba Cafe, Erottajankatu 4, 00120 Helsinki (map: http://igda.fi/?page_id=5) Time: Tuesday 11th November, doors open at 19.00

October Gathering: housewarming party with lappish flavor

[singlepic=297,320,240,,center] IGDA Finland Gatherings moved to Cuba café and in October it was the time for housewarming party. With 185 visitors out of which 37 were newcomers the house surely was hot – packed full! Cuba staff didn’t quite get the idea of IGDA at first. They were expecting just a couple of geeks playing video games at the back and were surprised when people start floating in. Recoil, Rovio, Sumea, Sulake, Bugbear, Everyplay and Remedy were all present amongst others.

Move from the heavy metal basement of System Rock to more colorful, cheerful and cosy Cuba café was apparently well accepted. The housewarming party was sponsored by Lapland Studio which is a post-production house and game company in one. They showed an impressive show reel and talked a bit about their services. In a nutshell Lapland Studio is interested in collaboration with game companies who need high class concept art, 3D animations and motion capture. If you missed the presentation, Lapland Studio has a new web site with lots of examples of their current work.

Besides chatting about Lapland Studio, people were eagerly expecting Max Payne movie to hit the theatres. There were rumors that brand new Alan Wake trailer will be showing before the movie but only during the opening weekend? Check out by yourself if that is true! Good discussion and excellent mojitos kept the house full until the closing signal. Luckily there are several after party places nearby such as Rymy-Eetu, Ahjo or Erottaja. We had a blast! The next gathering is on 11th November – see you then!

September Gathering: Farewell System Rock

[singlepic=337,120,90,,right] Media has been full of news about global economical recession. Unfortunately game industry is not free of its impact even though the editor in chief of Pelit-lehti said that the economic slump is always good for the game industry because people tend to stick indoors playing games during the insecure times instead of spending their money elsewhere ;)

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Luckily the worries didn't show in attendance to the September IGDA Gathering which attracted nearly 100 visitors. The casual chat went from challenges in the gaming industry and global economics to funding, networking and interesting game releases. For example Little Big Planet is around the corner. Also Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning was one of the releases people were eagerly waiting for. There are number of things happening in Finland as well but we have still some way to go until large domestic productions such a Alan Wake will be finalized.

Thank you all who joined the Gathering in September and be sure to join the party again on 7th October. October Gathering will be the "housewarming party" at Cuba bar sponsored by Lapland Studio.

IGDA together with its partners has also been planning exciting program for November and December Gatherings. Mark the coming Gatherings to your calendar and follow the IGDA forum and web site to keep track with the news.

October Gathering - Tuesday 7th

¡BIENVENIDO A CUBA! IGDA Finland goes to Cuba on 7th October. System Rock will soon be closed due to the Makkaratalo renovation. But no worries, from now on IGDA gatherings will be held at Cuba Café at Erottaja. Its going to be a lot of arriba! arriba! and couple of mojitos, por favor!

The Cuba housewarming party will have special program as well as sponsored drinks by Lapland Studio.

Remember to put next IGDA Gathering to your calendar and join us for the fiesta!

*IGDA FINLAND OCTOBER GATHERING* Time: Tuesday 7th October, doors open at 19.00 Place: Cuba Café, Erottajankatu 4, 00120 Helsinki (map)