Injecting your games with soul

What the talk is about

Elad Drory explains how to build a casual game and give it "soul", meaning a memorable personality. Using Super Play's Dice Dreams as the example, he says you start with gameplay, business sense, audience understanding and a few core design pillars. Innovation should be limited: be new in only one or two of the three elements, core game, metagame and theme. Characters carry the game's personality, set its tone and build a bond with players. To keep that personality as the team grows, set a high quality bar early, give people creative freedom, and prune wrong directions in time. He also advises not falling in love with your own features and cutting those that break the pillars. Useful for game designers, producers and studio leads.