Ep. 294 - Role of the Creator in Games with Dhruv Jani

Tune into this 6th episode of a 10-part series, "Designer’s Digest” with Dhruv Jani.

This series is created by Audiogyan in partnership with @godrejdesignlab

Designer's Digest series is about Design as a profession, its daily grind, the secrets to climbing the design career ladder, and what edge we’ll need to thrive in the captivating world of design.

Dhruv Jani joins us on Audiogyan as we talk about the role of the creator in the world of Game Design. Dhruv Jani is an artist at, and the founder of the independent game studio: Oleomingus. He studies postcolonial writing and interactive fiction and explores the use of video game spaces as possible sites of protest and reparation.

Questions

1. What does a game designer do? What does it mean to be a game designer? How can one become a game designer? What skills are required? Which other professions are required while designing a game?
2. Can you give a quick snapshot of how games came into existence and how they evolve into today’s video games and mobile games? A short history of sorts?
3. What are the broad categories/genres of games and which ones do you deal with? What’s special about your genre?
4. Your games often start with a narrative. What comes first when you think of a game? An event, a discovery of the past or a speculation of the future? An event? Where and how does any of your game start for Oleomingus?
5. What has politics to do with games? Is it because you have to pick a side? Is the game a Western concept for India? India has been a land of compassion, inclusivity, and forgiveness.
6. You call games to be Interactive fiction. Narrative interface design. What can and can not be told using games? Where does the medium flourish and where does it break?
7. Games have certainly evolved and come a long way. Now, I guess it’s the biggest industry on this planet. The games I recently got to know were Werewolves and Mafia and somehow the theme seems to be based on trust. What’s going on? How do you see it impacting the new generation and society at large?
8. Games are highly addictive, why? Which ingredient makes it addictive? Who is supposed to design it? Can you explain with an example of how the process happens?
9. Given the power of games, what’s the biggest responsibility of game designers?
10. Where are we heading as game players and game makers in this world of meta-verse and AI?

Reference Reading

1. https://audiogyan.com/2022/05/25/game-design/
2. https://www.sportskeeda.com/esports/news-the-right-consume-histories-dhruv-jani-studio-oleomingus-talks-creativity-meaning
3. https://indiaifa.org/grants-projects/dhruv-jani.html
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium
5. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_(party_game)
7. https://oleomingus.com/about-1
8. https://www.stirworld.com/think-opinions-gamescapes-indian-video-game-developer-studio-oleomingus-reconfigures-history
9. https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/sep/22/video-games-india-politics-dhruv-jani-sushant-chakraborty-studio-oleomingus#comments
10. https://indiaartfair.in/game-grammar-dhruv-jani
11. https://garage.vice.com/en_us/article/3kxpgw/this-first-person-game-is-a-surreal-meta-fictional-experience-in-colonialism
12. https://www.sleek-mag.com/article/studio-oleomingus-surreal-video-games-marginalised-stories-india-history/
13. https://venturebeat.com/pc-gaming/the-indiebeat-how-studio-oleomingus-is-crafting-its-indian-post-modern-fairy-tale/
14. https://killscreen.com/studio-oleomingus/
15. https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=list_works&hl=en&hl=en&user=AMZG-C4AAAAJ&sortby=pubdate
16. https://www.ted.com/talks/dhruv_jani_the_interactive_fictions_of_generous_history