The Design of Family-Friendly Games by Brianne Baker
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In these pandemic times, making games that can bring people together is more important than ever. There are already many games that connect people to try their hands at war, but it is rarer to find those games that everyone in the family CAN play, and WANTS to play.
Designing games for all ends of the age spectrum—from preschoolers to the elderly—presents many challenges for UX designers. With years of experience designing all-ages educational software, and creating bestselling games for preschoolers, two former Night & Day Studios designers would like to share stories and best practices of all-ages design. We are wading into the new challenges of VR design with these same principles in mind, and are finding the combination even more challenging—and thrilling.
Let us help you navigate some of these waters with our own guidelines, and expand the challenge to include all kinds of players: those new to games; those alienated by violence; those that never see themselves in games; and everyone with divergent perspectives and abilities.
Brianne has Bachelors degrees in Fine Art and Interactive Media Design. Nat earned a Masters degree from UCSD in Communication & Cognitive Science.
For more than a decade, Brianne and Nat have been been working in kids' and family-friendly software, including several bestselling titles such as Peekaboo Barn and projects with Disney Jr.’s Octonauts, Nickelodeon, DC Comics, and Sesame Workshop.
Now cofounders and designers at Lightseed, an XR company in Portland, Nat and Brianne are developing accessible, family-friendly VR games and serving as the Metaverse and Emergent Technologies Strategists for the Peace Literacy Institute.
Contact:
You can contact Brianne Baker and Nat Sims in the following ways:
Twitter: @lightseedinc
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briannebaker/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/natsims0/
Website: https://www.lightseed.one/
https://www.brianne.work/
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