Hot Iron Productions

???????? ?????????????? The player engages with the experience of the game, and a balancing act begins. On one side, the perils of the game are too great; the monsters swarm, the timing demands precision, the puzzle has no clues. On the other side, a cakewalk; the challenges of the game are feeble or obvious, and they do not require the player have a requisite skill to match their attention investment. A psychologist named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term “Flow” to describe a broad phenomenon that encapsulates this balance between boredom and anxiety, and critically, how it supports sustained engagement in any activity with a return on attention investment of buoyant satisfaction. How engaged do want your players to feel? Game balancing is a technique of experience design that maintains a player state of flow throughout their adventure, even without a net. Hot Iron Productions is available to help you find your player’s balance. #gamedesign #flow #experience #design #engagement #gamedev

???????? An audience is given a story as a series of events; a particular sequence structured to produce an understanding. Aside from the kind of change the events represent, it is the pace of these story beats that matters. Variety in pacing their presentation invites the audience on a roller coaster ride. Setting the pace can be a rhythmic climb from which the audience predicts, the pace can linger and hold the audience on a single moment to soak in what has happened, or it can dramatically flee from one change to the next, causing the audience to give chase. The audience values these pacing changes as it encourages them to pay attention to the present. What present would you like to your audience to focus on? Presentation is the design of communication tailored to the intended audience. Hot Iron Productions is available to help the audience receive your gifts on their time. #pacing #storytelling #gamedesign #audience #attention #gamedev

???????????? Advances of the modern world we take for granted have their roots steeped in the scientific method. Posing an idea alone does not constitute a design until and unless it can be reliably proven when tested. We assert the idea as a means to address needs, but the creative construction of the test, the rigor of the testing procedure, and the care in test data evaluation can be far more important to the success of the design. How important is reliability to your business plan? Design methodology is a product of the creativity of art and the rigor of science. Hot Iron Productions is available to help you ratchet up successful design every time. #gamedesign #creativity #art #science #method #gamedev

???????????? ???????????????????????? Our ability to quickly absorb visual information, and process multiple levels of meaning is innate. Complex impressions of context, status, mood, revelation and intent are silently suggested with shape, color, pattern, composition and motion. Visual cues from facial expression, body gesture, camera movement and lighting are all evaluated in the blink of an eye. Successful storytelling follows the adage, "Show don't tell".? If a picture is worth a thousand words, it stands to reason that stories are well served when told visually. What do you want to show your audience? Story art is the practice of constructing narrative with visual cues, film grammar and good timing. Hot Iron Productions is available to help your audience see the story you want to tell. #storytelling #gamedesign #story #narrativedesign #storyboarding #gamedev?

?????????????????? In the early 1900s, a Dutch historian coined the phrase, “The Magic Circle”, as a means to describe his observations of player behavior. The “Magic” Johan Huizinga talked about was the phenomena expressed by people as they play. A set of rules defines the game as it is played, and thereby governs the behavior of the willing player; from perceptions to predictions. The magic is how naturally a player will forgo the real world, and fully turn their attention to the world of the game. How engaged do you want your audience to be? Immersion is the real time engagement of an audience with a conceptual presentation. Hot Iron Productions is available to craft experiences worthy of your players’ attention. #gamedesign #engagement #player #behavior #gamedev #design

???????????????? Entertainment serves a discerning customer; powerful and fickle simultaneously. It feeds on the products of creation that capture its attention in the moment. It always wants something else that's also somehow familiar, its appetite never subsides and it grows larger every year. Voraciously, it will always demand and consume more, but new and intriguing, or else. If what's offered up is not to its liking, instead it's the feeder that gets consumed. This has been described as, “feeding the dragon”. No matter what the audience asks for, how do you know their tastes? Clarity in understanding the audience is achieved when design thinking is applied to entertainment. Hot Iron Productions is available to help you know your audience. #audience #player #storytelling #gamedesign #story #gamedev

???????? ???????????? What’s the most important part of a game? Is it game art? Programming? Story? Rules? Music? Interface? One could argue, “all of the above”, but consider this: If a beautiful game is set up and no one plays it, is it still a game? This twist on the “tree falls in a forest”-question points out the fundamental aim of design: people. Who are your players and what do they want? Game Design is the practice of developing an experience that satisfies the player. Hot Iron Productions is available to help make your game an experience players never forget. #gamedesign #players #experience #design #uxdesign #gamedev

???????? Why does a plot twist? In presentation, there is a time for clarity, and a time for novelty. Too much predictability asks the audience to hold attention beyond the point they feel a payoff; this is boredom. Too little structure, and the result is confusion. A hook provides the audience with something recognizable, while asserting an integral novelty that presents an attractive puzzle. This is the nature of all engaging content: hold attention of an audience that wants to understand how the hook is resolved. How much attraction do you want for your customers? Story Design is a process that aims to engage an audience with a memorable experience. Hot Iron Productions is available to help you hook and keep satisfied customers. #gamedesign #story #hook #attention #gamedev #designthinking

???????????? Inevitably, during the process of making things better, the question comes up: “What are we doing?” Listen closely to different questions being asked, and notice when they reduce to this. The question implies that the answer should address needs as a course for positive change. Whether we’re trying to improve what could be better (a process, a product), or working toward original creation, the answers we come up with determine how successful we can be; to aim well. How successful do you want to be? Design is the process that leverages creativity in a methodical way to make things better. Hot Iron Productions is available to help you create and improve on your success. #design #gamedesign #designthinking #creativity #gamedev #innovation

?????????????????? Presentation of a figure who acts and reacts in ways that an audience can relate to is powerful. Theory of Mind is, roughly speaking, the ability to put yourself in another’s shoes. It speaks to our social impulses for empathy, understanding and learning from the experience of others. A character presents an invitation for the audience to see a situation from another perspective, and then to follow them through change. What perspective do you want your audience to have? Character Design is the means by which a relatable avatar is crafted. Hot Iron Productions is available to help you share your perspectives. #character #empathy #characterdesign #gamedesign #storytelling #gamedev