BIOGRAPHY

Nick Fortugno is the Director of Game Design at Gamelab, and has been a designer, writer and project manager on dozens of digital and nondigital games. Most recently he was lead designer on the downloadable hits Diner Dash and Plantasia. As a member of the Playground design team, Fortugno was a co-creator of the Big Urban Game, a large-scale, city-wide game for the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis in Fall 2003, and is one of the co-founders of the Come Out and Play Street Games Festival, which will run in September 2006. Fortugno also teaches game design and interactive narrative design at Parsons School of Design in New York City.

ABSTRACT

Game Design Essentials

This hands-on workshop will cover many basics of game design, including fundamental concepts like rules and play, designing freedoms and constraints, and creating a meaningful play experience. We will also apply these game design concepts to issues of learning and games, as well as creating games to convey educational content. The workshop will consist of a handful of game design exercises where participants will play, modify, design, and discuss off-the-computer games. We will round out the workshop by linking the concepts and design experiences to the challenges of digital game creation. Please come prepared to participate and have fun.