Kerry and Simon both work for LittleLoud, and one of their recent games was Sweatshop. Sweatshop made me feel horrifically guilty, because running my factory at optimum efficiency and profitability meant employing little slave kids to put on the end of my production line. It’s brilliant because it feels like gaming you know, but is making you do dreadful things to succeed.

This session will explore that idea and some related ones. It reminds me a little of Jenova Chen talking about time attack modes in early prototypes of Flower, which they removed because play-testers were screaming “fuck yeah!” at new records, and that wasn’t quite what the designers were going for. This isn’t about some stupid question like “Can games make you cry?”, it’s not a Countdown To Tears™. It’s about nuanced game design. How do games make you feel angry, or guilty, or dirty?

What makes games addictive, even when they’re not very interesting or fun? Some games have an alarming ability to make us spend time or money on them, and game designer Minkette will be exploring what tricks push the buttons of our psyches. She’ll be looking at common tricks in game design, as well as psychological experiments in impulse control.

Minkette is a freelance game designer, with credits ranging from Punchdrunk, Coney and Six to Start through to large multinationals such as Hasbro. I know her personally. I’d like to clarify that she’s actually not evil, is in fact a lovely person, and will be discussing these evil game design tricks from a perspective of curious distaste.