PLAYING WELL

gavan wilhite

life as a video game

Storyline

 

1. How I've applied video game tech in other fields
2. Life lessons I've learned along the way         (told through analogs to video games)
3.              from these journeys

Short Stories

Hitting Max Level

 

1. Got good (enough) grades
2. Graduated high school
3. Got into a good college
4. Stayed out of (too much) trouble
5. Graduated on time
6. Got a good job

 

 "Is this the end?" 

Enjoy the End Game

 

It was just the end of prescribed steps

 

The end-game is where it really begins

 

You get to make your own goals

Thailand Story

Rolling the Dice

Games like Backgammon teach the value of creating expanded ways for luck to happen

 

Simultaneous projects can help expand those opportunities

 

It did for co-founding AltspaceVR

AltspaceVR

socializing at a distance via game technology

Reporter Story

Your Role in the Party

Especially as a founder, your role changes even when your title doesn't

 

Feeling overwhelmed -> There's an aspect of your role you haven't learned how to do well yet

• Managing people
• Prioritizing
• Delegation
• ...

 

Sometimes the role your ego wants isn't the role you as a whole really want

Forging your Gear

• Limit spending "innovation tokens"
  • Each "non-battle hardened" technology costs a token
• Avoid only using skills you are good at
  • For me, this is spending time coding to avoid other work
• People say it's awesome != people will use it
  • This ratio is especially high in AR / VR

Getting Gud

We started by making a maximally flexible system

 

We only grew once we used that to learn where to focus

 

1. Events
2. Humor
3. Creativity

 

I fought the focus sometimes, but it was critical

Comedy Story

Players of all Types

Altspace users came from all walks of life

 

You learn a lot about cultures when someone from Brazil is suddenly teleported next to someone from Saudi Arabia

 

Diversity brings pragmatic advantages

 

Women at the company were critical in recognizing and building important anti-harassment tools 

 

Rainbow was very helpful with this

Maze Story

Leading a Raid

• Learn individually how people want to be worked with
  • Clear tasks vs collaborative ideation vs ...
• Let others make decisions, it's how they grow
  • Leader-leader vs leader-follower
• Minimize meetings with more than 3 people
• Don't take too many teammates to lunch at the same time

HAH Story

Party Selection

Most important challenges require rallying multiple people

 

You can notice when people are being agents in the world

 

Believe people when they show you who they are

 

Receiving feedback well and taking responsibility are crucial

 

Work with people who are working on themselves

Watching Replays

Worry & regret don’t help

 

Planning, reflection, accountability & processing do

 

It's sad to loose something you and others put a ton of care into

 

It's still best to work on things that can make you feel that way

 

It takes work to unwind what is "you" from a project you worked on

Boat Story

Losing Your Gear

You get tossed in a dungeon, or you stow away on a spaceship

 

You loose the things that you felt you were relying on

 

This is part of the hero's journey, embrace it

 

It becomes evident that you still have what you need

 

Your greater mission can get you through

Character Building

Stoicism is awesome (and not what it sounds like)

 

Therapy is giving yourself "upgrades" not "reaching healthiness"

 

Steel-manning 'woo' can be great

 

Combining ethical frameworks for better choices

• Consequentialism
• Deontology
• Virtue ethics
   

 

Meaningful Choice

Notice when you are "playing a role" vs being an agent

 

Under-served causes and oblique approaches can create extra impact

 

Doing things that otherwise would not happen is ideal

 

 

Invest in Passives

Strategy games teach you to build passive income systems

 

The earlier the better

 

IRL these are residuals, businesses, stocks, crypto, etc 

 

These aren't easy, but keep an eye for oportunities

 

Bits to Atoms

Finding new applications for existing skills can be rewarding

 

"Where can my background (game tech) apply to the physical world?"

• Robots
• Self-driving cars
• Bioprinting
• Projecting
• Big games
• ..

• Addresses similar combinatoric challenges
• Leverages battle-tested UI patterns
• Powered by generative design

Tissue Workshop

a character customizer for designing human tissues

Generative Tissue Design

• Uses the same techniques as generating cities in games
• Few bits in, many bits out

Inspiration from Archetypes

Embracing character architypes that resonate with you can keep projects engaging

 

• Rogue (UpGIF)
  • Inspired by bending the rules

• Paladin (ReRoute)
  • Inspired by a righteous fight

 

 

UpGIF.com

You'd be surprised how big of a building you can light up with a normal projector..

an activism tool for projecting GIF animations on surfaces

Security Story

ReRoute.fm

Reminding yourself that others are fighting the good fight alongside you fends off despair.

a podcast about ways to create a brighter future

Questing Forth

Life is better with a quest!

 

I'm building an app to help people find and do quests that matter

 

Collaborators and testers are welcome

 

Thank You Rainbow!

gavan@wilhite.io

 

1. Lorem
2. Ipsum
3. Dolor
4. Sit
5. ...

Creativity Exercise

List Making

• Take 3 minutes to list 20 items
• Good daily creativity practice
• Numbering helps

1. Mind map  (#nofilter)
2. Highlight interesting ideas
3. Erase the board
4. Add the highlights back
5. Repeat..

Creativity Exercise

Expansion <> Contraction

1. Get post-its or a text editor
2. Set a 3 minute timer
3. Brainstorm privately
4. Combine everyone's items
5. Organize and consolidate together

• Use in meetings with > 3 people
• Great way to ensure people get heard
• Can be kept anonymous

Parallel Brainstorm

• Game design involves constant cycles of creativity
• Lenses can remind us of important considerations
• Useful in UX design
• Some might not fit, but most can spark thought

Game Design Lenses

Bonus Tool

Bonus Tool

Rory's Story Cubes

• Interpreted metaphorically
• Useful for escaping local maxima
  • Adds significant "annealing heat"
• Out of the cube thinking