Nanocon XI/IDiG: An Interview with Dr. Jeff Howard
With big names like Richard Dansky, Geoffrey Long, Matt Forbeck, and Ken Rolston, Nanocon XI/IDiG looks to be a big success this year. Beginning Friday at 5pm, the Dakota Prairie Playhouse will play host to a weekend full of events. Nanocon’s planned events include IDiG keynote speakers, presentations, games, and an actual LARP. The weekend looks to have something for everyone who is a gamer at heart.
The Trojan Times was lucky enough to get an interview with Dr. Jeff Howard one of the driving forces behind Nanocon. In his own remote corner of DSU, Dr. Howard sat down with The Trojan Times and discussed what Nanocon XI/IDiG has to offer. Below are edited excerpts form that conversation.
Q. What is the theme of Nanocon XI/IDiG and what was the inspiration behind that choice?
A. During Nanocon, we host a workshop on integrated design in games (IDiG). Integrated design in games means that all of the aspects of a game need to fit together to support a central theme. This helps to create a completely integrated experience. This year’s theme for IDiG is games across media/transmedia. The idea behind transmedia is that when someone makes a video game or other media project, they should think about it in terms of a larger universe with many gateways. Soundtracks, films, social media, action figures, and of course video games can all work together as transmedia portals into one fictional universe. The inspiration for choosing this year’s theme comes from our speaker’s movement towards working with transmedia landscapes.
Q. Who are you most excited to have as a keynote speaker this year?
A. This year we have the four best keynote speakers we have ever had. It is exciting to see them all come, because they probably won’t be back in South Dakota. I look forward to having Ken Rolston, the lead designer of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, come and present. He is currently employed at Turbine and has been creating table top games since the 1980’s. Richard Dansky is another big name I am glad to see presenting at Nanocon. He is a lead Clancy writer at Ubisoft and has done all the narrative work for games like Rainbow Six and Splinter Cell. He also has a background in horror and table top gaming. He worked at White Wolf helping to create The World of Darkness series. During his time there, He worked specifically on Wraith: the Oblivion which is a supposedly cursed game. It was reported that terrible disasters happened to the people who worked at the studio while they developed the game. Strange things like a flash flood destroying a third story apartment buildings and lightning frying equipment were said to have happened. I don’t have much faith in those accounts. You can’t believe in every curse you hear. Haha
Q. There is scheduled to be an actual LARP during this year’s events. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
A. Game Design Club has been working on designing a live action role playing (LARP) event. It is somewhere between Dungeons & Dragons and a murder mystery. The event is a historically based South Dakota LARP about the tragic events that took place on the Lake Madison Chautauqua grounds in 1919. The unveiling will take place from 2pm-3pm on Saturday at the Smith Zimmerman Museum on the DSU campus. We hopefully will not stir up any spirits involved with the tragic event in our attempt to have some fun while exploring the history of the local area.
Q. It seems like that there are a lot of supernatural and ghostly themes coinciding with this year’s games and speakers. What do you have to say about that?
A. The supernatural is a particular area of interest in my own research. I have recently been working on publishing Game Magic: A Game Designer’s Guide to Constructing Magic Systems. As an underlying theme of the book, the supernatural has to be governed by certain rules in order to function in a game and be strategic. We actually managed to schedule a last minute speaker Chris Pruett. His presentation, should he arrive on time, will be about Japanese folklore and the rules of horror. He has been focusing on a Japanese urban legend called hide and seek alone. It is said to involve sewn together dolls which are used to call up evil spirits. Of course it’s not real, but Chris Pruett has been reporting experiencing strange experiences while researching hide and seek alone. It’s nothing anyone should worry about as we look forward to his presentation.
Q. What would you say to someone who has never been to Nanocon before?
A. Come and listen to the speakers. They are all amazing game designers and even if you don’t consider yourself a gamer remember that we are all part of a tansmedia landscape. I would also encourage people to stay for all the different types of games that are going to be played. There is truly something for everyone. We have tons of games ranging from card games to video games. If you are worried about not knowing how to play a game, there will be plenty of friendly people around that will be willing to teach you. It is really a lot of fun.
