PRACTICE 2018: Zak McClendon

Zak McClendon Welcome to the Yard Sale: A Practical Framework for Holistic Design Iteration June 22, 2018 How do you separate the game you should, could, or eventually will have made from the thousand swirling and competing possible versions? How do you get your full team aligned on this and contributing to the same creative goals? How on earth do you get them to do this without sacrificing the idiosyncratic creativity locked away inside each of them? In this talk, I’ll present a practical framework for creating, articulating, and iterating on design direction for projects large and small, created over 15 years of experience on projects like Bioshock 2, Psychonauts 2, and some expensive mistakes you’ve never heard of. (Some audience participation may be required. Zak McClendon is a game designer with 15 years of experience building and leading teams at studios like 2K Marin, Crystal Dynamics, Harmonix, and Double Fine. Currently, he is the Project Lead on Psychonauts 2. For more from the NYU Game Center visit