History of the Workshop

Notable Influences on the Mainstream Industry

When we first started the Experimental Gameplay Workshop, people asked whether we could actually influence the mainstream game industry. Many of the games shown were so wacky, that people found it hard to imagine them affecting our (heavily-inertia-driven) industry. So, we created this page to record clear, concrete influences that the Workshop has had on the mainstream.

Looking back, that seems pretty strange now! When a room packed with game designers see 10-15 experimental games, they’re bound to take a few inspirations home with them – and over the years, the questions about our relevance subsided. But we’ve kept this page as a reminder that it wasn’t always so clear why Experimental Gameplay is so crucial to the creative and financial growth of our industry.

Katamari Damacy

In 2003, two of our staffers saw Katamari at the Tokyo Game Show, when Americans knew nothing of the game.  Our friend Masaya Matsuura helped us invite Keita Takahashi (the game’s designer) to speak at the 2004 Workshop – where he demonstrated the final game, and described the inspirations behind it.

America greeted Katamari Damacy with great critical acclaim.  When Mr. Takahashi returned to lecture at the GDC in 2005, he thanked us for our role in bringing Katamari Damacy to America. Here is what he had to say (translated from the Japanese):

I’d like to thank the staff of the Experimental Gameplay Workshop. This fact is not well-known, but last year my participation at the EGW was the trigger for my participation in E3. After last year’s workshop the attendees told their bosses about how excited the audience was about my game, which led to my participation in E3 and the release of my game in the US. Everything went on smoothly from there. Thank you very much for your support at last year’s conference.

Rag Doll Kung Fu

Mark Healey (who recently brought us Little Big Planet) presented this experimental, independent game at the 2005 workshop.  The audience loved it, and so did some employees of Valve Software, who accosted him immediately after his presentation, and flew him to Valve’s offices in Seattle for a meeting.

Mark signed an online publishing and distribution deal with Valve, and the game was released in October 2005. You can read the   Edge article about the presentation and read morea bout the deal  here.

Darwinia

Darwinia is an independent game by Introversion Software.  It’s an RTS played on a stylized computer-ish landscape.  It was originally inspired by the first Indie Game Jam games, which we demonstrated at the workshop in 2002.

This particular jam was about displaying huge numbers of little sprite guys on the screen at once (a novel concept at the time).  One of the game’s stylistic hallmarks is still the flocks of little 2D sprite men that you command indirectly. Here’s an  interview with Introversion that discusses the game in more detail.

Eye Toy AntiGrav

Greg LoPiccolo and Rob Kay of Harmonix (Rock Band, Guitar Hero) demonstrated EyeToy AntiGrav at the 2005 Workshop.  At that time, Greg pointed out that Casey Muratori’s Owl Simulator (another  Indie Game Jam game), which was presented at the workshop in 2003.

Sense of Wonder Night

Sense of Wonder Night, which has been held 2 years in a row now, in conjunction with Tokyo Game Show, was also directly inspred by the Experimental Gameplay Workshop.

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