Blaseball is the wild, wacky, horrific baseball sim that probably took over your Twitter at least once last year. It’s also a game that pushed the limits of interactive narrative by combining systemic storytelling, mass fan participation, and emergent narrative. In this GDC 2022, the designers behind Blaseball will share the secrets to its surprise success: performance game development.
“Blaseball: Game Development as Performance” is a must-view session happening at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this March. In this session, The Game Band product designer Gabe McGill and game design lead Joel Clark will outline the key principles and learnings that allowed Blaseball to continue to function, explore some of the challenges and failures to overcome, and provide case studies on Blaseball’s most successful moments. Namely, the times when the developers, fans, and simulation worked together to create deeply meaningful payoffs.
This session is available for All-Access and Core pass holders. While it’s intended for a general audience, with no specific prior knowledge required, it is ideal for designers, writers, and game devs who are focused on approaching narrative design for multiple users at once.
Join us at the Game Developers Conference to learn all about how Blaseball created a performative and collaborative environment for its designers and players. Register for GDC 2022 today!
GDC returns in-person to San Francisco, March 21-25, 2022—registration is now open! For more information on GDC 2022, including our virtual options, be sure to visit our website and follow the #GDC22 hashtag on social media.
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