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Eric Zimmerman Co-Founder & Chief Design Officer
Eric Zimmerman is a game design addict. After a childhood of roping friends and family into playtesting his game experiments, Eric has spent the last thirteen years in the game industry. Before founding Gamelab with Peter Lee, Eric collaborated with Word.com on the underground online hit, SiSSYFiGHT 2000. Other pre-Gamelab titles include the PC CD-ROM games Gearheads (Philips Media, 1996) and The Robot Club (Southpeak Interactive, 1998). An unapologetic part-time academic, Eric has taught game design at MIT, NYU, Parsons School of Design, and School of Visual Arts. Eric is the co-author with Katie Salen of Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals and The Game Design Reader (MIT Press, 2003 & 2006). He is the co-editor with Amy Schulman of RE:PLAY Game Design and Game Culture (Peter Lang, 2003). Eric has exhibited non-game projects at galleries and museums in the US and abroad. Eric's favorite games German-style Strategy Boardgames For me, this species of plaything offers the most fun to be had in game form. When they are well-designed (Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, El Grande), a strategy boardgame offers deep strategy in a fast-paced 1-2 hour experience, with plenty of face-to-face social interaction. Genre-Defining Digital Games From Sim City to Katamari Damacy to Parappa the Rapper, the best games are often those that invent new ways to play. Tightly Designed System Games OK, I'm making up my own pseudo-genre here, but the digital games that often hook me most forcefully are system-oriented games that are deep and well-balanced, regardless of their surface complexity. Starcraft, the Advance Wars series, NetHack, Magic: The Gathering, and the shareware game Slay all fall into this category. Real-world RPGs Tabletop role-playing games and LARPing have created some of the most memorable game experiences of my life. And yes, I still play them. Neighborhood Games OK, I don't play these anymore. But growing up, games like Kick the Can, Ghost in the Graveyard, and Dodge Ball were incredibly influential on my ideas about games. Maybe I should play some of these again. | 