This is my first episode of the new GameSkinny series, “5×5.” I am very excited with how it turned out and can’t wait to get more episodes out over the coming weeks.
The new 5×5 segment is going to be a running series where I bring on gaming industry notables to answer the same five questions and in a five-minute time limit (hence the 5×5 name; five questions, five minutes). Over time you will begin to see trends between different parts of the industry. Triple-A vs indie, journalist vs, YouTube personality, etc.
Your Passion?
Jason has some very interesting answers for my questions. To the first question, “what are you most passionate about right now?”, Jason responded with how much emphasis he is putting on his methods to teach using game design. The idea behind platformers is usually: each level teaches you a mechanic. Then they teach you how to use combos of these mechanics, then how to put it all together into a couple levels of… hell!
I’m very excited to hear this from Jason because it once again proves the ability to teach with games. These ideas are being jumped on by countless fields now. Most important of these in my mind is using the Oculus Rift to train surgeons. There is a very bright future in this realm and I hope Jason gets to be a part of it.
Favorite Game?
I next asked Jason what was his favorite game of all time? “Easy answer, Metroid Prime.” He says that it was because his favorite franchise was the Metroid series, so to have a Metroid game become a first person shooter successfully was a complete realization of something. He was very worried about how the game would turn out and was extremely happy to see it be successful.
Most Important Innovation?
The next question: What is the most important gaming innovation or trend to-date? Jason’s response was game developers adding tools to allow user to create their own content. He backs this up with how this is exactly what got him into gaming and even later becoming a game designer! This is a great point, I think gaming would be nowhere near where it is today without user-created content. A testament to that is MOBA’s got popular from DotA, a user-created mod in WarCraft III.
Tommorow’s Innovation?
Next I asked what the most important gaming innovation or trend will be in 10 years? Jason stated how excited he is for the next generation of consoles and the current building trend of live streaming and sharing of gaming moments with the world. He can only imagine where this will be in 10 years. He wonders if this will turn into full length movies being created from games.
Music and Gaming?
The last question I have is what his favorite genre of music is and does it have any relation to his gaming. Jason was very excited to answer this question because it has a very direct relation with gaming. His favorite genre right now is chiptunes, 8 bit soundtracks that use many gaming sounds. He also mentions that he loves designing levels around the music.
