Dana Nightingale
Arkane Lyon
Dana began working on the Dishonored Series as a Level Designer in 2010 after ten years of Thief modding and a Master's in Architecture. She's worked on nearly every Dishonored release, and has created several fan-favourite levels, including the Clockwork Mansion of Dishonored 2. In 2019 she became Campaign Designer on Deathloop, which shipped in September of 2021 to critical acclaim. She is currently Campaign Director at Arkane Lyon and a frequent lecturer at conferences, universities, and events that champion diversity in game development.
Dana Nightingale is speaking at the following session/s
Designing `DEATHLOOP`s First Hours at the Eleventh Hour
This is the story of how user research led to the creation of the opening hours of “DEATHLOOP” during the last months of the game’s development, and how those hours, and eventually the entire game, were reshaped a piece at a time by continued research. It is told by Arkane Lyon’s Campaign Director, a developer who stands at the nexus between level design and narrative design, who had to level up her competency in user experience design overnight to meet the challenges the game faced. In this lecture she will walk you through this harrowing process, where dramatic changes to the game were equal parts overwhelming successes, and revelations of dreadful new issues.
Takeaway:
- User experience design is not a straight line. A smart fix to a big issue can reveal problems elsewhere. This is a good thing
- The obvious solution to a user experience issue can be the wrong one. User research specialists can uncover the problem hidden in the data. Treat the cause of the problem, not the symptoms
- Dana Nightingale’s design process, and how it’s similar to the type of user experience she tries to create
Keynote: DEATHLOOP: Looking Inside a Design Loop
In this fireside chat, members of the Award-winning Arkane Lyon studio team, including this year’s Develop Star Award recipient Dinga Bakaba, discuss some of the development challenges and successes they had during production of DEATHLOOP.
Discussion topics will include:
- Creating a first-person action game in a brand new world, while preserving the Dishonored heritage.
- Analyzing the challenges of developing an immersive sim with the added complexity of multiplayer components.
- How the studio focused on the personal skills they had to develop during DEATHLOOP's development.
- The creative team will share their choices on the design of the characters, environments, and weapons design.
This panel will change how you look at making your next game.
I really like Develop, I really like the intimacy of it and I love the location.. there’s a good diversity of talks going on so there hasn’t been a time when there’s nothing I want to see.
Brenda Romero
Romero Games
There really is a huge mix of people at Develop - loads of peers that you can learn from and the perfect blend of every element of game development as well.
Alex Moyet
Curve Digital
Develop always gets put in the diary. There are many reasons to be here, not just the talks, but the networking, people exchanging ideas about where the industry is right now and where it’s going to. It’s pretty essential to be here I think.
Ian Livingstone, CBE
We are so lucky to have Develop here in the UK. It’s a unique event where you can come and discover new things with people who care passionately about video games. It’s a sea full of new ideas.
Jonathan Smith
TT Games
One of the things I like about Develop is it brings people together from across Europe and the whole world. There is a very high level of professionals here, so you have company leaders having drinks with juniors from their community.
Dr Mata Haggis-Burridge
NHTV
A lot of the opportunities that come from being here are speaking to other developers who are doing exactly the same thing as you. And there are some good parties – it’s very much a pleasurable work experience!
Gemma Foster
Dlala Studios
I absolutely love coming to Develop, it’s a brilliant, brilliant conference – you just know you’re guaranteed to meet everyone.
Jo Twist, OBE
Ukie
It’s fantastic to have such an event that provides this opportunity for all the game devs, indie devs and other organisations to get together to showcase what they do, meet and interact.
Rebecca Sampson
Hangar 13
It’s really nice to see some of the younger people in our studio come to Develop, interact with other people in the dev community and make new contacts. I think it’s really important to learn from other people.
Abbie Heppe
Media Molecule
By coming to Develop what you get is the opportunity to network like you can’t in any other situation. Everyone knows everyone and it’s such a wonderful community feel.
Jessica Saunders
Salix Games
Get involved today!
There are many ways you can be part of Develop:Brighton - including taking a booth in the Expo or choosing one of the many sponsorship opporunities during the event or at the Star Awards.
Contact us now!Our 2022 Partners
Platinum Partners
Partners
Media Partners
