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Installation wizard: how communication makes or breaks a game

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Installation wizard: how communication makes or breaks a game

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Content Installation Wizard
HOW COMMUNICATION MAKES OR BREAKS A GAME
by
Nitesh Sridhar
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF FINE ARTS
(INTERACTIVE MEDIA)
May 2024
Copyright © 2024 Nitesh Sridhar

Acknowledgements
First and foremost I would like to thank our team, without whom this project would not
have been possible.
I would like to additionally thank Lis Moberly, my external advisor, who helped me to
better understand my team of writers, and who always reminded me that the goal of any
student project should be to try to create something together, regardless of commercial
success.
Thank you to Richard Lemarchand, who I have had the blessing of studying under for
nearly three years now, and who has consistently emphasized the importance of collaboration
and communication for any endeavor.
Thank you to Peter Brinson, who has always spoken frankly with me, and kept me
grounded with his salient life advice, no matter how deeply I was buried under my own
academic worries and stresses.
Thank you to Martzi Campos, Laird Malamed, and Margaret Moser, for helping me keep
my head on straight during the thesis process, including allowing space for me to vent about the
bureaucracy of the thesis paper submission process!
Thank you to Gordon Bellamy, Mason Bailey, and the rest of the CYSTEM Grant team
who provided me not only with access to expert producers and team leads from across the
games space for me to speak with, but also with the opportunity to go to this year’s GDC
conference and feel like I truly belong as a part of this industry.
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And of course, thank you to my entire IMGD MFA thesis cohort. I could not have asked
for a more positive, more uplifting, or more talented group of people to help me weather the
storm of a year-long thesis project. I am proud and honored to stand with you on the other side
of this adventure.
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Table Of Contents
Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................... ii
List of Figures............................................................................................................................. v
Abstract..................................................................................................................................... vi
Chapter 1: How to Use This Paper............................................................................................. 1
1.1 Why Am I Writing This Paper?.................................................................................. 1
1.2 Who Is This Paper For?............................................................................................. 1
1.3 The Structure of This Paper....................................................................................... 2
Chapter 2: Genesis.................................................................................................................... 3
2.1 Introduction to Installation Wizard........................................................................... 3
2.2 Core Question........................................................................................................... 4
Chapter 3: Game Description..................................................................................................... 5
3.1 Game Summary......................................................................................................... 5
3.2 Core Mechanics......................................................................................................... 5
3.3 Narrative Overview.................................................................................................... 8
Chapter 4: The Process............................................................................................................. 11
4.1 Leadership................................................................................................................ 11
4.2 Team Management.................................................................................................. 15
Chapter 5: Lessons Learned..................................................................................................... 19
5.1 Conclusion............................................................................................................... 19
5.2 Takeaways................................................................................................................ 21
Bibliography............................................................................................................................... 24
iv

List of Figures
Figure 1 - Screenshot of texting in Installation Wizard............................................................... 6
Figure 2 - Screenshot of video calling in Installation Wizard...................................................... 7
Figure 3 - Screenshot of an in-person conversation in Installation Wizard................................ 8
Figure 4 - Introductory message to new volunteers and team members in our Discord
server........................................................................................................................................ 11
Figure 5 - Richard Lemarchand’s Back of the Envelope Calculations sheet which we used to get a
high level view of each volunteer’s availability, interests, and prior commitments................. 13
Figure 6 - An example of a code review using the pull request system we have set up on the
official Installation Wizard GitHub............................................................................................ 16
v

Abstract
Installation Wizard is a narrative visual novel game project centered around the themes
of intergenerational communication and how to have a better dialog with people from different
backgrounds than your own. The game showcases how different methods of communication
can be stronger or weaker at conveying different types of information, and reflects how
different shades of emotion, detail, or convenience can affect the mode someone uses to speak
to you.
In addition to the ways in which Installation Wizard utilizes its different modes of
communication, this paper also discusses the importance of good communication to
team-building, leadership, and the game development process itself.
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Chapter 1 - How to Use This Paper
1.1 Why Am I Writing This Paper?
The aim of this paper is to utilize the game Installation Wizard as a case study project in
order to walk through the experience of leading a large-scale team for the first time, and to
examine the production process of the game through the lens of producing, team management,
and leadership. I hope to highlight any potential problems or pitfalls that I feel are universal to
large-scale game development projects, and to the experience of being in a lead or
management position on said projects. Additionally, I would like to use the specifics of this
project as an opportunity to explore a variety of approaches to dealing with problems within a
team, and as a jumping off point to open up further discussion about communication and group
work in the games industry.
1.2 Who Is This Paper For?
This paper is aimed towards first-time directors and students hoping to lead a team for
any extended period of time. Those who are leading a team of volunteers or are working in
situations where money is not a main motivator may see much of their own experiences
reflected in this project.
While Installation Wizard will be the starting point for our discussion, the methods used
to evaluate the problems we faced along the way should be applicable to many different
scenarios. I hope that this paper will allow the reader to develop some familiarity and good
1

instincts surrounding the issues they will undoubtedly face when working on their own team
projects.
1.3 The Structure of This Paper
This paper is split into three main sections: the genesis of the game, an overview of the
game, and the process of leading a team through the development of the game. The final
section will be split further into two subsections, with one focusing on leadership, and the other
focusing on team management and teambuilding.
2

Chapter 2 - Genesis
2.1 Introduction to Installation Wizard
I started working on the core concept for Installation Wizard because I wanted to
explore a feeling I have experienced frequently as a heritage language speaker: experiencing
barriers to communication with the people I know and love. Whenever I speak with my
extended family in India, I have to wrestle with the fact that, after growing up in the United
States and speaking English for my entire life, I do not have a mastery over my own mother
tongue. Not only can that be frustrating, but it often causes a breakdown in communication
between me and my family members in India, and particularly with my grandparents. However,
these barriers exist on a spectrum in which the more I can express myself in other ways - such
as audible emphasis or changes in body language - the easier it is to hold a conversation. In
other words, I have far less trouble speaking with my grandmother in person than when I have a
phone call with her, let alone a text conversation. This idea of conversational issues and
language is what inspired me to make a narratively heavy visual novel type game, where
methods of communication and barriers to communication, both physical and cultural, play a
key role.
In addition to navigating communication issues within the story, I was also interested in
exploring ways to create Non-Playable Characters (NPCs) with a sense of agency to them. This
idea was largely inspired by a thesis project I worked on the year before I started on Installation
Wizard, a game called Starweave, directed by the incredible Rachel Geng. Starweave’s
characters had their own playstyles and would often act out of turn or pick a different move
3

than the ones you chose for them because they disagreed with your choices. This concept drew
me to think about how many Role-Playing Games (RPGs) or tactics-based games would build up
their characters’ personalities, but then depict them as units fully under the control of the
player, with no desires or agency of their own. I wanted to use Installation Wizard to see what
would happen if you flip that idea on its head, and thrust the player character into a situation
where they are playing a strategy game, but one that is entirely based on how well they know
their party members and how they prefer to communicate, including their dislikes, desires, and
any bad habits they picked up before the player has met them.
2.2 Core Question
As I continued developing Installation Wizard, the idea I had as my starting point
condensed into one core research question: how can a game use pacing and tension in order to
encourage players to think more deeply about their own relationships with their party
members? This question is explored over the course of the game as the player has to decide
between when they should use a certain mode of communication, such as a video call versus a
text message, and even when to put the phone down to find more information to aid the family.
4

Chapter 3 - Game Description
3.1 Game Summary
Installation Wizard is a 2D Visual Novel for Mac and PC about communication and
hidden information. The game takes place in a fantasy RPG world that is much like ours, but
where magic has advanced far enough to become a science. The player plays as Albarn, a young
man who is staying at his childhood home in order to care for his recently bedridden mother,
when he suddenly gets a series of strange messages from his mother’s extended family. The
gameplay is centered around acting as a remote navigator for Albarn’s estranged grandmother
from the countryside, remotely guiding her and her family through battles and obstacles. As the
player gets to know the family, they will learn about the family’s skills, vices, and the reasons
they have been so hesitant to visit you all this time.
3.2 Core Mechanics
The game utilizes three different modes of communication to allow Albarn to interact
with his family: Texting, Video Calling, and Speaking In-Person. Each mode has its own
affordances and limitations, and the different characters Albarn must speak to will often prefer
certain modes over others.
5

Figure 1. Screenshot of texting in Installation Wizard.
Texting represents a more distant yet more convenient way to communicate with the
family. It can be difficult to read emotions over text, and certain characters might find it difficult
to type out messages, which can affect how they interact with this method of communication.
6

Figure 2. Screenshot of video calling in Installation Wizard.
Video calling is the most visual way the player has to see how Albarn’s extended family is
doing. Video calling has the benefit of being able to see the other characters’ expressions, but
the drawback of having to do things live, so there is less time to pre-plan or think carefully
about how to respond to different scenarios. Albarn will get strange reactions from his family
members if he takes too long to respond, so the player will be prompted with timers for certain
dialog options or responses to add to that feeling of live pressure and of having a real-time
conversation with another person.
7

Figure 3. Screenshot of an in-person conversation in Installation Wizard.
Speaking in-person is the easiest way to communicate and make sure the other person
understands you, but it can not be done over long distances, and therefore for the majority of
the game, the only character Albarn can speak to in-person is his bedridden mother. However,
during the finale of the game, Albarn will have the opportunity to speak to his grandmother, his
Aunt Melda, and his Uncle Zotto in-person, and hear their honest thoughts about him, his
navigation skills, and their relationship with his mother.
3.3 Narrative Overview
The game starts out with Albarn in his mother’s room, speaking with her about her
medication and notes from her doctor. When he returns to his own room, he receives some
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texts and a phone call from his mother’s side of the family, his Grandmother, his Uncle Zotto,
and his Aunt Melda, who all inform him that they have learned of his mother’s illness and are
coming to the city to visit the both of them. Additionally, since he is the only one available, he
needs to be the navigator for the family and help them avoid or defeat any dangerous monsters
lurking in the woods outside the city. When Albarn tells his mother about this she is not
pleased, but she tells him about her mother and siblings, and about how to handle some of
their more quirky behaviors.
The second act starts with the next morning, when Albarn is woken by a call from Zotto,
who reveals that they have run into a strange bird-like creature outside of the woods, and need
help on how to get past it. Zotto has some ideas based on a similar bird found out in the
countryside near their home, but Albarn must take this opportunity to talk him out of that idea.
Albarn reveals that the creature is a type of mimic and the techniques Zotto would use will get
the family into trouble instead. The player gains or loses Zotto’s respect and approval based on
how they have Albarn convey this information to him, including whether or not Albarn tells a lie
or tries to aggressively correct and talk over Zotto.
There are a few more encounters like this where the player has to have Albarn convey
information about a monster to a certain associated family member. Each family member has a
specific history that makes their monster encounter more difficult than it would ordinarily be,
and often plays on their own personal communication issues. The final encounter is with a
crocodilian monster that requires all three traveling family members to work together in order
to defeat. The family gets hurt fighting this monster, resulting in each character passing blame
onto one another. Now the player must have Albarn intervene in order to help the family
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communicate with each other. The scene ends with the family finally making their way into the
city and reaching Albarn’s home. The build for expo ends here, with a cliffhanger preview of the
final act showing Albarn’s mother unconscious in her room.
The finale of the game involves a branching ending scene which results in either a good
or a bad ending depending on what the family’s opinions on Albarn are by the end of the game.
In both endings, Albarn is able to help his family heal his mother, but in the good ending the
characters reconnect and the whole family stays the night, while in the bad ending, Albarn and
his mother are chastised by the other characters for leaving the family and his Grandmother
leaves in a huff, taking Zotto and Melda with her. This finale will be finished over the summer
before the game is published.
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Chapter 4 - The Process
4.1 Leadership
One of the key factors of a good team is that they maintain good communication, and
this is something that we highlight throughout the game with Albarn and his role as a navigator
who guides his family through both physically and emotionally difficult situations. This of course
also applies to the game development process and to the team we assembled in order to create
Installation Wizard, and it is incredibly important to stress this point early on.
Figure 4. Introductory message to new volunteers and team members in our Discord server.
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In order to establish this idea early, we created a welcome page that was hosted on our
Discord server and our Google Drive. This page started out with three core tenets that we
wanted our team members to agree upon before we even started discussing anything about the
project, and they are in order: “Communication is key,” “Look out for each other,” and “Know
your limits.” Each of these ideas is intended to help team members to remember to focus on
themselves and their relationships with each other, and to make them feel comfortable
approaching each other or me, their director, with any questions or concerns they have about
the project. It is important to emphasize that there is no need for competition within the teams,
or even between different thesis projects, as every person has their own goals with their work.
For me, more than any thesis questions or interrogations related to the game Installation
Wizard, the focus of this thesis project is about developing strategies to keep morale up and
avoid overwork within the team.
In addition to these core principles, we also wanted to create an environment where
team members felt comfortable telling their leads or the director about any issues or delays
with their work, especially in terms of missing deadlines. I established early on that you cannot
penalize volunteers for the work they are doing, or not doing, on your project. Since your
volunteers are essentially receiving no compensation for the work they are doing, it is even
more important to take the extra step and balance their workload and adjust their tasks to
accommodate for what motivates them. As part of our onboarding process we asked each team
member to tell us what initially drew them towards Installation Wizard, where their
proficiencies lie, and what they want to learn or gain from this experience. Using this
information along with an overview of their schedule for the year, we shaped the project to lean
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into the skillsets we had, with a few more optional features based in areas of interest that
certain teams or individuals had called out early on (such as scripting our own bespoke dialogue
system, or crafting unique voice sound effects for each character.)
Figure 5. Richard Lemarchand’s Back of the Envelope Calculations sheet which we used to get a
high level view of each volunteer’s availability, interests, and prior commitments.
13

Now while this helped us divide up the workload initially, we also knew that there would be
times where someone would have to turn in something late or need to push back a deadline,
and so we wanted to set a precedent that there would be no questions or pushback about why
some work had to be turned in late, but that we would greatly appreciate prior notice and an
estimate on when the work would be finished. The way we established this was through a
top-down approach where I as the director would make sure to let the team know publicly
when anything I was in charge of was being delayed along with a new due date and any
additional information I could give the team to try and avoid further delays down the pipeline. I
had the team leads model this behavior as well, and we quickly developed a culture where team
members felt comfortable letting me and even each other know when something would not be
done on time. This also persuaded team members to start thinking ahead during times they
might be busy, such as upcoming vacations or exam weeks, and let everyone know in advance to
expect a delay during those days.
One important side-note to make here is that while it is important to discuss your own
missteps or delays in public towards the team, it is equally important to not force your team
members to do the same, or to highlight their delays in a public forum. For example, if a
meeting has to be postponed because someone is running late, it would be more tactful to say
that you heard from a few people that they needed some more time as opposed to directly
telling the team that the meeting is delayed because one specific person is unable to attend on
time. A rule to remember here is that it is important to praise individuals for the work they have
done but anonymize them for the work they have not. This way you can protect your team from
criticism for things that are outside of their control.
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4.2 Team Management
Two of the most important skills when it comes to communication on a team of
creatives is how to delegate tasks and how to give helpful feedback. Oftentimes these two skills
can overlap, and that is when you have to place your trust on your leads and others on your
team whose judgment you can rely on. For our team, this was the case for two of the most
important disciplines for the game: the narrative team, and the art team. In both these areas, I
appointed two co-leads in order to help evaluate the work of the rest of the team, and to give
feedback that was more precise and targeted than my personal knowledge of the fields would
allow.
We used a similar but more formalized system with the engineering team, where I had
our lead engineer set up a pull request system on GitHub in order to allow the engineers to
have regular peer reviews of their work. This system requires all engineers working on the
project to request a review from one of their peers before anything they are working on can
become a part of the main branch and be allowed into a build. It took some time to onboard
our team into this new system, but once everything was set up, it allowed the team to iterate
more quickly, get feedback efficiently, and prevent any problematic code from entering the
game.
15

Figure 6. An example of a code review using the pull request system we have set up on the
official Installation Wizard GitHub.
In order to provide more structure for our narrative team meetings, we used a writers’
room model to help generate character information and dialogue scripts. In a writers’ room
setup, communication between the writers is of the utmost importance. An issue our team
encountered was that we had some writers who were quite shy in group conversations, despite
having a strong writing style and a background in writing. What we found was that this was
largely about the level of comfort in a group setting. As our narrative team consisted of seven
people at its largest point, it was at times difficult to have round table discussions where every
team member was able to have their ideas heard. One solution that worked for us was to have
fewer large, all-hands style meetings with the narrative team, and instead focus on pair projects
and smaller scale group-work. We split the team in half by experience, and made sure each of
our more novice writers was paired up with a more experienced writer. The smaller group size
allowed for the teams to have more fast-paced discussions, and more easily sidestep any issues
or disagreements that might be uncomfortable to have in a larger group setting. Additionally,
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the mentorship-style relationship between the two members in each team allowed for the more
experienced writers to draw out valuable insights and more cohesive work from the less
experienced ones without adding to their workload. Finally, we would often assign one
character per team when writing dialogue, and the smaller groups would help the characters
emerge with a more unified voice compared to what we generated during the larger group
brainstorming discussions.
While the writers’ room format worked well for our team, it is important to note that
there are certain problems you are particularly likely to run into with this format that can lead
to a breakdown in productive communication, and many of them deal with a lack of
understanding of the rules of engagement. When running a writers’ room, or really any form of
organized feedback and critique, it is important to make sure all the members of the group
agree on what they will be discussing and ideally on what language they will be using to provide
feedback. Without systems in place to evaluate the subject of feedback, there is no real sense of
fairness, and criticisms can come across as subjective or biased. In light of this, you must have
established rules in place in order to determine what happens if one member feels strongly
about what they have created while another member feels equally strongly that it should be
changed. This is where the pillars of your project can function as a rallying point to help get the
team’s priorities aligned. It can also be useful to ask both parties what they feel the biggest
challenge is, and if possible, do a playthrough in a small group to see how it reads to a variety of
team members. The less confrontational and othering the feedback session feels, the more
likely a given individual is to respond well to any criticism or suggestions highlighted by their
team.
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Another way that establishing a clear method of engaging with feedback can benefit the
team is that it can help the team better understand the overarching goals of the project they
are working on. This can help build team autonomy by helping individual team members see the
bigger picture, and clarify how their tasks fit into what has already been accomplished. The
better your team members understand your goals and decision-making process, the more likely
they are to create the work that you are steering them towards as the director, and the less
direct supervision they will need from you. A great way to build this sense of autonomy and
understanding quickly is by establishing pods, or small task forces made up of members from
different disciplines who are working together to accomplish a common goal. An example of this
from Installation Wizard is the pod we used in order to work on the dialogue system and
relationship meter. We wanted this pod to focus on making the video calling and texting
mechanics look and feel different, and so we included a designer who had worked on these
features, two engineers who already had some familiarity with the dialogue system, and a UI
artist to help develop and implement the correct UI for these two features. By creating this pod,
each team member had direct access to people who had all the information they needed in
order to create and implement the assets required for the changes to the dialogue system. This
meant they no longer felt the need to come to their leads or directors to ask if they were on the
right track, freeing up the leadership to focus on other issues. Additionally, since multiple
people were able to take a look at the work together while it was being produced, it became
easier to catch mistakes early and to better format assets for their implementation further
down in the pipeline.
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Chapter 5 - Lessons Learned
5.1 Conclusion
A strong standard of communication remains as important as ever in the games industry
today. As large companies continue to have massive layoffs and cancel projects, more and more
people are looking for teams that work well together and have a good sense of their own
output, timelines, and skill sets, and each of these areas are heavily impacted by
communication between teams and their leadership.
Setting the culture of a team cannot wait, and if leadership does not take measures to
clearly establish the culture of their team early on, it will get locked in by whatever is most
memorable, whether that includes good habits or bad ones. In the same vein, if you want to
encourage your team to let you know when they have roadblocks or delays, the most helpful
way to facilitate that conversation is to make it as painless as possible. Team members should
feel comfortable messaging their leads or directors and feel confident that they will get a
response. They should be able to trust that there will not be any public retaliation or
embarrassment dealt to them when they come to you with issues, especially if they have to do
with delays or issues when completing a task. On the other hand, it may benefit you to publicly
address your own mistakes or delays in front of the team, as that can facilitate a type of dialog
that puts you on the same side as your team, and helps emphasize that even higher ups can be
fallible. This is all doubly important when the team is made up of volunteers, as the only
currency you can trade in is communication, be it good or bad.
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Oftentimes when team communication is discussed it is solely through the lens of clarity
and conciseness, with the end goal being focused on having more positive conversations, but it
is important to remember that good communication is even more important when there is
conflict or disagreement amongst members of the team. Cross-disciplinary collaboration is not a
skillset that comes naturally to us, and it can take time to learn what feedback methods
different team members respond to most positively, so a newly formed team will always need
some more support than a long established one. Starting with a foundation of a common
shared language that all teams use when it comes to feedback can help to reduce the amount of
starting trouble the team runs into, and it can be important to pay attention to how the team
talks about that common language. For example, if certain words become loaded or start to
accrue baggage so it is difficult for the team to productively communicate, it might be time to
revise the shared language in order to change out those words for new ones. It can also be
important to look at the team dynamics and optics of your team when designating leads,
especially when it comes to pods or task forces. Generalists tend to be more popular on
pod-style teams due to the perception that they are more objective, and have less reason to
maintain a bias towards any specific department’s team members over the rest of the pod’s
members.
Finally, make sure you are designing the project towards the team that you have, not the
team you wish you had. If your team has several strong writers, but no one who is comfortable
with enemy AI or game balancing, then it makes more sense to structure your game as a visual
novel or some other narrative-heavy genre over an action RPG. In the same vein, ask your team
how they want to receive feedback and discuss with them what you have done in the past when
20

giving feedback. This can help all of you land on the same page, and avoid creating
unintentional stress for your team.
5.2 Takeaways
Installation Wizard at its core is an exercise in team building and organization through
communication. This shows not only in the game’s mechanics and narrative structure, but also
at a meta-level in regards to the game’s development. It was only through this development
journey that we were able to address the core question behind the thesis project and explore
how to humanize non-player characters. This also uncovered some insights into how we view
people from backgrounds that differ from ours, and how we might distance ourselves from their
thoughts and opinions if we feel like they are too different from ours.
The idea of intergenerational communication that makes up the core conflict of
Installation Wizard is at its core, about how we interact with those who have a different
understanding of the world than we do. It can be easy to ignore the core motivations or desires
of your teammates if you feel like you are not on the same page, or that you have differing
goals. Much like how an RPG player can force party members to make decisions that feel out of
character, a director or team lead who does not understand their team’s motivations or goals on
a project can easily create a situation where the team’s morale is sinking despite continuous
progress in their work.
However, in the same way that it feels easy to get invested in non-player characters who
feel believable and well-developed, it is also easy to feel invested in the success of people you
are working with when you know what their goals, hopes, and dreams are. Getting to know
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your team allows you to be more involved in their successes, and to be more supportive when
they experience setbacks. Ultimately, the most important lesson I am taking away from my time
running Installation Wizard is that no matter how the project is set up, all your team
hierarchies, structures, and systems are all the result of individuals interacting. It is those
individuals who struggle when on a problematic team or feel victorious when on a successful
one, and getting to know each individual on a team is the only way to really understand the
team’s dynamics, desires, and core motivations as a whole. Investing in the team’s culture and
internal relationships helps turn your team members into a support network where they can
help each other during difficult times and celebrate each other’s work when milestones are hit.
In this way, as you and your team grow alongside one another, you will be able to build out the
team in ways that support your culture. Hopefully this will also allow you to promote long
standing members to new positions while still keeping the parts of their past roles and team
relationships that they love and enjoy.
Creating Installation Wizard required thinking critically about team communication, both
from a creative standpoint as well as from a production standpoint. Writing the game’s narrative
was an opportunity to explore how a dysfunctional team operates and why certain
miscommunications were allowed to take hold, which then led to extrapolating how someone
could avoid that behavior on a new team, and even what implementing these solutions could
look like for Albarn, someone who is effectively being “onboarded” onto his family’s team. By
having the player emulate these best practices and emulate “good team behavior” for his
family, we wanted to create a sandbox for communication and conversation, essentially allowing
them to play with dialogue. This way, the player can push these characters in different
22

directions to see how they respond, and hopefully start to understand not only what kinds of
communication work well on a new team, but also why, and what kinds of resistance they may
get from team members.
Going forwards, I would love to see games used as a medium to teach conversation and
to further pursue this goal of a sandbox for difficult conversations. It can be scary to try a new
style of communication in the real world, without guardrails or safety nets, but the distance of
the digital world can create a magic circle that lets players feel comfortable trying new things,
and saying things in new ways. People learn more easily when they play, so perhaps the solution
for teaching communication in games spaces can be found in the industry itself, looking at
games that allow you to play in that space.
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Bibliography
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/2200060/STARWEAVE/
Moberly, L., Correia, A. Effective Feedback for Game Writers, Narrative Designers, and
Collaborators, GDC Vault. Retrieved March 6th, 2024, from
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24

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Asset Metadata

Creator Sridhar, Nitesh (author)

Core Title Installation wizard: how communication makes or breaks a game

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Interactive Media

Degree Conferral Date 2024-05

Publication Date 05/17/2024

Defense Date 05/16/2024

Publisher Los Angeles, California (original), University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Communication,game directing,OAI-PMH Harvest,producer,producing,team management

Format theses (aat)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Lemarchand, Richard (committee chair), Bilson, Danny (committee member), Brinson, Peter (committee member), Moberly, Lis (committee member), Russworm, TreaAndrea (committee member)

Creator Email niteshsridhardesign@gmail.com,nsridhar@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC113939964

Unique identifier UC113939964

Identifier etd-SridharNit-12926.pdf (filename)

Legacy Identifier etd-SridharNit-12926

Document Type Thesis

Format theses (aat)

Rights Sridhar, Nitesh

Internet Media Type application/pdf

Type texts

Source 20240517-usctheses-batch-1152 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright.

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu