On Thursday, November 18th, the NYU Game Center will be hosting Chris Hecker, a game developer with over 15 years of experience as a designer and programmer, an outspoken and influential thinker, and an important advocate for experimental and independent games. In this event, Chris will discuss the process of inventing, testing, and implementing a new kind of video game, and you are invited to be an active participant in this process.

Chris Hecker’s current project, SpyParty, is a multiplayer espionage game that deals with the subtlety of human behavior. Instead of the explosions and car chases of a typical spy-themed action game, SpyParty is an intense and cerebral game about observation and subterfuge. Before the lecture, from 1 to 7PM, in the Game Center Open Library, you are invited to an exclusive hands-on SpyParty play session. As part of the lecture, Chris will be soliciting and discussing your feedback from this playtest.

The format for the evening will focus on dialogue and conversation. The audience is encouraged to join the discussion. Please bring your questions and ideas about the topic and overall subject of games in general.

The talk will begin at 7:00PM at 721 Broadway, Room 006 and is open to students, faculty, and the general public. We welcome everyone, whether your research and teaching is related to games or you are simply curious about this rapidly evolving field. Please come, and feel free to bring any interested NYU colleagues.

The NYU Game Center is housed in the Skirball Center for New Media at the Tisch School of the Arts and is a collaboration between Tisch, NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, and the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. The Center is supported by generous grants from an anonymous donor, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Sharon Chang and the TTSL Charitable Foundation.

Refreshments will be served.