A talk about game design for the uninitiated.
As developers, we understand the concept of design patterns: ways to talk about, think about and assemble code to achieve our ends. Many developers who try their hand at game development never learn a similar mental framework for game design. Often they learn game development strictly through emulation, rarely building the mental tools required to push their designs in new directions. Let me initiate you into the world of game design theory.
Like many kinds of design, much of the important work happens outside of code: you'll be asking questions, getting feedback and discussing alternatives. We'll cover the places where your software design skills will be useful. Give a crash course in user interface design and user experience. I'll encourage you to think through your users' emotional experience while playing your games. You'll be able to apply these lessons regardless of language or game framework.
We'll also cover the building blocks of video game mechanics: boxes, movement, inputs, and feedback. We'll also discuss the idea of "Juice": the gaming secret sauce to make even basic actions feel awesome. With these building blocks in hand, we can discuss how to experiment with mechanics with things like paper prototyping or the game dev equivalent of an MVP: the vertical slice.
I'll also point out a number resources useful for multiple skill levels to help you study on your own and improve your own design language.
The audience should leave the room with enough information to be begin building paper or virtual prototypes to experiment with a mechanical idea. They'll also have a list of potential resources to continue studying on their own. They should also learn a couple of the key elements that game devs and designers talk about so they can start listening in to conversations on the topic with more solid foundation.