What if the best games didn't require you to already be a gamer?
I found the answer sitting in my living room watching the energy drain out of a trivia game.
The Moment That Defined the Work
We were researching family game night. Big screen, remote control, multiple generations in the room. The trivia game was working. Everyone was engaged, competitive, laughing. Then someone needed to type an answer.
The adults had to read the question aloud to the kids. Then figure out how to type on a remote. By the time the answer was in, the moment was gone. The game continued but the room had quietly left it.
That moment clarified everything. The problem wasn't the game. It was the assumption buried inside it, that everyone playing already knew how to play. That friction was acceptable because games are supposed to have a learning curve.
But family game night doesn't have a learning curve. It has a grandmother who will put down the controller the moment she feels lost. A six-year-old who needs to feel capable right now or she'll wander away. A teenager who'll disengage the moment something feels uncool.
Design for the most capable person in the room and you've designed for one person. Design for everyone and you've created something worth gathering around.
A Film lets you watch. A game makes you someone.
The Prime Gaming team brought me in because of the Alexa work, for the voice-first interaction design and the seamless onboarding we'd developed for mixed-reality family experiences.
But working on Luna clarified something I hadn't fully articulated before.
A film is a character experience. You watch someone else move through the world. The story carries you. A game is personal. You are the character. Which means every friction point — every moment of confusion, exclusion, or hesitation — breaks something more intimate than immersion. It breaks the feeling that this world was made for you.
That's why onboarding isn't a feature. It's the experience of arriving somewhere and being welcomed. Get it wrong and the player never feels like a player at all.
Permission to Play
My work focused on the moment before gameplay begins. How a game appears. How it's entered. How it moves from curiosity to commitment without ever asking someone to prove they belong.
The insight that surfaced across every prototype and playtest was simple and decisive:
Casual players don't need more options. They need permission to play.
When entry felt friendly and the first moments rewarded curiosity rather than competence, people tried things. They invited others. They stayed. For a grandmother or a six-year-old, animation responsiveness, transition warmth, and pacing weren't polish decisions. They were the deciding factor between staying and leaving.
What if the best games didn't require you to already be a gamer?
I found the answer sitting in my living room watching the energy drain out of a trivia game.
The Moment That Defined the Work
We were researching family game night. Big screen, remote control, multiple generations in the room. The trivia game was working. Everyone was engaged, competitive, laughing. Then someone needed to type an answer.
The adults had to read the question aloud to the kids. Then figure out how to type on a remote. By the time the answer was in, the moment was gone. The game continued but the room had quietly left it.
That moment clarified everything. The problem wasn't the game. It was the assumption buried inside it, that everyone playing already knew how to play. That friction was acceptable because games are supposed to have a learning curve.
But family game night doesn't have a learning curve. It has a grandmother who will put down the controller the moment she feels lost. A six-year-old who needs to feel capable right now or she'll wander away. A teenager who'll disengage the moment something feels uncool.
Design for the most capable person in the room and you've designed for one person. Design for everyone and you've created something worth gathering around.
A Film lets you watch. A game makes you someone.
The Prime Gaming team brought me in because of the Alexa work, for the voice-first interaction design and the seamless onboarding we'd developed for mixed-reality family experiences.
But working on Luna clarified something I hadn't fully articulated before.
A film is a character experience. You watch someone else move through the world. The story carries you. A game is personal. You are the character. Which means every friction point — every moment of confusion, exclusion, or hesitation — breaks something more intimate than immersion. It breaks the feeling that this world was made for you.
That's why onboarding isn't a feature. It's the experience of arriving somewhere and being welcomed. Get it wrong and the player never feels like a player at all.
Permission to Play
My work focused on the moment before gameplay begins. How a game appears. How it's entered. How it moves from curiosity to commitment without ever asking someone to prove they belong.
The insight that surfaced across every prototype and playtest was simple and decisive:
Casual players don't need more options. They need permission to play.
When entry felt friendly and the first moments rewarded curiosity rather than competence, people tried things. They invited others. They stayed. For a grandmother or a six-year-old, animation responsiveness, transition warmth, and pacing weren't polish decisions. They were the deciding factor between staying and leaving.