"Escape the room" games, immersive theater like Sleep No More, puzzle hunts, and other playful and engaging real-world experiences are hot right now -- and game developers of all stripes can learn some interesting things from studying how they're designed. 

At GDC 2017, experienced escape room designer Laura E. Hall explained the design fundamentals and structures necessary for creating real-world experiences that offer not only entertainment, but a chance for players to immerse themselves in a story that's challenging, exciting, or just plain interesting.

It was a fascinating presentation that dug into how a deeper understanding of human cognition and psychology can help designers construct appealing play spaces for players, as well as providing practical design principles that may be applied to the creation of game worlds in any medium, physical or digital.

It was a great talk, one that you can now watch entirely for free over on the official GDC YouTube channel!

About the GDC Vault

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its new YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC, GDC Europe, and GDC Next already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas