Frank Lantz is a game designer and Director of the NYU Game Center. He cofounded Area/Code Games and most recently released a game called Universal Paperclips in which you’re an AI that makes paperclips.

Frank’s on Twitter @flantz and his site is franklantz.net.

The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon.

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Topics

00:27 - "Games are the aesthetic form of thinking and doing"

6:57 - VR skepticism

9:42 - Universal Paperclips

14:27 - Explaining games to non-gamers

20:12 - Competitive gaming

22:57 - Building life lessons into games

31:42 - Teaching game design

36:17 - Inspiration, hard work, and taste

39:17 - Darker sides of gaming culture

43:07 - The indie game market

45:27 - Unexpected trends in gaming

49:17 - Benedict Fritz asks - Frank you seem much more interested in chess, go, poker, and other games with a long history than most game designers. Where do you think this comes from?

52:12 - Esports

55:37 - Inventing sports

57:27 - Pokemon Go

1:00:32 - Difficulty in predicting successes in entertainment

1:03:17 - Frank's game recommendations

1:05:47 - @fakebalenciaga asks - Why Tonto?