Field Notes
Essays on attention, play, facilitation, and game design - the thinking behind the work. For the L&D and serious-games articles, see the blog.
- Connection Eats Strategy for Breakfast (And Attention for Lunch)
- EdQuest: Designing a Game That Sparks Real Conversations — Neither Vikram nor Shanthi was entirely wrong. And that was the beauty of it.
- From Monsters to Market Fit: Put The Player First — From Monsters to Market Fit: Put The Player First"I found a solution in video games - I call it the Put The Player First Framework.
- Hack Emotion First, Engagement Will Follow — Facilitators often prioritise content delivery when they should be creating emotional conditions that make attention involuntary.
- I Watched a Comic Bomb for a Year. He Taught Me More About Attention Than Any Workshop Ever Did — Empathy means asking 'will you come with me?' and proving you're worth following.
- The Plan Is Not Important - How I GM Without Stress — The Plan Is Not Important - How I GM Without Stress"The planning process is important, but the plan is not.
- You Can't Force 200 People to Pay Attention. But You Can Design a Space Where They Choose To — To make focus scale, you need systems, not heroics. Notes from coordinating 18 game masters and 200 players at TTRPGCon, Bangalore.
- Your Toolbox Is Not Your Philosophy — Having the right wrench doesn't make you a plumber. On mechanics, dynamics, and the MDA framework.
- You Can't Rush Belonging — Depth doesn't attract people. They're brought to the edge and shown that it's worth jumping.
- It Was 3AM. I Was Eating Dry Coconut. And That's When Everything Changed. — The origin story of Put The Player First, how a 3AM moment and a video game changed everything.
- Loot Is What You Get. Level Up Is Who You Become. — Every transformation framework starts with the destination. The Put The Player First Framework starts with one question: Who is the Hero?