Ben Taels

@bentaels.taels.net

1343 Followers 2287 Following

Kiwi, Dad, Human Factors Psychology PhD, & Games User Experience Research. Director of Intended Experience: https://intendedexperience.nz/ Formerly Epic Games, Player Research, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Te Manatū Waka, & Hamilton Zoo.

This shows an image from the NZGDC program: https://www.nzgdc.com/programme The talk is Designing for new players and it is being given by Ben Taels at 3-3:50pm. The talk is classified as a "data, testing or research" talk. The talk description is: "Play is learning, and to learn to play your game players likely will need some support. This applies whether they are just new to your game, to your games genre, the platform you game is on, or to gaming in general. This talk will go into the challenges that players can face when picking up a game and how the psychology of learning can be applied in practical ways to help realise your design intent for your players and to make your game an awesome experience."
A car center console with a dial in it. The center of the dial has a "P" button. Above the dial are the letters R N D (in that order). The center console is black and the dial is shiny.
A low poly modern indie horror game. It has a floating ghost in front of a large castle. A purple moon or sun looms large in the scene.
A green backyard surrounded by trees that are heading into Autumn. In the front of the picture are two green and yellow kids tricycles. One of which has a trailer. The sky above is blue and cloudless.
The Marathon symbol is made up of a large circle with a smaller circle inside it. This version has been overlaid with motion tracking, the majority of which are red enemies, but there are a few green friendlies.
A bunch of people waiting in line. In the distance a sign says "welcome to the Fieldays"
The updated achievements: - You fool of a fool: Your actions cause a change in the situation you are in. Add 1 to the current Threat, but you get to describe new situation. This gives you a chance to change the situation to something that may better match your Aspect and/or Traits. - Delve deep: Add 3 boxes back to a Trait. Describe what has motivated you and/or recovered your strength. - Time that is given to you: Add 2 to your Lead. Describe what outcome has given you this time. -No further nuisance: Reduce current threat by 2 (to a minimum of 1). Describe how this happens. - Glitter in the gloom: Add four dice to your next roll. Describe what personal reserves, tools, and/or environmental factors you are using to do this.
Four players with mini-burgers and chips on them.
In dark mode the white bolding is a bit clearer
Two emails. One is read. One is not. The unread one is very very slightly bolded.
There aren't enough characters allowed in an alt text to have the full text of the post here. In summary though the bill is unscientific, unnessary, unworkable, and damaging to society. It is not something that should be supported and does not reflect the New Zealand I want to live in.
Someone squeezing a brisket and making it run with excessive juices
A layout of the "Fly You Fools!" TTRPG
A red and back Xbox Elite 2 controller. The placement of the sticks means that there is a comfortable arc from them to the face buttons or dpad
The PlayStation touch pad
A Piwakawaka with its fan tail up in the air doing a small jump as it repositions on top of a moving box. Dark brown top feathers contrast with its lightly yellow brown down feathers
An ugly glowing, glassy, and unclear looking volume bar
A graph with a 3.2GHz bar which is red and very small. Then a huge 3.3GHz bar which is green and towers over the red bar The Y-Axis goes from 3.18 to 3.32
Indiana Jones in the rain saying "that belongs in a museum"
A sign above a door says "hot pies" On the windows next to are signs for physiotherapy and acupuncture
A post saying Fortnite and showing Halloween versions of Fortnite characters. It is framed and covered in signatures
A note that says "You two are the best chefs! Grandpapa and Dad" With a picture of a table with food on it and a picture of a smiling cat with human teeth
A message with a high reputation. It looks like glowing, flaming, runes.
Three Minecraft sheep look towards the screen. One is white, one is black, and one is a white lamb.
An article on an AI interview screening tool. The quote says "We ask candidates after every single AI interview how their experience was, and at the moment they are giving us 4.3 out of 5 Webster said the AI interview process was evolving and improving - and job seekers would too."
Graph showing unique likers on Bluesky over time. There was a big peak in 2024 and a smaller peak in 2025, but it is generally in decline.
Several blobby coral buddies looking up at a rocket platform.
A lot of different coloured pixel Easter Eggs
Sixteen Hot UX Buns. They are brown, fruity, buns with a "UX" in white paste on top.
Soldiers move around a green field fighting undead. A dwarf throws a flaming explosive and undead limbs fly everywhere
A BTS member stands with their back to the camera. In front of him a train is crashing and rails are flying up into the air.
This image shows a Pfhor alien from the original 1994 Marathon game. It is kind of bug like, wearing green armor, and is swining an energy staff that is trailing plasma Next to it green text says "I was into Marathon Pfhor" Then the circle with another circle in it and the line Marathon symbole is below that. The whole image is a bit grainy, like it was on a CRT or something. The top says "UESCTerm 802.11 (remote override) 1050 10.22.2337" THe Bottom says "PpUp/PgDown/Arrows to Scroll - Return/Enter To Acknowledge"
A huge purple explosion behind a person who is being reduced to a smoking skeleton The text on it says "The typa Icons Video Game upgrades have for a +1% damage upgrade"
The title page of a report "Marathon (2026) - Executive Report" by "Ben Taels, Director, Intended Experience" The page is bright orange and has "Playtest Cloud" written in the top left. In the middle is the green logo for Marathon, which says "Marathon".
"Intended Experience' is written on a black background. Intended is in white and in a console/computer text prompt like font with the "I" being made of a negative black space within a solid white square around it. The Experience is written in red and uses a spikey, sharp font.
A person looking stick with stick head, arms, and legs leaning up against a wall
A post from Chris Hipkins. It looks like it was made in Notion or something The points are (with an emoji for each point) - Three free doctor's visits for every New Zealander - Freeing up GP's time so appointments are easier to get - Supporting doctors to open clinics in their local community - Free cervical screening - A New Zealand Future fund to create and keep wealth here - A simple, targeted tax change that gets investment flowing into business Then it says: "This is what a plan actually looks like, and there's more to come" The as is authorized by Chris Hipkins
A cartoon devil with a halo next to a sign saying "Wholly Bagels & Pizza - New York Style"
A gif showing someone missing an active reload in Gears of War. Here the player is supposed to reload when in a set window within the reload bar. They miss that window though and the whole bar flashes red.
This image shows a diagram that has arrows moving from Developer to Intended Experience. That Intended Experience is then filtered through the environment (technology, money, time), and produces the game or product. Then the product goes to the user and their environment which produces the User Experience. In the case of this example the intended experience was a Dinosaur, but the user experience was a chicken. That chicken user experience then is reported to the developer via User Experience Research. They then iterate through the same cycle as above to produce a game/product that has both a dino as the intended experience and the user experience.
A gif of three falling bricks
A red skinned demon-like creature with rolls of skin and coven hooves. It has fugal like growths coming out of it, it's skin is ripping, and its wings are in tatters. It is carrying a vine like many tailed whip and a sword of corrupted wood. Art by Mike Fallie https://mikefaille.com/ Coloured by me
An image of suits flying in Anthem. A game where the flight mechanics felt amazing, but also they were quite limited in terms of time you could use them.
Four Disney Princesses in Space Marine Armour.
A section of the Havoc Engine Toolkit. It reads: PLAY THE GAME It is – theoretically – possible to write a perfect game on the first draft. But it’s hugely unlikely. Run the game for a couple of different groups and see how different players react to it. Which bits are confusing? Do situations come up that you didn’t plan for (they will, it’s a roleplaying game) and are they important or difficult enough to manage that you need to write more game to accommodate them? Don’t trick yourself into only thinking about what’s wrong at this stage: pay attention to what goes well and be proud of it. Games are hard.
An animation of a clipboard with a pen tapping a ? on it
A screenshot from Prince of Persia The Lost Crown It shows the "Memory Shards" feature where you can capture images of your surroundings to add to the map and be able to come back later.
A recap screen from The Witcher 3 showing Geralt gathering from a swampy battle ground while another Witcher waits with a horse in the background
Set images from the Highlander film. It shows two big dudes (Cavil and Bautista) next to each other.
A screenshot from Abiotic Factor showing a bunch of storage
An image from Satisfactory that replaces arachnid type enemies with a cat head png
An image from the Witcher 3 Beastiary. It shows the creature in the middle, their weaknesses under them and the Lore to the side.
Isaac aiming down sights at a Necromoprh. This makes the glowing health bar and energy meter on this back larger and places it near the edges of vision (assuming a focus on the cross hair as normal)
The HDR calibration in Gears 5 It is split into Shadows with a shadowy image and the description "Be careful not to lose details in the darker areas of the image such as shadows" Then Surfaces with a forest scene and the text "Surfaces that don't emit light should have clear details and not appear overly bright. Pay attention to the overall brightness of the image" Finally Highlights and Light sources with a glowing sky and the text "Ensure details on the bright areas of the image are visible. Pay attention to the details in the clouds and sun" Then below are three sliders for Contrast, Brightness, and HDR Brightness
A kid in a red bag wearing a black t-shirt that says "Blood for the Blood God"
The backs of two kids walking to school. They are waiting to cross a road and dressed as described above.
The settings search from Deadlock where you can search the settings
This shows the new damage numbers in Deadlock There is a larger white running total and then individual hits at being shown as smaller numbers rising up and disappearing
A sketch of a cat with shades on, flowers on its head, a neck tie, and a lion's mane
A series of different green circles with some extra green effects on them. What do you think they do?