Christopher Bryan Hecker (born 1970) is an American video game programmer and commentator. He is the founder of the gaming company Definition Six and best known for his engineering work on Will Wright's 2008 game Spore. Hecker is an advocate for the indie game industry and co-founder of the Indie Game Jam. He has written a number of influential articles on programming and has been an editor for Game Developer Magazine and the Journal of Graphics Tools.
Hecker obtained a job at Microsoft in Seattle, Washington around 1992. He worked there for three years, becoming creator and leader of the WinG API project for the Windows operating system. After completing WinG, he moved to Microsoft's entertainment division where he wrote the rendering engine for the real-time globe display in the Encarta World Atlas. In 1995, Hecker left Microsoft to form his own company in Seattle, Definition Six, a games and computer graphics consulting company that was later moved to Oakland, California. The company focused on the development of physics technology for games and lobbied for the OpenGL standard for graphics display. The company never actually shipped a commercial title, but did produce a tech demo. He also spent several years working independently on a game based on rock climbing as a side project, though it was never completed.
"And that's what's really interesting in the indie scene that's happening now, which is a, there's kind of finally a way for some healthy low experiments that happen that don't cost 50 million dollars of someone's money."
"And that's what's really interesting in the indie scene that's happening now, which is a, there's kind of finally a way for some healthy low experiments that happen that don't cost 50 million dollars of someone's money."
published: 25 Feb 2023
Ico clip of hand holding mechanic for Chris Hecker's GDC 2011 rant
http://chrishecker.com/Potential_Unreached
Clipped from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-zY2RRPl0M
published: 06 Mar 2011
IGDA San Francisco Event: Jonathan Blow, Chris Hecker, Dolby, May 8th
Q&A session with Jonathan Blow and Chris Hecker and moderated by Alex Wilmer at Dolby Labs on Wednesday, May 8th.
Jonathan Blow Bio:
Jonathan Blow is a game designer/programmer who lives in San Francisco. He is also a partner in Indie Fund.
http://the-witness.net/
Chris Hecker Bio:
Chris focuses on solving hard problems at the intersection of gameplay, aesthetics, and technology. He is an outspoken advocate for pushing the current boundaries of design and interactivity, in the hope that games will eventually reach their full potential as a medium. To this end he helped organize the Indie Game Jam, the Experimental Gameplay Workshop, and the Depth Jam, and his recent work on Spore centered on using proceduralism and artificial intelligence to enhance player creativity and agency. Ch...
published: 18 May 2013
Chris Hecker - Not There Yet
Visit http://www.criticalpathproject.com to search through interviews with over 100 of the videogame industry’s most influential designers and visionaries.
published: 12 Jan 2017
Fair Use - Chris Hecker's GDC 2013 Rant
http://chrishecker.com/Fair_Use
published: 30 Mar 2013
"Please Finish Your Game", Chris Hecker's GDC2010 Rant
This is the video from my GDC2010 rant, titled "Please Finish Your Game". http://chrishecker.com/Please_Finish_Your_Game The beginning has the 2010 Duct Tape Award presented to Heather Chaplin for her rant in 2009.
published: 15 Mar 2010
NYU Game Center Lecture Series Presents Chris Hecker
NYU Game Center Lecture Series Presents Chris Hecker
November 18, 2010
This Lecture Series installment features Chris Hecker, a game developer with over 15 years of experience as a designer and programmer, an outspoken and influential thinker, and an important advocate for experimental and independent games. In this event, Chris will discuss the process of inventing, testing, and implementing a new kind of video game, and you are invited to be an active participant in this process.
For more from the NYU Game Center, visit gamecenter.nyu.edu
published: 10 Jan 2019
Chris Hecker - Power Fantasy is Easy
Guns in games provide a very simple method of projecting power over a distance.
"The reason we do power fantasy is it's easy."
published: 25 Feb 2023
CRITICAL PATH—Chris Hecker—Money and Experimentation
visit the full site at criticalpathproject.com
published: 19 Jul 2012
Chris Hecker - The Word "Game"
While the word "game" may be inaccurate, the games industry must use the simplest terms that are already established to describe its products to its consumers.
"So 'play,' 'game,' things like that, will kind of mean what we make them mean by doing the work later."
"And that's what's really interesting in the indie scene that's happening now, which is a, there's kind of finally a way for some healthy low experiments that h...
"And that's what's really interesting in the indie scene that's happening now, which is a, there's kind of finally a way for some healthy low experiments that happen that don't cost 50 million dollars of someone's money."
"And that's what's really interesting in the indie scene that's happening now, which is a, there's kind of finally a way for some healthy low experiments that happen that don't cost 50 million dollars of someone's money."
"And that's what's really interesting in the indie scene that's happening now, which is a, there's kind of finally a way for some healthy low experiments that happen that don't cost 50 million dollars of someone's money."
"And that's what's really interesting in the indie scene that's happening now, which is a, there's kind of finally a way for some healthy low experiments that happen that don't cost 50 million dollars of someone's money."
Q&A session with Jonathan Blow and Chris Hecker and moderated by Alex Wilmer at Dolby Labs on Wednesday, May 8th.
Jonathan Blow Bio:
Jonathan Blow is a game d...
Q&A session with Jonathan Blow and Chris Hecker and moderated by Alex Wilmer at Dolby Labs on Wednesday, May 8th.
Jonathan Blow Bio:
Jonathan Blow is a game designer/programmer who lives in San Francisco. He is also a partner in Indie Fund.
http://the-witness.net/
Chris Hecker Bio:
Chris focuses on solving hard problems at the intersection of gameplay, aesthetics, and technology. He is an outspoken advocate for pushing the current boundaries of design and interactivity, in the hope that games will eventually reach their full potential as a medium. To this end he helped organize the Indie Game Jam, the Experimental Gameplay Workshop, and the Depth Jam, and his recent work on Spore centered on using proceduralism and artificial intelligence to enhance player creativity and agency. Chris has been on the advisory board for the Game Developers Conference for many years and is a regular speaker at the GDC, Siggraph, and other conferences. A frequent contributor to Game Developer magazine, Chris was the technical columnist for the magazine for two years and the Editor-at-Large for three, and was on the editorial board of the computer graphics research publication, The Journal of Graphics Tools. He has worked at both ends of the development spectrum, as a one-man indie game developer with his company definition six, inc. and on a hundred-person team at Maxis/Electronic Arts. His professional goal is to help games become the preeminent art and entertainment form of the 21st century. His current project is SpyParty, an indie game about subtle human behavior and deception.
http://chrishecker.com/Homepage
Q&A session with Jonathan Blow and Chris Hecker and moderated by Alex Wilmer at Dolby Labs on Wednesday, May 8th.
Jonathan Blow Bio:
Jonathan Blow is a game designer/programmer who lives in San Francisco. He is also a partner in Indie Fund.
http://the-witness.net/
Chris Hecker Bio:
Chris focuses on solving hard problems at the intersection of gameplay, aesthetics, and technology. He is an outspoken advocate for pushing the current boundaries of design and interactivity, in the hope that games will eventually reach their full potential as a medium. To this end he helped organize the Indie Game Jam, the Experimental Gameplay Workshop, and the Depth Jam, and his recent work on Spore centered on using proceduralism and artificial intelligence to enhance player creativity and agency. Chris has been on the advisory board for the Game Developers Conference for many years and is a regular speaker at the GDC, Siggraph, and other conferences. A frequent contributor to Game Developer magazine, Chris was the technical columnist for the magazine for two years and the Editor-at-Large for three, and was on the editorial board of the computer graphics research publication, The Journal of Graphics Tools. He has worked at both ends of the development spectrum, as a one-man indie game developer with his company definition six, inc. and on a hundred-person team at Maxis/Electronic Arts. His professional goal is to help games become the preeminent art and entertainment form of the 21st century. His current project is SpyParty, an indie game about subtle human behavior and deception.
http://chrishecker.com/Homepage
Visit http://www.criticalpathproject.com to search through interviews with over 100 of the videogame industry’s most influential designers and visionaries.
Visit http://www.criticalpathproject.com to search through interviews with over 100 of the videogame industry’s most influential designers and visionaries.
Visit http://www.criticalpathproject.com to search through interviews with over 100 of the videogame industry’s most influential designers and visionaries.
This is the video from my GDC2010 rant, titled "Please Finish Your Game". http://chrishecker.com/Please_Finish_Your_Game The beginning has the 2010 Duct Tape A...
This is the video from my GDC2010 rant, titled "Please Finish Your Game". http://chrishecker.com/Please_Finish_Your_Game The beginning has the 2010 Duct Tape Award presented to Heather Chaplin for her rant in 2009.
This is the video from my GDC2010 rant, titled "Please Finish Your Game". http://chrishecker.com/Please_Finish_Your_Game The beginning has the 2010 Duct Tape Award presented to Heather Chaplin for her rant in 2009.
NYU Game Center Lecture Series Presents Chris Hecker
November 18, 2010
This Lecture Series installment features Chris Hecker, a game developer with over 15 ye...
NYU Game Center Lecture Series Presents Chris Hecker
November 18, 2010
This Lecture Series installment features Chris Hecker, a game developer with over 15 years of experience as a designer and programmer, an outspoken and influential thinker, and an important advocate for experimental and independent games. In this event, Chris will discuss the process of inventing, testing, and implementing a new kind of video game, and you are invited to be an active participant in this process.
For more from the NYU Game Center, visit gamecenter.nyu.edu
NYU Game Center Lecture Series Presents Chris Hecker
November 18, 2010
This Lecture Series installment features Chris Hecker, a game developer with over 15 years of experience as a designer and programmer, an outspoken and influential thinker, and an important advocate for experimental and independent games. In this event, Chris will discuss the process of inventing, testing, and implementing a new kind of video game, and you are invited to be an active participant in this process.
For more from the NYU Game Center, visit gamecenter.nyu.edu
While the word "game" may be inaccurate, the games industry must use the simplest terms that are already established to describe its products to its consumers.
...
While the word "game" may be inaccurate, the games industry must use the simplest terms that are already established to describe its products to its consumers.
"So 'play,' 'game,' things like that, will kind of mean what we make them mean by doing the work later."
While the word "game" may be inaccurate, the games industry must use the simplest terms that are already established to describe its products to its consumers.
"So 'play,' 'game,' things like that, will kind of mean what we make them mean by doing the work later."
"And that's what's really interesting in the indie scene that's happening now, which is a, there's kind of finally a way for some healthy low experiments that happen that don't cost 50 million dollars of someone's money."
"And that's what's really interesting in the indie scene that's happening now, which is a, there's kind of finally a way for some healthy low experiments that happen that don't cost 50 million dollars of someone's money."
Q&A session with Jonathan Blow and Chris Hecker and moderated by Alex Wilmer at Dolby Labs on Wednesday, May 8th.
Jonathan Blow Bio:
Jonathan Blow is a game designer/programmer who lives in San Francisco. He is also a partner in Indie Fund.
http://the-witness.net/
Chris Hecker Bio:
Chris focuses on solving hard problems at the intersection of gameplay, aesthetics, and technology. He is an outspoken advocate for pushing the current boundaries of design and interactivity, in the hope that games will eventually reach their full potential as a medium. To this end he helped organize the Indie Game Jam, the Experimental Gameplay Workshop, and the Depth Jam, and his recent work on Spore centered on using proceduralism and artificial intelligence to enhance player creativity and agency. Chris has been on the advisory board for the Game Developers Conference for many years and is a regular speaker at the GDC, Siggraph, and other conferences. A frequent contributor to Game Developer magazine, Chris was the technical columnist for the magazine for two years and the Editor-at-Large for three, and was on the editorial board of the computer graphics research publication, The Journal of Graphics Tools. He has worked at both ends of the development spectrum, as a one-man indie game developer with his company definition six, inc. and on a hundred-person team at Maxis/Electronic Arts. His professional goal is to help games become the preeminent art and entertainment form of the 21st century. His current project is SpyParty, an indie game about subtle human behavior and deception.
http://chrishecker.com/Homepage
Visit http://www.criticalpathproject.com to search through interviews with over 100 of the videogame industry’s most influential designers and visionaries.
This is the video from my GDC2010 rant, titled "Please Finish Your Game". http://chrishecker.com/Please_Finish_Your_Game The beginning has the 2010 Duct Tape Award presented to Heather Chaplin for her rant in 2009.
NYU Game Center Lecture Series Presents Chris Hecker
November 18, 2010
This Lecture Series installment features Chris Hecker, a game developer with over 15 years of experience as a designer and programmer, an outspoken and influential thinker, and an important advocate for experimental and independent games. In this event, Chris will discuss the process of inventing, testing, and implementing a new kind of video game, and you are invited to be an active participant in this process.
For more from the NYU Game Center, visit gamecenter.nyu.edu
While the word "game" may be inaccurate, the games industry must use the simplest terms that are already established to describe its products to its consumers.
"So 'play,' 'game,' things like that, will kind of mean what we make them mean by doing the work later."
Christopher Bryan Hecker (born 1970) is an American video game programmer and commentator. He is the founder of the gaming company Definition Six and best known for his engineering work on Will Wright's 2008 game Spore. Hecker is an advocate for the indie game industry and co-founder of the Indie Game Jam. He has written a number of influential articles on programming and has been an editor for Game Developer Magazine and the Journal of Graphics Tools.
Hecker obtained a job at Microsoft in Seattle, Washington around 1992. He worked there for three years, becoming creator and leader of the WinG API project for the Windows operating system. After completing WinG, he moved to Microsoft's entertainment division where he wrote the rendering engine for the real-time globe display in the Encarta World Atlas. In 1995, Hecker left Microsoft to form his own company in Seattle, Definition Six, a games and computer graphics consulting company that was later moved to Oakland, California. The company focused on the development of physics technology for games and lobbied for the OpenGL standard for graphics display. The company never actually shipped a commercial title, but did produce a tech demo. He also spent several years working independently on a game based on rock climbing as a side project, though it was never completed.