Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Serendipity

As mentioned in yesterday's post, I was at Meaningful Play 2024 a few weeks ago, and I'm finally processing the many pages of notes that I took there. 

Sabrina Culyba gave the morning keynote on that last day of the conference. She spoke about serendipity in game design, sharing a compelling story about the development of Diatoms. The talk was brilliantly prepared and executed. She summarized research findings around serendipity that shows that the following factors can affect its likelihood:

  • Having a prepared mind
  • Openness
  • Being connection-prone
  • Belief in serendipity
These are really interesting, and if I didn't have a pile of other research projects in the hopper, I'd be curious to dive into the literature here. The first item sounds like a variation on the maxim, "Luck favors the prepared." The second sounds to me like the eponymous Big Five personality trait that tracks with creativity.

I don't have much else to contribute to the discussion, but it's a neat idea that I don't want to waste away in my notebook.

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