Ian Dallas

Biosketch

IAN DALLAS is the Creative Director at indie videogame developer Giant Sparrow. He spent the 4 years prior to this event working on The Unfinished Swan, a first-person painting game set in an all-white landscape. The game was released in 2012 on the PlayStation 3. Ian interested in creating experiences people have never had before and in making the world a stranger place. Whenever he crosses the street with headphones on, a part of him is always thinking, “If I get hit by a car, this is what I will be listening to while I wait for the ambulance to arrive.”

A minimalist world

Ian has created a stunning minimalist game called The Unfinished Swan. Ian spoke of why he opted for minimalism and how he wanted to build a world that promotes unprecedented exploration. He argued that the experience of building such a game offers many lessons about cognition of active players: why they get lost, stuck, or bored, how they get lonely for enemies and crave structure, how taking away control can feel good, and why understanding a place is a powerful reward in itself.