Google has some great lectures put on at their campus from people of all different backgrounds. I try to catch one now and then but keeping up with the volume is tough. I was clicking about the Internet and ran across a really great talk by Matt Leacock, designer of Pandemic. Pandemic is a nice 2-4 player co-operative game. I’m not a huge fan of co-operatives but I really like this game.

The title of the lecture is Cooperation and Engagement: What can board games teach us?

Matt’s “day job” is as an Interaction Designer at Yahoo and he talks a bit about how game design and that interrelate. There is also a nice discussion on game difficulty and player skill.