Right back from GDC Online, I had my gigantic 1990s-themed birthday party (feat. Ava Luna, Radical Dads, EULA, Ovlov and Casiorossi, check ‘em!) Then it was CMJ week, and then the Halloween parties began.

I went as Laura Palmer — what about you? Also over this past weekend was the fascinating inaugural PRACTICE game design conference at New York University’s Game Center. Eric Zimmerman and Frank Lantz explain what it’s all about here, and I attended some great talks as well!

PopCap’s Scott Jon Siegel spoke about the need for more prototyping specifically in the arena of social games. In a recent column of mine that EDGE published (in the print edition; it won’t be online until later), I compared the design methods used by popular Zynga games — and the player behavior they incite — to the methodology of drug pushers and the behavior of the addicted. I also wrote not too long ago about how disappointed I was to see some of these methodologies adopted by The Sims Social.

Scott told me on Twitter he was disappointed that folks like me seem to be throwing out his entire industry with the bathwater, but while I’ve gone after specific examples, design forms and business models with my fists up, I actually do believe there’s potential to do special things with this new frontier and don’t wish to dismiss that.

Last week I talked to online game veteran Raph Koster, who said that while he feels a sense of loss as games evolve into the social mainstream, he’s also excited by the unprecedented opportunity to reach so many people with our love for games. I share Raph’s feeling of loss, but I also share his enthusiasm for the possibilities the social space can doubtless attain when the right people are working in it for the right reasons.

Long story short, Scott Jon Siegel is one of those good guys, and he believes that more prototyping — the experimental rapid sort that is core to process in traditional design — can help address a lot of the risk aversion and idea-cloning that slows genre emergence and innovation in the social space, and that’s a great idea!

Speaking of game design, Harmonix’s Matt Boch took us inside Dance Central‘s prototyping process. The part I wish I’d written down verbatim was when he mentioned the way the game doesn’t legislate gender in dance performance (“gender is performance,” he said), and showed a video of how a man and a woman could interpret the same feminine, sexy song in their own ways and still succeed in the game.

In other good talks, we had Steve Gaynor on how the design of progression gates can lead to both better storytelling and more interesting use of space, and there was a fascinating, rapid-fire debate among Manveer Heir, Chris Hecker and Nick Fortugno about the extent to which the ability to program is — or isn’t — essential to the game designer’s role.

PRACTICE was such a good time, and is heartening evidence of the fact that we’re starting to collect a cohesive, diverse and wonderful game design hub in New York City! I mean, look at this awesome segment on games as art that was shot by PBS — everyone in it is a New Yorker (I’m in it, too)!

Kotaku’s Stephen Totilo was also at PRACTICE, and he wrote about the surprising and interesting discussion that emerged when Seth Killian and Arturo Sanchez were asked about sexism in the Street Fighter community.

I also wrote about sexism at Kotaku today, but I’m going to save the discussion for its own post. Stay tuned!