Think Like A Game Designer Theresa Duringer — UI as Game Design, Onboarding Without Friction, and the Ethics of AI (#99)
Jan 29, 2026
Theresa Duringer, CEO of Temple Gates Games and veteran of digital board game adaptations, talks UI as game design and translating complex tabletop systems into clear digital play. She explores onboarding without friction, VR and cross-platform UX trade-offs, neural-net AI opponents, and the ethics of generative AI. Short, practical takes on flow, clarity, and preserving social presence in digital board games.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Early Game Industry Origin
- Theresa grew up in a video-game development family and got her first paycheck from EA doing QA as a teenager.
- That early exposure led her from QA at Maxis to founding indie studios and building digital board games.
Generalist Strength For Indies
- Generalists wear many hats at small studios and that versatility is essential for indie survival.
- Theresa embraces being a generalist and values cross-discipline skills like marketing, QA, and production.
From Fan To VR Collaborator
- Theresa was an Ascension fan who entered Gen Con tournaments and later pitched a VR version to the Ascension team.
- That fan passion plus proven VR work led to collaborating on Ascension VR.
