Experimental Game Design
DETAILS
Week 1: August 31
Discuss
* overview of course
* What is a game? See Jesper Juul
*
Why do people play games?
*
creative practice in cross disciplinary collaborations
*
studio practice
* definitions.html
*
Game History:
See: http://www.arts.rpi.edu/~ruiz/ArtofGaming/Gamehistory.html
Look at best works (not a critique)
* Your personal research.
Please cite your references in your presentation.
* Jesper
Juul Gameness
Assignments (for 9/7):
• If you have not done so already, bring sample of best work to next
class
• Personal Game Archaeology Project (see assignments section for details)
Week 2:
September 7
Discuss
* Personal Game
Archaeology Project presentations
* Rensselaer Folsom Library Game Research Resources review
* Salen and Eric Zimmerman Unit 3: PLAY pg.
298-361.Defining Play, Play of Experience, Meaning, Pleasure
Readings (for 9/14):
• Beyond Productivity:
Information Technology, Innovation and Creativity,
http://books.nap.edu/html/beyond_productivity/ch2.html
(near footnote 43)
• Finish in Salen /Zimmerman (Unit 3: PLAY)
Assignments:
refine work if assigned to do so
Week
3: September 14
Discuss
Issues in interdisciplinary endeavor
Beyond Productivity:
Information Technology, Innovation and Creativity
http://books.nap.edu/html/beyond_productivity/ch2.html
(near footnote 43)
Tips
for successful collaboration:
some from my research
http://www.nwrel.org/cfc/frc/collabtips1.html
Scenario Planning
Scenario
planning is a method for learning about the future by understanding the nature
and impact of the most uncertain and important driving forces affecting our
future. It is a group process which encourages knowledge exchange and
development of mutual deeper understanding of central issues important to the
future. The goal is to craft a number of diverging stories by extrapolating
uncertain and heavily influencing driving forces. The stories together with the
work getting there has the dual purpose of increasing the knowledge of the
business environment and widen both the receiver's and participant's perception
of possible future events.
The
method is most widely used as a strategic management tool, but this and similar
methods have been used for enabling other types of group discussion about a
common future.
Scenarios
are narratives of alternative environments in which today’s decisions may be
played out. They are not predictions. Nor are they strategies. Instead they are
more like hypotheses of different futures specifically designed to highlight
the risks and opportunities involved in specific strategic issues.
http://www.well.com/~mb/scenario/#What_is_Scenario_Planning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scenario_planning
Visionaries
of the Future
the Future: In
a linear conception of time,
the future is the portion of the timeline that is still to occur, i.e.
the place in space-time where lie all events that still have not
occurred. In this sense the future is opposed to the past (the set of moments
and events that have already occurred) and the present
(the set of events that are occurring now).
The
Future becomes the past
*
The 1939 New York World's Fair:
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/DISPLAY/39wf/front.htm
Artists
as “visionaries”
Futurists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurist
The
Situationist International:
In 1957 a few experimental European groups stemming from
the radical tradition of dadaism
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dadaism)
John Heartfield http://www.towson.edu/heartfield/art/art.html
Hannah
Hoch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_H%C3%B6ch
http://hannahhoch.com/hhindex2.html
Comics
as cultural barometers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics
COMICS: A TOOL OF SUBVERSION?
http://www.albany.edu/scj/jcjpc/vol2is6/comics.html
Machinima http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinima
http://www.machinima.com/films.php?id=1232
Roy Lichtenstein http://www.artchive.com/artchive/L/lichtenstein.html#images
Teams
formulate and work in studio on Scenario Game of the Future
Assignments:
• Work with your team on your Scenario Game of the
Future
Week
4: September 21
Discuss
*
Basic Game
Design Fundamentals by Chris Crawford
* Basic Game Design Document
Innovative creative ideas and artists who create games:
Rez -
Sega's quirky, abstract art-influenced
shooter, an endorphin machine, video game inspired by the abstract artist
Kandinsky aims to overload the senses with its
psychedelic visuals and pulsating dance beats.
Rez for the Playstation 2
seeks to create a sense of synaesthesia, literally a
crossing of the senses, so that you can "see" sounds or
"taste" colours.
"Rez is an experience, a fusion of light,
vibration and sound completely immersed in synaesthesia,"
said its creator, Tetsuya Mizuguchi of Japanese game
developers United Game Artists.
The game takes place in a virtual world inside a computer. You play a hacker of
sorts, flying through six levels of cyberspace in search of the artificial
intelligence at the heart of this world.
But there is a twist to the traditional shoot-em
approach that makes Rez stand out.
Virtual DJ Every time you destroy one of the insect-like enemies, a
sound is generated. This sound becomes a form in the scrolling, flashing 3D
computer world rushing past.
Katamari
Damacy-
When
the King of All Cosmos accidentally destroys all the stars in the sky, he
orders you, his pint-sized princely son, to put the twinkle back in the heavens
above. The only way you can do that is by rolling everything on Earth into
clumps so that he can replace what's missing in space. "Everything"
includes cookies, lawn mowers, lamp posts, sumo wrestlers, bulldozers,
brontosauruses , cruise ships, and more. Katamari Damacy also includes a two-player battle mod e where you
and a friend can see who can grow the biggest ball of stuff. For one to two
players.
Features:
Simple play controlled with analog sticks only; no buttons to press
Dimensions change drastically as clumps grow; 2-player battle mode
Ball-rolling and object-collecting gameplay with
quirky, infectious humor throughout Insanely cosmic animations; wacky musical stylings; royally contagious storyline
Bot
Fighters-
http://www.botfighters.com/
location based mobile games
Can
You See Me Now? by Blast Theory
Activating Play
http://www.arts.rpi.edu/%7Eruiz/ExperimentalGameDesignSp04plus/EGD_Prof_Ruiz/ACTIVATINGPLAY/newwebsite/index.html
http://www.arts.rpi.edu/%7Eruiz/ExperimentalGameDesignSp04plus/index.html
Natalie Bookchin
‘The Intruder’ [1999] an experimental adaptation of a short story by Jorge Luis
Borges, and represents a new hybrid form of narrative that exists on the border
of computer and video arcade games, cinema and literature.
http://www.calarts.edu/~bookchin/intruder/
Eric Zimmerman
‘Sissyfight’ [2000] an intense war between a bunch of girls who are all out to
ruin each other's popularity and self-esteem.
http://www.sissyfight.com
Michelle Teran & Amanda Ramos
The Playgirls [2000]
http://www.ubermatic.org/playgirls/
Thomson & Craighead
‘Trigger Happy’ [1998]
http://www.triggerhappy.org/
Jodi
‘sod’ [2000]
http://sod.jodi.org/
AnneMarie
Schleiner
Playskins
http://www.playskins.com/about.html
selectparks.net games by artists
http://selectparks.net/
GAME PATCHES
Josephine Starrs & Leon Cmielewski
‘Bio-Tek Kitchen’ [1999] is a Marathon Infinity game patch. In Bio-Tek, the player cleans up the kitchen laboratory of a home
biotech enthusiast using weapons such as dish cloths and egg flippers.
http://lx.sysx.org/biotek/index.html
Anne Marie Schleiner
‘Madame Polly’ [1998] a video game whose eponymous heroine engages in
first person shooter style combat. The premise of this
experimental game is that the near future is characterized by data "population
overcrowding"; it is flooded with human
controlled avatars and software personalities of all ages, sexes and gene
lines. This problem is exacerbated by the emergence of a prolific hybrid breed
of software agents called data ghosts, which are imprinted personalities of
humans who continue to participate, to learn and thrive well beyond the life
span of their physically human bodies.
Robert Nideffer
Tomb Raider patch [1999]
http://proxy.arts.uci.edu/~nideffer/crack/
Exhibits:
http://switch.sjsu.edu/web/v5n2/index2.html
http://www.banffcentre.ab.ca/WPG/past/language.htm
http://www.re-load.org/
Team work in studio on Scenario Planning Games
On storyboarding: http://www.mediaed.org.uk/posted_documents/Storyboarding.html
Storyboard examples: http://movies.warnerbros.com/ed/cmp/storyboards.html
, http://movies.warnerbros.com/eraser/cmp/sketches.html
, http://sleepers.warnerbros.com/cmp/storyboards.html
The Construction of Experience:
Interface as Content David Rokeby
Assignments
for 9/28:
Finish work on Scenario Planning
Game Design with your team
Week
5: September 28
Discuss
* Scenario
Planning Game Design Presentations
* Visiting Artist
Ian Stead:
- work (both personal and professional)
-
Overview of 3D
-
Review Game Engines Unreal: Project Alterius
What
they are
How
to work with them
What
is a Game Engine? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_engine
Unreal: http://www.cliffyb.com/rants/ut-ld-tips.shtml
Torque:
*
Other Artists who have worked with game engines:
Kurt Hentschlager
http://epidemic.cicv.fr/geogb/art/gs/kurt/karma.html
Freidrich Kirschner
http://www.aec.at/en/global/press_detail.asp?iPressID=81&iAreaID=3
Paul Marino
http://www.machinima.org/
Workspace Unlimited
http://www.workspace-unlimited.org/vwa_flash.html
Readings:
* Salen/Zimmerman pp. 421-458 (Chapter 27 Games as
the Play of Simulation)
Assignment due 10/5:
Work on Phase I Proposal of Final Project: rough storyboards,
concept ideas presentations
Week 6: October 5
Discuss
* 2-4 Visiting Artist
-
work
and projects (both personal and professional)
- working with the Torque game
engine
* 4-5 Phase I
Proposal of Final Project Presentations: rough storyboards, concept
ideas
* Genres
Genre and the Video Game:
http://www.robinlionheart.com/gamedev/genres.xhtml
A
Taxonomy of Computer Games by Chris Crawford:
http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/peabody/game-book/Chapter3.html
General Taxonomy of Game Genres:
“Flash” Games
First-Person Shooters (fps)
Action Games
Real-Time Strategy
Turn-Based Strategy
RPGs
Sports Games
Simulations
Adventure Games
Immersive Reality
Emerging Genres, case studies:
* Rez- endorphin machines
* Bot Fighters- location
based mobile game
http://www.botfighters.com/welcome/
* Can You See Me Now?
PC
Mac
On-line
Dedicated systems
Hand held
emerging
Readings:
- WarCraft
- Genderplay:
Successes and Failures in Character Designs for Video games April 16, 2003
posting by Jane
- Sublimation
-Beyond Shoot your Friends http://www.cpandfriends.com/writing/digital-illusion.html
- Lenoir-Lowood_TheatersOfWar
- The Addictiveness of Games, Steve Meretsky
Assignments due
10/12:
Phase
II of Final Project:
Rough Prototype
Week 7: October 12
Discuss
*
Phase II of Final Project: Rough Prototype
* Social Issues::
Engagement & Social Formation:
- social conditions in MMORPGs:
http://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1222
- From
See: http://www.gamestudies.org/0302/castronova/
- WarCraft
- The Simms
Gender:
- Genderplay:
Successes and Failures in Character Designs for Video games April 16, 2003
posting by Jane
- Skins,
Patches, and Plug-ins Becoming Woman in the New Gaming Culture http://www.genders.org/g34/g34_polsky.html
- Does Lara Croft wear fake polygons? http://www.opensorcery.net/lara2.html
- Genderizing HCI by Justine Cassell
Violence:
- Sublimation
- See Video & Discuss, An interview with Lt Col. Grossman
Stop Teaching our Children to Kill
- ABOUT WAR:
REALITY: GAMES & GUTS
- Issues & ethics: osma
games nytJanuary 10.htm
- most current: www.americasarmy.com
(absence of blood and gore)
- tried and true: www.counter-strike.net
(lots of blood)
- Tom Clancy based games: http://www.redstorm.com/
(minimal blood)
-Beyond Shoot your Friends http://www.cpandfriends.com/writing/digital-illusion.html
- Lenoir-Lowood_TheatersOfWar
Addiction:
- Addictive Technologies http://www.cpandfriends.com/writing/addictiv.html
- The Addictiveness of Games,
Steve Meretsky
Readings:
-
Everything But the Words: A Dramatic Writing Primer for Gamers byHal Barwood http://www.gdconf.com/archives/2000/barwood.doc
- Storytelling in Action by Bob Bates
- Building
Character- An Analysis of Character Creation by Steve Meretzky
- Building Character By Toby Gard
Assignments for 10/26:
Phase III Game Prototype
Week 8: October 19
Discuss
Character Development
- Building
Character- An Analysis of Character Creation by Steve Meretzky
- Building Character By Toby Gard
- Motion
- http://www.3dtotal.com/home2/gallery/gallery.asp?cat=character
- Calisto:
calisto.wrl
callistofinal.max
Poetics+Emotioneering
In February's Game Developer magazine, David
Freeman, a noted film, television, and game industry writer and producer
explained the important role of emotion in games. "First of all, many more
people watch film and television than play games. Most will never be lured into
playing games until games begin to offer the emotional range and depth of the
entertainment that they're used to enjoying. Also, a more involving game experience
means better word of mouth and more buzz. The press likes to write about these
kinds of games, which results in more sales. Those creating games with stories
and characters without investing in putting emotional depth into their games
will find themselves further and further behind, and their games will be
eclipsed." David Freeman's webpage http://www.freemangames.com/idea/6_3.php
POETICS & Aristotle (Greek philosopher 384-322 B.C.) http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/aris.htm
one of the fathers of Western Philosophy, wrote over 400 books on nearly
everything from mollusks to immortal souls. He believed there was something
wonderful about the whole of the natural world.
Aristotle invented deductive logic:
Premise: all frogs can swim
Premise: This is a frog
Conclusion: Therefore it can swim
Similar logical structures or syllogisms can be produced with: No frogs” and
“Some frogs”
He is known for induction: These frogs can swim, therefore all frogs can
swim.
His teleological (circular) approach relies on methodological, cautious
tendencies which rely only on what one knows from what ones’ 5 senses tell
them. (This is in opposition to Platonic
tendencies which strive to seek hidden and ultimate mystical truths through the
use of reason.)
Aristotle's Poetics http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.mb.txt
Now I know who thought up plot, character, and grammar
and wrote one of the first style guides. He wrote that tragedy inspires fear
and pity. Are any computer games
tragedy- is it not possible to make and sell them?
His 4 kinds of tragedy: Complex; Pathetic; Ethical and Simple would apply to
Computer Games?
and similarly 4 kinds of epic stories (longer than a circuit of the sun and too
big to be staged)
Epics: "The Iliad is at once simple and 'pathetic,' and the Odyssey
complex (for Recognition scenes run through it), and at the same time
'ethical.' Moreover, in diction and thought they are supreme." Part XXIV
He seems to say that tragedy is superior to epic but he hedges his bets (as a
Macedon
All of a sudden, Aristotle is everywhere. Following a link from
ludology.org (Thanks, Gonzalo), I found myself in the recently opened
"Armchair Arcade" (www.armchairarcade.com).
And lo and behold, what do I find there? Matt Barton's 'Treatise on
Videogames', in which he applies Aristotle's Poetics to (among others) Space
Invaders.
He writes: "Like tragedies in Aristotle's time, Space Invaders' story is
obvious and irrelevant. We also know how the story must end--eventually, the player
will be destroyed. The 'fun' of this videogame is not the story, but rather the
gameplay. In the case of Space Invaders and other
tragic games, the player's satisfaction arises not from the literary
contemplation of a story, but the measurement of his gameplay
skill as represented by the score."
(http://www.armchairarcade.com/aamain/article.php?22.0)
So, Matt thinks Space Invaders is tragic, and - as he later points out -
even cathartic. But is it really? And why do we keep playing it if it cleans
our souls of eleos and phobos?
[I am not going into the details about the different possibilities of
translating the according passage in Aristotle, but for those of you into that
sort of thing, there's a short summary and bibliography on the subject at http://qsilver.queensu.ca/classics/clst312d.htm]
Narrative
The art of telling a good story…..
-Everything But the Words: A Dramatic Writing Primer for Gamers byHal Barwood http://www.gdconf.com/archives/2000/barwood.doc
- Storytelling in Action by Bob Bates
-
The Art and
Science of Level Design by Cliff Bleszinski
also other articles at: http://www.cliffyb.com/rants/
- How
to Build a Better Cutscene
- Color Theory for
Game Design
Assignments for 10/26:
Phase III Game Prototype
Week 9: October 26
Discuss
*
Phase III Game Prototype Presentations
* User evaluation test plan talk & testing
guide
* Level Design
* mise en scene in videogames
* Jason Rubin's
"Great Game Graphics... Who Cares?"
-
The Art and
Science of Level Design by Cliff Bleszinski
also other articles at: http://www.cliffyb.com/rants/
- How
to Build a Better Cutscene
- Color Theory for
Game Design
• Salen/Zimmerman pp. 377-419; 461-489 (Chapters 26 Games as
Narrative Play and 28 Games as Social Play)
• McGonigal—A Real
Little Game: The Performance of Belief in Pervasive Play (download pdf, top paper listed at: http://www.avantgame.com/writings.htm)
•
Assignments for
11/2:
Craft
your User
Evaluation Test Plan
Week 10: November 2
Discuss
*
User evaluation test plan
Inhabiting a virtual space: gamers
maximize their play
experience by performing
belief, rather than actually believing, in the permeability of the game-reality
boundary. http://www.avantgame.com/writings.htm)
Factors::
Flow and Action
Csikszentmihali, M., Flow: the Psychology of Optimal
Experience.
Inherent in the escape from reality are factors that are akin to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s
concepts of flow experience where the following occur: 1) a challenging
activity that requires skills, 2) the merging of action and awareness, 3) clear
goals and feedback, 4) concentration on the task at hand, 5) the paradox of
control, 6) the loss of self consciousness and 7) the transformation of time.
see
also see "Communication and Community in Digital Entertainment
Services" prestudy research report by Aki Jarvinen, Satu Helio and Frans Mayra, University of Tampere,
Hypermedia Laboratory pg.20-26.
http://tampub.uta.fi/tup/951-44-5432-4.pdf
Game Play Gestalt
http://zerogame.tii.se/pdfs/CGDClindley.pdf
Game Theory
http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/eco/game/game.html
History of
Game Theory
http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/class/histf.html
Sound
Assignments for 11/9:
User Evaluation Testing Summary and Recommendations
Week 11: November 9
Discuss
*
User evaluation summary and
recommendations Presentations
Assignments for 11/16:
Phase
IV- Final Project Pre-Reviews
Week 12: November 16
Discuss
Final
Projects Pre Review Presentations
Assignments due 11/30:
refine work for final projects
Week 13: November 23::::::::::::::::::OFF for
Thanksgiving
Assignments for 11/30:
complete work on final projects
Week 14: November 30 :::::::::::::::FINAL PROJECTS
DUE
Discuss
*
Phase V- Final Completed Game Project
Assignments
for 12/7:
complete and refine all work on
final projects
Phase V- Final Completed Game Project:
*
CD # 1: your game
and your game design document in
html format with all relevant files in a folder labeled: yournamefinalproject.html for example, if I were
a student, my files would be accessed by: ruizfinalproject.html
* CD
#2: all perfected short studies in a folder labeled yournameshort
studies.html for example: ruizshortstudies.html
*
Printed posters
* Printed Final Game Design Document
Week 15: December 7
:::::::LAST DAY FOR FINAL PROJECTS SUBMISSION:::::::
Review and discuss the future
Last submission day for your two cds
containing all your work from the semester for final grading purposes
Phase V- Final Completed Game Project:
* CD # 1: your
game and your game design document in html format with all relevant files in a folder labeled: yournamefinalproject.html for example, if I were
a student, my files would be accessed by: ruizfinalproject.html
* CD
#2: all perfected short studies in a folder labeled yournameshort
studies.html for example: ruizshortstudies.html
*
Printed posters
* Printed Final Game Design Document