Experimental Game Design
DETAILS
Game
design document templates:
Game design structure
template
Pre class prep:
* Bring in one sample of best work (this does not have to necessarily be “art”, but the
best work you have done to date.) Not for critique, but to know each other’s
talents
Week 1: Aug 29
Personal Game
Archaeology
& Look at best works (not a critique)
Discuss
* overview of course
* creative practice in cross disciplinary collaborations
* review of studio practice & endeavor:
working in class on class work only
* Technical info for studio lab
* drop box info
* What is a game? * definitions.html
Jesper Juul The
Game, the Player, the World: Looking for a Heart of Gameness
* G. Frasca - Simulation vs. Narrative:
Introduction to Ludology http://www.ludology.org/articles/ludology.htm
* why do people play games?
* questionnaire
* Rensselaer Folsom Library Game Research Resources review
Experimental Games: Beyond FPS
Innovation Challenge, new interfaces, new
paradigms, digital and non digital.
We will embark upon a new experimental study using the
world as a site for a new kind of interactive experience that goes beyond the
ordinary fps type game.
We will work with interdisciplinary teams of
students from Experimental Game Design class to design and then play-test the
concept of using a space as theme or location or inspiration for this short
study project. Your game can be either physical or digital or combinations of
both, but it must create new types of experiences beyond existing paradigms or
use parody of fps.
Some Extraordinary Ideas:
Gamers solve molecular puzzle that
baffled scientists
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/18/7802623-gamers-solve-molecular-puzzle-that-baffled-scientists
Jane McGonnigal
Let the Games Begin!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE1DuBesGYM&feature=player_embedded
Kissing As A Gaming Controller
http://www.psfk.com/2011/02/kissing-as-a-gaming-controller.html
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
MIND Controllers:
Mindflex Games http://mindflexgames.com/
What other games of today could become the realities of tomorrow?
hacking Neurosky http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/05/collins-lab-brainwave-beats.html
http://myndplay.com/page.php?page=myndplay-explained
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-972qeyVGDM&feature=related
Yehuda Duenyas
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Hipster Interface Danielle Wilde http://www.daniellewilde.com/dw/PhD_EXHIBITION.html
2012 STEM Video Game Challenge Underway
Fun musical / terrain builder
http://www.isleoftune.com/
Locative Media Art and Games XML, APIs and Apps
for Walking Artists
More Extraordinary Ideas:
XML, APIs and Apps for Walking
Artists
http://www.walkingtools.net/
The Graveyard
http://tale-of-tales.com/TheGraveyard/
http://tale-of-tales.com/
Spectre
http://www.spectregame.com/index.php
Paper Moon: http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2008/11/freeware_game_pick_paper_moon.html
Indie Games Blog: http://www.indiegames.com/blog/
The Emotiv
EPOC uses a set
of sensors to tune into electric signals produced by the brain to detect player
thoughts, feelings and expressions and connects wirelessly to most PCs. http://www.emotiv.com/
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/arts/television/07uncharted.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUPAyGWKd6c
Experimental
gameplay project - How to Prototype a Game in Under 7 Days
This project is somewhat like a combination of the
artists/researchers:
Janet
Cardiff’s camera walk pieces
http://www.cardiffmiller.com/artworks/walks/ps1.html
http://www.cardiffmiller.com/artworks/walks/index.html
http://www.cardiffmiller.com/
Blast
Theory’s “Can You see me now” project (which is played
on-line and in the physical world) http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/bt/work_cysmn.html
modified PK Parkour ("the
physical aspect of getting over obstacles in your path as you would in an
emergency. You want to move in such a way, with any movement, as to help you
gain the most ground on someone or something, whether escaping from it or
chasing toward it."),
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEeqHj3Nj2c
Collective
problem solving in Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) as part of distributed campaigns. Possible collective games based on
puzzles no individual could solve alone, often use mobile technologies and are
solved by teams working together online. Each ARG develops an online community
dedicated to solving the puzzles put forth by the game. Storytelling, implementing an analytic system to
analyze and simulate the process by which distributed individuals contribute to
and shape a collective story.
We will experiment with the idea of restructuring
the everyday in ways to creatively see and perceive new perceptual
opportunities and awareness in everyday surroundings, not so much created by
the game experience, but rather revealed by it.
Augmented Reality Board Games:
ARhrrrr
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNu4CluFOcw
Augmented Environment Lab:
http://www.youtube.com/user/AELatGT
PIT Strategy is an Augmented Reality Game that uses a game board, cards to
determine your pit strategy, a webcam to look at the board and a screen to show
the 3D objects.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGsfDDxhFN0&feature=related
Augmented Reality Tower Defense for Nokia N95
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyWVH6jkDHg&feature=relate
Tools:
http://www.artoolworks.com/
https://ar.qualcomm.com/qdevnet/
More information on the AR SDK:
http://developer.qualcomm.com/dev/augmented-reality
PLAY, FASHION, & STYLE, REBELLION:
toxiclibs is an
independent, open source library collection for computational design tasks with
Java & Processing
http://www.vimeo.com/6644720
1.0:Promo http://www.vimeo.com/6417194
Blender Dome:
http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/papers/blender09/
Whiffle
Hurling? Bag Tag? Hey, It's Art
By ALEX WILLIAMS
Actors and artists in New York City are inventing high-
concept sports that are meant to be both games and art.
Video
Library Player: Arcade Games As Art
Melena Ryzik reports from the opening of Deluxx Fluxx, an interactive art
arcade created by the street artists Faile and Bast, on the Lower East Side.
Eva and
Franco Mattes: http://www.0100101110101101.org/
Micha
Cardenas is a 31-year-old man
taking hormones to become a woman. So, it's not surprising perhaps that
Cardenas views the boundaries of gender as being somewhat fluid and has
questions about what it means to be male and/or female.
http://ucsdopenstudios.com/2009/artists.php?a=Micha_Cardenas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHEDym1aOZs
Wardrip-Fruin, Noah and Pat Harrigan,
Editors. First Person: New Media as Story, Performance and
Game http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=9908
http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/firstperson
How adding fun can change the world:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbEKAwCoCKw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw
http://www.thefuntheory.com/
Aram Bartholl http://www.datenform.de/
Ripsaw model by WoW
papercraft blog: http://datenform.de/1heng.html
Jump and Run Shanghai
workshop and public intervention http://datenform.de/jumpnrun.html
Pedestrian
Art in Odd Places is taking over 14th Street: That
means gold trash, mutilated stuffed animals and weirdo performance artists everywhere.
We asked nine of them to explain their WTF creations.
By Jennifer L. Nelson
Road Kill Stuffed Animals
What it is: Fake roadkill
on 14th Street between Broadway and University Place, between Third and Sixth
Avenues, and between Ninth and Tenth Avenues
What it means:
“Stuffed animals are nostalgic childhood objects,” says artist L Mylott Manning. “Destroying them is an expression of the
frustration, anxiety and pain of life.”
Ultra-Violet Beauties
What it is: A photo shoot—starring you!—with
a special UV filter that reveals what’s going on underneath your skin
What it means: “It’s about people directly confronting their flaws,”
says former makeup artist and photog Cara Phillips.
“I spent years helping women buy products to hide themselves, and I wanted to
expose the flaws that can’t be seen with the human eye.”
What it is: Busted, abandoned and
otherwise ignored objects painted gold
What it means: “We miss so much of what’s around us,” says co-artist
Boris Rasin. “The simple act of putting on a fresh
coat of paint in a color you wouldn’t expect lets people see objects as if for
the first time. We’re assigning value to things that otherwise have no value.”
The Pedestrian Project
What it is: Artists donning custom-made
costumes that look like the faceless figures you see on road signs
What it means:
“The characters get us to humorously see ourselves through these generics,”
says artist and costume designer Yvette Helin. “We
all want to be someone and yet we’re more like those icon people than we care
to admit.”
No Deliveries Today
What it is: Brightly colored boxes
continually moved from one location to another; they never make it to their
destination, wherever that is
What it means:
“The boxes are become a metaphor of displacement and forced social nomadism,”
says artist Miryana Todorova,
who collaborated on the project with Hatuey Ramos-Fermín. “It points out the changes that render
neighborhoods unrecognizable.”
Alegrias-
What it is: The artist pulls ski masks over her head (17 masks is her
current record), then slowly peels them off.
What it means: “New Yorkers will be forced to consider the many masks
and layers of identity we wear and their suffocating quality, as well as the
simultaneous desire to be seen and not seen,” says video and performance artist
Arielle Falk. “I just hope nobody thinks I’m robbing a bank!”
Landscrapers
What it is: Tape frames shapes in the
landscape, including bricks, sidewalks, crosswalks and windows
What it means:
“How it is, isn’t how it has to be,” says artist and designer Aakash Nihalani. “We need to see
the city more playfully.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHGbJ_SbTcQ
http://www.todayandtomorrow.net/2008/10/28/aakash-nihalani/
1. Concept
2. Elaboration: primary Game Play
Interaction model
Camera perspective
Gameplay challenges
3. Tuning
Assignments:
Projects: due Sept 5
* If you have not done so already, bring sample of best work to next class
* Indy Game #1 Individual
Readings: due Sept 5
*
Play as Design by Brenda Laurel
Play as Design by Eric Zimmerman
* Ernest
Adams Design Philosophy
* Experimental
gameplay project - How to Prototype a Game in Under 7 Days
*create a short, one page, printed reaction paper
to each of the above
Week 2: Sept 5
* Review Indy Game #1 Individual
* Temporary Teams formulate
The Oxymoron of Virtual Violence
Dead
Rising
Violent Videogames as Pedagogical Devices
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/are_violent_video_games
Game
Over: http://www.vimeo.com/6426372
* show artists’ work:
- Kathleen Ruiz Bang,
Bang (you’re not dead?) multiview
website
- Gonzalo Frasca Sept 12
http://www.newsgaming.com/games/index12.htm
- Welcome to the Desert of the Real: Paolo Pedercini http://www.vimeo.com/4750691
- Wafaa
Bilal Domestic Tension
Description from an
on-line exhibition publication:
Iraqi born Wafaa
Bilal has become known for provocative interactive video installations. Many of
Bilal's projects over the past few years have addressed the dichotomy of the
virtual vs. the real. He attempts to keep in mind the relationship of the
viewer to the artwork, with one of his main objectives transforming the
normally passive experience of viewing art into an active participation. In
Domestic Tension, viewers can log onto the internet to contact, or shoot, Bilal
with paintball guns. Bilal's objective is to raise awareness of virtual war and
privacy, or lack thereof, in the digital age. During the course of the
exhibition, Bilal will confine himself to the gallery space. During the
installation, people will have 24-hour virtual access to the space via the
Internet. They will have the ability to watch Bilal and interact with him
through a live web-cam and chat room. Should they choose to do so, viewers will also have the option to shoot Bilal with a
paintball gun, transforming the virtual experience into a very physical one.
Bilal's self imposed confinement is designed to raise
awareness about the life of the Iraqi people and the home confinement they face
due to the both the violent and the virtual war they face on a daily basis.
This sensational approach to the war is meant to engage people who may not be
willing to engage in political dialogue through conventional means. Domestic
Tension will depict the suffering of war not through human displays of dramatic
emotion, but through engaging people in the sort of playful interactive-video
game with which they are familiar.
http://www.youtube.com/mewafaa
Iraqi-born artist Wafaa
Bilal presented a lecture/performance at
West Hall Auditorium, RPI Campus
Mar 5 2008 Second in the series, “Art and
Islam: Electronic Representations and Local Communities”. This is what happened:
http://www.wafaabilal.com/html/virtualJ.html
*
Screening of film: Gamer
Revolution
* Discussion of
- Behavior:
- Two contrasting ideas about Play:
* Play creating culture
Homo Ludens written in
1938 by Dutch historian, Johan Huizinga
Huizinga_ Nature Significance of Play.pdf
"play-instinct" as an instinct that
emerged very early in human prehistory - in fact, he sees it as one of
humanity's primary instincts, one which provides the fundament for other
elements of society, such as religious ritual, war, and poetry. Huizinga sees play as a free and meaningful activity,
carried out for its own sake, spatially and temporally segregated from the
requirements of practical life. He has an esthetic approach to history,
where art and spectacle play an important role. He was held in detention by the
Nazis where he died in 1945.
* Play as a “safe” place to learn unsafe things:
The Ambiguity of Play
Brian Sutton Smith_ Play and Ambiguity.pdf
by Brian
Sutton Smith, a
Play shows us the dark underbelly of the world
Catharsis and inoculation against the dangers of
reality
Symbolic side of human culture
A child gets the chance to make mistakes
Adaptation, teaching skills
Introducing us into certain communities
Fate, power, communal identity, frivolity, the
imaginary, the self
Jenny Terry: Killer
Entertainments: Conditions and Consequences of Remote Intimacy. The project
theorizes remote intimacy by tracing the relationship between entertainment
technologies and militarism in the
The technology brings its military weight to
creators.
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060222/sirlin_01.shtml:
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060224/qhong_01.shtml
- Are virtual “violent” games cathartic or desensitizing?
- Screening & Discussion: An interview with Lt
Col. Grossman, author of Stop Teaching our Children to Kill
Col. Dave
Grossman believes that returning veterans are less likely to engage in violent
acts than civilians, despite the psychological effects of war, because of the discipline
learned while in service. However, he also cautions that "with the advent
of interactive 'point-and-shoot' arcade and video games there is significant
concern that society is aping military conditioning, but without the vital
safeguard of discipline. There is strong evidence to indicate that the
indiscriminate civilian application of combat conditioning techniques as
entertainment may be a key factor in worldwide, skyrocketing violent crime
rates, including a sevenfold increase in per capita aggravated assaults in
America since 1956."
LoPiccolo, Phil. Editor-in-Chief, Computer
Graphics World, Vol 23, Issue7, July 2000
Trigger Happy :
Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution by Steven Poole
Videogames first came on the market thirty years ago as a marginal
technological curiosity. Now they are virtually everywhere. Videogame sales
have equaled movie sales. They are played by more adults than children, and
game design can even be studied in college. Yet videogames are still often
viewed as a minor form of entertainment, at best shallow, or at worst harmful.
Now, Steven Poole argues that videogames are a nascent art on track to
supersede movies as the most popular and innovative form of entertainment in the new century.
Media Violence:
THE
SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
Theorist -Albert
Bandura
& overview
and The Bobo
Doll Experiment
US
| January 23, 2010
Simulators
Prepare Soldiers for Explosions of War
By JAMES DAO
The Pentagon is trying to
harness the high-tech wizardry of the entertainment industry to train soldiers.
Justices
Split on Violent Video Games:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704462704575590333558912068.html
WAR GAMES:
War Games the movie
Chess
Three Man Chess in the Round
www.americasarmy.com (note absence of
extreme blood and gore)
- tried and true: Counterstrike
(lots of blood)
- Tom Clancy based games: http://www.redstorm.com/
(minimal blood)
-Beyond Shoot your Friends by Celia
Pierce http://www.cpandfriends.com
Violent video games lead
to brain activity characteristic of aggression, MSU researcher shows http://news.msu.edu/story/337/
Philosophical ideas in
cultural products and the ideological and political factors at play in the
formation of new conventions in intellectual enterprise.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=grand-theft-auto-is-good
Rendition: Guantanamo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendition:_Guantanamo
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/01/tech/main5054176.shtml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLf0saVg4fs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR_8fkAmuEc&feature=fvw
Breakaway
Games
http://www.breakawayltd.com/about/overview/
Assignments:
Project: due Sept 19
Indy Game #2 Team Based
Readings: due Sept 12
* From
Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games by Ed Halter
* Baudrillard and Hollywood: subverting the mechanism of
control and The Matrix by Jim Rovira
* The
Oxymoron of Virtual Violence, J. Baudrillard
*create a short, one page, printed reaction paper to each of the above
Optional
Extra Credit Readings for Masters and Ph.D. Students:
* Homo
Ludens: A study of the Play Element in Culture by
Johan Huizinga
* Man,
Play, and Games by Roger Caillois
Week 3: Sept 12
Collaboration:
Issues in interdisciplinary endeavor
Beyond
Productivity: Information Technology, Innovation and Creativity
http://books.nap.edu/html/beyond_productivity/ch2.html
(near footnote 43)
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
Comics:
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
http://www.zeitbrand.de/machiniBlog/WhatIsMachinima.htm
Paul
Marino
http://www.machinima.org/
Oblivion Tributé machinima http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=DaggeH#p/a
Interactive Machinema Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjqP-DlcPcs&p=E440830E85845B64&index=1&playnext=2
Machinima that Matter: A list of machinima films with a
Social / Political Message:
http://www.betterverse.org/2009/07/machinima-that-matter-a-list-of-machinima-films-with-a-social-political-message.html
Game Engines:
Game Engines:
List of Game
Engines:
Unreal: http://www.cliffyb.com/rants/ut-ld-tips.shtml
Torque: http://www.garagegames.com/
Python: http://www.python.org/
XNA: runtime
environment http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/328/index.php?cid=GCG_MARK_022007
Ogre: http://www.ogre3d.org/
Unity 3D: http://unity3d.com/
others
* Artists working and hacking with game engines:
Kurt Hentschlager
Workspace Unlimited
Assignments: due Sept
19
Project: Indy Game #2 Team Based
Readings: due Sept 19
* Lenoir-Lowood_TheatersOfWar
* create a short,
one page, printed reaction paper for the above
Optional Extra Credit Readings for Masters and Ph.D. Students:
* Origins of FPS
by Galloway
Week 4: Sept
19
INNOVATIVE
IDEAS IN GAMES
Consider
Delivery Systems
Arcade
PC
Mac
On-line
Dedicated systems
Hand held
emerging
Physically Based Games
Interaction
Survey: Cinekid
by Kyle McDonald http://vimeo.com/16215568
Kinect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinect
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkSV1rXJ0pU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQUajj634Qk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPIbGnBQcJY
Kinect mods:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/technology/22hack.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
http://www.youtube.com/user/okreylos
Open source MS
kinect driver
http://git.marcansoft.com/?p=libfreenect.git
The plot
thickens...
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/open-kinect-contest/
and an OSX port http://vimeo.com/16734124
Physically
based games facing issues of Obesity, Coronary Heart Disease
& Diabetes ErGoGenic Games
http://rwjfblogs.typepad.com/pioneer/2010/01/as-we-mentioneda-couple-of-weeks-ago-games-for-health-is-convening-a-half-day-meet-up-in-new-york-city-this-coming-tuesday.html
http://www.rwjf.org/pr/product.jsp?id=29171
Eyetoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au4d5anfjnA
DDR
http://www.ddrgame.com/?gclid=CLLE7u7p4oCFR4cgQodbStGqA
ParaparaParadise
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=paraparaparadise&search=Search
Wii
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73yDRm8KaWY
PlayStation Move
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9ybHddDMgM
Guitar Hero
http://www.guitarherogame.com/gh1/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW_Zkc7WAS8
POSTMORTEM
Rockband
http://www.rockband.com/games
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmWJNidyqKM
Soda
Constructor http://www.sodaplay.com/
NGame:
http://www.addictinggames.com/ngame.html
Crayon Physics
Game Art in
public spaces:
The Streaming Museum: streamingmuseum.org
Education and Games:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/magazine/19video-t.html?ref=magazine
Simulations to test driver reactions: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/technology/09distracted.html?_r=1&hp
Games &
Simulation in Instruction:
http://www.seriousgamegroup.com/R347/readings.html
Mashable - College Curriculum Requires Undergrads to Play
Video Game “Portal”
http://mashable.com/2010/08/24/portal-college/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz2_NkyTv8E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A88YiZdXugA
of Arlington, Virginia,
United States is a not-for-profit venture capital firm that invests in
high-tech companies for the sole purpose of keeping the Central Intelligence
Agency equipped with the latest in information technology in support of United
States intelligence capability.[4] started by Gilman Louie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilman_Louie
a video
game designer and then ran the CIA venture capital fund
http://www.iqt.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Q-Tel
The Idea Incubator Goes to Campus
Econopocalypse: the Marxist animated whiteboard explanation
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/07/04/econopocalypse-the-m.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Augmented Reality' on Smartphones Brings Teaching
Down to Earth
http://chronicle.com/article/Augmented-Reality-on/65991/?sid=cc&utm_source=cc&utm_medium=en
Fast Company
Design: iPad App Lets You Sculpt Virtual Clay, Then
Print Out Your Art
Doodle jump http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doodle_Jump
http://vimeo.com/7263306
Assignments:
Project: due Sept 26 Final
Project: Experimental Game Trajectory: Prototype 1 Concepts working with permanent teams
Deliverables:
Please
include the following: These are all ITERATIVE and will be changed, built upon, and
perfected as your ideas unfold:
* concept ideas and sketches
* storyboards
* rough Game Design Document
(see templates here: Simple
or Elaborate)
* Game
design structure template )
* list of technical information and methodologies of production: any necessary software, SDKs, and APIs, etc.
needed.
Please remember that your completed game project is an innovative, original,
purposeful work which goes beyond conventional style gaming paradigms and shows
depth of creative goals, sensitivity to social issues, and quality of interaction.
The game must be functional, or at the very least demonstrate some dynamic game
play with a high end trailer illustrating the core game play concepts, and it
must be accompanied by a completed, (web ready, stand alone)
game design document and a well designed poster.
Readings: reaction
papers due Oct 3
* Complete
Freedom of Movement: Video Games as Gendered PlaySpaces
by Henry Jenkins
*create a short, one page, printed reaction paper
Week 5: Sept 26
Something
interesting:
Co-opting and commercialization of GTA
Gender
Extreme Volleyball:
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOAX
* Dead or Alive Extreme Volleyball (Microsoft Xbox)
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peDgQ64PdQs&feature=related
* Laura Croft
* The Game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Uht63rvl2g
* The Movie:
Laura Croft film excerpt
Women of GTA:
* http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/graphic-women-of-gta-iv/210696
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6CgDLqo_oc&feature=related
* play “Hey Baby” http://www.heybabygame.com/info.php
Ridiculous Life Lessons From
New Girl Games
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/07/games-for-tweens/
* Genderizing HCI by Justine Cassell
* Skins,
Patches, and Plug-ins
Does Lara Croft wear fake polygons? http://www.opensorcery.net/lara2.html
Woman in the New Gaming Culture http://www.genders.org/g34/g34_polsky.html
Videogame
Firms Make a Play for Women
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704882404574463652777885432.html
Life follows Game: STYLE | December 24, 2009
Style:
The Year in Style | Lady Gaga
Michael Buckner/Getty Images
When Lady Gaga makes an appearance, so do her many influences.
And the all-important designer meat
dress
* 50
of the top Female Game Characters
Race:
*
GTA & Race
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRiD6EFFfUU&feature=related
*Celestine
Arnold and Digital Multiculture
http://www.psfk.com/2009/04/video-psfk-conference-nyc-celestine-arnold-and-digital-multiculture.html
Addiction?:
WORLD | May 29, 2010
South
Korea Expands Aid for Internet Addiction
By CHOE SANG-HUN
The government plans to open rehabilitation centers for adult addicts and
expand counseling for students and the unemployed.
Addiction:
show film excerpts from Second
Skin
-
Video Game Addiction No Fun
Compulsive video gaming is a modern-day psychological disorder that experts
tell WebMD is becoming more and more popular. http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/features/video-game-addiction-no-fun
-
The Addictiveness of Games, Steve Meretsky
- Addictive Technologies http://www.cpandfriends.com/writing/addictiv.html
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/
-----------
Blended Reality & Some Emerging Genres
Collective problem solving in Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) as part of
distributed campaigns. Possible collective games based on puzzles
no individual could solve alone, often use mobile technologies and are solved
by teams working together online. Each ARG develops an online community
dedicated to solving the puzzles put forth by the game. Storytelling,
implementing an analytic system to analyze and simulate the process by which
distributed individuals contribute to and shape a collective story.
Immersive
Reality:
majestic
Play
the News
Documentary Games
Papers
on Pervasive Games:
http://www.pervasive-gaming.org/design_space2.php
Pervasive Play & Blended
Reality:
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)
* McGonigal—A Real Little Game: The Performance of Belief in
Pervasive Play (download pdf, top paper listed at: http://www.avantgame.com/writings.htm)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality
Live
action role-playing games
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_action_role-playing_game
*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk2vR8w2sjc
Location Based Mobile Games
Bot Fighters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BotFighters
Location
based Games
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Location-based_game
Geocaching
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocaching
* http://www.geocaching.com/about/default.aspx
Can You See Me Now? by Blast Theory
http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/bt/work_cysmn.html
Activating Play
http://www.arts.rpi.edu/%7Eruiz/ExperimentalGameDesignSp04plus/EGD_Prof_Ruiz/ACTIVATINGPLAY/newwebsite/index.html
Life, Art, Game as one:
The Situationist International: Formed
in 1957, the SI was active in Europe through the 1960s and aspired to major
social and political transformations. They were a small group of international
political and artistic agitators with roots in Marxism, and the early 20th
century European artistic and political avant-garde (people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect
to art, culture, and politics.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Situationists
The SI stemmed
from the radical tradition of Dadaism , a
European artistic and literary movement (1916-1923) that scorned
conventional aesthetic and cultural values by producing works marked by
nonsense, travesty, and incongruity. They did this as a reaction to the
carnage of the First World War, replete with mustard gas (a chemical-warfare gas,
blistering the skin and damaging the lungs, often causing blindness and death:
introduced by the Germans in World War I), which was a war between the allies
(Russia, France, British Empire, Italy, United States, Japan, Rumania, Serbia,
Belgium, Greece, Portugal, Montenegro) and the Central Powers (Germany,
Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria) from 1914 to 1918. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dadaism
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/davepalmer/cutandpaste/heartfield.html
Hannah Hoch
http://www.understandingduchamp.com/
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Some problems with reality: http://videogames.suite101.com/article.cfm/video_game_realism
Sony
patent towards real life MATRIX
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
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
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/DISPLAY/39wf/frame.htm
Artists as “visionaries”
visualizing the future…..or ?
http://www.unknown.nu/futurism/
Marinetti's
impassioned polemic immediately attracted the support of the young Milanese
painters —Boccioni, Carrŕ, and Russolo—who
wanted to extend Marinetti's ideas to the visual arts (Russolo
was also a composer, and introduced Futurist ideas into his compositions).
The Italian
painter and sculptor Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916) wrote the Manifesto of
Futurist Painters in 1910 in which he vowed: “We will fight with all our might
the fanatical, senseless and snobbish religion of the past, a religion
encouraged by the vicious existence of museums. We rebel against that spineless
worshipping of old canvases, old statues and old bric-a-brac, against
everything which is filthy and worm-ridden and corroded by time. We consider
the habitual contempt for everything which is young, new and burning with life
to be unjust and even criminal.”
Other Related Art Games
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 GAmeLab
‘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]
Jodi
‘sod’ [2000]
http://sod.jodi.org/
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.
Playskins an online anime role-playing game built around mystery, suspense and
masturbation.
Robert Nideffer
Tomb Raider patch [1999]
http://switch.sjsu.edu/CrackingtheMaze/robert.html
Jason Roher computer programmer,
writer, musician, and game designer
http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason-rohrer/
http://www.esquire.com/features/best-and-brightest-2008/future-of-video-game-design-1208-2
Roher makes games that are very simple, but so wonderful:
Passage
http://sourceforge.net/projects/hcsoftware/files/Passage/v2/Passage_v2_Windows.exe/download"Passage,
created by Jason Rohrer, is an exercise in gaming minimalism. Made for korokomi's gamma 256 competition,
It's only five minutes long, it weighs in at less than 500kb, it takes place on
a 100x16 field of pixels, and it only requires the arrow keys. "--John
Schwartz, EGD Fall 09
Exhibits:
http://switch.sjsu.edu/web/v5n2/index2.html
http://www.re-load.org/
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
*
on Storyboarding:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mteU1xNdTM
Storyboard examples: http://www.saunderscreative.com/storyboard.htm
http://www.monkey-puzzle.net/storyboards_%26press.html
What
went wrong so things can go right:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Assignment: due Oct 3
Work on Phase I Proposal
& Formal Group Presentation
Readings: due Oct 10
* Adams
and Rollings The Level Design Process
**create a short, one
page, printed reaction paper for each
extra credit reading fo Master’s and Ph.D. students::
* The
Construction of Experience: Interface as Content David Rokeby
*Everything
But the Words: A Dramatic Writing Primer for Gamers
by Hal Barwood
* Storytelling in Action by Bob Bates
Week 6: Oct 3
Character Design
Matt Musante
emac ‘07
Character Development
- Building
Character- An Analysis of Character Creation by Steve Meretzky
- Building
Character By Toby Gard
- Motion
College
Stars Sue Over Likenesses in Video Games
By KATIE THOMAS
Two quarterbacks contend the N.C.A.A. and a video game manufacturer should pay
college athletes for using their likenesses in popular electronic games
Are we
constructing our game characters or are they constructing us? and
http://hyperdivine.deviantart.com/art/Retribution-Male-Civilian-75371711
http://hyperdivine.deviantart.com/art/Realtime-Photo-Realistic-Male-83834185
http://hyperdivine.deviantart.com/gallery/
http://furipon.deviantart.com/art/3D-Chibi-Yosuke-138169644
STYLE | December 24, 2009
Style:
The Year in Style | Lady Gaga
Michael
Buckner/Getty Images
When Lady Gaga makes an appearance, so do her many influences.
Realism in Virtual Characters:
Making of
La espera by Jorge Suarez
http://www.3dm3.com/forum/articles.php?action=viewarticle&artid=176
http://www.3dtotal.com/galleries/
Realism in 3d: Krishnamurti Martins Costa, aka Antropus
http://www.cgcon.net/public/speaker/speaker.php?id=29&imgId=1
http://www.antropus.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=80&pos=6
http://www.antropus.com/gallery/
http://www.antropus.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=80&pos=6
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=45504
http://www.cgcon.net/public/news/news.php?id=36&page=1
Sculptris:
http://www.sculptris.com/
Specular Mapping:
http://www.digitaltutors.com/forum/showthread.php?2210-Specular-map-doesn-t-show-up-on-SSS.&p=69893
http://characterdesignlinks.blogspot.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/business/media/01disney.html?hp
Techniques:
Vector character design:
http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/web-design/learn-a-professional-workflow-for-illustrating-a-comic-style-header-image/
http://www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/tutorials/illustrator-tutorial-create-a-gang-of-vector-ninjas
http://pinkzap.com/tutorial/drawing-a-characters-face-in-illustrator/
Digital painting:
http://www.studioqube.com/tutorials/painting/index.html
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/02/13/drunken-monkey-photoshop-tutorial/#1
Comic strip approach: Traditional Drawing, then digital painting
Tutorial
Environment painting http://airage.deviantart.com/art/Inside-Environment-Painting-2-29149738
http://concept-on-mac.deviantart.com/art/Speedpaint-step-by-step-34278775
Digital
Painting Tutorial by Vitaly Alexius
Clouds http://tutorials.epilogue.net/tutorials/perfect-clouds-in-5-easy-steps
Wet Canvas
Digital Painting Overview
Digital
Paint Portrait Techniques
A Concept Artist
Daniel Dociu
Combining photo and digital painting
http://fantasyartdesign.com/free-wallpapers/digital-art.php?best=1&i_i=241&u_i=68&srt=3&count=1
Feng Zhu Design http://www.fengzhudesign.com/tutorials.html
“avatars” – computer
generated visual representations of users – have become a crucial link
between users and the digital spaces they navigate. While the term “avatar”
reaches back to Hindu scriptures ca. 200 BC, and the use of player
representations in games can be traced to the earliest known games played more
than 4.000 years ago, it was only in 1985 that the multi-user domain Habitat
introduced the term for user representations in virtual worlds. Today, avatars
are used in digital games as well as e-commerce applications, social virtual
environments, virtual meetings and conferences, and many more digital spaces
and applications.
However, avatars are not just an
interface users manipulate to access and act in digital spaces – avatars and
their human users form complex relationships. For instance, avatars may
represent the users’ own or created identity, users may develop an emotional
attachment or parasocial relation to their avatars,
or the design or activities of an avatar may infringe rights or develop an
economic value.
Realism in Rendering:
http://www.cgchannel.com/2010/10/video-is-this-the-future-of-real-time-rendering/
The Uncanny Valley
In
1978, the Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori noticed something
interesting: The more humanlike his robots became, the more people were
attracted to them, but only up to a point. If an android become too
realistic and lifelike, suddenly people were repelled and disgusted.
The Uncanny Valley
Assignments:
Phase II Reiteration continue developing and reiterating:
* produce
new work and progress on your game assets
* research with creative statement including treatment, narrative, more refined
story board, and at least 5 citations of games/ websites/readings/ literature/
films that have influenced you. Reflect this
in your Game
Design Document
due Oct
10 Informal presentation
Midterm assessments
(please upload all perfected work to
drop box for evaluation)
Readings: personal
team research
Week 7: Oct 10
MIDTERM ASSESSMENTS
* Students show Phase II Reiteration Informal presentation
* Reality Check Studio
(Conceptual
geography, maps, scenarios, trainers, strategies, symbolism, scoring, rules,
etc.)
Discuss
- Genres
Genre and the
Video Game
Graphing
Taxonomies
Taxonomy - the science or technique of classification.
(in Biology - the science dealing with the description, identification, naming,
and classification of organisms - such as Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order,
Family, Genus, Species.)sample:
Taxonomy of your Brain:
http://www.thebrain.com/?gclid=CM7p6puvgpYCFQgRFQodcSCYEw#-47
ontology
noun1. the branch of metaphysics which
studies the nature of being and existence, (what “is”?)
2. (computer science) a rigorous and exhaustive organization
of some knowledge domain that is usually hierarchical and contains all the
relevant entities and their relations
To find taxonomies of use
to you, you need to first know what your own "needs, goals, interests and
perceptions” are in regard to the purpose of your search.
A
Taxonomy of Computer Games by Chris Crawford: from "The Art of Computer Game
Design", 1982 old classification, but contain the roots of most later
classifications:
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
Emerging
Empirical (focused on experience/observation, rather than
theory)
Literally any videogame specialized website:
http://gametunnel.com/ (categories on the
right of the site)
http://www.gamespot.com/games.html?type=games
(use the "All Games" menu below "Most Popular games") http://uk.pc.ign.com/index/games.html
(use the "Choose" menu left to "Show Genre" Button)
Ernest Adams & Andrew
Rollings, "Ernest Adams & Andrew Rollings on Game Design", New Riders. A well detailed synthesis of such empirical
classifications
For a Critical Refinement of Empirical
Classifications-
Mark JP Worlf, "Genres and the Videogames", 2000 (42
categories, available online : http://www.robinlionheart.com/gamedev/genres.xhtml)
Alain & Frederic le Diberder, "Qui a peur des jeux vidéos", 1993.
Some New Ideas about Research in Taxonomies of
Games:
Jan Klabbers
Principles
of Gaming and Simulation
Jesper Juul
* A Multi Dimensional Topology of
Games
* The Open and the
Closed: Games of Emergence and Games of Progression
Prep for Phase III Game Prototype & Formal Group Presentation due Oct 17
Deliverables:
* produce
new work and progress on your game assets Definitive
schedule for entire project which will be used for milestones for further
project development, continuation of incorporating critical feedback, game
play, polishing and refinement of content, methodology, delivery system, and
game design document
Week 8: Oct 17
Review Phase III Game Prototype
& Formal Group Presentation
*
produce new work and progress on your game assets
* Definitive schedule for entire project which will be used for milestones for
further project development, continuation of incorporating critical feedback,
game play, polishing and refinement of content, methodology, delivery system,
and game design document
Catch up
Assignments:
Prep
for Phase IV Game Content & Informal team meetings with Game
Industry Experts
Week 9: Oct 24
Students
show Phase IV Game Content & Informal team meetings with Game
Industry Experts
Guest Critique of projects in process
Player Created Content:
Ideas &
Issues
http://www.gogaminggiant.com/2009/09/18/top-10-usercreated-content-games/
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_4/22-Player-Created-Content
In World of Warcraft the closest to user
created content we have are add-ons. But is it time for users to create
their own content in WoW?
Is it
Time for User Created Content in WoW?
Legal issues in UGC and Virtual Worlds:
User-Generated
Content & Virtual Worlds
Monitoring User-Created Content:
http://kalibreonline.com/2010/08/05/starcraft-2-blizzard-will-monitor-user-created-content/
Why
User Generated Content Has Failed to Change The Face
of Gaming
Revenue generating and UGC:
Leveraging the dominant format of user
generated content for World of Warcraft
players offers the ad instant credibility among the Warcraft
community
OTOinsights: "Design Lessons from User
Generated Content: An ...
Week 10: Oct 31
Haloween: come dressed to class as a character or as the general theme in
your game
*
Review Phase V Refinement & Formal Group Presentation
Write up ORDER for GEAR FOR GAME
FEST
* Craft your
User Evaluation Test
Plan
Previous Rensselaer Student Projects from EGD:
http://www.arts.rpi.edu/%7Eruiz/ExperimentalGameDesignSp04plus/index.html
http://www.arts.rpi.edu/~ruiz/EGDSpring09finalprojects/index.html
http://www.arts.rpi.edu/~ruiz/EGDFall08finalprojects/index.html
http://www.arts.rpi.edu/~ruiz/EGDSpring08finalprojects/ruiz/index.html
Other
The Pervasive nature of Games:
Video
Makes the Movie Star (With Help From Adam Sandler)
Readings:
project research
Assignments:
work
with your team on
Phase VI Further Refinement & Informal Group
Presentation
due Nov 7
Deliverables:
*
produce new work and progress on your game assets based on critiques
* Refinement for pre-review and three week
trajectory for individual team work with assistance in class.
* Play
Testing plans due
Hooking up assets to game, further development of
game play
Week 11: Nov 7
*
teams present Phase
VI Further Refinement & Informal Group
Presentation
VideoGames are Dead??
http://www.koreaittimes.com/story/4706/video-games-are-dead-%E2%80%93-part-2
Game Trailers
http://www.gametrailers.com/
Casual Revolution
http://www.jesperjuul.net/ludologist/?p=688
The Beatles Rock Band
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/arts/television/06schi.html?_r=1&hp
http://www.thebeatlesrockband.com/videos/trailer/
Kiri
Miller's entry "Just Add Performance" on FlowTV
http://flowtv.org/?p=4019
http://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/issue/view/3
Push. Play: An Examination of the Gameplay Button |
|
Stephen Griffin PDF |
|
Articles
J R Parker PDF |
|
Because the push button was an inexpensive way to
send control signals to a computer from a user or game player, it became the
most common aspect... |
A
Visual-Inertial Hybrid Controller Approach to Improving Immersion in 3D Video
Games |
|
Alexander Wong PDF |
|
Advances in various areas such as graphics,
sound, physics and artificial intelligence have improved the level of player
immersion into the gaming... |
Becoming
Machinic Virtuosos: Guitar Hero, Rez, and Multitudinous Aesthetics |
|
Henry Adam Svec PDF |
|
Media scholars Nick Dyer-Witheford
and Greg de Peuter view digital play as a complex, conflicted
site on the terrain of global capital; although... |
Dominic Arsenault PDF |
|
This paper studies the Guitar Hero video game as
a simulation. This is done by examining the game controller and the visual
interface, and how they... |
Interfaces:
Rockband:
http://josh.thegeekmovement.com/Tanenbaum-Bizzocchi-SIGGRAPH09_prepub.pdf
Rez -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHuQvctStmw
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-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqpPyhE5x2M
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
Assignments:
teams
prep Phase VII & Formal Group Presentation
due Nov 14
Deliverables:
* produce new work and progress on your game assets based on critiques.
* Additionally, fully updated and perfected game design document is printed and
formally handed in. This will be edited further.
* Play Test Results due
Readings:
project research
Week 12: Nov 14
* Teams present Phase VII & Formal Group Presentation
Refinement for
pre-review and three week trajectory for individual team work with assistance
in class.
Game
Theory
History
of Game Theory
Studio: catch up and intensive work on
improving projects
Discussion:
Emotion & Poetics+
Emotion and Games:
*For the
past couple of years, Dom has been searching for his wife. He gets word that
she was captured in a Locust (the enemy monsters of the game) slave camp. He finds
her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9eTN9Kxzco
Noah
*Here is the
clip that made me cry in Shadow of the Colossus. The best place to start is
around the 1:30 point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SclbRYmGG9A
Evan
"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
http://www.xeodesign.com/xeodesign_whyweplaygames.pdf
(Greek
philosopher 384-322 B.C.)
In one of
his treatises, The Poetics,
he outlines the Six Elements Of Drama, based on the
Ancient Greek belief that tragedy was the highest form of Drama. This outline
has become a guideline for many playwrights throughout history, and is
especially emphasized in the works of William Shakespeare.
“A tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having
magnitude, complete in itself; in appropriate and pleasurable language;...
in a dramatic rather than narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and
fear,
wherewith to accomplish a catharsis
of these emotions.”
(Catharsis being a purification or
purgation of the emotions primarily through art or a purification or purgation
that brings about spiritual renewal or release from tension or an elimination
of a complex by bringing it to consciousness and affording it expression)
A type of
emotional orgasm
Aristotle’s Six Elements of Drama
4 kinds of
tragedy:
Complex;
Pathetic;
Ethical
Simple
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.'
"Armchair Arcade" (www.armchairarcade.com).
Matt
Barton's 'Treatise on Videogames', in which he applies Aristotle's Poetics
to (among others) Space Invaders. http://www.armchairarcade.com/neo/node/223
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."
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 clears our souls of eleos (mercy, pity,
compassion) and phobos
(fear)?
For
more information on Aristotle: http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/aris.htm
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, unrealized (forms) and ultimate
mystical truths through the use of reason.)
The art of telling a good story…..
Akira Kurosawa
The Tunnel ::::
and::::
Excerpts from Ran The famous
Japanese filmmaker uses Shakeapear’s King Lear to
tell the story of an old man’s quest for meaning within and incomprehensible,
unframed war. To enable the audience to see the clash of armies, Kurosawa
silences their clashing armor and the screams of the wounded before he immerses
the carnage in music. He imposes a spectacular order on chaos.
-Everything
But the Words: A Dramatic Writing Primer for Gamers by Hal Barwood
- Storytelling
in Action by Bob Bates
prep
for
* Phase VIII Project Pre-Reviews &
Informal Group Presentation
due Nov 28 (second to last class)
*
produce new work and progress on your game assets based on critiques and play test
results
*
Conduct further testing and User Evaluations!!!
Week 13: Nov 21 Thanksgiving OFF
Week 14: Nov 28***************** (second to last class)
review Phase VIII Project Pre-Reviews & Informal
Group Presentation
Assignment:
prep
for
Phase IX Perfected
Game Festival-Ready Games, Formal Group Presentation
Week 15: Dec 5
Phase IX Perfected Game Festival-Ready
Games, Formal Group Presentation
LAST CLASS All perfected work due this day. NO
EXCEPTIONS.
All
perfected work due this day. NO EXCEPTIONS.
Complete and refine all work on final projects for Final Completed Game Project:
submit on a labeled dvd:
* Your game
and all elements including all art, programming files, etc.
* Your game design document in .html format with all
relevant files
* Your project summary in .doc format with summation
image
* high quality
edited high def. 1920 x 1080, H264 mp4 video trailer of game play. Please
include your title, overview, interaction, gameplay and credits. This video will be used to judge whether your game gets into
the competition.
* Your digital poster file
* Your user
Evaluation Testing Summary and
Recommendations
Also submit:
* Printed posters
* Printed Final Game Design
Document
* Printed project summary
Please
ensure that all work is spell checked.
All
work must be printed and also submitted on labeled CDs or DVDs
Projects
meeting the highest standards are then shown at the Annual Game Festival & Symposium in Spring.
Intensive critical analysis of game
development, game play, interaction, hardware testing, detailed plan for
installing game and gear at Game Festival will be due.
Discussion of Gamefest and Future Trajectories
Questions asked of game entrants have been:
What is the Genre of the game?
What did the team learn from the project?
Describe your game in one sentence and additionally
provide 3 keywords that best describe your game.
What tech was used – XNA, Unity, etc.?
What IDE, if any, was used – Visual Studio?
Any middleware used – what?
What Tools were used?
How did you test it your code / game play?
What is the architecture? Provide a UML diagram, if possible.
What language was used (C#, C++?)?
Were any design patterns utilized? If so, what?
Did you use source control? If so, what?
Were any coding standards used?
What key emotions are the
music supporting.
What SFX is the most important in the game.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Phase X- Discussion of Gamefest and Future Trajectories
Discuss the future of games, simulation and upcoming
developments.
The Game Industry by Hyman, The Studio Stance