Experimental Game Design

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

and surrealism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism), but seeking to avoid the cooption to which those movements succumbed, came together to form the Situationist International.

The name came from their aim of liberating everyday life through the creation of open-ended, participatory “situations” (as opposed to fixed works of art) — an aim which naturally ran up against the whole range of material and mental obstacles produced by the present social order.

Over the next decade the situationists developed an increasingly incisive critique of the global “spectacle-commodity system” and of its bureaucratic leftist pseudo-opposition, and their new methods of agitation helped trigger the May 1968 revolt in France. Since then — although the SI itself was dissolved in 1972 — situationist theories and tactics have continued to inspire currents in dozens of countries all over the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationist_International

Comics as cultural barometers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics

COMICS: A TOOL OF SUBVERSION?

http://www.albany.edu/scj/jcjpc/vol2is6/comics.html

Sprite Comics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprite_comic

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,63691,00.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

Ernest Adams Design Philosophy

Readings:
Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals Unit 4: CULTURE, pg. 502-587.

Assignments:

Finish work on Scenario Planning Game Design with your team

Week 3:

* Scenario Planning Game Design Presentations

Assignments:

Week 4:
Discuss

* Final Project Teams Formation

* 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

Rensselaer Student Projects:
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/

Ozymandias

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.
Marathon patch
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.
Marathon patch http://cadre.sjsu.edu/amschle/PollyGunn.html

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

Readings:
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
http://homepage.mac.com/davidrokeby/experience.html

Readings on Social Issues:

- Lenoir-Lowood_TheatersOfWar

- 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

- The Addictiveness of Games, Steve Meretsky
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-867451.html

Assignments:

Week 5:
Discuss

* Students present Phase I Proposal of Final Project Presentations: rough storyboards, concept ideas

* Social Issues:

Engagement & Social Formation:
- social conditions in MMORPGs:
http://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1222
- From Ward Childress, (EGD fall '03 student): This trend towards "massively-multiplayer" games has opened up a new way of enjoying virtual worlds. One in which its inhabitants can act out in ways relevant but often impossible in the real world. It has also changed the role of the developers. No longer can they idly sit by watching as things play themselves out. They are the gods and governors of this world, and hold all the responsibilities that go along with it. Edward Castronova site contains a wealth of economic information about these fictional worlds. Just how fictional is a game that has an exchange rate with dollars?
See: http://www.gamestudies.org/0302/castronova/

- WarCraft
Problematics of Warcraft:
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060222/sirlin_01.shtml:
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060224/qhong_01.shtml

- The Simms

Gender:

Show Laura Croft movie excerpt

- 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
- Henry Jenkins, “Complete Freedom of Movement: Video Games as Gendered PlaySpaces

Violence:

- Sublimation

The Oxymoron of Virtual Violence

Are violent games cathodic or desensitizing?

- See Video & Discuss, An interview with Lt Col. Grossman
Stop Teaching our Children to Kill

Col. Dave Grossman believes that returning veterans are lesslikely 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 ofinteractive '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

From the FTC youth violence report http://www.ftc.gov/os/2000/09/pitoftestst.htm

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 for on track to supersede movies as the most popular and innovative form of entertainment in the new century.

- 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

New Ways of seeing the “other”

Saving the World, One Video Game at a Time .doc

Addiction:
- Addictive Technologies http://www.cpandfriends.com/writing/addictiv.html
- The Addictiveness of Games, Steve Meretsky
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-867451.html

Readings:
*- 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

Assignment:
Work on Phase II Rough Prototype Proposals of Final Project: rough storyboards, concept ideas presentations

Week 6:
Discuss:

* Phase II of Final Projects

* 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

* 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?

Delivery Systems
Arcade
PC
Mac
On-line
Dedicated systems
Hand held
emerging

Readings:
- Everything But the Words: A Dramatic Writing Primer for Gamers

by Hal Barwood

- Storytelling in Action by Bob Bates http://www.gdconf.com/archives/2000/bates.doc

- Building Character- An Analysis of Character Creation by Steve Meretzky

- Building Character By Toby Gard

Assignments:
Phase III of Final Project: Rough Prototypes design document outline, research with artist statement including treatment, narrative, more refined story board, and at least 5 citations of games/ websites/readings/ literature/ films that have influenced you. (conceptual geography, maps, scenarios, trainers, strategies, symbolism, scoring, rules, etc.)

Week 7:
Discuss
* Phase III of Final Project: Rough Prototypes Presentations

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

* 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:

Assignments:
Phase IV Game Prototype

Week 8:
Discuss
Phase IV Game Prototype

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 Macedonian he had to be wary of Athenian prejudices?).

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 http://www.gdconf.com/archives/2000/bates.doc

Readings:
Assignments:
Phase III Game Prototype

Week 9: ::::::::::::::::::::::: BREAK ::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Week 10:

Discuss
* Phase III Game Prototype Presentations

* User evaluation test plan talk & testing guide

Readings:
• 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:
Craft your User Evaluation Test Plan

Week 11:
Discuss
* User evaluation test plan Presentations

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. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991.
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: possible visit from a sound composer/designer

Readings: none

Assignments:
User Evaluation Testing Summary and Recommendations

Week 12:
Discuss
* User evaluation summary and recommendations Presentations

Readings: personal research bibliography

Assignments:
Phase IV- Final Project Pre-Reviews

Week 13:

Discuss
Final Projects Pre Review Presentations

Readings: personal research bibliography

Assignments:
refine work for final projects

Week 14::::::::::::::::FINAL PROJECTS REVIEW
Discuss
* Phase V- Final Completed Game Project

Readings: personal research bibliography

Assignments:
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 yournameshortstudies.html for example: ruizshortstudies.html
* Printed posters
* Printed Final Game Design Document

Week 15: :::::::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

Week 16:

Discussion of the Future

and surrealism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism), but seeking to avoid the cooption to which those movements succumbed, came together to form the Situationist International.

The name came from their aim of liberating everyday life through the creation of open-ended, participatory “situations” (as opposed to fixed works of art) — an aim which naturally ran up against the whole range of material and mental obstacles produced by the present social order.

Sprite Comics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprite_comic

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,63691,00.html

Ernest Adams Design Philosophy

Readings: Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals Unit 4: CULTURE, pg. 502-587.

Readings:
Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals Unit 4: CULTURE, pg. 502-587.