Experimental Game Design
DETAILS
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 others’
talents
Week 1:
Jan 14
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?
Jesper Juul The Game, the Player, the
World: Looking for a Heart of Gameness
* why do people play games?
* questionnaire
* definitions.html
Look at best works (not a
critique)
&
Personal Game Archaeology Project presentations
* Rensselaer Folsom Library Game Research Resources
review
Readings:
due Jan 21
*
Play as Design by Brenda Laurel
Play as Design by Eric Zimmerman
* 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
* Lenoir-Lowood_TheatersOfWar
****create a short, one page, printed reaction paper to each of
the above
Optional
extra credit readings:
* Homo Ludens:
A study of the Play Element in Culture by Johan Huizinga
* Man,
Play, and Games by Roger Caillois
Assignments:
•
If you have not done so already, bring sample of best work to next class
• start thinking about creating a team for the FPS/Virtual Violence Paradigm
Challenge Playable Prototype Design Blitz
Due Jan 28
* Personal Game Archeology study due
Jan 21
Week 2: Jan
21
The Oxymoron of Virtual Violence: Dead Rising
* show artists work:
- Kathleen Ruiz Bang,
Bang (you’re not dead?) multiview
website
- Gonzalo
Frasca
Sept 12
- Waffa
Bilil 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.
Wafaa Bilal, video artist appeared at
West Hall Auditorium, RPI Campus
Mar 5 2008
Second in the series, “Art and Islam: Electronic Representations and Local
Communities”, Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal will presented a
lecture/performance. (Event
Details)
*
Screening of film: Gamer
Revolution
* Discussion of
- Behavior:
- Social Issues:
Are we constructing our game characters or
are they constructing us?
- 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. 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.
- 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
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 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
WAR
GAMES:
War Games the movie
Issues & ethics:
osma
games nytJanuary 10.htm
- www.americasarmy.com (note absence
of extreme 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
New Ways of seeing the “other”
Saving
the World, One Video Game at a Time .doc
* FPS/Virtual Violence Paradigm Challenge Design Blitz Playable Prototype
Due Jan 28
* Teams formulate and work
in studio designing a short workable game prototype which goes beyond the
fps/virtual violence paradigm in creative and/or meaningful ways. What could be as compelling as killing or
being killed?” Teams create new types of experiences or use parody.
* Collaboration:
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
Related Readings: due Jan 28
* Ernest Adams Design Philosophy
Assignment:
Work with your team on
“FPS/Virtual Violence Paradigm Challenge Design Blitz” Game due Sept 10
Week 3:
Jan 28
* Student
presentations of “FPS/Virtual Violence Paradigm Challenge
Design Blitz”
Presentations of creators of 2d & 3D games.
What it takes to make the games they made.
Part I
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/
* Final Project Team Formation and brainstorm ideas
Readings: due Feb 4
* Adams and Rollings, Creating the User Experience
**create a short, one page, printed reaction
paper
* Adams
and Rollings The Level Design Process
**create a short, one page, printed reaction
paper
Assignment:
Work with your team on Prototype 1 Concepts of Final Project due Feb 4
Week 4: Feb 4
* Students present Prototype 1 Concepts rough ideations,
sketches, storyboards, concept ideas
Discuss:
Presentations of creators of 2d & 3D games.
What it takes to make the games they made.
Part II
INNOVATIVE IDEAS:
Physically
based games facing issues of Obesity, Coronary Heart Disease
& Diabetes ErGoGenic
Games
Eyetoy
DDR
http://www.ddrgame.com/?gclid=CLLE7u7p4oCFR4cgQodbStGqA
ParaparaParadise
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=paraparaparadise&search=Search
Guitar Hero
http://www.guitarherogame.com/gh1/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW_Zkc7WAS8
Sony patent towards real life MATRIX.doc
"The pulsed ultrasonic signal alters the neural timing in the
cortex," the patent states. "No invasive surgery is needed to assist
a person, such as a blind person, to view live and/or recorded images or hear
sounds."
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.
_______________
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 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]
http://www.triggerhappy.org/
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
http://www.playskins.com/about.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/
Readings:
on Gender:
* Complete Freedom
of Movement: Video Games as Gendered PlaySpaces by Henry Jenkins
****create a short, one page, printed reaction paper
Extra Credit Readings:
on Interactivity
* The Construction of Experience: Interface as Content David Rokeby
*
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
* more on 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
*
A
Multi-Dimensional Typology of Games
Assignments: due Feb 11
Work
with your team on Phase I Proposal &
Formal Group Presentation include 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 5: Feb 11
Teams show Phase I Proposal & Formal Group Presentation
Discuss: readings
-
Gender:
* Screening Laura Croft film 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
* 50
of the top Female Game Characters
* Genderizing HCI by Justine
Cassell
* Henry
Jenkins, “Complete Freedom of Movement: Video Games as Gendered PlaySpaces
Addiction?:
- 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/
-----------
What
went wrong so things can go right:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Assignment:
Work on Phase II Reiteration
due Feb 18
Extra Credit Readings:
- Everything But the Words: A
Dramatic Writing Primer for Gamers
by Hal Barwood
- Storytelling in Action by Bob Bates
-
Building Character- An Analysis of Character
Creation by Steve Meretzky
- Building Character By Toby Gard
Week 6: Feb 18
Student show Phase II Reiteration
* Reality Check Studio
Reality check on scope of project, semester schedule
for everyone in the group including individual responsibilities and deadlines,
more refined game design document, 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.)
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
:::::::so…a taxonomy
starts somewhere, but where will be entirely bounded by the needs, goals,
interests and perceptions of its designer.
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
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, 2003. 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
Some Emerging Genres (other than social action games which we
covered previously):
Immersive Reality:
majestic
Play the News
Papers on Pervasive Games:
http://www.pervasive-gaming.org/design_space2.php
Physics and “real world” feel:
Crayon Physics
Soda
Constructor http://www.sodaplay.com/
NGame:
http://www.addictinggames.com/ngame.html
Arcade
PC
Mac
On-line
Dedicated systems
Hand held
emerging
- Realism:
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
- Misc
Some problems with reality: http://videogames.suite101.com/article.cfm/video_game_realism
Sony patent
towards real life MATRIX
Problematics of Warcraft:
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060222/sirlin_01.shtml:
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060224/qhong_01.shtml
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/
Futurists The
Futurists explored art, including painting, sculpture, poetry, theatre, music,
architecture and even gastronomy. The Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
was the first among them to produce a manifesto of their artistic philosophy in
his Manifesto of Futurism (1909), first released in Milan and published in the
French paper Le Figaro (February 20). Marinetti summed up the major principles
of the Futurists, including a passionate loathing of ideas from the past,
especially political and artistic traditions. He and others also espoused a
love of speed, technology and violence. The car, the plane, the industrial town
were all legendary for the Futurists, because they represented the
technological triumph of man over nature.
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.”
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
"A moment of life concretely and deliberately constructed by the collective organization of a unitary ambiance and a game of events."
The
situation as a practical manifestation slipped, ultimately, into a series of
proposals.
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
John Heartfield
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/davepalmer/cutandpaste/heartfield.html
Hannah Hoch
http://www.understandingduchamp.com/
http://www.marcelduchamp.net/today_picture.php
Assignments:
Phase III Game Prototype & Formal Group Presentation due Feb 25
Week 7:
Feb 25
* Phase III Game Prototype & Formal Group Presentation
Discussion:
Where does your game emerge from and what does it contribute socio-culturally?
Assignments:
Prep for Phase IV Game Content due March 4
Week 8: March 4
*
Teams present Phase IV Game Content
Midterm assessments
* Discuss
Character Development
- Building
Character- An Analysis of Character Creation by Steve Meretzky
- Building Character By Toby Gard
- Motion
- Characters who look
like real people: Are we inventing them or are they remaking us?
http://www.3dtotal.com/home2/home.asp
Also
see More on the Uncany
Valley
What Game Engines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_engine
List of Game Engines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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/
* Artists who have worked with game engines:
Kurt
Hentschlager
Workspace Unlimited
Readings:
project research
Assignments:
work
with your team on Phase V Game Refinement due March 18
Week 9: March 11 OFF SPRING BREAK
Work on Phase V Game Refinement due March 18
Week 10: March 18
Teams present Phase V Refinement
Refinement for
pre-review and three week trajectory for individual team work with assistance
in class.
Studio: catch up and intensive
Discussion:
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. 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."
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 Revisited:
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
Assignment:
prep
for Phase VI Further Refinement & Formal Group Presentation, due March
25
Week 11: March 25
Phase VI Further
Refinement & Formal Group Presentation
Formal presentation of group work to date which
incorporates suggested improvements from individual critique. Additionally
fully updated and perfected game design document is printed and formally handed
in.
* Possible Visiting Artist: presentation of both personal and professional
work.
Assignment:
continue
work on project work in prep for critique April 1
Week 12: April 1
Project work and informal critiques on group game which further
reflects project progress and testing.
* Possible user evaluation test plan talk & testing guide if project is developed enough.
* If applicable Craft your 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://www.tii.se/zerogame/pdfs/CGDClindley.pdf
• McGonigal—A Real Little Game: The Performance of Belief in Pervasive Play
(download pdf, top paper listed at: http://www.avantgame.com/writings.htm)
_______
Assignment: due April 8
Phase VIII Final Project Reviews & Formal Group Presentation
with testing plans
Week
13: April 8 (second to last class)
Teams show Phase VIII
Final Project Reviews & Formal Group Presentation
Game
Theory
http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/eco/game/game.html
:::::::::::::::::::::::
Intensive Studio ::::::::::::::::::::::::::
• personal
research bibliography
Assignments: work on Phase VIII Final
Project Reviews & Formal Group Presentation
due April 15 and
Phase IX- Perfected Game
Festival-Ready Games formal Group Presentation
due April 22
Week
14: April 15
Teams show Phase VIII
Final Project Reviews & Formal Group Presentation
::::::::::::::::::::::: Intensive Studio
::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Discuss
* User evaluation test plan
Assignments:
work on Phase IX-
Perfected Game Festival-Ready Games
due APRIL 22 your
Final Project Game, Design Document, Poster, and supporting materials
Complete
and refine all work on final projects for
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)
* Printed posters
* Printed Final Game Design Document
* digital
files of the above in word format
also if applicable: User Evaluation Testing Summary and Recommendations
Week 15: April 22
LAST DAY OF CLASS before GameFest
Phase IX- Formal
Presentations of Perfected Game Festival-Ready Games
All perfected work due this day. NO
EXCEPTIONS.
prep for Game Festival & Symposium Experience
All Printed matter for your
exhibit at GameFest
Friday April 24
*
well designed game design document
*
project blurb & image page
*
project posters
Please
ensure that all work is spell checked.
All work must be
printed and also submitted on labeled CDs or DVDs
Week 16: April 29
LAST DAY OF CLASS
Wrap up of semester
Discuss the future of games, simulation and upcoming
developments.
The Game Industry by Hyman, The Studio Stance