
Topics
in Games Research:
Eco Resilience
by Kathleen Ruiz
Associate Professor of Arts & GSAS (co-founder)
Office Hours:
Thursday 2:30 to 4:30pm EST by appointment,
Email: ruiz@rpi.edu
GSAS 6200 01
3 credits
GSAS 4962 01
4 credits
Spring 2021
Wed 2:30-6:20pm EST
https://homepages.hass.rpi.edu/ruiz/Eco/EcoSpring2021.htm
Prerequisites or Other Requirements
Topics in Games Research is a special topics course for the Critical Game
Design MS and PhD program in which students are exposed to cutting-edge
research being conducted by faculty, learn advanced scholarly research
methods, and experience a research-infused pedagogy. The content of this
course will shift each semester, reflecting the research focus of the faculty
member who offers it. This course may also be used to develop new
curriculum. May be taken multiple times for credit.
Course
Description
An
advanced integrated seminar that uses creative trans-disciplinary approaches
and games as a potent means to examine, enlighten, and engage dialog and
action in solving pressing ecological issues. The relationship of social,
psychological, and cultural resilience in oftentimes oppressive political and
institutional power structures will be studied as students engage in research
about complex interrelated ecosystems. Readings in environmental issues,
ethics, nature literature, and philosophy, in addition to guest researchers,
scientists, and artists, help students resonate new approaches. A series of
short studies propel research towards the goal of creating a relevant eco
resilience project. The course fosters the exploration of games research
contributing to thesis and dissertation development.
We
will parse through complex system models that proactively anticipate impacts
that are often unforeseeable in interconnected systems. The ethics of even
using electronic gaming instruments and eco-adverse delivery systems will be
explored and experiments with ways of making projects that self-produce their
own power or offer ecological hardware alternatives will be encouraged.
Please
note due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the course will be online with the
possibility of some opportunities to
meet in small groups or individually with the instructor, if deemed safe. In
person meetings must follow strict Institute guidelines and all parties are
tested and cleared for being on-campus, maintain social distance, wear masks
and visors, sanitize all surfaces before and after the meeting time. Some plans for the course will, by
necessity, need to be altered to keep within Covid
guidelines.
Course
Text(s)
Videogames
and the Future of Ideological Warfare by
Marcus Schulzke
https://anglejournal.com/article/2016-02-videogames-and-the-future-of-ideological-warfare/
Eco-Resilience
Games, Art & Science
by K. Ruiz and K. Kornecki,
"Eco-resilience: Games, art, science," 2019 IEEE Games,
Entertainment, Media Conference (GEM), Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA,
2019, pp. 1-11, doi: 10.1109/GEM.2019.8901974.
Simulating
Philosophy: Interpreting Video Games as Executable Thought Experiments
by Marcus Schulzke
https://link-springer-com.libproxy.rpi.edu/article/10.1007/s13347-013-0102-2
Augmented
Ontologies or How to Philosophize with a Digital Hammer
by Stefano Gualeni
https://philpapers.org/rec/GUAAOO-2
Excerpts from:
Culture as Weapon: The art of influence in everyday life
by Nato Thompson
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Culture_as_Weapon/nb4IDAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1
Introduction
and Chapter 1
Excerpts from:
The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate
by Peter Wohlleben
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/09/26/the-hidden-life-of-trees-peter-wohlleben/
Excerpts from:
Gabrys,
Jennifer. 2011. Digital Rubbish: A Natural History of Electronics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv65swcp.1?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Preface and Introduction
Student
Learning Outcomes
Upon
successful completion of the course:
·
Student will demonstrate the ability to
observe and comment on the role of games in the representation of various physical, mental,
emotional or spiritual environments.
·
Student will analyze the role games play in
building resilience.
·
Student will identify a philosophical
approach to their individual dissertation or master thesis research.
·
Student will create a game project that
demonstrates significant potential to affect change.
·
Student will identify and explore sources for
literature review for dissertation or master thesis
Course
Assessment Measures:
Projects and Assignments
& Course Calendar
Due to the nature of the varied skill sets, talents and foci
that students may have, projects can be created using a variety of
methodologies including digital, ar, vr, or board games, game zines, Twine games, written game
treatments, paper prototypes, eco-tour machinimas, on-line and/or physically
geo-located games and other experimental approaches.
Short Studies:
1. Representation: due Feb 3
Eco-tour machinima
(5 points)
How is the environment (whether physical, mental, emotional or
spiritual), represented in games?
Give at least three examples (both positive and negative) that are
particularly outstanding to you.
Create an eco-tour machinima of a number of games and their
interpretation or portrayal of the state nature. Comment on this in a short
paper
Make an eco-tour machinima:
the use
of real-time computer graphics engines to create a cinematic production.
Nitsche and
Lowood describe two methods of approaching machinima: starting from a video
game and seeking a medium for expression or for documenting gameplay
("inside-out"), and starting outside a game and using it merely as
animation tool ("outside-in"). https://web.archive.org/web/20140814185256/http://www.dichtung-digital.de/2007/Nitsche/nitsche.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinima
Samples
of Machinimas:
How Not to Die in WOW
by Sarah Hammond
The Journey by Friedrich Kirschner
or a speed run (play-through recording),
or a power point,
or a series of links to video game trailers
Make an analysis and potential prognosis based on your findings.
You can use Ernest Adams Game Design Philosophy
-
What dreams does the game fulfill?
- What is the player going to do?
- What are the physical, intellectual, emotional, economic
and ethical spaces of the game world?
What types of research are you involved in?
Define issues of interest
Optional reading:
Google Warming: Google Earth as eco-machinima
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263558111_Google_Warming_Google_Earth_as_eco-machinima
2. Resilience: due Feb 10
(5 points)
What makes it that some rise to the challenges we face with
resilience, while others stall or wither?
What role can games play in helping with resilience? Resilience
in ecology, but also in human bodily resilience, strength of spirit, and
mental resilience?
Resilience as you have felt it: create a short maquette (quick sculpture), or PowerPoint, or
visualization, a poem, music composition, a short game, or paper
See Video:
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi asks, "What makes a life worth
living? https://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow
Visitor: Mengtai Zhang https://mengtaizhang.com/projects
3. Agenda Seed: due Feb 17
(5 points)
What role do games have in helping to formulate,
persuade, influence ideas,
conceptualizations, or expectations?
Research then create an Agenda Seed
about a topic of eco resilience that is particularly important to you and
your research (ecological, socio-political, psychological, cultural,
technical, etc.)
Agenda Seeding is a technique used to plant a seed of a new, or
different way of looking at things other than the dominant dialog, an
intervention of sorts. For example,
agenda seeding was used by civil rights activists in the 1960's to help sway
public opinion to support more positive race relations. It is a way to get
attention to important issues. Here you planting a seed of importance about
your research. this exercise is to help you define issues of importance to
you.
Your Agenda Seed can be
a short maquette (quick sculpture), or PowerPoint,
or visualization, a poem, music composition, a short game, or paper, thought
experiment or mind palace, etc.
Readings:
Eco-Resilience
Games, Art & Science
K. Ruiz and K. Kornecki, "Eco-resilience: Games,
art, science," 2019 IEEE Games, Entertainment, Media Conference (GEM),
New Haven, CT, USA, 2019, pp. 1-11, doi:
10.1109/GEM.2019.8901974.
Videogames
and the Future of Ideological Warfare by Marcus Schulzke
https://anglejournal.com/article/2016-02-videogames-and-the-future-of-ideological-warfare/
Simulating
Philosophy: Interpreting Video Games as Executable Thought Experiments
Marcus Schulzke
https://link-springer-com.libproxy.rpi.edu/article/10.1007/s13347-013-0102-2
4. Developing a philosophical approach to your research:
due March
3
(5 points)
A heuristic is an approach
to problem solving that uses a practical method or various shortcuts
in order to produce solutions that may not be optimal, but are sufficient
given a limited timeframe or deadline. Examples that employ heuristics include using trial and
error, a rule of thumb or an educated guess.
Keep in mind that there are positive
and negatives about heuristics.
Deliverables:
Masters & Ph.D. level:
Considering your previous agenda seed,
and after reading the readings below in this unit, now create an expansion of
your thinking by writing a 1 to 2 page heuristic of your developing ideas on your
thesis. These do not need to be fully formulated sentences, just any thoughts
that you have about your research.
(You can
optionally create a short game, or poem that portrays your ideas, or a drawing,
or sculpture that represents your heuristic.)
Ph.D. level:
In addition
to your heuristic, attempt to place your research into a philosophical
context.
Link
to developing a philosophical approach
Developing a heuristic + -
Does your thinking about your thesis develop through deductive
reasoning?
Or is it one (or combinations) of the following:
Ontological
Empirical
Conversational
Phenomenological
Continental
Anglo-American
Eastern philosophical approach
Philosophy of Science
Philosophy of Mind
Activist
Other new emerging approaches: Eastern and Western approach,
Activist, Feminist, etc.
Readings:
Augmented
Ontologies or How to Philosophize with a Digital Hammer
by Stefano Gualeni
https://philpapers.org/rec/GUAAOO-2
Excerpts from:
Culture as Weapon: The art of influence in everyday life
by Nato Thompson
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Culture_as_Weapon/nb4IDAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1
Introduction
and Chapter 1
Visitor: Dr.
Tony See Sin Heng, University of London SIM Global Institute, Singapore,
Political Science and International Relations, Political Philosophy and
comparative East-West Philosophy
5. Become or Inhabit Nature in Games or VR:
due: March 10
(5 points)
For those technically able: scan a leaf, a piece of wood, a
photograph of nature. Make a height map, create a level in Unity or Unreal,
walk around in it, experience it from multiple viewpoints.
Or create an online and/or physically geo-located eco-exploration game.
Or for more theoretical approaches, create a short paper about a
spatial experience in a game you have found particularly engaging.
Readings:
Excerpts from:
The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate
by Peter Wohlleben
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/09/26/the-hidden-life-of-trees-peter-wohlleben/
Visitors:
·
Dr.
Krysia Kornecki, RPI alum
Geologist, Ecologist
·
Jacqui
Lewis, PhD student Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, freshwater
ecology and anthropogenic stressors. evolved tolerance, and conservation .
6. Games, Art, & Science due
March 17
(5 points)
Meet with a scientist from the team, together identify an
issue, idea or pressing matter that can potentially be helped by games.
Create a design board or conceptual approach to a potential game that would
enlighten and activate about the issue.
Visitor: 2:45pm- Paula Escuadra, IGDA Eco Sig Chair, Senior User Research
Lead, Stadia Games & Entertainment, ecological activist https://docs.google.com/document/d/112SA5zLUcbNlIIIuPTAGyRR2ekSb0DGnDrUzphoH5nk/edit
7. Identify Open Energy/Materials due March 24
(5 points)
Comment on, or generate energy for your game,
or create new kinds of biodegradable game peripherals
Excerpts from:
Gabrys, Jennifer. 2011. Digital Rubbish: A Natural History of
Electronics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv65swcp.1?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Preface and Introduction
Optional:
Sound, Music, and Resilience
Winifred Phillips video
game music composer http://www.winifredph
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/WinifredPhillips/20210216/377468/Video_Game_Music_Concerts_in_2021.php?fbclid=IwAR0jqLHUchJWu9J-lt62XY4ABJNpm3hYf_cpqD75-D0pHLw_FWuMFMcQV6k
Musical Ecologies in Video Games
by Michael Kamp
8. Final Project: (45 points) due April 21
Create your game
·
Identify an issue that resonates your research
·
Develop an agenda seed
·
Create a mind map or idea board
·
Market research: what has been done, what was successful, what
was not, what was left out.
·
Develop the Advanced
Game Design Document
·
Develop a prototype
·
Complete your game, or write a 15 page written game proposal
All Perfected work due April 28
Participation/ Reading Reactions:
(20 Points)
Grading
Criteria
Course in a Nutshell: 
Short Studies:
·
Representation:
due Feb 3 (5 points)
·
Resilience: due Feb 10 (5 points)
·
Agenda Seed: due Feb 17 (5 points)
·
Philosophical approach to your research: due March 3 (5 points)
·
Become
or Inhabit Nature in Games or VR:
due: March 10 (5 points)
·
Games,
Art, & Science due
March 17 (5 points)
·
Identify Open Energy/Materials due
March 24 (5 points)
Final Project: Create your game due April
21 (45 points)
Create your game
·
Identify an issue that resonates your research
·
Develop an agenda seed
·
Create a mind map or idea board
·
Market research: what has been done, what was successful, what
was not, what was left out.
·
Develop the Advanced
Game Design Document
·
Develop a prototype
·
Complete your game, or
a 15 page written game proposal
Participation/ Reading Reactions: you are invited, encouraged, and
expected to engage in discussion, reflection and activities. (20 points)
Point to Letter
grade equivalents for the course are as follows:
LETTER
GRADES
|
PERFORMANCE
DESIGNATION the 4000 level
|
POINTS
|
A+
|
EXCELLENT
|
90-100
points
|
A
|
85-89
points
|
A-
|
80-84
points
|
B+
|
GOOD
|
77-79
points
|
B
|
73-76
points
|
B-
|
70-72
points
|
C+
|
SATISFACTORY
|
67-69
points
|
C
|
63-66
points
|
C-
|
60-62
points
|
D+
|
MARGINAL
|
57-59
points
|
D
|
53-56
points
|
D-
|
50-52
points
|
F
|
UNSATISFACTORY
|
0-49 points
|
Attendance
Policy
As an enrolled student,
you have made a commitment to this class and your attendance is a significant
part of that commitment. Attendance will be taken at every class. An absence
is considered excused if the student has informed the course instructor by
email or in person before the beginning of the class and the
excuse is considered reasonable by the instructor.
Late Policy: All students are required to be on time and in attendance
for each and every class. Students arriving to class more than 10 minutes
late may be counted as absent. Two (2) unexcused absences will
result in a reduction of one entire letter grade.
Adherence to deadlines is expected. It is the individual
student's responsibility to keep track of deadlines and to present the work
to the class and instructor on the specified dates. 15% per day will be
subtracted from late assignments.
If a student needs an official excuse for medical or other
reasons, please go to the Advising & Learning Assistance Center https://info.rpi.edu/advising-learning-assistance/
If you are concerned about your creative trajectory or your
grade at any point during the semester, please do not hesitate to contact
your Instructor and schedule an appointment.
Academic
Integrity
Student-teacher
relationships are built on trust. For example, students must trust that
teachers have made appropriate decisions about the structure and content of
the courses they teach, and teachers must trust that the assignments that
students turn in are their own. Acts that violate this trust undermine the
educational process. The Rensselaer Handbook of Student Rights and
Responsibilities and The Graduate Student Supplement define various forms of
Academic Dishonesty and you should make yourself familiar with these. In this
class, all assignments that are turned in for a grade must represent the
student’s own work. In cases where help was received, or teamwork was
allowed, a notation on the assignment should indicate your collaboration.
Submission
of any assignment that is in violation of this policy may result in a penalty
of a grade of F for the assignment on the first offense and a failure of the
course for any subsequent offense.
Violations
of academic integrity will be reported to the appropriate Dean (Dean of
Students for undergraduate students or the Dean of Graduate Education for
graduate students, respectively).
If you have
any question concerning this policy before submitting an assignment, please
ask for clarification.
Collaborative or group work is encouraged where
appropriate and where mutually helpful and where the collaboration has been
approved beforehand by the instructor. Each member of the collaboration must
clearly write their full name, email, and phone # on the assignment and
describe their specific contribution.
Cheating is using others work as one’s own. and plagiarism is also forbidden.
The penalties for cheating and plagiarism are a grade of zero will be given on the first assignment where a
violation is detected. If there is a subsequent infraction the student will
receive a grade of F for the course.
Other
Course-Specific Information
Resources
Tools
BOX
Upload Info
Support
Services
Associations, Conferences,
Publishing Opportunities:
DiGRA, the Digital Games Research Association https://lists.tuni.fi/mailman/listinfo/gamesnetwork
International Game Developers Association (IGDA)
http://www.igda.org/members/group.aspx?id=121079
Albany IGDA
https://igda.org/chapters/us-ny-albany/
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Game Festival & Symposium held each Spring
http://gamefest.rpi.edu/
Independent Games Conference
http://www.igf.com/
The Game Developers Conference
San Jose, California
http://www.gdconf.com/
Montreal Game Summit
http://mtldgtl.com/en/migs/
Gamesutra
http://www.gamasutra.com/
Game Studies: the international journal of
computer game research
http://gamestudies.org/0601
|