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
* Do the Personal Game Archaeology Project
Week 1:
Jan 16
Discuss
* overview of course
*
review of studio practice & endeavor:
working in class on class work only
* Studio visit by Igor, Technical Director of
H&SS
* creative practice in cross disciplinary collaborations
* 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:
*
Play as Design by Brenda Laurel
Play as Design by Eric Zimmerman
* Homo Ludens:
A study of the Play Element in Culture by Johan Huizinga
* Man,
Play, and Games by Roger Caillois
*********create short
reaction papers to all the above readings
Assignments:
• If you have not done so already, bring sample of best work to next class
• create a team for the FPS/Virtual Violence Paradigm Challenge Playable
Prototype Design Blitz
Week 2: Jan 23
The Oxymoron of Virtual Violence: Dead Rising
* show artists work:
- Kathleen Ruiz Bang,
Bang (you’re not dead?) multiview
website
- Gonzalo
Frasca
Sept 12
- upcoming visiting artist 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.
*
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.
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.
- 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 30
* 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 30
* Ernest Adams Design Philosophy
* From Sun Tzu
to Xbox: War and Video Games by Ed Halter **create a short, one page, printed
reaction paper
* Baudrillard and
Hollywood: subverting the mechanism of control and The Matrix by Jim Rovira
****create
a short, one page, printed reaction paper
* The Oxymoron of Virtual
Violence, J. Baudrillard
****create
a short, one page, printed reaction paper
* Lenoir-Lowood_TheatersOfWar
Assignment:
Work with your team on
“FPS/Virtual Violence Paradigm Challenge Design Blitz” Game due Jan 30
Week 3:
Jan 30
* 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
Roy Lichtenstein http://www.artchive.com/artchive/L/lichtenstein.html#images
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
* Final Project Team Formation and brainstorm ideas
Readings: due Feb 6
* 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
Other readings:
* Basic Game Design Fundamentals
by Chris Crawford
* 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 with your team on Prototype 1 Concepts of Final Project due Feb 6
Week 4: Feb 6
* Students present Prototype 1 Concepts rough ideations,
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.
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
Social Impact Games
a
new generation: games that immerse people in the real world, full of real-time
political crises. games’ designers aren’t just selling a voyeuristic thrill.
Games, they argue, can be more than just mindless fun, they can be a medium for
change.
http://www.socialimpactgames.com/
Serious Games
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serious_game
http://www.gdconf.com/conference/seriousgamessummit.htm
http://www.seriousgames.com/
Games for Change
(G4C)
http://www.gamesforchange.org/
*War*
Gonzalo Frasca Sept 12
http://www.powerfulrobot.com/web/index_content.html
Global conflict:
Palestine
http://www.globalconflicts.eu/
Peacemaker Game
http://www.peacemakergame.com/
http://www.peacemakergame.com/game.php
Future Farmers
http://www.antiwargame.org/
War on terror
http://www.terrorbullgames.co.uk/
Rethinking wargames
http://www.low-fi.org.uk/rethinkingwargames/
*Politics*
Antibush game
http://www.emogame.com/bushgame.html
Redistricting game
http://www.redistrictinggame.org/
Hidden agenda
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Agenda_(game)
*History*
Balance of Power http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_Power_%28computer_game%29
Soviet Unterzögersdorf
http://www.monochrom.at/suz-game/
JFK Reloaded
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JFK_Reloaded
*Environment*
Stop disaster
http://www.stopdisastersgame.org/en/
Climate Challenge
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/climatechange/climate_challenge/index_1.sh
Climate Crisis
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/climatechange/climate_challenge/index_1.shtml
* Social
Awareness*
3rd world farmer
http://www.3rdworldfarmer.com/
Ayiti
http://www.unicef.org/voy/explore/rights/explore_3142.html
Food Force United
Nations game
http://www.food-force.com/
ICED an Immigration game
http://vivirlatino.com/2007/08/06/dont-get-iced.php
Darfur is Dying
http://www.darfurisdying.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_is_Dying
*Miscellaneous *
Vigilance 0.1
http://www.martinlechevallier.net/vigilance.html
Metapet
http://metapet.net/
Civilization IV Eastwood
http://www.eastwood-group.org/
Disaffected!
http://www.persuasivegames.com/games/game.aspx?game=disaffected
Impact Games
http://www.impactgames.com/company.php
Persuasive Games
http://www.persuasivegames.com/games/
UTOPIA REVERSED -
An Assault on Neurospace
http://rhizome.org/thread.rhiz?thread=17458&page=1
Paolo Pedercini
YouTube - Molleindustria
_______________
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/