Fun anyone?

New Site!

2010-08-24T12:22:00.003+12:00

Hey ya'll, I've moved over to wordpress, and got me a domain name. Catch me at joelschroyen.co.nz/blog
:)
I won't be updating it here any more, so change your bookmarks!

Personal, or social?

2010-08-20T11:35:00.000+12:00

Weighing the options.
A: Personal Balls - when you reach a certain level with another, they will pass something personal for the player to hold onto, a personal ball. How this ball is used reflects on the player's social considerations - which can be good, or backfire.

B: Conversation levels - At a certain social level, the visible representation of conversation changes form. Trying to interact with characters with differing conversation levels will change their reaction to the player.
Level 1: A ball - heavy, tied the ground, clunky.
Level 2: A balloon - floaty, friendly
Level 3: ??Love hearts?? - fast, embracing

Story boarding interaction of conversation levels. Also shows new system of relative social levels. All characters have a social level shared with every other character, and the player.
The relative social level system is intended to represent intelligence in the AI - they will interact with other AI differently than the player (or the same, depending on the social levels)

Mungifier(tm)

2010-08-19T19:11:00.000+12:00

I'm just fiddling with something that will create levels of pixelation on game load - so I don't have to do it in photoshop every time (although running a macro isn't that hard).

Anyways, 3 days later and I got some interesting results (3 frames of animation for each of the 6 levels):

There seems to be a threshold for good pixelation...

This last one looks fairly good, the second level is still a bit weird, but the rest are alright :)

Some more drawings

2010-08-11T11:13:00.004+12:00

Seasons

Above: To represent the passage of time, seasons will be used - reflecting the players 'age'.

Levels of detail

Above: The quality of your relationship with other characters is changeable based on your interactions with them, the feedback mechanism will likely be represented in the pixelation of the character. The worse the relationship, the more distorted and basic they are.

Cycling through inventory of balls

Above: If you are kind, you will be given a character's personal ball. Cycling through them, you can see how they are doing. Passing a characters personal ball to another character can have consequences depending on who they, and who's ball it is.

Minimal Pixel Art

2010-08-10T10:53:00.007+12:00

Classic pixel art, charsets, FF6 SNES style, I'm finding is too detailed.
And then I came across Minimal Pixel Art. Hazzah!

The Pixel As Minimal Art
link
Moar

This compounded effect or the process of adding pixels on top of pixels ... and at various sizes ... enhances the sublimity, and it also brings in other interpretations or connotations such as plurality, for example the coexistence of several worlds.

Pixelscapes

pixelscapes from project landscapes on Vimeo.

Concept sketch && notes

2010-08-05T22:04:00.000+12:00

I think this idea for feedback is will work well - depending on the characters social level, in relation to the player, is - it will either become more defined, or pixelated. The characters actions will also reflect this, with undistinguishable blocks offering only a slow pacing, and recognisable characters displaying more interesting, and joyful actions.
This is in response to what I read somewhere, likely in Koster's A Theory of Fun, that AI in modern games (still) are dumb, but are looking more and more realistic. Their detail should reflect their intelligence.
It is also a response to what Will Wright argued in a lecture - that pride and guilt and emotions that games seem to have better influence on over non-linear media (literature, film).
Here it is your responsibility to care for the characters, and it is a direct result of your actions that allow them to come alive, or fall into dull greyness.

To further this idea of quality of detail representing the success of the game state, the over world could also have a treatment representing an average of all characters current states.
If you are failing overall, then world becomes a blur to you, you are less part of it.

Experiment game

Coming soon: More Experiments!
In the meantime, here is my most recent experiment. Codenamed Strangers
strangers011.exe

Doodles

2010-08-04T21:01:00.000+12:00

Some forms, silhouettes. See if you can see what they are :)

A tree based on art. I quite like it. Top right are pixelated versions.

Interpersonal relationships

2010-08-04T15:50:00.002+12:00

The social world of Ai. They go about their day, minding their own business until some variable goes into the negative and then they return an infinite integer and asplode.

How do they react in this world I am creating?

Simple social scale

Good/Bad
A simple scale of the value of a character. Each character has a static value that is interpreted by other characters. Characters only interact with those that who have a greater value than their threshold allows.
An extension of this could be to have each character have their own 'impression' (value) for each and every other character they encounter based on their experiences.
This method simplifies things, but is very shallow.

Friendship levels/ranks

There is a strict level system in which characters have to work up when interacting with each other. While they have to achieve each level in secession to raise up, they can fall several depending on the severity of the disrespect.

Level/Rank -> Quality

Love/Marriage -> Commitment

Relationship -> Jealousy

Friendship -> Integrity

Friendly ->Honesty

Meeting/Met -> Friendliness

Familiarity -> Consistency

Neutral -> Inactive

Dislike/avoidance -> Deceit

Hate -> Malice

Civ IV Unit properties

On the face of this, this system is exactly like the one above. Simply too linear. The interesting part comes in when characters have certain preferences and certain quality dislikes. Some sections become easier to overcome, some difficult - or impossible.
This list needs to be narrowed down to 4 states max really, for simplicity sake.
While I want the game to be non-competitive, and therefore not have an obvious statistically strong dominant strategy, this system promotes this type of gameplay. Also, the game representation would have to reflect, or at least elude to this system.

Example of representation system

Simple Art

2010-08-04T11:25:00.001+12:00

Simplified forms allow players/viewers to apply their own meanings and experiences to the forms they see - therefore become more relevant and meaningful to them and enhancing their experience.
Jason Rohrer's games lack about as much detail as is possible before loosing the forms into obscurity. They are still quite specifically representative though.
Is it necessary to have specific references? Rod Humble's The Marriage has the most basic forms possible - squares and circles. Using colour and transparency to convey further meaning.

But what about the Fine Arts? Let's have a look at artist's ways of representing things.

Impressionism
Impressionism was a move away from realism, and used the strength of brush strokes to convey forms - arguably conveying the mood better than a realistic image.

Expressionism
"An Expressionist wishes, above all, to express himself... (an Expressionist rejects) immediate perception and builds on more complex psychic structures... Impressions and mental images that pass through mental peoples soul as through a filter which rids them of all substantial accretions to produce their clear essence [...and] are assimilated and condense into more general forms, into types, which he transcribes through simple short-hand formulae and symbols." (Gordon, 1987) (From Wiki)

Abstract Art
Abstract art has the intention of abstracting forms to their most basic - while still containing their meaning. Mondrian worked with the tensions between geometric forms and bold, primary colours. Pollock succeed in taking his expression and putting it directly onto the canvas, his movements and intentions are recorded right onto the frame.

Animation/Cartoons

Cartoons are simplified forms. Originally simply because a detailed character takes too long to animate. But as Scott McLeod argues, the more simplified a face is the easier it is for people to project their own impression onto it.

Finished The Marriage

2010-08-03T17:37:00.000+12:00

(Click on image for animation of my game)
Finally! I figure it out! The variables are obvious if you just pay attention. There are two types of feedback here, the opacity of a square (when it goes invisible the game is over) and the size of the square (when it shrinks too small the game is over). I could go into it more, but I think I might already have..

Jason Rohrer's Passage

2010-08-03T17:09:00.000+12:00

I needed a break and ended up digging through my archive of games (the temptation to start an RPG like Zelda or FFVII, or CivIV was strong).

Passage by Jason Rohrer is an art game, in his typical style - you'll notice some graphical elements and music from Gravatation.
It is embeded with meaning which he explains on his page What I was trying to do with Passage.
You take the agency of a charcter in a maze. To the far right is a compression of the future - it's compressed and fuzzy. As time goes by, you shift to the right and the left becomes compressed and fuzzy. There are tresure boxes which can be spotted in the distance, but only certian ones give you points. It is possible to learn to distingush between them. Early in the game, you have the opportunity to meet a female character and become attached to her for the rest of the game. While attached you earn twice the ammount of points walking to the right as you would by yourself. The downfall is that you can now not walk down narrow corridors.

The intention of this was the express aging. When you are young there is no past - only an impression of the future. When you get old, there is only past.

While playing I noticed that was that it is possible to walk backwards. But I felt that walking to the right expressed aging, so am I walking back in time? I think the expression of age is related only to the window frame - even though you can walk backward you cannot reverse your direction in the frame, and the ammount of compressed maze you see does not change. Perhaps in the wisdom of you old age you can see parts of the maze you didn't see before and can now expore them.

Something I noticed in Gravatation, and is back again here - is the presence of the scoring system as points. And I've been wondering, recently, what's the point? (no pun intended). They have no real meaning, they seem like some shallow way of showing your progress, or success in the game. Rohrer writes something similar:

Yes, you could spend your five minutes trying to accumulate as many points as possible, but in the end, death is still coming for you. Your score looks pretty meaningless hovering there above your little tombstone.

Scoring points for the sake of points, is meaningless. Like earning money just for the sake of money. In competitive games, scoring of points is a way of measuring one person's/team's success in the game. But the presence of point scoring in single player, non-competitive games is totally unnessecary.
Not that I'm taking a stab at Rohrer, it does feel like a concious intention.

Perhaps for my 'Strangers' game, the selfish player could rack up the points but gathering stuff, and the friendly player may miss out on the points, but have a different (argurably more better) reward at the end.

Final thoughts.. Did the game mean anything to me? Possibly, it is hard to say. It provided me a different way of viewing relationships for sure. The moral of the story is: while you may not be able to search the whole maze and gather all the stars, you will instead be able earn more points :)

Eye contact

2010-07-28T18:40:00.002+12:00

Paraphrased from Wiki

Eye contact can suggest intimacy or hostility. Eye contact and facial expressions provide important social and emotional information; people, perhaps without consciously doing so, probe each others' eyes and faces for positive or negative mood signs. In some contexts, the meeting of eyes arouses strong emotions.
Cultural differences:

In the Islamic faith, Muslims often lower their gaze and try not to focus on the opposite sex's faces and eyes after the initial first eye contact, other than their legitimate partners or family members, in order to avoid potential unwanted desires. In many cultures, such as East Asia and Nigeria, it is respectful not to look the dominant person in the eye, but in Western culture this can be interpreted as being "shifty-eyed".

Animals of many species, including dogs, often perceive eye contact as a threat.

The great differences, and the inter-species connection goes to prove that eye contact is a very powerful henomena.

Insect & animal colonies...

2010-07-26T17:35:00.000+12:00

Colonies... The game I described earlier (with Aukje) has a system similar to colonies. A mass of individuals. While my focus is from the 'individual to other' interaction and not the wider 'many individuals as single organism' idea colonies could still provide an interesting framing device/ context.

Ants
Ant colonies are often used to portray ideas of individualism in popular media (Antz, A bug's life, Adam Ant). It might be because they're a colony type insect that is very common, and the common ant is not harmful. They can be quite entertaining to play with.

Bees
Not so friendly, not quite as often used. But also exhibit some amazing collective behaviors.

The human ant colony

2010-07-26T11:51:00.003+12:00

This is a section of the script from the film Waking Life.

              A guy and a girl pass on the street.

Girl:         - Excuse me.

Guy:          - Excuse me.

Girl:         Hey. Could we do that again?
              I know we haven't met, but I don't want to be an ant. You know?
              I mean, it's like we go through life...
              with our antennas bouncing off one other,
              continuously on ant autopilot,
              with nothing really human required of us.
              Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there.
              All action basically for survival.
              All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along...
              in an efficient, polite manner.
              " Here's your change." " Paper or plastic?" "Credit or debit?"
              "You want ketchup with that?"
              I don't want a straw. I want real human moments.
              I want to see you. I want you to see me.
              I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be an ant, you know?

Guy:          Yeah. Yeah, I know.
              I don't want to be an ant, either.
              Yeah, thanks for kind of, like, jostling me there.
              I've been kind of on zombie autopilot lately.
              I don't feel like an ant in my head, but I guess I probably look like one.
              It's kind of like D.H. Lawrence had this idea of two people meeting on a road...
              And instead of just passing and glancing away,
              they decided to accept what he calls "the confrontation between their souls."
              It's like, um-- like freeing the brave reckless gods within us all.

Girl:         Then it's like we have met.

Following a lead from a film analysis:

Martin Bauber

Ich-Du

Ich-Du ("I-Thou" or "I-You") is a relationship that stresses the mutual, holistic existence of two beings.

Ich-Es

The Ich-Es ("I-It") relationship is nearly the opposite of Ich-Du. Instead, the "I" confronts and qualifies an idea, or conceptualization, of the being in its presence and treats that being as an object. All such objects are considered merely mental representations, created and sustained by the individual mind. Therefore, the Ich-Es relationship is in fact a relationship with oneself; it is not a dialogue, but a monologue.

Buber argued that human life consists of an oscillation between Ich-Du and Ich-Es, and that in fact Ich-Du experiences are rather few and far between. In diagnosing the various perceived ills of modernity (e.g. isolation, dehumanization, etc.), Buber believed that the expansion of a purely analytic, material view of existence was at heart an advocation of Ich-Es relations - even between human beings.

So what have we been playing all this time?

2010-07-25T18:33:00.000+12:00

Blasts from the past(s).

SNES - 100 Super Nintendo games

Many similar games here. Plentiful platformers with variety of quality, some classic RPGs. Personally I've played a couple of these, but most SNES games are too early for my demographic.

100 Game Maker Games

Impressive quality for games that were likely made as hobby projects.

100 PS1 Games
Lots of violent games. More sport games. 95% 3D. Good portion reality based. A lot of Thirdperson. Lots of robots & anime influence.

100 More PS2 Games

When paying attention, there really is plenty of fighting/shooting games. Interesting. There is definitely more FPS games, I suppose now the hardware can handle it enough.

Top 100 Board Games

A great series on board games. Has the daughters favorites, and then the fathers for a great fix of perspectives.

Progress!

2010-07-23T11:12:00.001+12:00

No, I'm not talking about fanatical love of the microchip - I'm talking about my major project, silly! Ideas are abundant. Here are some notes..

Post-Roy
After talking with Roy, I was taken back to the Joey game experiment I made earlier in the year. Using video games to literally swap places with others, as the "step into their shoes" saying goes. Teaching people to see beyond the surface impression of others, and to understand their motives. Perhaps working with stereotypes engaging in stereotypical behavior, but in truth simply going about their business. The surface impression breaks down when the players switch places and come to understand what was really going on.
A side note from something Roy said: Teaching about systems of ecology. Eg: Have some complex detailed way to create a potion, but then have some ecological disruption change or remove one of the ingredients so that now because of some small change the potion can no longer be made. :)

Post-Aukje
Talking with Aukje was very helpful, it helped ground an idea into a specific experience. What this particular idea came down to was the transitional moment when two strangers pass each other on the street. They both know the other is there, but often avoid eye contact.
Why?
I think it comes down to eye contact being deeply personal. When eye contact is made with another, and is acknowledged by both, by smiling for example, a real connection is made. This is why I feel listening to music on the street, amongst others, feels... rude. It is an open statement that the person is separate and closed, not willing to communicate.
A game could simply express this concept of passing by strangers and making eye contact (or not).
A strong idea, a detailed game description will likely follow :)

Artificial confusion

2010-07-23T10:48:00.000+12:00

Ever played a split-screen game and thought you were the other player? 'Your' avatar was not quite doing what you told it to, but it almost was, and then you realise you're actually the guy far behind that you were taunting a second ago.
I made a quick prototype based on this idea with the intention of occasionally switching the players controls so that their avatar appeared to disobey their commands. This idea stemmed from the recurring idea of different-views-of-the-game-world-but-in-the-same-world that I keep having.
This was also to practice my digital prototyping and networking skills. The new networking system I used turned out to be slower than the previous, so at least I know that much!
The method I used, here, was to pass the actual controls being pressed over the network so that they can be passed on to the right avatar, and easily switched. Because of latency issues, however, it just didn't really work.

You can download it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9238729/Control_005.exe

Challenges and Rewards: “Why can't Call of Duty actually be about duty?"

2010-07-21T12:10:00.000+12:00

From http://www.design21sdn.com/feature/2250

“You can’t just have a fun game and then tack on an ethical message. The message has to be the mechanic,”

“A game about Darfur or Hurricane Katrina sounds horrific,” he says. ”In entertainment, the whole goal is to have the audience experience an emotion then [empower them to] let it go. The problem with playing Darfur is Dying is, not only am I feeling awful, but I can’t stop feeling awful because it’s a real. There’s no end so now I feel even worse. It’s not bad enough that I read about Darfur in the newspaper, my country won’t do a damn thing and there’s not much I can do about it either. Let’s say you play the game and save Darfur or whatever – it’s a frustrating experience because it’s a game and you didn’t actually do anything. In the end you can only feel bad about it.” He maintains that expecting gamers to behave honorably is completely counterintuitive to the appeal of computer games and points to games like Fabel and Knight of the Old Republic as revealing of players’ true nature.

Prisoner's Dilemma

2010-07-13T18:00:00.000+12:00

Okay so those horrible grey windows (click image for larger version) are my implementation of Game Theory's Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma.
The idea is to have players understand the strategies - the dominant strategy in the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma (IPD) is to consistently co-operate. Note that this is only the dominant strategy if the number of rounds is unknown. I feel the IPD game has the best moral implications, as it proves that cooperation is sustainable. The game reflects on reasoning and rational decision making.

This program features networking - it should work over a LAN or the net, as it is important that players cannot see the decision made by the other player before making their own.

Portfolio

2010-07-11T12:08:00.000+12:00

Download My CV/Resume

Organized by descending relevance.

Warm, dull, angry water

Completed for a Digital Media Studio project part of a Bachelor of Visual Communication Design at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand.

I aimed to reflect and communicate a mood in the context of a film.

Simulated with RealFlow, modeled in Maya and rendered with Mental Ray, cut in After Effects.

Watch it in HD

Little nausicaa

A short animation designed for a Massey University paper, completed as a personal project. Created with Maya 2009 and Photoshop CS3.

dod_vigilance

DoD_Vigilance is a custom map made by myself for the HL1 & HL2 mod Day Of Defeat.

This map was in development for ~3 years, and was completed in 2007 as part of the Community Assembled Map Pack (CAMP) . CAMP1 achieved over 40,000 confirmed downloads, it was advertised on Steam's News and dod_vigilance made it to #5 and stayed in the Top10 for several months.

A map that was made from blood, sweat and tears.

For a bit of trivia, it was originally made for DoD:Gold Source but ported to DoD:Source before release. It was also approximately completely re-textured 3-4 times.

For download and discussion, see the CAMP1 Thread here: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums...

Watch it in HD

Tommy and Simon

This a short sequential art piece. Made from cut paper composted with Photoshop. Below is the entire book, click on the images to enlarge

Debate for an art game

2010-07-09T16:47:00.000+12:00

I was reading Serious Games by Ritterfeld, Cody, and Vorderer and was think about motivation to play a game. Why play a game with a 'message'? I came up with 3 ways to market it.

Ninja the message in.
Declare this is a serious game.
Call it an art game.

Ninja the message in: For this to work, the game would have to stand on its own as a good, solid game. While a great way to get a message 'out there', it requires a very solid game, well polished and marketed. And this simply isn't what my project is about, its too much of a detour.
Declare this is a serious game: Again, the game would have to be a solid game, well polished. On top of that, the 'message' would have to be iron-clad, here-is-my-message kind of thing. Again not really what I want to do.
Call it an Art Game: This means it is not commercialized, does not have to sell itself as a game for masses to pick up. It does not required masses of polish and can be far more ambiguous. This method would allow me to concentrate on the design of the mechanics and gameplay, rather than spending all the time creating cutesy graphics to just get someone to pick the game up in the first place.
Now the question arises, am I allowed to do an art game? It is a Bachelor of Design, after all - not fine arts. I suppose the argument would lead to 'designing of mechanics'.
:D

SRK framework

2010-07-03T14:31:00.000+12:00

This is in response to an article on GameCareerGuide.com over here.

The article is on the application of the SRK framework to Game Mechanics. SRK means Skills, Rules, and Knowledge based behaviors.The SRK framework is a method for separating tasks into categories to find any problems within a system of people. Skill-based behaviors are those that are subconscious, such as driving a car, or at a video game level - moving, aiming, selecting etc. Core mechanics are repeated tasks within a game that should not require any thought to process, and should be skill-based behaviors.
Rule-based behaviors are mostly skill-based behaviors with a conscious cognitive overlay, a planning and thinking of how and what skills to apply to a situation. Such as changing lanes, or aiming a gun with iron-sights ingame.
Knowledge-based behaviors is conscious-level thought and used to problem solve. They are slow and taxing but are used to learn new behaviors.

In relation to my project, it seems from observations that skill-based behaviors should not be spatially-based as these require much practice and are difficult for new players. I noticed a female friend of mine having trouble with the platform movement in Braid (skill-based), but had no problem with the selection and placement skills required in Plants vs. Zombies. She excelled at the rule-based level of choosing and placing good plants, and also at the knowledge-based level of learning and ranking the contextual use of each plant's attributes. A computer requires good mouse use, so all users already have this skill and it would be a benefit to bring that into a game to lessen the learning curve.

How puzzeling..

2010-06-17T13:45:00.000+12:00

I was given this puzzle recently. The object is to take the pieces apart, and put them back together again. Simple? Well it turns out the pieces only fit together in one direction (the slots are angled), and each piece fits into any other, some fit better than others. The first thing I think when playing with these puzzles is about their physical nature. Can I break it if I'm not careful? What if this was incorrectly manufactured and doesn't actually work? That last one was on my mind the whole time while solving it, and proved to be my weakness. While some fit better than others, it is intentional rather than a mistake.

There seems to be a major, and a minor difficulty in this puzzle. The major is that the slots only fit one direction. This is a base of the puzzle - how do they fit together? In which order?
This by itself would lead to a good puzzle, but then there's the extra layer added - the minor difficulty of having some fit better than others. While playing with it, it is hard to tell if it is just a manufacturing problem.
But having solved it, I realise it is not. It creates a solution that can only be solved with the pieces in a certain order - made even more difficult in that none of the pieces are uniquely marked (save for the copy-write mark on one)

It is a good puzzle, the major difficulty is a good one, while the minor is a basic way to make it harder - I would say that the minor difficulty seems like a cheap shot, except that it creates all sorts of solving problems that make the puzzle more intriguing. Why does it fit this way? Is it a trick? Did I miss something? It's magic!
I must also add the physicality of it is beautiful, it feels like knocklebones - and makes the same sound when it pieces. It's just nice to hold even - giving it use even after it has been solved.

Water rendering project

2010-06-10T12:56:00.000+12:00

While not strictly game related, here's a project I worked on recently.

NZ Herald : Violent video games are 'a learning tool'

2010-06-01T11:55:00.000+12:00

An article on video games. link

On FPS: "People that play these fast-paced games have better vision, better attention and better cognition," said Daphne Bavelier.

"People do learn from games," said J. Dexter Fletcher of the Institute for Defence Analyses.

President Barack Obama recently identified the creation of good educational software as one of the "grand challenges for American innovation,"

He added that students who played "pro-social" games that promote cooperation were more likely than others to help out in real-life situations like intervening when someone is being harassed.

Opposition: "You are not just passively watching Scarface blow away people," McKiernan said. "You are actually participating. Doing these things over and over again is going to have an effect."

It's great that there is recognition of the validity of video games as teaching tools, but the study presented focuses solely on popular video games that portray violence. The teaching from these games are things like "better vision" and "better attention". I personally find all the video games I've played (many of them FPS) very helpful while driving a car or being around cars (skills applicable: Attention, peripheral vision, spatial awareness, trajectory prediction). But besides that, the games listed offer little else. "Shallow" as many game designers have described them as.

Firstly to address the issue at hand, sensible parental decisions, and everything in moderation. Simply: do not give R18 games to children, and do not play games (or any one type of game) too much. Solved.

I want more (quantity and quality) meaningful games.

The Game of Life

2010-05-30T15:43:00.000+12:00

Another board game I found in a closet. The box tells me it's A Milton Bradley game from 1960,;Ages 9+; "Key to Fun and learning". I've heard much of this game and always wanted to have a game of it.

It's a simple roll-the-die-and-follow-the-path game. The premise is about going through life and the unexpected things that occur. The player earns money by chance as they progress, but also can loose it by chance. Realistically, there's not all that much choice in the game. 'Fate' is the decider of victory. However there are points in which a player are able to purchase insurance if they decide to (on their first turn everyone is given this chance). I decided not to, and quickly regretted not trading $500 for car insurance at the beginning when I landed on a square resulting in a $10,000 loss. Twice. Good lessons to be learnt about insurance here.
The Game of Life is all about money, suggesting that life is all about money. Landing on a square that tells me I've discovered uranium deposits and $100,000 feels damned good. As you can see, winners end up in the Millionaire Acres while losers end up at the Poor Farm. Right there is one of those mental models I've been thinking about.
Children is another interesting thing in this game too, you'll notice the pins in the cars. They represent children that you pick up on the way. Without the rules, I can only assume the victory condition rewards for children, as it seems no squares seem to mention anything else.

Gamasutra article on morality on games

2010-05-28T09:32:00.001+12:00

Ethics 101: Designing Morality in Games

"I think gamers get tired of doing the same thing over and over," says Pagliarulo. "We've slain dragons, beat up super villains, and shot at space marines over and over again. There's a level of burnout there. So when you throw in something like a morality system, it forces the player to stop running on autopilot, and think about their actions a bit more carefully. 'Shooting the bad guy' becomes 'shooting the guy who may or may not be bad,' and that in itself adds a unique twist to the gameplay.

Bloggin' about a blog: Game experience as foundation for knowledge

2010-05-26T14:24:00.000+12:00

I wouldn't normally put some random blogger's opinion here, but this has a great point:

TomorrowToday

This post-modern world is one where traditional views are challenged and authoritative statements are doubted.
Why should I believe you? Who says you are right?
It is in a world like this one where a social constructivist approach becomes critical. An approach where people develop their own meaning from experiences and from interacting with each other. Using experiences. Based on relationships.

It's the postmodern way to oppose constructed messages for the public (as Roland Barthes would say), simply because we distrust them - without considering the plausibility of the information. Games reveal the true nature of themselves. Through the experience, tests, trails, experiments, players learn what the game is about and its true nature themselves. This practical way is a good example of the power of communication that games posses.

Testosterone anyone?

2010-05-22T11:23:00.000+12:00

It seems masculinity is the theme of video game concept art. It's a little bit ridiculous. The hardcore gamers seem to remain as the typical male gamer. While casual games are much more neutral.

Games to world models

2010-05-19T15:48:00.000+12:00

Ever played Chinese Whispers, or Concentration? I recall playing these group games at primary school with the entire class sitting around in a big circle. I still remember the rhythm and surprising difficulty to Concentration, and the absurd results of Chinese Whispers. Thinking back, it is odd that such games were part of the school curriculum (presumably).
The results of the games are still quite memorable, why?

Chinese Whispers has a few quite simple rules:
1. A person starts by coming up with a phrase or sentence and whispering to the next in line.
2. Each person whispers to the next what they (think they heard) from the previous.
3. The last person announces what they heard and compares it with the starter.

At the time, it was quite a surprise that the end result differed so much from the original.
Why?
A. Someone (or several) changed in intentionally.
B. Someone (or several) repeated incorrectly.

The main learning outcome, for me, was that it is in human nature to error. Perhaps in context it could be applied to mean that rumors are not to be taken at face value.

Concentration
Rules:
1. All players clap in harmony to a 2-2 beat.
2. Someone starts by singing their own name twice, and then another players name twice in rhythm.
3. That named player does the same.
4. The loser is the first one to mess up the rhythm or the names.

This appeared to be a simple game, but when played, it was surprising to see who lost each round - and how. To me, the game taught two things:
1. The Role-taking of the singer. There felt a huge pressure as everyone watched the current singer. The game taught me about this pressure (and with time - likely how to deal with it)
2. Strategies on how to deal with that pressure. Ie: thinking of another players name before you were chosen.

Now, looking at the learning outcomes compared with the games themselves - it seems there is quite a difference. How can such simple rules, lead to such valuable learning?
This is an example of using the play in games to create abstract models for use in the real world. Is there a way I can reverse engineer this idea? Ie: Come up with a model for use in the real world, then create gameplay that would result in that abstract model?

A talk with Tanya

2010-05-11T16:17:00.000+12:00

Thanks for the talk, here's some notes and reflections:

Look at games, whats the premise? Whats the underlying theme they are trying to convey?
Ie: Monopoly: Economics, teaching the family about money.

Log Jam

4 +

The busy beaver has built a beautiful dam out of logs, but his pesky neighbors keep trying to snatch them away while he's not looking. Be careful when skillfully removing the logs, as the pile might suddenly cave in! When he falls, you'll hear the beaver chattering his annoyance. Who'll be able to collect the most logs unnoticed?

Teaching spatial awareness; how objects fit together; beaver dams; cooperation/semi-versus

Ravensbuger company:
2. Ideas and content

Our products offer a springboard to personal development and self-discovery. They teach an awareness of community and family and do not promote violence; they cultivate taste and an appreciation of quality.

Team-building exercises: The idea is to get people to work together, how does team-building work?

Cathedral Game

CATHEDRAL is a two player strategy board game based around a battle for supremacy between two political factions (dark and light) within the walls of a Medieval City. Ancient cities were confined by walls for protection against enemies but as the population grew the limited space caused competition of another kind. This game represents that competition for living space within the city wall.

Spatial awareness; Strategy (block opponents); Medieval city; Versus;

Game analysis: Appreciation

2010-05-09T11:37:00.000+12:00

The Appreciation Game
A way for better communication
Board game

a game for families of all ages
a game for couples -- to know each other better
a game for students and teachers, and for peers
a game for church groups and clubs--to build fellowship
a game for coporate and military units--to build a team for any task

How to play:
Before you begin, decide:
-How long to play (how many turns or how many minutes)
-Which marker for each player
-Who will go first, moving to left

1. Roll the dice and move your marker on the game board in either direction according to the number rolled, beginning at start.
2. Draw a card or spin the spinner according to the space you land upon. Read the card or spinner aloud.
3. If you land on:

a: IF SPACE: Draw an IF card. Answer Briefly.
b: ME SPACE: Draw a ME card. Answer Briefly.
c: THINK SPACE: Draw a THINK card. Answer Briefly.
d: DO SPACE: Draw a DO card. Answer Briefly.
e: REMEMBER SPACE: Spin the spinner and read the topic in the outer REMEMBER circle. (Recall a past experience from your childhood that relates to the topic).
f: APPRECIATION SPACE: Spin the spinner and read the topic on the inner APPRECIATION Heart: (Say something positive about the person indicated).
g: ANOTHER PLAYER'S SPACE: You must compliment that player, (the price for landing on his territory) then follow directions for the space.

4. Each person should answer his own question and his answer should be accepted as given.
5. If a question does not seem to apply, ANOTHER CARD MAY BE DRAWN, or SPIN AGAIN. (At each turn you may choose which direction to move).
6. The game ends when the allotted time is up or when each has had the number of turns agreed upon. Be sure to APPRECIATE the players who share the game with you.

Analysis

Compared with most games I have played, this has two distinct unique qualities:

1. It is reality based - No fantasy. Encourages sharing of real events and emotions.

2. No win/lose state. There is no point system at all. I been thinking that game points are a shallow way to communicate the game state, but it seems they are really required for any real competition. Since this game has no points or a win/lose state, is it even a game? It's more of a toy that encourages a certain kind of conversation. I suppose, if I were to play, the game-y-ness would come from trying to overcome my own apprehensions about what is asked of me.

-Though this game has no religious content, it is very obviously influenced by christian values.

-Similar to Cranium. Though, Cranium has more 'fantasy' & competition.

-Very low 'cool' value. I find it hard to imagine my friends would choose this over Cranium. Though I would expect to enjoy this 'game'.

Some key concepts

2010-05-01T13:23:00.000+12:00

I've been thinking, and have found some key concepts to the discussion at this point in time.

Ambiguity of Game Rules:
As discusses previously. Addresses Kohlberg's methods quite nicely.

Rule -Lawering:
The method by which players argue and come to agreements on how a game is to be played. The intention of the rules are argued with a players exploitation on the rules. Through ambiguity, debate can arise. Ie: "At x you must do a good act". Debate ensues on what is 'good'.

Moral reasoning v. Moral attitudes
A key to this project is finding core values and how to discuss them. Moral reasoning is the method by which situations are assessed. Moral attitudes are a result. They are more concrete, black/white and more subject to conflicting with others. But by assessing moral reasoning and debating the process, a healthier discussion arises that can result in a change of process.
Moral attitudes: What made you do that
Moral reasoning: Why did decide to do that.

Principal of Justice:
Kohlberg decided to base his moral dilemmas around the principal of justice. Justice is quite a debated topic, and brings forward different methods of treating right/wrong. Revenge, compassion, laws/rules.

M U L T I P L A Y E R

2010-04-28T19:48:00.000+12:00

Well an obvious thing I somehow missed; Multiplayer. After messing about with AI trying to get them to emulate humans for effect, why not use real humans? Of course this is a natural conclusion if I move to board games, but not so obvious when programming a video game.
There are several benefits:
1. To the player, AI is part of the game system; something to be manipulated to obtain a goal. This encourages negative behavior. As in a lecture from GDC 2010 by ... (I forget who) observes interaction with an AI character in an RPG/action game Mass Effect: "What button do I press to make sex come out of this?"

With multiplayer, the player is now playing through the game system with/against other players.

2. Human-human discussion. The ability to interact with other players not just through the game system, but through the social medium of speech. A requirement for the type of debate that I intend to generate through the game.

Joey_beach progress

2010-04-28T10:15:00.000+12:00

After watching a 4 year old named Joey play at the beach, I decided to create a game around his experiences.
In this particular instance, Joey wanted to join some girls building a sand castle, but stomped on it instead which followed a small spat in which the girls threw sand at him and he at them.
Upon asking Joey why he stood on their castle he answered "I like breaking castles" with a cheeky grin.
He obviously did not understand the concept of others rights. An inability to 'role-take' or 'stand in other's shoes'.

I decided to create a game that modeled this behavior, but then had a twist of flipping the player's perspective literally. You would play as Joey, able to throw sand. If it hit the castle the girl AIs would start to like you, but if you hit them or stood on the castle, they would retaliate. The game would then restart, but with you and friends making a castle, and an AI that is modeled on the behavior you took in the previous round with the intention of making the player understand the other side of their actions.

Here is a current build. It is starting to get more complicated than expected and may take too long to complete, it was just intended as a sketch. In light of this Ambiguity of game rules idea also, this sort of gameplay method is a little too closed and forceful..

Ambiguity of game rules

2010-04-21T11:37:00.000+12:00

Watching a newly-posted GDC lecture by Brenda Brathwaite she talks about her current work on game design. Brathwaite discusses how the intentional ambiguity of game rules in her game 'Train' allow players to intentionally subvert the game. Train is about the Holocaust (discussed previously), but this theme is 'hidden' from players, and when they find out, many players end up twisting the rules, through 'rule lawering' to avoid the initial 'win' state, so that the game becomes about "winning the least".
Kohlberg's method of answering moral dilemmas through socratic discussions can be used in conjunction with this idea of 'rule-lawering' to bring the transformative power of Kohlberg's methods to games.

Game Design Canvas

2010-04-17T13:31:00.000+12:00

Just a quickie, a tool on how to think about the structure of a game.The one on the top is Halo 3, and the one on the bottom is Wii Tenis.

Imperfect AI

2010-04-02T11:27:00.000+13:00

Aaand we're back to game stuff.
I was thinking the other day (as I sometimes do) that if I'm going to have any luck at all of creating a convincing interaction, I best know some AI theory.

I found a great discussion over at the GMC forums on creating imperfect AI. Because imitations of humans also have to imitate our humanity!
Check this great post: Imperfect AI at GMC

Some suggested attributes:
varIntelligence: Use a gaussian random
varCourage: Use pure random ;)
varFear
Allies
varAdrenaline

These are obviously varibiles to be used in tradtional combat games.

varEmpathy perhaps?

Pres. Barack Obama: literacy & empathy

2010-03-29T21:03:00.001+13:00

Central Proposition: v3

2010-03-27T22:28:00.001+13:00

It got a little bit beefed up..

This research project investigates the communicative power of videogames and gameplay in informing social attitudes. Current debate (Koster, 2005) suggests that most videogames teach primal skills that are largely irrelevant to the contemporary individual. A recent study of the millennial generation (Pew Research Center, 2010) reports that the generation feel they have less respect for others and lower moral values than older generations. This project aims at address this concern by designing games with mechanics influenced by Kohlberg’s (1970) theories and observations of social development.

"A Tsunami of violent videogames"

2010-03-25T14:13:00.000+13:00

An example of views on videogames. I'm optimistic that these closed minded views are of a shrinking minority.

In related news, from Switzerland: "it appears that many expect all video games rated at a mature or adult level will likely be banned." -Link

Today I die

2010-03-24T14:27:00.000+13:00

It's so poetic it deserves its own post. Today I Die is a cute game about suicide with the aim to turn it around by manipulating the text and figures.
Have a play here (its about 15 minutes): http://www.ludomancy.com/games/today.php

"... best described as a time-killing simulator ...

2010-03-24T13:33:00.000+13:00

... [in which] you walk around someones house staring at the contents of the fridge fiddling with the ornaments looking for the action [button] that keeps the plot going or waiting for enough time to pass for someone else to do it"
-Zeropunctuation on Heavy Rain

A great example of the ability of gamers to see past the fiction, story, art and see the mechanics that control the real game. MECHANICS MATTER!!

Video Games for Army recruitment

2010-03-21T20:12:00.000+13:00

The idea has been kicking around for sometime, America's Army is a video game for the purposes of recruitment. This takes it to the next step, and it feels shameful. I feel disappointed the medium is used this way. But, as the blog post I got this from says, if video-games have the power to recruit people to the army, then they have the power to make change for the good too. (Sorry for army = bad thing, but, you know.)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Central Proposition: current draft

2010-03-21T11:51:00.000+13:00

After many revisions, here is my current central proposition. It is a little long-winded so needs to be simplified, but has a reasonably good argument at this stage. It's more 'static' that I would like, but as Roy said: "Play their game" ;)

This research project is about the medium of video -games and people. Raph Koster (2005) argues in his book ‘The Theory of Fun’ that games are a powerful, but underutilized tool. Currently, most video-games are about violence and skills that would have best trained cavemen: aiming, timing, hunting, territory, projecting power etc. We need to learn more relevant skills: some of our instinctual behaviours are no longer relevant in contemporary culture and games should therefore evolve towards teaching us more relevant skills.
Kohlberg believes that society should try to achieve the highest stage of moral thought, as defined by his 6 stages of moral judgement. Most people obtain to at least the third stage, but through Kohlberg’s methods of discussion they are able to progress further up the stages. Kohlberg’s methods are heavily based on interactive discussion. Noted game designer Chris Crawford argues, in his ‘dragon speech’ (1997), that games have the power of efficient and effective communication. They are able to provide an interactive framework for ‘discussion’, while working on a mass-producible medium.
This research project will therefore merge Kohlberg’s ideals, using his 6 stages as a tangible device, with games for the purpose of raising the individuals’ moral thought ability.

Latest Tguy - relativism

2010-03-17T12:42:00.000+13:00

I was reading Jean Baurillard's "In the shadow of the Silent Majorities", and together with having watched the Dali Lama's teaching in "Our Future" (film) I came up with an idea of relativism in games: What if you are not the most important person in the game? What if the game involves you on the sidelines, with another entity as the protagonist? I came up with a simple 'solution' and applied it to the Tguy game I already had running.
The only real change is that the 'camera' follows a different player than yourself. I also had to add keyboard movement rather than direct mouse control (which was planned from before) because it helps create a sense of 'being in the world' a bit more.
The idea was to make you see from someone else's perspective, and how you effected them, rather than them effecting you.

Result: Well okay it doesn't really work that well, you end up just looking at your self, and frustrated that they move so sluggishly, while also trying to avoid their influence circle..

No youtube video today, they take too long really.. Grab the exe though and have play for yourself.

Moral stages

2010-03-16T12:05:00.000+13:00

Piaget's theory of moral judgment is a two-stage approach, expanded upon by Lawrence Kohlverg to a 6 (or 5) stage approach.

Here is some references:

KOHLBERG'S STAGES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT, from
W.C. Crain. (1985). Theories of Development. Prentice-Hall. pp. 118-136.

An Overview of Moral Development and Moral Education
A summary of Piaget's Theory; Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development and Education; Domain Theory: Distinguishing Morality and Convention; Carol Gilligan and the Morality of Care

Studies in Social and Moral Development and Education: Featured Articles

As for my central proposition, I think the best approach is to flip my current argument from:
Video games > meaningful > what is meaning >create meaning > prosocial

To:
Current social trends > need to support morals > During development of morals > active learning > video games (as natural conclusion :D )

It fits nicely I do believe, which allows me to research more on active learning in video games.

The Myer-Briggs Type Indicator

2010-03-13T12:29:00.000+13:00

Ok well from time-time I will be taking a break from direct game research and will be looking at the application for which is the purpose of my research.

Last year I went along to a Myer-Briggs class out of curiosity. The class not only found our Myer-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), but showed what use it can be in understanding other personality types and ways to deal with it. Over the last few months since, I have found it to be immensity helpful - and I have a feeling that if everyone had a similar understanding of others in this light, then general society would greatly benefit.

Here's a passage from the website:

Psychological Type and Relationships

When you understand personality preferences, you can more readily appreciate differences between you and people closest to you in your life such as partners, children, and friends.
Knowledge of MBTI® type allows you to see ... differences as just those—different ways of seeing things. Instead of labeling a person and putting value judgments on his or her behavior, you can learn to see your partner’s behavior as reflecting personality type, not something designed to offend you. Many couples even learn to see the differences in a humorous light.

Will Wright - Games as Toys

2010-03-12T10:33:00.000+13:00

Will Wright created Sim City, The Sims, and Spore. And these are all 'toys'. There is no set 'goal', the player sets their own goal, plays with it, experiments, tries different things. The power of video games that Wright presents and has been working on is the possibility space. Giving the player the ability to easily try things out and see what happens. In Spore you are able to modify the atmosphere, and in a short space of time, the player is able to see the long-term effects of what would occur. The power is that the player can experiment, play around, and learn a whole lot that is totally impossible in the world.

Will Wright - Video Games Lecture in 2007

Here is another great lecture (that I couldn't tame to embed here, linky in title above), I would say that this one is more relevant to my research. Summary: Firstly he introduces the current social state of video games compared with the introduction of other media - Novels/fiction: "Poisoned" the readers minds
The Waltz: "A dance for prostitutes and adulterers"
Film: "godless dissolute lives"
Rock & Roll: "Devil worshippers"
And now video games are just starting to get past this, as those that grew up with games become older.
Then he compares linear media with games: Linear stories are about Empathy, games about Agency.
The lastly he talks about how games create and manipulate mental models. A story becomes an abstraction in the listeners mind, which then forms models to predict and act in the future. Play also does this.

Serious Games pt 2.

2010-03-11T20:55:00.000+13:00

Games Beyond Entertainment Week is a series of conferences. Games for Health is one, and here is a couple of other partnerships:

The Able Gamers foundation

This is a charity that helps disabled people have access to video-games. They have community events, and modify game controllers for use.

Games for Change

(G4C) is a non-profit which seeks to harness the extraordinary power of video games to address the most pressing issues of our day, including poverty, education, human rights, global conflict and climate change. G4C acts as a voice for the transformative power of games, bringing together organizations and individuals from the nonprofit sector, government, journalism, academia, industry and the arts, to grow the sector and provide a platform for the exchange of ideas and resources. Through this work, Games for Change promotes new kinds of games that engage contemporary social issues in meaningful ways to foster a more just, equitable and tolerant society.

They have quite an extensive list of games here, let's take a look:

This is Third World Farmer and it is a good example of the type of 'games' that plague Serious Games. There is really not much 'gameness' to it, click a bunch of times placing 'crops', press the play button and see a read out of statistics telling you how your farm is doing and that some disease or another has killed half your stuff. Repeat. The characters do nothing, it is an empty land void of much interest, which is a barrier to it delivering any meaning to the player.

Why are so many 'Serious Games' like this? My first thought is that media is generally linear - film, books - but games are non-linear - they allow interaction on a different level than linear media. And these games forget that.

Case in point:

Agianst All Odds

I put together this step-by-step of what happens in this game.

1. "You are living in great danger and must flee your country. Will you survive? Test yourself!" - why? Why am I fleeing? Why should I test myself?

2. Choose a situation. - It can't be all that bad if I can choose what I would like to experience..

3."Who are you" - personalize the game here, put some of yourself into it if you want..

4. Cut scene...

5. "We will give you 10 statements to respond to".

6. A fun little drawing bit. Because everyone likes drawing.

7. Wrong choice response...?

8. See what happens if I doodle over here...

9. I get hit..

So if I doodle on the left side I get told off, if I doodle on the right side, I get 'hit'. Both responses seem to have no real effect as I get given another question right away.

They're trying to hit home some important messages in a very superficial way.
This 'game' is effectively a tickbox, result 1/result2.

"I give up the right to vote"

Y: No Right to vote, no democracy! Result: Next question

N: Get 'hit' Result: Next question.

Serious Games

2010-03-11T18:26:00.000+13:00

Okay well I've always thought they were kinda dry, mixing some arcade game with a different art style to 'inform the player'. BUT. It is a big field similar to what I'm researching so I might as well have a peek.

Games For Heath
This is annual conference with the aims "to improve health and health care." This means not just video games that involve physical activity, but also training health care professionals to better do their job.

This is an early introduction (2006) to the organization. The focus here is on the technology and experience opportunities that video games provide. There is little focus on actual games however. There seems to be a bit of a grey-area around 'video games'. The technology of real time graphics in a interactive world is automatically dubbed a 'video game' weather there is any game or not. It does offer a more rich interaction possibility space, people are able to test things out, train, learn in a different way - but often not as a 'game' - or a very superficial game.

Next on Joel's blog: What is a game and how, or why is it important? Stay tuned in.
Now: Games for Health.

Here's a later video. First part is mixing physical exercise with video games as is. That is physical actions propel an avatar forward, make them dance etc. It seems a bit, superficial but the players apparently really enjoyed it, and had not only the satisfaction of playing a game, but also of exercising.
The second part is about a game called ReMission. It is a third-person type game, but with heavy, information loaded content. It helps those undertaking Chemotherapy understand what's going on, and how to deal with it.

Experiment1: the man who is easy to anger part 2

2010-03-10T13:41:00.000+13:00

Some more experiments. This is work on directing the wandering. When one of the guys gets close to another, they become interested in each other and slowly approach.

test5: stop fighting. Using the player as an interference to try and break up fights. Currently only has minor collision code, needs to have influence.
test6: friends. subjects become interested in each other, and try to come closer but cant go past the circle. What results is that they just slowly get closer to each other, and become more relaxed. Eventually touching.
I intended to try a memory system, remembering who angered, who was friendly, and who is new.
test7: friends to enemies. They are attracted, and curious, but this causes them to get too close, and become angry and fight.

to do: hitpoints - each 'hit' during a fight drops a point, and on low points loser is thrown away, or winner becomes uninterested.

It's worth a read >>>

2010-03-09T15:32:00.001+13:00

http://picturesforsadchildren.com/index.php?comicID=315

Experiment1: the man who is easy to anger

2010-03-09T11:16:00.000+13:00

A man who is quick to anger becomes avoided with those who deal with him. They say "be careful".
-paraphrased from the Dalai Lama's teachings.

Would people be more considerate of others if they understood the real implications of their actions? Someone who is quick to anger becomes avoided, is there a way to communicate that through a play-based, non-linear sort of experience?

Here's a quick game that I whipped up, I intend to add a few more things, such as indirect control of the player, a reward solution for shrinking the circles, and the ai to tend toward things that 'interests' them.
Tguyb3

From the bedside: Games have meaning

2010-03-07T10:39:00.000+13:00

As designers, we all know that everything means something. Every coloured wall, every crossed T has some meaning in it. It is the basis of design.
You can agree then, that games have meaning too. They express something.
My argument is that games have a deeper meaning that is not expressed just in the artwork, story or that kind of top-level design. I argue that the core mechanics, the way you play the game, expresses a lot. The core mechanics shape your decision making within the game world and that is a powerful thing.
See slide #2 from the post below

Chris Crawford and people games

2010-03-07T10:21:00.000+13:00

Having worked in the game industry for sometime, Chris Crawford became tired with the stagnation of the games industry, which he described as being too 'deep' and lacking 'breadth'.

People games, as termed by Crawford, are games where the goals are of a social nature and focus on interactions with well-defined characters. They are described in Chris Crawford on Game Design as follows:

“

I dreamed of the day when computer games would be a viable medium of artistic expression — an art form. I dreamed of computer games expressing the full breadth of human experience and emotion. I dreamed of computer games that were tragedies, games about duty and honor, self-sacrifice and patriotism. I dreamed of satirical games and political games; games about the passionate love between a boy and girl, and the serene and mature love of a husband and wife of decades; games about a boy becoming a man, and a man realizing that he is no longer young. I dreamed of games about a man facing truth on a dusty main street at high noon, and a boy and his dog, and a prostitute with a heart of gold.

This is a famous 'dragon speech' in which he describes the industry as a dragon, and 'leaves to fight it'

Tilt Factor - Game Design for Social Change

2010-03-05T11:22:00.000+13:00

This site runs parallel with my final-year project, it's great to see that I'm not totally confused on the subject of meaningful game design.

"The Tiltfactor Laboratory makes screen based computer games as well as street games and table top games like card games and board games. Unlike typical commercial games, our mission is to focus on “critical play.” We make games for children, for adults, for the public, and for particular communities to raise issues, discussion points, or just innovate play in novel ways.
While our games can be seen as educational, it is important to us that they are fun!
Our software and playful art fosters rewarding, compelling, and socially-responsible interactions, with a focus on inventive game design for social change."

Vexta (shown opposite) is a board game useful for learning game design itself.
"Because game mechanics are one of the principal ways that games communicate, learning to “read” mechanics is a critical skill for developing game literacy."

Grow a game is a great a 'tool' game that they have created also. Online version here.
"Using Grow-A-Game, groups of people brainstorm novel game ideas which prioritize human values"
I would like to experiment with this, it looks like a really great learning tool. The grow a game link has a really great recording of a workshop done at a games conference with it, and there were some really amazing results.
A team got the cards 'scrabble' and 'democracy'. They decided that scrabbles mechanics were quite democratic already: "Some tiles are worth more than others, but there are lots of lesser tiles and they have to work together to win"

P4K Grow A Game

View more presentations from jayGK.

To read: Eight Myths about video games debunked

GWAP - Games With A Purpose

2010-03-05T09:33:00.000+13:00

Games being used for a social purpose. This site is from the creators of the ESPgame (aka the Google Image Labeler). If you haven't seen Google's new image search features, check the options in the Google image search - I always wondered how it worked..
The Purpose. The games on this site all have a common purpose: to make computers more intelligent. As you play the games, you are teaching computers things that they don't know yet. Please help them learn!

While a couple of the games aren't games at all (left) some are quite clever (see top right) - this one helps search engines understand words better I think.

Here's the ad for GWAP. It doesn't really say much, and it is quite lame (cute music + kid = cheese). But anywho:

Research points of interest.

2010-03-01T13:31:00.000+13:00

There's a couple of things that have caught my eye that I do not want to loose, so I thought I'd post it here.

1. Lecture by Johnathan Blow. In Conflicts in Games Design he talks about the dynamical meaning in games. This lecture narrowed my interest from plain game design to meaningful games. Design Reboot has a couple of thoughts on various things, including social responsibility of designers.
Conflicts in Game Design ; Design Reboot

2. The Marriage by Rod Humble. This game made me realize that I too, can make meaningful games. This game is a bare-bones example of a simple, interpretive game.
Linky
Johnathan Blow also has some good experimental games. Game Prototypes

3. Train by Brenda Brathwaite.
This game is a proof-of-concept that games can have real meaning. It has an ethical dilemma of sorts.

Dinosaur Comics creative...ness

2010-01-21T12:56:00.000+13:00

Today's comic with a twist : http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1632

Reading across the top tells a story, but then the bottom half flips it around and totally recontexualises (+1 big word!) the first half. I love it when games do this.

Oddly enough reminds me of Braid :O

Also: How often is too often to make a blog post?

Cribbage and card games

2010-01-21T10:40:00.000+13:00

While trying out a handful of card games over the summer holidays, I learnt about the common traits of card games I never knew of. Lots of games have a series of tricks that are played out, each player playing a hand as it goes round. Some have a limited amount of tricks, some play until all cards are out. Then there is Trumps, a suit that is higher than all the others, sometimes there is a hierarchy in which all suits have a value.

So I wanted to find out the differences of card games and the ones that stood out were 500, hearts, and Cribbage. Hearts was the easiest, Hearts is the trump suit - but the catch is that 'winning' cards of a hearts suit gives you minus points. So as you play the goal is to avoid 'winning' any hearts and make the other players get them. The saving grace for Hearts is the shoot-for-the-moon in which a player aims to obtain all the hearts and the queen of clubs (a special card that acts like a heart but gives -13 points, equal to all the hearts cards combined). If a player wins this, he is up a hundred points (or so).

Cribbage was my favorite, although I would have made a few changes to it. It has a nice tactile way of scoring by means of moving pins around a board, but I argue that it isn't necessary as pen & paper would work just as well (but not be as nice..) and the way in which you score was really awesome. You have a hand and try to make as many sets of runs, pairs, groups of whatever you can make to score, and every set you can make is worth points. It's a great puzzle that's really rewarding in making you feel like a genius.
It's the type of thing I can see making a good video game. Perhaps I should draw something up...

Terry Cavanagh's Pathways

2010-01-20T08:02:00.000+13:00

After his interview at Gamasutra I checked out some of his games, and they are really quite neat. They seem to take a simple concept on a simple game type, and just give it a little twist - sending the game spinning out into that weird zone around edge of the box.

Pathways' core mechanic is that, quite simply, you can't move backwards. After his other game "Don't look back"
I assume it's a thing he's toying with. This makes for some interesting story to the game, as you are unable to stop and return to characters as you pass them, and the characters comment on this. Your wife worries about you leaving, the girl outside the door gets more distraught as you never stop for her.
It reminds me of one section in Braid in the world with time going forwards only when you move forwards, and backwards when you move backwards. After you have completed a world and met the dinosaur guy at the end you have to move away from him in order for him to progress his dialogue, but then he yells at you for running away.
So where was I. Oh yes. Pathways.
You basically have to just travel all the different pathways, each one with its own story line: you kill a monster; join a group and slay a dragon; have an affair etc. Each ends the game at the end of its story, but then on restart it continues as though a day has passed. Each pathway becomes blocked off so there's no lost wander in this game. After all the pathways have been searched, there is an ending scene but I won't give that away. Because it's so short, just go and play it. It's 1.7mb that you won't regret.

Get it here: Pathways