Game Design as Art Practice

Game Design Statement

2004-12-08T08:20:00.000-08:00

Deadline: By Friday December 17 12 PM Noon, your final Game Design Statement must be:
1) At least 500 words
2) spell-checked, proofread, complete sentences, etc.
3) posted to your blog AND
4) emailed to me at jane@avantgame.com
If I don’t have it by the noon deadline, you will NOT receive credit for this assignment.

I’ve found in the past that the best way to approach a personal statement or position paper of any kind is to conduct an initial “interview”. An interview helps you skip the writers’ block stage and get right to the juicy details about you, your work, and what you care about.

Below is an interview for you, the game designer. Answering the specific interview questions during our workshop will help you get lots of ideas and examples down on paper. Later, you can pick your best answers and expand on them, re-order them, and otherwise combine them to create an interesting, detailed and very personal design statement.

Interview questions
You can start anywhere on the list, and feel free to skip around. If you get stumped on a question, you can ignore it, but try to stretch yourself and answer as many as possible.

ABOUT YOUR GAME
1) What is your game called? Did it have any other working titles? How did you settle on the final name?
2) What action verbs describe your game play?
3) What adjectives describe your game play?
4) What is the genre of your game? Why did you choose that particular genre?
5) What is the platform for your game? Why did you choose that particular platform?
6) What is the scale of your game (# of players, length of a game)? Why did you decide on this scale?
7) Did you want your game to be site-specific, or playable anywhere, or somewhere in between? Why?
8) Where exactly can your game be played? Why do you think people should play games in that kind of space? Does your game change that space in any way?
9) What is different about your game from most other games?
10) Who will be able to play your game in the future? How, and where? In other words, how will your game live on outside of the class?

DESIGN PROCESS
1) What is the core mechanic of your game? What is the theme? Which did you come up with first? How did one influence the other?
2) What kind of player experience did you hope to create with your game? Did your goals change during the design process?
3) Pick a sentence from any of our readings that means something to you as a game designer. Quote it. Explain the quotation. Relate it to your game project. This question is mandatory.
4) What is the most ingenious rule you devised for your game?
5) What specific design choice are you most happy with, and why?
6) Which design element was the hardest to figure out, and why?
7) What did you learn about your game during playtesting? (prototype, beta, or both) What did you change as a result?
8) Did you make any other mistakes or miscalculations in the design process? How did you fix them?
9) Are you happy with how your game has turned out?
10) What would you try differently in a future game design?

GENERAL
1) Why did you want to make a game, as opposed to some other kind of art project?
2) What kind of game does the world need more of?
3) What do you consider to be the qualities of a well-designed game?
4) What games have influenced your approach to game design? What, specifically, about those games influenced you?
5) What game theorists or theories have influenced your approach to game design? (ex: Greg Kostikyan, lusory attitude, magic circle, meaningful play, etc.) Explain the theory, or the main point of the theorist. Why did this theory (or theorist) appeal to you? **This question is mandatory. Show me you learned something from our readings!**
6) What is it like working in the medium of “game design” as opposed to other artistic mediums you have worked in previously?

CONCLUSIONS
1) What advice would you give to other game designers?
2) Is there anything else the world should know about you, as a game designer?
3) Is there anything else the world should know about your game?Interview questions

Final beta testing schedule

2004-12-06T09:42:00.000-08:00

Below is our updated beta testing schedule for Monday. Please check to see what games you will be testing. Please arrive on time and prepared to play! Also, beta testers: please have your game set up BEFORE our class meeting if major installation or equipment layout is required.

MONDAY
Katie’s A Public Game: Report from players: 4:20 – 4:45 (Cihan and Grey)

Lauren's untitled roleplaying game: 4:45 - 5:30 (12 players: Lauren observes, while EVERYONE else plays)

Kwansoo's untitled Twister mod: 5:30 - 6:00 (Kwansoo observes, while EVERYONE else plays in rotation or forms an audience)

Jay’s game: 6:00 – 6:30 (Jay observes, while EVERYONE plays)

Calvin and Leo's Lonely City: FIELD TRIP! 6:30 – 7:00 Demo and design document tour @ the designers’ apartment

Updated Beta Schedules

2004-11-30T19:26:00.000-08:00

Below is our updated beta testing schedule for Wednesday and next Monday. Please check to see what games you will be testing. Please arrive on time and prepared to play! Also, beta testers: please have your game set up BEFORE our class meeting if major installation or equipment layout is required.

WEDNESDAY
Roger’s Divided Attention, 4:30 – 4:45 (12 players: Roger observes, while EVERYONE else plays)

Jessica’s Avatar, 4:45 – 5:15 (12 players: Jessica observes, while EVERYONE else plays)

Lauren's untitled roleplaying game: 5:15 - 5:45 (12 players: Lauren observes, while EVERYONE else plays)

Q’s C-Walk: 5:45 – 6:15 (Video presentation, followed by group play while EVERYONE either competes or forms an audience)

Elliot's SFAI Balance Challenge: 6:15 - 7:00 (4 players and an audience: Elliot and EVERYONE ELSE forms an audience, while Lauren, Grey, Leo, and Kwansoo play)

NEXT MONDAY
Katie’s A Public Game: Report from players: 4:20 – 4:45 (Cihan and Grey)

Kwansoo's untitled Twister mod: 4:45 - 5:15 (Kwansoo observes, while EVERYONE else plays in rotation or forms an audience)

Jay’s game: 5:15 – 5:45 (Jay observes, while EVERYONE plays)

5:45 – 6:00 EXPLAIN GAME DESIGN STATEMENT WORKSHOP

Calvin and Leo's Lonely City: FIELD TRIP! 6:15 – 7:00 Demo and design document tour @ the designers’ apartment

Beta Testing Schedule- IMPORTANT!

2004-11-28T13:03:00.000-08:00

Below is our beta testing schedule for Monday and Wednesday. Please check to see what game you will be testing on Monday and please arrive on time and prepared to play! Also, beta testers: please have your game set up BEFORE our class meeting if major installation or equipment layout is required.

If you did not submit your beta testing request as required (see the latest blog post @ www.artpractice.blogspot.com if your memory fails you) you are currently listed as *unscheduled* for beta testing. If I do not receive a beta testing request from you by the end of the weekend (Sunday night), I cannot guarantee that you will receive a beta testing slot. I have one slot open on Monday for a shorter game (1 hour or less) for a smaller # of players (not the whole class); if this fits your game and you are ready to test on Monday, please email me ASAP.

MONDAY
Jacob's Cafe Bowling: 4:30 - 5:00 (10 players: EVERYONE will be in cafe; Jacob, Elliot, and Kwansoo observe and play the "bystanding public" while EVERYONE else plays the game)
Grey's Frisco Wars: 5:00 - 7:00 (4 players: Grey observes, while Elliot, Roger, Lauren and Leo play)
Kwansoo's untitled game: 5:00 - 5:45 (7 players: Kwansoo observes, while Jessica, Calvin, Q, Katie, Jacob, Jay and Cihan play)
Cihan's Zilchmaster: 5:45 - 6:15 (4 players: Cihan observes, while Jay, Jacob, Katie, and Kwansoo play)
Katie's A Public Game: Packets distributed to 2 players who take 30 minute to discuss/practice and then will return them on Wednesday. (2 players: Katie oversees, while Jessica and Calvin play/prepare to play)

WEDNESDAY
Lauren's untitled roleplaying game: 4:30 - 5:00 (12 players: Lauren observes, while EVERYONE else plays)
Elliot's SFAI Balance Challenge: 6:15 - 7:00 (4 players: Elliot observes, while Lauren, Calvin, Leo, and Kwansoo play)

Roger's game, unscheduled
Calvin and Leo's game, unscheduled
Jessica's game, unscheduled
Jay's game, unscheduled
Q's game, unscheduled

Beta Test Requests!

2004-11-21T09:47:00.000-08:00

Remember to get your beta testing requests in by this Thursday (Thanksgiving!) Please email me with the following information:

- Name of the game you are beta testing
- Final platform of the game and any special needs (an empty room, outdoors, 2 computers with Internet, etc.)
- # of players for a complete game
- length of time for a complete game

If you do NOT submit a beta request, you will not be allocated a beta testing slot and will not be able to beta test your game.

FORMAL FEEDBACK Playtesting 1: The Prototype!

2004-11-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

Congratulations! You have reached stage one of the playtesting process. Your job today is to collect feedback from playtesters, and to give feedback to your fellow game designers.

You will give FORMAL feedback to two other games on your blog this week. (A Monday game and a Wednesday game) The first formal feedback is due BEFORE class on Wednesday; the second is due by Friday 5 PM. Over the weekend, after you have completed your feedback to others, you will post your own thoughts on how your playtesting went. This response is due Monday 9 AM. It can be informal; you should address other players’ feedback and discuss your own feelings about what went well and what needs improvement.

Your formal feedback blog posts should address the following questions:
1. What is the name of the game you are giving feedback on, and who designed it?

2. What is the “platform” of the game, and what genre of gaming does it fit into?

3. What verb(s) would you use to describe the core mechanic?

4. What adjective(s) would you use to describe the experience of playing that game, as it is currently designed?

5. Does the project you playtested have enough structure yet to be formally considered a game? What elements of a game are currently missing from the prototype, if any? (ex: a clearly defined goal; rules constraining player behavior; the ability to make decisions that affect the game result; resources for players to manage; “the lusory attitude” is required; a “magic circle” is created; etc.)

6. Which of the formal game elements mentioned above is best developed in the prototype you tested? How so?

7. How clear are the rules as currently presented, on a scale of 1 – 10? Specifically, what if anything needs to be more presented more clearly to players?

8. Was it possible to develop a strategy while playing this prototype? If so, what strategy (or strategies) did you use?

9. What surprised you, if anything, about the actual play of the game, compared to your expectations after hearing it described and reading the rules? Did anything unexpected happen during play? Was the experience more, or less, of something than you would have guessed?

10. How do you imagine this prototype best developing into a final version? What should it become more of? less of? What specific modifications would you recommend?

Once you have addressed all of these points, please feel free to share any additional playtesting memories, or additional thoughts, criticisms, and suggestions about the prototype. Good luck!

PLAYTESTING I: Prototypes November 8 and November 10

2004-11-07T09:34:00.000-08:00

Remember: It’s absolutely okay (in fact, it’s expected) to have just a small part of your game playable, or to have a low-tech, low-aesthetic, or “bare bones” version of your game.

At the same time, we must be able to PLAY, not just look at, interact with or talk about, your game. We must have a CLEAR GOAL and SPECIFIC ACTIONS to take. A formal presentation of the RULES of your game is required so that we know how to play your game.

We will play your game for 30 minutes or less. All class members will be graded on their participation in and close observation of the playtesting other people’s games, as well as on the preparation of their own prototype.

Please treat both of these classes as an exam. Class and playtesting begins promptly at 4:15. If you miss class or are late without 24 hours approved notice, your final grade for the semester will be lowered up to 1/3 of a letter grade.

If you would prefer to go on a day other than the one you are scheduled for, it is YOUR responsibility to switch with someone on the other day.

Day 1 (Monday)
Cihan
Jessica
Grey
Lauren
Q
Kwan Soo

Day 2 (Wednesday)
Roger
Leo/Calvin
Jacob
Katie
Jay
Elliot

Alternate Reality Game wraps

2004-11-03T19:05:00.000-08:00

hmmm...
now here's a very interesting New York Times Article: Sci-Fi Fans Are Called into an Alternate Reality ...

Getting ready for Prototypye Playtesting!

2004-11-03T13:05:00.000-08:00

Two blog assignments will help you prepare for next week's playtesting of your prototypes.

1. Based on the brief descriptions presented in class, please choose another class member's game project to comment on. Find and visit that game designer's blog (see the links in the sidebar!), and give the designer feeedback, support, or suggestions in a comment to any recent post. If you missed class on Monday, choose a game designer's blog, review their most recent project post, and use that as the basis for your comment.

2. RULES, RULES, RULES! We analyzed rule books for a variety of console and PC games. Now it's your turn to decide the format, style and concept of your rules presentation. If you are going to explore something more high concept or stylistically innovative, please describe your ideas and plan in a Rules blog post. If you are going with a traditional rules presentation, please post a draft of your rules for comments and feedback. Remember, every single prototype must come with a rules set!

Prototype Playtesting begins Monday November 8!

Individual Project Meetings Next Week

2004-10-19T23:28:00.000-07:00

Get ready! We'll be having 25-minute conversations about your individual projects next Monday and Wednesday.

To prepare, please type and bring with you a list of problems or questions you have related to your project.

Week 7: Information Systems and Cybernetic Systems

2004-10-19T19:28:00.000-07:00

For your game critique this week, consider the following:

-Does the game you've played have, overall, "perfect information" (chess, Pac-Man) or "imperfect information" (Witchhunt, poker)? What are the different kinds of information contained in the game? Is there an economy of information? How does it work?

-Does the game feature either positive feedback (tends toward extremes, unbalanced play) or negative feedback (tends to stabilize, balanced play) ? In what way? How does the feedback affect your game experience?

Week 6: Emergent Play

2004-10-16T19:19:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, we discussed Design for an Ebay Resistant Virtual Economy, an excellent example of a game designer observing emergent play (twinking, muling, ebaying), tracing the play back to key design choices(gifting, scarcity, e.g.) , and making new design choices to encourage a different kind of play.

Your assignment this weekend: Find an example of emergent play in a game that resembles your final project. That is, answer the following question: What are players of that game doing before, during or after play that could not be anticipated just by reading the rules of the game? Once you have identified the emergent phenomenon, discuss what design choice or choices you think are responsible for it.

Subservient Chicken

2004-10-12T23:23:00.001-07:00

A slightly random post to encourage you to check out Subservient Chicken, the strange interactive site at which you give commands to a giant, creepy looking chicken-suit.

Take 5 minutes or more to play with this system. What are your instincts as you begin to play? Do they change over time?

Subservient Chicken is an excellent example of emergent play. I'll update this post later with links to evidence of this emergent play, but for now-- just check it out.

(Oh, I can't help it: Here is some evidence of emergent play with the Subservient Chicken system: here, and here. Why do you think I'm calling this stuff emergent play? Also, there's lots more out there, find anything interesting?)

Week 6: Meaningful Play

2004-10-12T23:23:00.000-07:00

According to Salen & Zimmerman, meaningful play requires that players be given opportunities to take non-random actions or make decisions that have a discernable (immediately clear) and integrated (makes "big-picture" sense) effect on the game.

For your game critique this week, please evaluate a game you play by asking the question: Does meaningful play happen? To what degree is it meaningful, compared to other games? Which game design elements make it meaningful (or not)?

Week 5: Core Mechanic

2004-10-06T13:06:00.000-07:00

Today's topic: core mechanic, the thing players do over and over again during a game.

Emphasizing the core mechanic at the start of a game design project is "designing by verb"-- thinking first and foremost about what you want players to DO, rather than the story you want to tell, the site you want to play in, the characters you want to create, the puzzles you want to make, or the scale you want to achieve, for example.

To help you with your next project post, here is a web site with 3100 Enlish language verbs.

By Monday, pick out some verbs that you think might make interesting core mechanics or supporting mechanics for your individual game project. What about these verbs would make for interesting play? What kind of gaming experience would they help you create? What kinds of interaction, narrative, or decision making might they lead to or support?

Most controversial games of all time

2004-10-06T09:22:00.000-07:00

As promised, here is that killer article on the history of computer game controversies:

Also, a very cool article on the 20 worst (digital) games of all-time.

Notice in both of these articles the huge role backstory plays in generating controversy about a game... it's at least as controversy-inspiring as the other major "bad guy", graphical realism (e.g., realistic violence).

Also, some new "games we're studying" links in the sidebar ---> Including that classic backstory-driven adult Atari game, some snippets from the manual I present to you here (I swear this is verbatim, this is from the actua game manual! good heavens...) :

BACHELOR PARTY
Foreplay
The object of the game is to use your paddle control to line up the Spanish Fly with the flying bachelor, giving him a shot of energy and causing him to rebound, and "scoring" with one of the lovely young ladies attending his party. When the game starts, the bachelor has four lives. Every time he misses the Spanish Fly he loses one life and a musical theme is played. After each life is lost, you must depress the button again. When all the lives are lost the game is over. Small squares on the stripe at the bottom of the screen show how many lives are remaining in addition to the one then in play. Note that when the bachelor flies toward the women, his private part (P.P.) is in an erect state. As he returns toward the Spanish Fly, it is in a limp condition. Also note that as the bachelor travels around,The Flight of the Bumble Bee is played. Scoring
When the bachelor successfully "scores" with a woman you score 5 points and the woman disappears. As the bachelor "scores", a fanfare of Charge is played.

You can visit the sidebar link for more from the manual, the pong-like screenshots, and more...

Week 5: Narrative

2004-10-06T08:58:00.000-07:00

Can I interest anyone in a quick game of Mrs. Magruder's? Nuns Gone Wild? or the defacing gods game whose name escapes me? Space Cat, of course, is on its way...

Well. Your re-designs of the plain ol' dice game on Monday were impressive, outrageous and incredibly instructive. You took a supremely boring, repetitive de-contextualized game and gave it a backstory and a new, story-driven tracking mechanism that created all kinds of emergent performed story and, yes, I think many stories of play. (I for one have since related some of the game highlights to a few folks...) Also, cheers to all for being extremely daring playtesters this week.

For your game critique this week, please analyze a game for its:
Presented Narratives:
1) Backstory
2) Revealed story, and
Emergent Narratives:
3) Peformed story
4) Story of play
Which elements are most important to this particular game? How specifically are they presented, or how do they emerge? What are the game elements that re-inforce, develop or allow the narrative to be presented or emerge?

(*Jane now resumes her Dunkino worship.)

Week 4: Interactivity

2004-09-29T23:10:00.001-07:00

Amazing mystery machines today.

I loved the inpenetrable absurdity of the first group's (as-yet-unsolved) mystery machine. You kept us in such a highly entertaining loop between stage 2 (exploration) and stage 4 (reciprocal change)... and your performances were so funny in how deadpan you were able to stay. I hope we can get to stage 3 (modification) so we can play more strategically with you!

The second group was wicked fun to interact with, no? Its function was such a surprising reveal, and that moment of realization ("It's a massage machine! Yay!" --> "Oh no! It's also a tickle machine!" --> "ACK! It's a punching machine!") resulted in such a frenzy of spontaneous and motivated interaction. This one is an instant classic, I think.

The third group had such terrifically clear and clever affordances! The prize candy was a great clue that there was an absolute goal and that a win-condition was possible. The rocks-paper-scissors interface was also extremely legible to us newbie users. I also really enjoyed the site-specific use of the fountain as a level indicator. Nice work.

Good stuff, all around.

Now: for your game critique this week, please use Chris Crawford's definition of interactivity and/or Mark Stephen Meadow's four steps of interaction to analyze the interactivity in a game.

Week 4: Scale and Duration

2004-09-29T23:10:00.000-07:00

For your next project post, I'd like you to think about the 3 measures of scale and duration we discussed this week: the number of players, the spatial-geographic scale, and the temporal duration.

In other words:
-Do you want your game to be solo-player, massively multiplayer or somewhere in between?
-How big, literally, will the game's literal "magic circle" be-- a table, a field, a city block, a city, a single computer, 20 networked computers, 100 cellphones?...
-And, how long will a game take? Will it be persisent (you never turn it off) or periodic (you can put it on pause)?

Of course, you can change your mind about any of these decision decisions as you develop the project. For now, however, it's important to start laying a foundation for your game by making some "big-picture" decisions. Good luck!

Week 3: Site Specific Play

2004-09-26T22:12:00.000-07:00

For your first project post, I'd like you to write a bit about *where* you think your final game will be deployed. Is it a space or place that requires or suggests a site-specific game design? Or do you prefer to design a site-interchangeable game for some kind of traditonal game space? What kind?

Week 3: The Magic Circle and Lusory Attitude

2004-09-21T13:17:00.000-07:00

Great discussion yesterday on Suit's lusory attitude and Huizinga's magic circle (as explored by Salen & Zimmerman... who will guide us through many interesting topics this semester!)

For your game critique this week, please be sure to:
1) pick a different genre/platform than last week's critiqued games
2) include in your critique some analysis of the game's magic circle, and/or its "pleasurable inefficiency" (a la the lusory attitude)
As always, feel free to refer back to earlier concepts (Costikyan's meaningful decisions or Avedon's elements, e.g.)

Meanwhile... work on an Assassins-inspired original SFAI game design continues. It looks like we will have a final "collaborative" project this semester as well as your individual final projects. Based on the very exciting design ideas that bubbled up just in the final moments of class, our re-design of Assassins seems like an excellent prospect for an ongoing group project. Looking forward to continue discussion on blogs and in class!

Week 2: Structural Elements of Games

2004-09-15T22:25:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Avedon and Costikyan, we have two sets of really specific tools for analyzing and critiquing games. When you write up your second game critique this week, pick some of the structural elements from either article to help you explain your game play experience.

Next up: The Magic Circle! A perfect game theory to go with an SFAI mod of Assassins. You can read about one campus banning Assassins after extreme play here. A very clear set of one school's particular rules is here, including the following details, which answer some of the questions raised in class: If you are sure someone is your assassin, you may risk killing them. Killing a player who is not your target or your assassin will result in your own death and the usual 24 hour waiting period. Attempting to kill someone who is not playing Assassin will likely result in a very confused person. Totally magic circle design issues! (Read up for Monday, everyone.)

Week 2: Surrealist Art Games

2004-09-14T01:57:00.001-07:00

A big shout-out to the Coolest Team Ever and the Coolest Team Ever +1 for your creative, clever, absurd solutions to the Zen Scavenger Hunt. The surrealists would be proud. Also, many thanks for your great suggestions for future re-designs of the game.

Speaking of the surrealists: for your first blog post this week, write a brief critique of your experience playing one of the four surrealist art games decribed in this week's reading: the Exquisite Corpse (words) for 3 or more players; the Exquisite Corpse (images) for 3 or more players; Question and Answer for 2 players; or The Irrational Nature of Objects for 1 player. You can mod these games any way you want-- if you change the design in some way, tell us about it and how it worked out!

Here are some "quickfire" (60 seconds for each segment) exquisite corpses collected from students last spring. I'd love to see (and photograph) your surrealist play, so bring in any remnants of, or artifacts from, your surrealist art gaming this week. Thanks!

Welcome to Game Design as Art Practice

2004-07-29T22:40:00.000-07:00

Game design allows artists to create meaningful play and interactive experience in any medium. This introductory course, which explores both digital and non-digital games, aims to provide you with a critical vocabulary and historical context for analyzing games as art, as well as the skills and techniques necessary to incorporate game design into your ongoing art practice.

Through a combination of theoretical readings, case studies, critical analysis and design exercises, we will explore together the expressive potential of games. You will learn how to identify, craft and manipulate core game elements such as player objectives, scale, duration, site-specific design, backstory, benchmarks, information flow, feedback structures, endgame scenarios, payoffs, meta-play, and competitive vs. cooperative dynamics.

As a final project, you will work toward the design, development and deployment of a game in any medium of your choice. While digitally-based projects are welcome, you may also choose to work entirely with non-digital media.

This course begins September 8, 2004. See you then!