Monthly Archives: June 2008

G4C2008: values at play, applied

Posted on by

Celia Pearce (Georgia Tech) aims to cultivate “critical play” — especially difficult to break “gamers” out of their mold. Following are student games emerging from V@P process.

  • Robin Hood Portal Mod: Portal mechanic, avoidance verb, generosity value, class division problem. (Apparently, using portal mechanic to steal stuff and decide what to do with l00t).
  • Rockasaurus Rangers: Developed without the cards but values made aware from earlier learning. Main value: cooperation. Appropriated Rock Star-like mechanic.
  • Heroin Shooter: Appropriate WarioWare mechanic — minigames to prepare to shoot up. Two outcomes: (1) withdrawal; (2) overdose. No “win state.” In this game, danger of “Landlord Game” (inspiration for Monopoly) — game that made exploiting the renters fun.

Tracy Fullerton (USC) applied V@P curriculum in intermediate course to “small games with big ideas.” Main focus on verbs and values (tried to avoid existing mechanisms). Initial ideation followed by formal playtesting at design (not interface) with outsiders. Some ideas that did or didn’t make it through the process:

  • Pilgrimage: miracles and suffering to create belief
  • Cante, Florezca: nurture a plant in Picasso’s apartment
  • Leaving: about a breakup — praising and trust — different actions have different effects at different points in time.
  • Welcome to 35th St — subverting and autonomy — choices on how to deal with gang members, striking the balance between becoming threat and victim
  • Frankenfarmer — nurturing, politics — parody of Monsanto’s business
  • Hush — singing, human rights — mother calming babies to hide from 1994 Rwanda genocide. Won the first Make a Better Game contest.

Jamie Antonisse and Devon Johnson described the process of creating the Hush game. Singing as a very personal mechanic. Inspired by Darfur is Dying. Going for a powerful and personal experience. Make use of the universal experience of mother and child for emotional impact, possibly emotion as a gameplay element.

(I strongly recommend experiencing Hush — I would love to discuss this one at our next meeting. Pay particular attention to the sound design).

G4C2008: values at play

Posted on by

Mary Flanagan (Tiltfactor, Values @ Play) — “a humanistic approach to game design.” How to think about / change existing gameplay to incorporate human values? How to embed human values/principles into design processes such as game design? Some of the values include privacy, creative expression, diversity, cooperation/, commons, community/collective decision making, altruism/sharing, inclusivity?

V@P recreating iterative design process to examine human values.

Studies to test impact of V@P curriculum on designers. “Grow a game” brainstorming cards. (Verbs, Challenges, Games, Values). Stages of Concern Instrument to measure changes in attitudes about values-conscious design.

Findings:

  1. The big issue with making activist games is a perceived conflict between fun and the seriousness of the social issue (don’t want to make light of that issue). Going too serious leads to strange unintended consequences, e.g. Jena 6 game ends up seeming racist — therefore need to maintain the values.
  2. Students’ three strategies: (1) the unwinnable game; (2) appropriate mainstream games for activist purposes; (3) most difficult to accomplish — invent new mechanics

See V@P public contest — deadline July 1.

G4C2008: some genre terminology

Posted on by

On a panel on “Journalism, Games, and Civic Engagement,” Asi Burak of Impact Games (Peacemaker) suggests the following tags for interactive media, which he distinguishes from “games”:

  1. Editorial short-form — Ian Bogost’s “Persuasive Games” (I’m curious what Ian thinks of this tag)
  2. Advocacy short-form — Darfur is Dying, Starbucks’ environment game
  3. Long-form advocacy — Peacemaker, A Force More Powerful — goal is to come out with the realization, “It’s more complex than I thought”
  4. Community interaction — World without Oil

Other possible terms: “Experiential storytelling,” “Interactive infographic”? One audience member points out that games usually have meaningful choice, a magic circle, a win state that some of these examples do not.

I’m not sure I would put A Force More Powerful in the “Advocacy” camp since its main focus is to teach strategy (not just demonstrate complexity), but as Asi points out, both that title and Peacemaker have a “bias for peace” built into the design. (In AFMP, demonstrations that go violent is a Bad Thing).

Another journalism game: Joellen Easton of American Public Media demonstrated Budget Hero, which allows players to set their own goals through selecting a “badge” (e.g. national security, universal health care). It’s particularly interesting to me that these goals (and thus, the underlying values) cannot all be met, which for me is a criterion for a “meaningful choice.”

APM is also finding that players of Budget Hero are significantly younger than consumers of other public media: 53% are 18-35.

Why a game: Player experiences tension between own assumptions and the facts built into the game (assuming vetted facts are correct) — Joellen. Limitations of traditional media that lack context, cause-effect — Asi.

G4C2008: “Interactive storytelling” 3x larger than games industry

Posted on by

Liveblogging Games for Change:

On the first panel this morning, Chris Crawford (Balance of Power) described his commitment to interpersonal games. (I was not aware of a game he created in the ’80s called “Gossip.”) Today he launched a new spin on Balance of Power in which states are represented as geopolitical “people” (I will post a link when I find it — the general site is StoryTron.).

The most interesting claim Chris made was that the market for “interactive storytelling” (a medium that is more relationship-based) will be 3x larger than the current games industry — that would be a $60B+ market. He observes that the existing industry is “creatively dead” or, synonymously, “marketing mature.”