This blog serves as a place to talk about my experiences playing new-to-me videogames and hanging out in SecondLife. It might encourage others to try playing games and spending time in virtual worlds.
24 Hour Game Jam sponsored by the IC Game Developers Club
The grups had to make a multi-level game using this quote as a constraint - "If you follow all the rules, you miss most the fun". Both groups decided to use GameMaker, software from YoYo Games.
Paradoxical Irony
Team consisted of Ashley Alicea (art), Ryan Giglio (programming), Carson Kjep (programming), and William Sisskind (level design). They all worked on the basic idea and how to implement the constraint http://www.yoyogames.com/games/show/102725
Here are a few screen shots. More are available on request.
Another group created a newscast about facebook games
Here are their show notes
Show Notes for Facebook Games!
Group Members: Sarah Lounsbury Colleen Muldowney Dave Zhao
Introduction (Approximately a minute long – gives the audience a general idea of what topic we will be discussing) (News Anchors: Colleen and Sarah)
“According to Nielsen NewView numbers for September, people spent an average of 5 hours and 46 minutes on Facebook. That is three times the amount spent on Google!”
Recently, gaming on social networks has become a very popular activity for the young and old alike.
Currently, Farmville is the top ranked game (with the most players) on Facebook. The top games in order of ranking are: Farmville, Mafia Wars, Farmtown, Pet Society, YoVille, TexasHoldEmPoker, Restaurant City, Mind Jolt Games, Farkle, and Bejeweled Blitz.
Farmville has 51.5 million users; Mafia Wars has approximate 22 million users; Farmtown has approximately 19 million users.
To attempt and get an idea of what all this hype was about, we created a blog and asked current Farmville players three questions: What they like about this game? How did they get involved in this game? What is their present level?
We will now cut over to Dave Zhao at the news desk to tell you a little background information on the Facebook game, Farmville.
Facebook Games: Background of Farmville (News Anchor: Dave)
Facebook has become one of the most popular social networking sites to date. And with the popularity, comes an innumerable amount of games. Millions of users log on in order to play these highly addictive games. One of the current most popular games happens to be made by a company known as Zynga. Zynga, founded by Mark Pincus, is the known creator of games such as Farmville. Farmville, a role-playing farm simulator, allows players to take to the fields and manage crops, livestock, and other farm related tasks. Gamers receive experience and wealth through successfully harvesting their crops, and over time, increase their overall experience level. As they increase in levels, players unlock a greater range of crops, livestock, and many other farm materials. Such simulators however, employ time-based systems. For instance, Farmers must wait anywhere from hours to days in order for their crops to be harvested correctly. This common “real-time” quality of Facebook games compels players to take a break, leaving players wanting more. Now I’m going to send it back over to Sarah who will discuss some of the first-hand accounts of Farmville users.
Opinions from real Farmville players off the forum we started (New Anchor Voice: Sarah) (Pictures of our neighbors farm’s on Facebook will scroll on the screen while Sarah reads some comments)
Hoosiermama63 – “Very cool project you've decided on! I'm currently level 34 and still enjoying every minute of my time spent playing this game. I got started playing when one of my FB friends sent me an invite, and became addicted quickly! My farm is my Happy Place. I love the quiet time I spend on here just doing my planting/harvesting/plowing. I enjoy getting ideas from other farmers on this forum and incorporating them in my version, on my farm. This is my little space on the web, away from the sometimes loud, oftentimes distracting hustle and bustle of everyday living.”
KeyboardWarrior – “Yea.. considering IPod takes 3 years to have a market share of 50million.. Facebook took 2 years. Farmville? In just about 3 months.”
BigMonster – (Reponding the question: What is your current level?) “35, and is the king in my office of 800 co workers, about 20% play the game and I love to brag about my achievements with co workers.”
Aiona – “it's also remarkably social. i have met tons of really cool people from all over the world through this game. i LOVE that. i also find myself keeping in better contact with my real life friends and family because of the time i spend on facebook playing farmville.”
Miss Molly – “I started playing several months ago. This is the first and only game I play. I am level 38. Reason I love it: No shooting and killing. Meet new friends and neighbors all over the world. I was introduced to the game by my children.”
Conclusion (Back to Sarah and Colleen)
We are about out of time but we thank you for tuning in. If you would like to read more comments from Farmville players please visit the link on your screen! (HYPERLINK "http://forums.zynga.com/showthread.php?t=223377"http://forums.zynga.com/showthread.php?t=223377) Have a good night.
Material that we researched but got cut out of the actual video footage:
Facebook has become one of the most popular social networking sites to date. And with the popularity, comes an innumerable amount of games. Millions of users log on in order to play these highly addictive games. Two of the current most popular games happen to be made by a company known as Zynga. Zynga, founded by Mark Pincus, is the known creator of games such as Farmville and Mafia Wars games. Farmville, a role-playing farm simulator, allows players to take to the fields and manage crops, livestock, and other farm related tasks. Gamers receive experience and wealth through successfully harvesting their crops, and over time, increase their overall experience level. As they increase in levels, players unlock a greater range of crops, livestock, and many other farm materials. Similarly, Mafia Wars parallels the life of a mobster, as players complete tasks such as robbing a warehouse and mugging. Mobsters gain levels by completing these, and other tasks, while also being able to battle other players. Weapons and getaway vehicles are among a few of the many items players can purchase as they progress through the game. Both of these simulators however, employ time-based systems. For instance, Farmers must wait anywhere from hours to days in order for their crops to be harvested correctly. Likewise, in order to complete jobs, mobsters in Mafia Wars must meet the required energy amount. Players recover energy gradually with time. This common “real-time” quality of Facebook games compels players to take a break, leaving players wanting more.
Some Facebook games come from board game type games (Simon, Uno)
Some games take off of the other games like Super Paper Pong, Crazy Taxi, and Snake
There are Facebook game groups
The games are FREE!
The games are very social and you can challenge your friends/family
Some of them encourage you to add news friends
Some will give you frequent updates and ask you come back and play the game again
The games try to put “advertisements and achievements” on your wall
Some of the games, like Farmville, even involve real money!
References:
HYPERLINK "http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/arts/television/11facebook.html"http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/arts/television/11facebook.html
HYPERLINK "http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25521"http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25521
HYPERLINK "http://www.urlesque.com/2009/10/02/7-addictive-facebook-games/"http://www.urlesque.com/2009/10/02/7-addictive-facebook-games/
HYPERLINK "http://www.zynga.com/about/"http://www.zynga.com/about/
HYPERLINK "http://forums.zynga.com/showthread.php?t=223377"http://forums.zynga.com/showthread.php?t=223377 This is a post that we created for this project. If you read the first comment it will explain what information we asked players for.
HYPERLINK "http://www.facebook.com"http://www.facebook.com
I went last year with 3 students - here's a link to a post from there and some photos I took . Going again this year with some students to check out the classic arcade games and retro videogame section and the career seminars. They may take part in some tournaments too, and hopefully, meet some other game development students. At least one group will be videotaping tings at the expo for a project; if they like how it turns out, I"ll include a link to their project in a future post.
Last year there was a little bit of anime and a room with a giant multiplayer DDR set up - multiplayer as in 30 or 40 people at a time. It was a hoot.
I'm thinking about having the juniors in our program create a game of some kind in SL. It has 3d building; you can make animations; you can put scripts in objects to make them do things; there is an audience of people looking for things to do who know the ins and outs of SL already - in other words, you could create an interesting game. There are a variety of games - role play, arcade, board in SL already.
Some of these games use HUDs (heads up displays) to control combat. Here is info on a couple of them
2 HUDs discussed in this new world notes post - http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2007/07/weapons-of-choi.html DCS2 (Dark Combat System v2) the company handles most of the set up and runs the server with user stats, stats carry across multiple sims and so do weapons - not too customizable but very easy to get started. they keep 90% of revenues from weapons sales to make their money so the game probably won't make any money
CCS (Community Combat System) you have to do all the set up and can customize the heck out of it - you have to run the server for user stats and they don't go from sim to sim. Possible to make money since you pay a little up front nd then keep all revenues from weapons sales
Erie Isle - http://www.erie-isle.com/ - there's a very active calendar of events, groups for new players, they use the Osiris combat system, separate areas for humans and supernaturals, lots of weapons, good role play
This semester in Critical Analysis of Games, we had about 12 or 13 games out of a class of 26. Some folks worked alone because of their schedules or because they were the only person interested in a topic. Here is a link to all the projects for this class: projects. You can see more pictures here on Flickr.
There were games about LOLcats, YouTube videos, space pirates, Dante's Inferno, Dr. Horrible's musical blog, greek mythology, dating in the 50s, retro space adventuring, trans-Canadian highway system, children's fairy tales, and bounty hunting. We had board games, trivia games, card games, and combinations. The play test session was hectic. We rotated games in and out as people finished a round. It would be better to let them play a round, have a few minutes to make notes, and then repeat. For that we need space and people - lots of people - since most of the games need 4 players.
We invited some staff and other professors to come play. They gave the students good feedback. It was a way for other people in the school to see what kinds of things students in the new game design major will do. And it's important for students to get feedback from someone other than me (or their peers). Especially if we want to think about making commercially viable games - we need to understand different markets
Having our playtest time during final exams week makes it tough to get students. Next year we're going to do the big play test the last week of classes. That will give the students more time to revise and do their write up too. This year we had candidates in doing demo classes so we were a little short of time.
If you have an iGoogle page these are worth checking out - google has created a series of themes for the iGoogle page using intellectual property from videogames - with the game publishers' permission. So you can have Mario and Megaman and characters from Zelda, The Sims and Guitar Hero, and evfen Wii Sports on your iGoogle page.
I hope they add them to the themes for gmail. I use it a lot more than I use my iGoogle page.
I'm going with the game of the day - every day graphics from a different game till I see what I like. Probably I'll spend time going - wtf - what game is that from - ha ha ha.
Over the winter break month I tried to play a variety of new to me games. I got side tracked when I pulled out my DDR for the PS2. I'm bad at it but it is fun to play. Today I hooked up the EyeToy (a USB camera that hooks up to the PS2 and is recognized by the DDR). Turns out I am even more uncoordinated than I imagined. You have to use your feet and hands. You have to put your hands so they cover specific parts of the screen and move your feet with the arrows. I was doing ok in the setting labeled "hands OR feet". Then I moved to what is my normal level in DDR (easy peasey) and it became "hands AND feet" and I fell over - not literally but my own lack of aptitude made be laugh out loud. I'll keep trying tho.
And then I played Viva Pinata on the DS. I don't get it. I can grow carrots and daisies. But seemed weird to lure pinatas onto your land, breed them and then sell them. Ok - truthfully, maybe it wouldn't have seemed so weird if I could have successfully gotten them to breed. What do ya do with the building? Why build it and then knock it down? My sister and her husband play Viva Pinata on the 360 and they both love it. So - I think I"m just missing something. I'll watch them play and see what the big deal is.
The students in my Critical Analysis of Games class this semester are blogging (I teach at Ithaca College and we're just starting up a new major in Game Design and Immersive Media). They have to apply the game design topics we're discussing in class to one or two games all semester. The goal is to get a really deep understanding of their game and show that they can apply the concepts in class to real world games.
They got to pick the game they wanted to analyze. Here are some of the games being studied this semester - Portal, Star Oceans 2, Psychonauts, Turok, Okami, Conkers Bad Fur Day, and Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice.
A second reason for the blogs is to help them establish a professional presence. I hopt that they will keep blogging as they go through the program. They'd love some comments on their blogs if you have time to take a look.
BIG NEWS! The game design major at Ithaca College was officially approved. It will be a BFA in the Television-Radio department of the Roy H. Park School of Communication. It's multi-discipline and multi-school. Students take classes in screenwriting, programming, art history, as well as game design. They play and make analog games as well as videogames. They study analysis of games, the videogame industry, and legal issues. It will be in the catalog probably in 2010. Unfortunately students didn't know about it when they applied for admittance for the Fall 2009 school year. I need to get to work promoting it for Fall 2010. However, students already admitted can switch to the game major.
We have a website for the major - and a blog - the blog might become the site's homepage, still playing with that.
Homepage (for the moment) - http://parkgameportal.com/ Blog - http://parkgameportal.com/wordpress
On the website, you can play games and other projects made by students in the program, see some photos, read descriptions of the classes.
If you know anyone interested in studying game design, have them drop me an email at kgregson@ithaca.edu or give me a call at 607-274-7348 and I"ll try to answer their questions.
Over on the Nerfbat blog, Ryan Shwader is attempting to break down the concept of being a hardcore gamer starting with this post. He's started by looking at time spent in teh game and he promises to look at other concepts such as skill. I've had this on my list of things to study for awhile - ok for like the last 4 years. I'm glad to see someone tackle it and I"m going to be reading.
Check out the comments - why do people seem to react so violently when folks try to define things like hardcore. Why do they feel threatened or feel the need to ridicule? Very strange.
I'm preparing 2 new classes - Fun & Games (a seminar discussion class for 18 senor undergrad students) and Critical Analysis of games (for 30 undergrads) - trying to find readings, think of assignments, and read a lot of extra stuff to add to the lectures to help make sense of all the new material (new to me and them)
I"m also determined to play a lot of videogames. I checked a lot out from our collection at school - i bought them but never had time to play them over the semester. I checked out a lot for hte DS - I like the 2 screens and the different input options. I also took a couple for the XBox360 and the Wii Image via Wikipediaand one for the PSP. I have a couple PSP games at home already that I need to play. I figure I"ll blog some little summaries/reactions to the games and ideas I have about using them in assignments. We bought a lot of the games used and many don't have instructions which is a pain for me. I discovered tho that hte students don't read the videogame instructions (and were ticked that they had to read and understand the instructions for the board games we played. I have found good guides and instructions on the IGN site and have put links to them on our website Reviews Image via WikipediaMeteos (for the DS) - a puzzle game. I bought it used and it didn't have the instructions. I think I need to read the guide I found on IGN - there are things going on on the screen that I had no understanding of even after playing for 2 hours and sometimes winning. As a puzzle game tho it's kind of typical - match the tiles up in groups of three to have them blast off. Things happen really fast tho - I'd concentrate on the right side of the screen and before I knew it I had lost because of something on teh left hand side. There's some kind of outer space theming - the falling tiles are takng place on different planets. I can see assigning students a group of puzzle games to compare or compare puzzle games on different platforms or different kinds of puzzles. And in the fun class we're going to talk about puzzles so it might be interesting to have them play puzzle games and see what the fun is. Someone I follow on Twitter recommended I check out the Disney verson of Meteos - I'm a big fan of all things Disney so I will look for it when I go shopping later.
Image via WikipediaLumines II (PSP) - another puzzle game - kind of like Tetris with the falling tiles but the tiles are made up of 4 smaller blocks and each block can be one of 2 colors. You have to maneuver the tile so that you get 4 smaller blocks of the same color in a 2 x 2 arrangement (not a 1 x 4 unfortunately - those I seem to be able to build with no problem). Themusic (in my opinion) is annoying. And some of the flashing skins are hard on my old eyes. The 2 x 2 squares don't disappear immediately - only when the timeline (that maybe is moving in time with the music, I can't tell because the music irritated me and I turned it off) crosses over it. The timeline is a neat feature they added to the tile matching puzzle. if you can work it right, you can stack up 2 x 3 or 3 x 3 (or bigger theoretically) and get more points. You can save at the end of each game. There are 22 levels as a beginner, another 22 for the A level and a third set of 22 levels for the S level. And then lot of other ways to play including competing against the cmoputer. Assignment possibiities: It might be interesting to try and lay out historically the feature development in the puzzle genre - any of the genres probably. Same with some of the euro games (like from carcassone to settlers to stone age). Another assignment - compare puzzle games on the different platforms - how do they take advantage of the strengths of each platform/how are they different from platform to platform.Another assignment - take the timeline feature and work it into another genre - and think how you'd have to change the win/lose conditions and the rules.
Image via WikipediaAnother puzzle game I have been playing is Boom Blox on the Wii. You knock down these stacks of blocks with baseballs and ray guns and bowling balls. Some of the blocks are bombs. Others are filed with explosive gas. It's good destructive fun. There's a big training set of lessons, then 3 areas of quests. As you finish the tutorials and quests you win stuff like castles and ray guns of your own to use in the third section - an area wher eyou can builid your own stack of blox for others to knock down - tho the backgrounds and decorations are limited to what you see in the regular game so no outer space blox. I like the destructive aspect. There are little creatures - cows and dogs and penquins - in the background. If ya toss the ball just right you can bean them in the head and make them disappear; you don't get any extra points (and you really should) but it's still fun. It seems less repetitive than the other puzzle games. And there are lots of ways thru the tutorials so you dont' get stuck having to do the same skill ove rand ovr and over till you accidentally do it correctly or in a timely fashion. And no mind-numbing droney music. Maybe that's one of the adantages of hte console - more space on teh dvd for content and better sound on the tv. I'd like to have the students make their own stack of blocks and decorate it for others to play and evaluate but not sure how to share it. Another assignment possibility migight be to look at how games incorporate avatars or characters representing hte palyer - in this game you pick your avatar out at the beginning but the only time you see that character again is when you restart the game. You don't see him throw the baseball or chase the cows. Kind of irritating that they made me pick him out and then I don't get to play as him.
Image via WikipediaSid Meier's Civilization (DS) - ok - i really don't like this kind of game - build units, place units, move units - turn based strategy. You go from the stone age to space age. There are several ways to win - that I like. It had a consistent use of the keys but i couldn't always figure out what triggered the end of my turn and it wasn't always clear to which units I'd already given a destination. It's a good example of in game tutorial level tho. Comparing the content of the tutorials with the directions for the board games we play might be interesting. Or examining the tutorial to see how they teach a variety of skills - what order does the tutorial put things in and is that the optimum pattern. This is definintely one I want to compare across platforms - what did they have to sacrifice to get it on the DS for instance. This isn't a picture of the DS version - it's just the only one I can find at the moment; I'll replace it when I can.
Image via WikipediaAssassin's Creed for the DS - just started this one (I have to play it on the xbox360 too). It's a platformer - run,jump, climb walls, run along rails. I think there's fighting - i saw a tutorial with some wicked sword moves and stabby combinations. No massive blood spurts like Mortal Kombat, but that's ok. There are some mini-puzzles. You use the ABXY keys and the LR trigger instead of the stylus. That was kind of irritating. I want to point with the stylus and have the little guy move there. There are spots where you can't see very good - seemed like my little assassin was around the corner from the camera. And now my little assassin is caught in some kind of dumb loop - i keep following hte arrows but there's nothing to do and it just keeps sending me around. Time to check for a hint online I guess (man how lame is that - but hey, this is for educational purposes, not fun!)
N+ (on the PSP) - IT's a good intro the the button mashing type of videogame - one button with the left hand (directions) and one with the right (jump). Except even that is giving me fits. I'd like to blame it on the fact that I"m left handed so i keep trying to jump with the left hand, but mostly don't think that's it. I need more practice. I am going to play the game on the DS too. I think it would be a good first psp game for the students - use a few buttons. Not much story or character development, just action. You could build a story around it I think to give the little ninja some back story.
Text Twist - a casual game - I played it on Yahoo Games - URL: http://get.games.yahoo.com/proddesc?gamekey=texttwist. I'm a big fan of Book Worm - maybe it's clear I like puzzle games. I like casual games because you can play them for hours but if you only have a few minutes you can still get in a couple of rounds. This one is a little tougher because you only have 6 letters to work with at a time. I like the twist feature which rearranges the letters because it's hard to rearrange them mentally. There is a timer to compete against. If you ahve the right kind of browser it keeps track of high scores (I was on Firefox and it didn't track them). It's an example of a game with very few rules up front (or maybe very few rules overall). It's on a lot of sites - an example of portal distribution. I can't figure out how they're making money but I enjoyed the game.
Shape Inlay - another casual game on Yahoo Games - URL: http://games.yahoo.com/free-games/shape-inlay - a stream of tiles scrolls across the bottom. You have to drag the pieces up into the puzzle shape, trying to fill it in with the shapes. The drag and drop interface is pretty slick. There's time pressure because if the shape tile area fills up you lose. I can't imagine how you could use up all the tiles so I figure you play to get the most points - you're always going to run out of time/tile space - the trick is to play as long as possible. So you maybe can't win but can delay losing as long as possible. I just noticed - there is no credit for the game creator
I left after about an hour - there were sound issues (in this case, the sound was set way too loud, as opposed to the game pitch session where there were no mics and everything was too quiet or the getting into the industry panel where there was a mic but lots of feedback - all headache inducing)
someone from Media Colition - they do legal stuff for hte game industry - 1st amendment stuff someone from the ESA - the group that runs the E3 conference, also works against bad laws affecting videogames Videogame Voter network - contacts members about upcoming legislation affecting the industry
some big topics - could be good for freshmen to make videos about and then to come back to in the business and law class as juniors - I put a post for later on the private blog
what's the image of the videogame industry in the wider world, mainstream media piracy music and movies look at videogame industry for ideas on how to survive/thrive, for stories, for places to distribute content
There were 6 or so people on this panel. Here are some general notes that I"ve tried to organize by topics
General
Hard to get in, no guaranteed jobs, everyone above average, you have to stand out, you have to be the best at what you do, you have to bring a lot of knowledge about games, and you have to put in a lot of work to find a good job. Industry has a "churn and burn" attitutde towards employees because there is a never-ending stream of people who want the jobs. 30-40% of industry jobs are non-production (marketing/PR brand development, project management)
Think about games broadly - lots of different types of games - casual, seirous, mobile, simulations - all need people with game making skills
Have to show you have a passion for the industry, for making games - shows in your portfolio, in your conversations
Education/Learning
College degree shows you can finish something big - Graduate degrees good for pure game design - grad school like boot camp for the industry. Full sail starting masters program
Make games while you're in school - all kinds of games. Mod games
Need experience working on teams
Play games, lots of games, all kinds of games - don't have to finish them - play and understand the basics. Be able to talk about them. Play the games made by the studios where you would like to work.
Get experience playing and making online games - everyone is looking to be online
Look at the studios where you want to work and see what jobs are listed on their website, then see what skills they want in those jobs, then look for a program that offers those skills. look for the job titles so you know what to search on. Look for the names of people doing interesting work in the field you want to be in - follow them in the news, read their blogs so you have something to talk about if ya get to meet them.
Get skills to do other stuff in addition to making games so you have stuff to fall back on when jobs are scarce.
Portfolio & Interviews
Portfolio should have a clean professional design. Include stuff specific to the kind of job you're applying for. Have someone in the biz review your portfolio.
Degree and resume not enough - you need a solid portfolio that shows how you're different from competition, there is lots of competition, you can put in games that you made in class. Be sure to say what you did on projects - don't lie but don't sell yourself short.
Start working now to develop and build up your portfolio - mod, mod, mod make own game with lots of tools - XNA, Torque, web tools. Have friends play your games and give you feedback.
Look for internships - not all companies have organized internship programs so you ahve to contact them and ask for opportunitites
If artist, put in things that have real world equivalents (reference pictures) and your drawings better be picture perfect. DOn't put in cars, mechs robots, spaceships imaginary sci fi landscapes
At interiew be very professional be sure you know about the compnay and the games that they make
play games from the studio(s) where you want to work - they're going to ask you about it at interviews and you need to sound/be informed
Networking
Network, network, network - especially when economy tough, industry very competitive so you have to know people and make good first impressions. Be sure to have business cards (that say the title you want, not student). Talk to the speakers at panels. Ask if you can contact them about portfolio reviews. They believe that most people in the biz are willing to give advice.
Volunteer at conferences - good for networking, good for showing your dedication to the industry, learn a lot
Blog, create a website - have an online presence, a professional presence
Join professional orgs - IGDA, ECA, Videogame Voters Network - take part in student chapters, take leadership roles, invite guests.
Tim Brown, CEA of design firm Ideo, gave a talk on creativity and play at TED. It was part of the Serious Play conference that focused on the same topics.
Here's a video of a talk from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi at TED (tech, education, entertainment conference with lots of speakers over the years. He's talking about flow which is an idea we're going to discuss in game design class and in the fun and games senior seminar.
So there was a less-relevant-to-me speaker during the conference and I used the time to make some notes about the upcoming senior seminar. This isn't the final set of ideas - nothing is set in stone yet. I haven't played with the concepts on the concept map yet. These are just a string of random ideas I had - topics, questions to answer, possible projects
The idea for the seminar came from a conversation I had with someone from Microsoft - I think it was John Nordlinger who's the program director for research and helps organize Microsoft's cruise for computer scientists interested in videogames. He mentioned that the games industry was really interested in creating fun products but didn't have the time or resources to study the concept of fun. He thought that colleges, students and professors would have the time and skills. Sounded fun to me. I want to get some professors together to talk about how fun plays out in their field, even if professors have fun. I might still try that out - but figured it was easier to get a seminar going so going to start with that. Hopefully the students will be able to deal with a really open structure class - there's no right answer, there's no one answer. We may go round and round and the picture may still be murky when we get done - gota figure out how to let them know that's normal in research and in a lot of projects they'll do in real life. We gotta be happy with baby steps.
here's some needs
Image via Wikipedianeed readings about fun, entertainment, humor, media psych, media entertainment, effects of personality/demographics, characteristics of media, context variables, player reasons for playing - right now leaning towards reading Raph Koster's A theory of fun for game design
need interviews with different kinds of people to see what they say about fun
need articles about definitions and the process of defining things, how to figure out what's important
students divided into research teams - collect some data using different methods, present that to class, write that part of the reportsome questions we could try to answer - give each group a question to answer, they have to find readings, lead discussions, each group gets a question, has to do something in class a couple of times on their topic
what's fun
how do we recognize it
how can we measure it
how can we increase the chances of people having fun?
how can we imporve the fun people are having
do different people experience fun differently
is fun experience differently depending on teh medium being used
can work be fun
can work be made fun
does fun change as we add other activities in the game, as we add multiplayer
what role does flow play in fun
things I want to do in class
list and organize words and phrases that you associate with fun - probably use the mindmeister or draw on paper - somehow we have to get the ideas together on one map
interview people (video, audio) - how do they define fun (in general, not with regard to videogames specifically) - they might give you examples which is ok but you have to try and bring them around to a definition
look at picture tagged fun in flickr/facebook - what do they have in common?
different teams collect different info about fun and create initial understanding of definition
then do a round of projects/readings/discussion looking at how we measure fun, how we know when someone is having fun
end of the semester is a round of how we can make games fun, what developers should do - this part of the class is explicitly about videogames, goal is to combo the general research into something useful for the industry
students create report at 3 time points - collect data, analyze, write - we need a report format
do focus group with the guys from qual about games, fun
for each group's time leading class (1 week per topic or multiple weeks for a bigger set of topics
1st day - tell us what we know already, present results of lit review, written review goes into the final report, in class give us the highlights
2nd day - discuss the problems, what we don't know
3rd day - get class to discuss how we find out more
can we involve other classes - get them to take our survey, participate in our wiki description; can we invite people from SL, watch people play all kinds of games - what evidence do we see of fun?
I'd like to set up a youtube channel and invite people to post their video responses/reactions - people could use VidNik - makes uploading to Youtube easy want to create a site for ongoing conversation ouside class, maybe a wiki page or a forums page, some place to put in raw data, links to videos, transcripts, initital analysis, our sketches, our more finished reports, other people's conversatins, interim findings
Here are some readings suggested by folks from the IGDA Game Education SIG and the Women in Gaming SIG. I need to organize and put some topic labels on (probably get to that over the Thanksgiving break)
Marc LeBlanc. "Tools for Creating Dramatic Game Dynamics" The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology
Katherine Isbister. Game Usability: Advancing the Player Experience
Joseph W Kable & Paul W Glimcher. "The neural correlates of subjective value during intertemporal choice" Nature Neuroscience, December 2007
Michael C. Dorris and Paul W. Glimcher. "Activity in Posterior Parietal Cortex Is Correlated with the Relative Subjective Desirability of Action" Neuron, October 2004
Costikyan's "I Have No Words and I Must Design": www.costik.com/nowords.html - this is one of the first writings on what makes games fun, so it's a great place to start. It also begins the all-important process of building a critical vocabulary to talk about games, something that is sorely lacking in our field (though not for lack of trying).
LeBlanc et al's "MDA Framework": www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/MDA.pdf - one of the most influential papers dealing with the concept of "fun" that I know of. If you read nothing else, read this. I'd even put this ahead of Koster, seriously.
Falstein's "Natural Funativity": www.gamasutra.com/features/20041110/falstein_01.shtml - Most writings in the field try to identify what kinds of things we find fun. This article gives a great theory for WHY we find them fun in the first place.
If you want to talk about Flow states (a la Koster), you could always assign some readings from Csikszentmihalyi's original work. - we have a video in the library of hte flow stuff - video 7521
"Design Elements in Contemporary Strategy Games" and "Contemporary Perspectives in Game Design" - game design books written by George Phillies and Tom Vassal - these are available as PDF's, ebooks, and as paperback trade books
The Origin of Myth by Joseph Campbell
Jesper Juul's "half-real"
Maslow's hierarchy of needs - some basic psych explanations for motivations
Sutton-Smith trips through the topic in "The Ambiguity of Play"
Jesse Schell's new book "The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses" - the part about harnessing your creative subconscious has been especially recommended, along with the design lenses - this book is great overall and for my fun class. The first few lenses involve fun.
an out of print bookd by Elliot Avedon The Study of Games from the 1970's - here's the amazon.com link. It's an anthropology of play - and the author makes the case that games are a culture's way of making sense of the world they experience. I like that take on it. Jesse Schell uses Avedon's definition of games too.
I have been trying to find some older articles about games and leisure activities. Here are a few that I've found and read so far: Leisure Time Activities of Economically Privileged Children by Cramer from Sociology and Social Research journal in the 50s, Games in Culture by Roberts, Arth, and Bush from American Anthropologist from 1959, and The Social Significance of Card Playing as a Leisure Time Activity by Crespi from American Sociological Review in the 50s
I found some interesting videos on YouTube too - I put them on a play list under my account (kgregson) called fun and games. I found one on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Flow. Notice I found a couple about architecture. Someone suggested having the students do a project where they look at lots of other fields and see how fun plays out there. The videos are a way to intro the idea of fun.
Image via Wikipediaa few notes from Day 2 of the workshop - we talked about testing, project management techniques, production techniques, localization, voice over and music, and relationships with external forces like marketing
big realization - preproduction is so much more important than I ever thought. Marketing needs to be on board that early. You have to plan for how you're going to localize your game that early. You ahve to plan what voices you'll need so you can get on their schedule for voice over recording sessions.
The producer doesn't have to be a serious gamer. They need to be detailed oriented, willing and able to keep track of what everyone is doing all the time. And be able to communicate it up the food chain to management and down the foodchain to team members.
Producers can have associate producers. Publisher might assign someone from their staff to be the publisher's producer to seemingly spy on you. But also to make sure the publisher's money being spent efficiently.
Localization becoming more important because games want to do what's called simship - ship to all countries the same day. Cuts down on game pirating. I think this might be a cool project to get folks from foreign language depts involved in games - have the junior or senior game folks localize into one language.
game folks don't seem to have much respect for marketing - marketing seen as a big time waster causing the game folks to stop their work and make a demo or a trailer for markeitng to send out to magazines or conferences. This would be a good way to get IMC involved in the game major - give the game folks experience working with markeitng in a positive way before the game folks go out to the real world
themes that keep coming up
test test test
communicate communicate communicate
get buy in from the team
need processes to track change requests, bugs, need for new resources
have to educate team sometimes on importance/necessity of project management techniques
Katie Salen from Parsons School and the Institute of Play gave the morning keynote. 8am is very early and the room was a little empty. No reflection on the speaker, some folks just slept in I think. The crowd picked up before the talk was over.
Big news - they're starting their own (public?) school based on game design. Teachers and game designers working together to develop curriculum. I am so jealous. And I feel very jealous. Such exciting projects with all kinds of people working together.
other points - that I can work with) - interaction = participation. Even MMO's and multiplayer games come down to interaction between 2 people so everyone feels they're participating. Games bring goals to that participation. Performance towards the goals of hte game is assessed throughout the game. You gan skills to do better as you play and you learn other more general skills.
people (kids especially) learn collaboratively how to play games. they watch each other, they try stuff out and ask other players what to do differently, to improve
when kids make games they learn content - makes sense. And they want people to play their games so they take extra trouble to make sure it's a good game and accurate info.
What I'm mostly doing at the Future Play confernce is going thru the 3 day game producer's workshop. Today we covered preproduction and got an intro to production. Lots of notes, we did a couple of group exercises. I got lots of ideas for things we need to do in the 4 year curriculum to give everyone exposure at different levels to these preproduction ideas. The game producer's workshop is led by Heather Chandler who was the producer for the Ghost Recon franchise at Ubisoft up to 2005 when she started her own company Media Sunshine, inc. to provide producer and creative services as a contractor. Here are a couple of ideas from today's class.
I think i would like to be a game producer - they do the budgeting, the scheduling, the relations with the team and with the "suits". They have the big picture in mind at all times.
independent stuios/developers have to prove that they can deliver on time and on budget and they can quickly get a bad reputation if they mess up a project
preproduction should take up from 10 to 25% of time alloted to the game development - more ya do up front, the smoother hte production will go
brainstorm often with people from the team - game concept, character names, character appearance, gameplay, look and feel - - get lots of ideas and you get buy in from the people on the team good for morale and good for game quality
Image via Wikipediaproducer has to do competitive, SWOT, and risk analyses - for competitive analysis look at past games that set the standard for the genre, present games that are selling well, announced but not yet released games to see key features, how you can position your game against hte competition - she says to write down for each competing game - title developer, publisher, platform, release date, game summary, key features, sales estimates, game reviews on things like metacritic, - can do in a spreadsheet
prototypes are good - show people your idea, play test early on, can be paper or digital, good for iterative design, can prototype parts of the game like new game play mechanisms - - gets people from all parts of the team talking about the game since they will all be able to see how it looks and plays
milestones - deliverables on key dates key events to track game progress, goals for designers & programmers - have to make sure everyone agrees wiht the definitions of hte milestone deliverables, break down what each part of hte team should have ready for each milestone so each part of the team knows what to expect to be getting from other parts of the team
she talked about very detailed schedules i project management software that has dependencies and resources assigned, break down tasks to that subtasks might take just a day or two, get a list from everyone of al the tasks that they think they need to do, organize and prioritize it
hard to plan 2 years in advance so producer has to be flexible and be willing to update schedule as you move thru development phases
as ya get people to play the prototype - need them to say what htey like/dislike about the game and why - why is the most important and the toughest to actually get, have to tease out what they don't like specifically and what they'd like to see instead
during production - focus on finishing the game - no new features without compelling reasons, stick to the plan, easier to do if there's buy in earlier from the preproduction phase
gamasutra has salary reviews that you could use for initial budgeting share schedule with the team - again gets buy in, lets them see what happens if they fall behind on their tasks - they can see all the other tasks that will be put off schedule
I ahve a copy of the slides and we're getting a copy of her book with a lot more detail.
I think we have to give students a chance to practice these preproductin skills - developing budgets and schedules, doing QA being the producer, being lead designer/artist/programmer
My goal was to play games or watch videos every Friday in the Intro to Games & Society. Out of 9 weeks tho we have only managed 3 play days. We had a movie, a guest speaker, an exam review. Can't figure out where the other weeks went.
Anyway - we started our 2nd round of game play. Each group got assigned a new game to learn. Hopefully as we go thru more games groups will begin to share tips about how to play.
So far Apples to Apples seems to be the game most people know already and so have the most fun playing. Carcassone and Ticket to Ride are totally unknown but the groups pick them up pretty quickly and manage to get almost all the way thru a game the very first day. Race for the Galaxy is kicking our butts - the phases are confusing and the symbols on the cards often undecipherable.
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