Haphazard Journey by Starlight

with thanks to Fortune Cookie for the use of this graphic

creative commons licence details

Ron and I created a game that I hope we can play at a Hide and Seek Sandpit event in the near future. You can view the untested rules here: http://ludocity.org/wiki/Double_Agent_/_Watch_Your_Back We trying to think of games which might create a raised awareness of body language. The Ludocity site includes lots of other wonderful street games - definitely worth taking a look.

Very grateful for any feedback.

Posted by Celinelj at 07:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As usual this is going to be a rushed post scratching out a basic idea before I rush of to try and keep my the rest of my life above water.....

whilst working on a possible piece of work for the games fringe a colleague asked how the basic game I'd designed could be made to be more "arty". To begin with i thought the answer was simple, we'd just give it an arty theme or atmosphere...

But then, being of the belief that games are an art form in themselves without having to be "arty" I started to wonder why there's an expection that a fringe game should be *more* arty. Well, this is just in the brief so no need to argue it.

Looking at much art/games, these works lack a real game structure. What I mean by this is that that the player is often thwarted....the goals and rules are purposefully unclear/broken and the game aims to produce a sense of surprise, shock and to raise questions but does not in my opinion end up achieving the flow or fun, a sense of achievement that you get from a traditional game. They've broken the game to make a statement. In my mind these aren't art - yes, but games - no.

So I went on to think about Blast Theory: in my mind one of the most successful art/game groups. Their *games* are very simple in terms of mechanics -Uncle Roy is a treasure hunt, Can You See Me Now is chase game and as such are really fun to play.

What makes them *arty farty*?

Well, they interject the experience with questions for participants which encourage reflection on the nature of their lives and relationships with others. That's pretty simple, it could be done with just about any game - the game is just a framework. And it's true to say they've used the same game mechanics and game engine to produce a number of different works. So far there doesn't seem much art involved...

However I think it's their use of technology that makes them powerful pieces, each work involves two players working together, anonymous to one another, one online one offline supports their exploration of modern society and alienation, but is there any more to it? BT use the same basic gaming structure to create a variety of diff art works...whereas Blast Theory, I'd argue are making true game art. A question of the medium is the message in this case...but is it always the case? I really don't know!

PN: Here's a great, clear article on current thinking on games as art at gamasutra: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20070316/ochalla_01.shtml

Posted by Ron Edwards at 07:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well here's a beautiful and deceptively simple game that plays with the idea of space and breaks the laws of physics Escher-style.

Posted by Celinelj at 09:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I really like the idea of this game: LOVE - collaborative play, in which time and effort bring rewards to you and also your friends. There's organic, generative game-play and absolutely beautiful graphics. It's still about overthrowing, control and power which in my mind are the antithesis of love but maybe I've been wrong all these years and the emotional AI will teach me a thing or two!

Posted by Celinelj at 09:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some first impressions having viewed the five selected entry presentations:

It is interesting to see (and I think also good to see), that none of the finalists are professional game designers - there are three new media artists, a graphic designer and a lecturer. OK, so the competition is "exploding narratives" but all but Hazel chose to incorporate an element of competition into their work.

4/5 entrants were male. This surprises me as at the last mscape conference there seemed as many female delegates as there were male.

I wasn't bowled over by the designs. There were lots of nice ideas here and throughout the competition but none of them were especially innovate or made me feel especially excited. None of them challenged my concept of narrative. I feel as if the medium is capable of more.

Finally a big THUMBS UP (and I know I'm always banging on about this but...), all the winners had designed experiences that could be enjoyed by anyone, regardless of their physical ability. Hooray!!!

Posted by Celinelj at 09:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

About a year ago a fanatstic MMORPG expert spent a day with Ron and I initiating us into the ways of World of Warcraft. I was impressed by the beautiful landscapes, especially the detail and the level of social interaction that was going on between guilds but I had two reservations. The fantasy and the look and feel were still very much of the elves, dwarves and *lands of yore* that I'd come to recognise from the RP table-top games I was introduced to as a teenager and the primary game-play involved battles. I've looked for alternatives, but unless you call Second Life and other MUVEs "games", there was nothing else out there.

Ren Reynolds of Terra Nova just drew my attention to a new virtual world in development, which may yet fulfill my desires for a really unusual, beautiful, mind-expanding, non-combative MORPG: Lila's Dreams.

It has the same surreal "inside your head" approach that so appealed to me in Psychonauts. The graphics are expressive and loose (let's hope they can hold on to that when they get converted into the digital - there's a good possibility since they'll be flash-based), the game-play involves monsters and some combat but the designers talk about they wish to avoid it where possible, and alternative activities include growing a garden...

A short quote from the blog

" There are no elves, dwarfs, or other Tolkien-derived player races. There are no dragons, orcs, or other Tolkien-derived creatures. There’s no magic. Well, there are “powers” that might be analogous to magic spells, but in terms of the setting they are psychic powers and not spells. So, there’s no magic. :P

There is no level grind. Level grinding is when you do boring tasks like killing cellar rats over and over to watch your game character become more powerful so you can kill bigger cellar rats. I personally do not like level grinding, and I think that it puts the focus of play on the experience of grinding rather than on the experience of the game world. I am working hard to design systems that do not require grinding so that the game world itself is the focus of fun."

Posted by Celinelj at 02:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks to Ghayty 2005

I've been exploring possible ideas for a collaborative/co-opetition game and got really excited about all the great examples that are already out there. So I thought I'd pop a list up here to remind myself....

http://www.sissyfight.com/ Fantastic game requiring persuasive skills (bit like stratego or something like that)...I LOVE THIS GAME...

Girls TeamUp by Girls Inc - a brilliant game - simple, online and drives home the value of team work and diversity.

Guitar Hero - playing together or competing - both are fun and even when you're competing - it's better when you're both doing well so there's quite a good tension there!

Little Big Planet: http://www.mediamolecule.com/

World of Warcraft and all the other RPG/Quest-style games

Dyadin - you can download it for free...http://www.dyadin.com/dyadin.php. Game in which you must work together with a team-mate who plays in a mirror world

As I'm writing these I'm realising that ALL the best games are co-opetition games!!!!

Posted by Ron Edwards at 01:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Something I'm always struggling with: How to find the good stuff in Second Life. Surely in a play world I should have stumbled on a few unusual games by now? I haven't! SecondLife need some kind of 3D Google to help us all get around....for the moment, I rely on the 2D web, and in particular the Second Life Games blog which provides a comprehensive synopsis of all the great games you can play in your Second Life.

Posted by Celinelj at 03:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

me and some floozie. 8.5 x 11 ink drawing by Honoria, circa 1991

Referring back to my last post on locating emotions...there's the potential to create quite an interesting game that might support bonding or at least the practice of empathy.....

Player 1 walks round an area - Ideally somewhere quite dramatic..perhaps personally meaningful in some way. Physiological arousal is tracked...(other things could also be tracked...facial expressions for example and levels of stress).

Player 2, who either already knows Player 1 or is provided with some context as to player 1's personality, personal history, likes and dislikes is then asked to follow exactly the same path around the location. As they go around they must try to walk as if in the shoes and mind of Player 1....trying to emulate the kinds of reaction Player 1 might have had to the changing environment.

The winning team is the pair that can most closely emulate one anothers' emotional reaction to place, in other words the most empathatic team, or perhaps the team most skilled at emulating emotion....and possibly most control over their own emotional responses!

Posted by Celinelj at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Something has been nagging at the back of my mind since I wrote about PerplexCity. A feeling of deja-vue. Now I've worked out why... When I was a kid I used to visit a friend who had a beautiful book called Masquerade, published in 1979. It was a children's book (but with a huge adult following), with fascinating illustrations containing clues to the location of a golden (18 carat) jeweled hare with a ruby eye created by Kit himself and buried "somewhere in Britain." The puzzle was solvd in 1981 but it sparked a huge number of further "armchair treasure hunts".

Searching for information about the book today I discovered, with pleasure, that PerplexCity was indeed inspired by Kit Williams' book. Bedtime reading then, for any budding Alternate Reality Game Designer!

Posted by Celinelj at 07:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The website describes Perplex City as "a story, a game, and a real-life treasure hunt." It's an Alternative Reality Game with clues and information hidden in newspapers, websites, magazines, sky-writing, music CDs, phone calls, SMS messages, live events, videos, puzzles and games all over the planet.

A valuable artefact, the Receda Cube, has been stolen from Perplex City and buried somewhere on Earth. The Perplex City Academy has launched a worldwide hunt for the Cube, using puzzle cards to gather interest and spread clues. They've also put up a very real reward of £100,000/$200,000.

I like the idea that the virtual city and the game have some connection to the real world, but we aren't told how. Similar to my idea for a game where players must discover the relationship between the real world and virtual maps to win. It's not clear however if Perplex City requires visitors to explore real locations in order to solve puzzles.

The new game will launch in March this year. If you want to play - you can sign up here!

Posted by Celinelj at 05:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yesterday I attended a short talk and exhibition on Artful Games as part of the London Games Festival Fringe. It introduced some encouraging trends in alternative game design.

Summerbranch
is a game exploring stillness, which addresses the use of disguise in dance and movement. I did play it, still don't understand what I was meant to be doing, but somehow the idea that it "radically subverts the well worn conventions and clichés favored by producers creating games for commercial distribution. " sounds good right?

Dave Green, editor of channel4.com/games introduced us to the world of casual games and casual game designers - this is a good place to look for alternative game designs.

A big "lightbult" turned on when Tanya Krzywinska discussed a new trend - a move away from "games" to "play". In other words a move away from goal based activities to social exploration, improvisation, and less structured gaming activities - exemplified by the increasing interested in games such as The Sims and MMORPGs (especially world of warcraft). This is especially significant for location-based games which by their very nature, take place in everyday locations with far less control over the gaming environment than in a virtual worlds or on gameboards and alrady embrace the coincidental and accidental.

Posted by Celinelj at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Building on a previous post suggesting we take a fresh look at the design of location-based games, I have been giving some thought to some alternatives that avoid the need for speed and have a greater focus on strategy and rhythmn. My first thought was inspired by a conversation I had with Peter Rogers, one of the Mudlarking designers who was interested to create a location-based game in which distance and time could be stretched - for example every 2 meters walked in real life could be made to represent 4 meters on a map, or visa versa. It also springs from user experiences in the pilot of Docker Dilemma, where the fact that the map didn't rotate automatically as players moved, caused a certain amount of confusion and disorientation.

What would happen if the game map was distorted, or perhaps flipped so that left was right and right was left, perhaps certain areas stretched or collapsed, but the players movements still accurately reflected in terms of their position in relation to landmarks. I think orienteering with this kind of map would be similar to navigating in a maze of mirrors, where intuition would quickly let you down and every movement would have to be carefully thought out to avoid walking into a wall.

I was also inspired by my visit to the Science Museum this weekend (well actually, it was the Science Museum shop, which is often the way ;-), where I was intrigued by a game called Polarityinvolving magnets, their orientation, relationships and proximity to one another. Turn the board into any space, and the magnets into humans and you have a very convincing sounding location-based game!

Posted by Celinelj at 06:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have started to think more deeply about my previous post on games and genres and why it is that location-based games and games in general still resort to the same old themes and I began to recall my first MA essay was all about the fact that educators believe games could be good for learning, but have difficulty finding a common language that will let them speak directly to game developers and turn learning objectives into a game. (In fact, communication between anyone other than fellow developers seems to be an issue in a way because I heard a slightly similar conversation at the Game Writers Conference at BAFTA last week where writers wanted to find ways for narrative to be better integrated with games).

Game developers tend to talk about game in terms of Genre: Action, Adventure, Puzzle (ignore the discussion about whether they're classed as "official" games for the moment), Mystery, Sim/Sport, Role-play, Strategy, Platform...maybe? and all the imbetweens. My argument is that these genres are grey at best, with games frequently crossing genres, and they help very little in establishing the appropriate kind of game according to learning requirements.

There has been some attempt to establish which game genres are most appropriate for which kinds of learning. The most convincing solution is provided by Richard Van Eck, who has a stab at matching taxonomies: Bates' game genres to Gagne's intellectual skills and Bloom's taxonomy. Click to see it in full

From "What are we playing at?" What it means to integrate games into the curriculum and why we should. Richard Van Eck, Associate Professor, Instructional Design & Technology, University of North Dakota

It looks a bit square hole round peg. I think we probably need to take a new look at how we categorise games as a whole in order to fully understand them. Before I sign off this evening..there's another argument which is that most of our problems would be solved if we could simply come to some agreement about the most basic terminology. There may be something here too, however different disciplines have always used alternative words to describe the same thing depending on their perspective. This may well be a fundemental flaw in the way human beings have always communicated with each other, however I think the real issue at the moment for educators is not that they speak a different language to game developers when it comes to talking about games, but rather they have no meaningful words at all to describe games in relation to learning.

Posted by Celinelj at 06:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We tend to equate excitement with speed. It isn't surprising then that the marjority of games taking advantage of the newest wireless and gps technolgies in which players can inhabit both a virtual and physical space, tend to involve running, chasing and battling against time. These games cash in on our primitive fight of flight response, and are all about basic survival and little else. And yet games lose their flow (a primary indicator of fun according to Mihaly Csikszentmihaly), if the competition is too high. These games are going to exclude many player; the young, the disabled and the old, favouring only those most physically able. In addition, many designersw now agree is time for games to start excercising more than just our twitch speed reflexes, we need to start expanding our understanding of the nature of fun in games. I suggest location-based games using the most innovative technologies and with huge potential to explode existing models, could be looking beyond their recent past for inspiration.

Competing as a disabled swimmer, I know that even physical competitions being the fastest is not the only measure of an athlete's ability. 25 years ago disabled competitions were about discovering and honing in on your own pace with the victor swimming more consistently and rhythmically than anyone else. If you have waited with a camera, in your aching arms, freezing cold, but your heart beating in anticipation, knowing that a moments loss of concentration could lose the perfect shot, then you know the excitement involved in preparation and precise timing. Look at dance and eastern combat arts for similar philosophies.

I believe location-based games should not just be about a desperate dashes. What about a game that requires players to practice balance, accuracy and patience? Let's take advantage of hardware revolutions to create an evolution in game-play that affords physically inclusive and challenging experiences that shatter our stereotypes of fun.

Posted by Celinelj at 09:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The next step won't be so easy.....please pick a door (it'll all make sense in a minute, I promise).

Posted by Celinelj at 07:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)