notes from the final lecture

Hey guys,

I am posting this in the middle of a pile of work so I'm going to make this quick, but you have all of Thanksgiving week to work on this so I'm not too worried.

For next class, please bring your latest version of your game and your architectural space so we can discuss them. I am going to talk to Rafael about whether or not he will be coming in to speak.

Here is the homework from the previous lecture:

Journal prompt: Site-specific resistance: Create a simple game designed to be played in a certain physical context, such as a landmark, Metro car (no, the Rhode Island Challenge doesn't count), urban space, Starbuck's, etc. The game should both use elements of being in that space as part of the game (ex. people in the location), and change their contexts so they can become part of the game without having players behave too outlandishly (i.e. In a vampire game, talking to someone can equal "sucking blood", and that could ultimately lead to points.) Technology may or may not be integrated in some way. The game should be something that can be played without others knowing you are playing a game (don't get arrested). Play the game and write about it, discussing how elements of that place that you have chosen are meaningfully integrated into the game and how any technology that you have chosen to integrate is meaningful and assists or tracks progress.

Here are concepts from the lecture:

1. Augmented reality - a term in computer research that refers to a combination of real and virtual world data.

2. Augmented reality recalls the Persuasive Technology Tools of self-monitoring and surveillance.

3. Pervasive games - Games where players' real world actions take on virtual world meanings through the player's interactions with mobile technologies.

4. Alternate reality games - Games which use the real world as a medium for delivering game content through websites, e-mail, phone calls, or actual gatherings. They put players into real-world stories that are affected by their input.

5. These technologies are informing the ways the mobile technologies are used within real architecture to assist people using those buildings. An example of this is the use of Nintendo DS's to get MLB scores within Seattle's Safeco Field.

That's it! Enjoy. E-mail me with any questions.

whoops!

Hey guys,

Sorry I forgot to get last week's lecture notes up...it's the fallout from last week's "hell week."

Here's your homework for last class...I don't think there will be homework for this class so you can turn it in next week.

Journal prompt: Changing the world with conceptual design: Choose an idea that you would like to inform or persuade others about. It can be political, religious, social, or fun (but please be respectful of others opinions and non-degrading) and create a concept for a game that would help you achieve your goals. You can even choose a specific candidate, event, or product to endorse as well. Begin by describing your core concept and the set of rules governing the game. How do you win the game or can you win? What is the incentive for playing? Likewise, imagine and describe a building that could inform or persuade someone about the same idea. How do the spaces in the building help inform your occupant of your idea. Please include diagrams.

Here are some of the ideas from the class:

1. Metagame - The experience of a game in the outside world

2. Metagame has 3 parts: what the player brings to the game, the effect that the game has on the player during the game, and what the player takes away from the game.

3. Procedural rhetoric - the unique ability of a video game, computer program, or any interactive media to persuade or discuss ideas through participation in cause and effect relationships and procedures.

4. Many games use procedural rhetoric to discuss political, commercial, or academic ideas.

5. Games can allow us to explore historic events or places.

6. Architecture is seen by many as a built symbol or space that is capable of using rhetoric in the same way that a game can, through it's system of formal and spatial rules.

That's all you really need to know. There are a lot of historic notes for this lecture but those are not as important. I actually wrote most of this lecture out of my thesis background materials so don't worry too much about it.

The laaaaaaaaaate notes from the 10-30 lecture

Hey guys,

Sorry for the extremely late post, I am in the middle of the week from hell. I also got a puppy!

Let the cuteness consume you!

Okay, so here's the stuff you need for the past week's lecture:

Journal prompt: Spatial Storytelling: Find a short story or write one on your own. Describe the plot and describe what kind of game and space it could make. For the game, give a brief description of what kinds of mechanics could be implemented to be meaningful to the narrative. For the space, design it as though it had to match the events or emotional tone of your story. What kind of spaces can you create to guide an occupant through the narrative? How could your game design and your spatial design work together to create your story?

Since I am essentially writing this the day before it's due, you can have until Sunday to send it to me, but feel free to send it earlier if you can.

Here are the concepts from this lecture:

1. Narrative is another generator for either a game design or spatial design.

2. Mechanic vs. Motif - The idea that a game can be designed starting from either the game's core mechanic; with a narrative created for presentation purposes; or the narrative and expressive parts of a game; with mechanics designed to enhance the story.

3. Games designed with story first include games from the Final Fantasy series. Frank Lloyd Wright builds some houses beginning with narrative, such as how he built Fallingwater based on the client's family stories about the site.

4. Narrative space - A space that can "shape a narrative frame and experience." There are four types of narrative space:

• Evocative - Evokes preexisting narrative associations - using familiar imagery and settings
• Staging - Creating a space on which events are enacted - room type created for specific story events or encounters
• Embedded - Placing narrative within the scene - game world becomes an information space, or "memory palace." Parts of the space tell the story of what happened there.
• Providing resources - Putting the right pieces in place for emergent narrative

5. The Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. utilizes these types of narrative space within a piece of architecture.

6. Narrative descriptors - Any component of a game that participates in a game's "system of representation", such as instructional text, in-game cinematics, interface elements, game objects, and other visual or audio elements.

7. Rules must match the story so they can both contribute to meaningful play.

8. There are two types of narrative:

• Embedded narrative - A pre-written story that is programmatically shown to a player or occupant within a narrative space.
• Emergent narrative - The narrative that comes from the player's interaction with a game. This is similar to thinking of a game as a book that is being written while the player plays, with the player's actions carrying out the action scenes and other parts of the story that they have control over.

9. In architecture, emergent narrative is the story of a space and how people move through them. It can also be the story of what people experience in the space based on their own personalities and prior experiences.

10. Reward of exposition - Narrative that is used as a reward or rest from intense action.

11. The hero myth is a precident for how materiality is used to tell a story. At the beginning of a story, the materiality is natural and perceived as "safe." As the hero moves to more and more dangerous territories, the materiality steadily becomes more bleak and unnatural, eventually becoming the materiality of "evil", with things such as fire, brimstone, and machines. This is embodied in stories such as The Lord of the Rings, and video games such as The Legend of Zelda, and even in Super Mario Bros. within each world.

12. The quality of a space can establish mood when used in a narrative space. Using the qualities of light, shadow, prospect and refuge, or size of spaces can set a safe or happy tone or a dark and unsafe tone based on how the qualities of these spaces are articulated.

Homework and concepts for the 10-23 lecture

Hey guys,

Sorry for the very late post, I have been preparing for my trip to Valve Software tomorrow and it's been quite a busy week.

I'll start by posting the homework for this week:

Journal prompt: Think about a game you have played where the manipulation of levels of information is essential during gameplay. How does the game give you information? How do visual rhetorics or other concepts we have discussed help the game give information to the player? How does the game hide information from players or cause players to hide information from one another? Think about a famous piece of architecture you have been in or learned about that also utilizes manipulations of information. How does the building hide information from occupants and how does it reveal that information? How is this manipulation used to guide people through the space? Are there visual cues or other tricks used to give visitors information relevant to their visit or convey symbolic information?

I understand that many of you have lately been playing Halo 3, Mass Effect, World of Warcraft, and others, but I would like to see some new games being discussed. For this assignment the discussion can be particularly meaningful with many non-digital games. I hope you understand that I'd like to encourage all of you to explore all different types of games, not just video games.

Here are concepts from the last lecture:

1. Symbol - Representations of objects in the real or imaginary worlds created for the game that behave and resemble what they would look like in reality.

2. Type - An architectural symbol of a certain building use. These are created by popular associations between certain building uses and forms that they are most often built with.

3. Rhetoric - The study of writing or speaking as a means of communication or persuasion.

4. Visual rhetoric - The use of symbols, illustrations, or images to convey ideas.

5. Despite many modernist opinions against ornament, ornament can be useful in architecture when used as symbols and a means of engaging in visual rhetoric. Functional ornament can inform and therefore be an important part of a building system.

6. 3 types of advertisingare used in games to inform the use of visual rhetoric:

• Demonstrative - Uses direct illustration and descriptions of how something is used or how it can be beneficial to the person reading the ad.
• Illustrative - Indirect, usually focusing on an image of the product in a certain setting to illustrate that product's popular "image."
• Associative - Even more indirect, often not even featuring the product, but showing intangible qualities associated with the product such as "fun", "adventure", or "experience."

7. Memory Palace - A pneumonic device used to remember and organize large amounts of information. The user imagines a large palace of many rooms, each with a different architectural style. Each piece of information is assigned a "room" of the "palace" and each room is envisioned with a distinct style so that each piece of information can be uniquely remembered.

8. 4 levels of information are manipulated during games:

• Information known to all players - The rules of a game, movements one can make, the board layout in a board game, a game environment in an online multiplayer game, etc.
• Information known to only one player - The cards in your hand in Poker, a player's position in an online multiplayer game.
• Information known to the game only - Unused cards in a Poker deck, enemy movements in a video game, whodunit in Clue.
• Randomly generated information - Dice rolls, games of chance

9. These 4 levels of information create 3 levels of certainty for a player:

• Certainty - A situation where the outcome is certain. Games that are certain are hardly games at all.
• Uncertainty - Players have no idea about an outcome of a game; entering a situation completely blind
• Risk - Players are uncertain but have an idea of the nature of uncertainty in advance. Example: The outcome of a game of Roulette is uncertain but the odds of a number coming up can be calculated.

10. An important part of game design is leading players where they don't feel comfortable or sure of an outcome, and rewarding them for taking chances. Hiding information can enhance the feeling of taking a risk, as well as the survival conditions discussed in the first two lectures.

11. Game theory - A branch of applied mathematics that looks at how players in a game process the information they receive and act accordingly to achieve the most desirable outcome for themselves.

12. Choices that players will make along the course of a game can be mapped by creating flow charts.

Homework and concepts from the October 9th class session

Hello all,

I wanted to address a general tendency that I'm noticing in some of your journal entries. A lot of you are doing the entry within the hour or two before class, and ending up with some incomplete results. Also please begin discussing some more important pieces of architecture besides those in your immediate surroundings. Discuss important buildings you have been to or are familiar with through your architectural education. This is what the class is ultimately about after all. I commented on a few of your papers from last class that this should change, so I hope to see better and more complete analyses from now on, or I may need to make the assignment a bit stricter.

Don't forget, next week is the mid-review for the class, located in the Crough Center. You need two 24x24 boards, one for your building and one for your game. I will have some of my own graduate student colleagues on the jury and they're very excited, so make sure you have a good presentation.

For the journal prompt, I have 2 different options. You will get the same amount of points for each, but I just thought I'd open one up for discussion. It's more complex so feel free to address it if you are feeling brave.

Journal prompt 1: Real Virtuality: Play a game of any kind with others. Describe the game and observe the actions, reactions, and personal interactions of yourself and the other players, then document your findings (this works better for non-video games). Discuss how the rules caused you and the other players to behave the way you did and try to describe the strategies and even "player personalities" that emerged. Then, find a space either in a building or urban environment where people gather. Observe their interactions and discuss how the space facilitates their behavior. Describe their actions and/or try to name their "player personalities" as well.

Journal prompt 2: Opinion: Phenomenology is a hotly debated philosophy that, when applied to architecture, relates to "spirit of place." It is the idea that when one visits a site, urban environment, or piece of architecture they must put aside all priory knowledge and experience the physical and sensory qualities of the space wholly in and of itself. As stated in the lecture, game designers debate whether or not a game can fully immerse a player in its world or if real world influences on the player shade their experience of gamespace. As game design and architecture collide, the question arises then whether or not game design proves to be a phenomenological supplement to architectural design; due to the immersive quality of games; or if they "simulation gap" and the "immersive fallacy" ring true. What do you think?

Now that that's out of the way, here's the info from this past week's lecture:

1. Simulation gap - The idea that the interpretation of a game's events depends on an individual user.

2. The immersive fallacy - An argument against the idea of total immersion in a game based on the idea that each individual is different and will bring their own outside experiences into the game world. The term is coined by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman.

3. Game design is a second order design problem, which means that the designer is creating a formal structure that indirectly influences the experiences of those interacting with it.

4. Architecture can share this definition of design when architects take the experiences of the building occupant into account.

5. Emergence - The experience and actions that emerge from interaction with a formal system of rules such as the system of rules within a game, a mathematical algorithm, or even the structures of a building.

6. Possibility space - Spaces, created by sets of rules, that allow for different and varied experiences to occur.

7. Miniature garden aesthetic - A design aesthetic of Mario and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto that describes a possibility space that simulates traveling through multiple natural and man-made environments, similar to a Japanese garden.

8. Overview - A method of exposing the player to the entirety of a possibility space through a fly-over or numeric tracking of progress through space. This can be helpful for showing the player the game's game state.

9. Tour - An initial encounter with a space that allows opportunities to see spaces or objects that are initially unaccessible, but will be encountered later.

10. Procedural literacy - The concept of engaging a game or other interactive program, critically analyzing the "rules" and procedures by which it operates, and learning how to interact with it.

11. Iterative design - A method of design in such a way that allows for imaginative or emergent behaviors to happen.

12. The argument over emergent or non-emergent spaces is embodied within the conflicts between urbanists such as Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses.

13. Degenerate strategies - An emergent strategy that exposes the falsehood of the game world. Also known as "cheating."

14. Some games, such as Konami's Metal Gear Solid embrace the ability to utilize the outside world to enhance in-game experiences, such as in the Psycho Mantis fight.

15. Game designers also create secrets or surprises for players to discover within the game world by establishing strict spatial rules and breaking them, such as the spaces that break the 1-screen-tall format of Super Mario Bros.

Homework and notes for the Oct. 2, 2008 class

Hey guys,

I spoke with Rafael Vargas earlier this week and he committed to doing his lecture in late November, so we can look forward to hearing from him at the end of the semester.

With that being the case, we will press on in our studies this week and begin discussing the actual process of creating games.

First of all, here's the homework:

Journal Prompt: Spatial Discussion: Play a "sandbox" game and a linear game (come to me if you need examples.) Give a brief summary and/or description of each and describe the spaces within each game. Detail the experience of playing through either type of game and discuss the opportunities and spatial descriptors available to the player in each.

EXTRA CREDIT (in addition to the other prompt): Flip-flop: Describe a game that you have played or read about and give a detailed description of its core mechanic and basic rules. Then, with that description, write a different story for the game utilizing the exact opposite atmosphere (ex: bloody sci-fi epic becomes a Barbie-esque fantasy world) than it had before, but maintaining the exact same core mechanic and gameplay style/rules.

1. Core Mechanic - The most basic element of a game. It is the thing that a gamer does over and over again. Many game designers refer to designing games from a core mechanic as "designing by verb", since designers often begin from a single action.

2. Core mechanics can become analogous of analyzing the actual uses of architectural spaces then building the spaces of the building to be forms or "rules" that are expressive of that "core mechanic."

3. Rules - A set of guidelines that control the behavior of players within a game and restrict the actions and movements that the players may take. There are 3 types of rules

• Operational - The written "rules of play" of a game. these are the guidelines that control player behavior and describe explicit player actions.
• Constituative - The mathematical logic that exists "under the hood" of games. They contain the logic of the game but do not describe how the players should interact with this logic.
• Implicit - The "unwritten rules" of a game. Includes etiquette and behavior that goes unstated when a game is played.
  

4. A game's rules are not the strategies that players create. Strategies are series of moves created by the player from the possible movements they can make within the game's rule system. They are developed for the purpose of gaining an advantage.

5. A games rules are also not the artwork, atmosphere, or any other narrative element that is part of the game's identity. Case in point: Super 3D Noah's Ark is a religious-themed game created by adding new artwork to the Wolfenstein 3D source code.

6. Digital games utilize programming code to assign behaviors to objects such as building parts and furniture that make them act like their real-world counterparts and limit player movement. This means that the rules of digital games are, for our purposes, structures and space.

7. Architecture is expressed in different ways through various types of games.

8. Classical gamespaces can inform the way we look at the gamespaces we create and serve as precedents for how we lay out spatial sequences.

• Labyrinth - An elaborate structure that consists of a single winding path leading to a final stopping point, usually found in the center of the labyrinth. Consisting of only a single path, it is not difficult to navigate.
• Maze - A tour puzzle featuring a complex branching passage that the occupant must navigate to find an exit or end condition. Often purposely confusing to navigate since they offer choices which can result in the occupant finding dead ends.
• Rhizome - A structure in which every point is interconnected with every other point. The internet is described as such a space, since it is a place where any information is accessible at any given time. Has no real-world counterpart.

9. Sandbox - Games in which the action takes place in a large open world that a player is free to explore at their leasure. The player can take on different tasks and missions based on characters they interact with and odd jobs they can procure in a non-linear fashion.

10. Linear game - A game that presents players with a prescribed set of actions or gamespaces in a sequence that they must work through.

11. Sandbox games, often portrayed as urban spaces, utilize many of Kevin Lynch's principles to help a player create a cognitive map of a place and orient themselves.

12. Different qualities of spaces can help stage different events:

• Cramped space - Space where an occupant feels claustrophobic and unable to act. This often makes a person feel like they cannot defend themselves. In games this is used for intense shoot-outs or places where the player is to feel cornered (the Morph Ball in Metroid)
• Intimate space - A space that allows an occupant access to every part of their surroundings. This sort of space is the ideal "refuge" space. This type of space makes occupants feel that they are in control of their surroundings. This is used often in games to create the players "home base" or the first level.
• Prospect space - A wide open space where occupants feel exposed and in the view of danger. This is used in games to create cinematic boss battles or large-scale conflicts.
  

13. In games, winning often means mastering the rules of the game. Winning in digital gamespaces and architectural spaces often translates into mastering the space, as demonstrated by various sequences from the movie, Tron.

9/25 Homework and concepts

Hey guys,

Sorry for the later-than-usual post, it's been a busy week. First thing's first, there is some question of when we'll do our mid-review jury. Nights and weekends are bad times for professors to come in so George and Carlos have said that the best times for them are Tuesday mornings. I've heard back from a few of you on this topic and it sounds like we may need to play around with times. Please e-mail me with any free daytime that you have open that you could have this jury. Also, I am thinking that for the jury, you should have 2 24x24 Photoshop boards, one for your architectural design and its progress, and one for the game design and its progress. I would also like you to bring your models.

For this week, the homework is:

Modification: Describe a game you have played (video or non-video, it may work better with non-video). Insert or change a rule of the game so that it integrates punishments or rewards for player actions. Describe the outcome and how your change should affect the player's behavior. Alternatively, look at a building or urban environment you regularly inhabit: how does its spatial layout encourage you or discourage you to enter certain spaces? How could the space be changed to better draw occupants towards major destinations?

Here are the concepts:

1. Operant Conditioning - The use of consequences to change or modify behavior. More specifically, it's the use of rewards or punishments to instill in a subject whether or not a behavior is right or wrong.

2. Behavior Theory - A philosophy conceived by psychologist B.F. Skinner that refers to all human actions as "behaviors" and treats them as actions that are not free, but instead derived from one's environment.

3. Positive Reinforcement - When a subject performs a positive action and are rewarded.

4. Negative Reinforcement - When a subject performs a negative action and are punished.

5. Entrainment - When rewards are applied on particular schedules, this causes the subject to strive for the next reward and expect when it is coming.

6. Long term goal - A macro-scaled goal that will be achieved far in the future. Short-term goals work toward the long-term goal. These goals are often hinted at or shown to the player throughout the course of a game.

7. Short term goal - Micro-scaled goals that are often immediately accessible to players.

8. The above concepts can and should be used in architectural or urban spaces to channel paths and initiate exploration. In Half-Life 2, for example, the early part of the game features architectural and urban structures that appear complete and have many different rooms, but only one way to proceed through the level. Instead of making disembodied closed doors, Valve designers chose to show spaces outside of the player path but block them off with encounters with dangerous enemy guards that act as architectural boundaries.

9. Flow - Emotional and psychological state of focused and engaged happiness that is brought about by a sense of achievement and accomplishment.

10. Flow channel - A channel of comfort between challenge and player skill.

11. Flow is analogous of spatial comfort levels with visual complexity and environmental conditions. Buildings should be complex enough to be visually engaging, but simple enough to be understandable.

12. Cybernetic feedback system - One that measures aspects of a system or environment, compares the measurements to a set value, and decides whether or not to take action to adjust the system or environment to fit in with the set value.

13. Positive feedback system - A system that acts cumulatively to make a system unstable.

14. Negative feedback system - Stabilizes the system and brings it back to a steady state.

15. These systems are similar to the concepts of architecture dynamically transforming to surroundings, user inputs, and environmental conditions. Some of these concepts involve kinetic structures and mechanical devices. Simpler versions of this concept exist, however, when designers plan how spaces change based on the amount of people in them, the event happening there, or even the time of day, as in the case of Notre Dame Cathedral.