9/18 lecture news

Bad news guys,

Rafael Vargas has to postpone his lecture another week due to a few difficulties in the development of Fallout 3. They are developing the game for 3 platforms at once and releasing them all at the same time, so that complicates the process quite a bit.

We will, therefore, forge on with the planned class lectures, so as a result I'm going to post the homework and information from the next lecture, entitled "Not Now, I'm Busy" - Behavior Theory, Goals, Desire, and Exploration

Journal Prompt - Spatial Literacy - Describe a game that you have played that utilizes the spatial principles we discussed today to draw a player through a space. Did the game use these as clever hints or did it limit your exploration and become too linear? When you reached rewarding areas, how were you rewarded? Was the spatial layout made in a way that you became procedurally literate and began to expect when you were going to find the next reward or challenge? Next, discuss an architectural or urban space where you have found the same spatial principles in the same way you described the game, or describe a place (again in the same way as the game) where you find that they were sorely lacking and should be implemented. If you decide to make changes, use appropriate drawings or diagrams and describe exactly what changes you would make, and what kind of experience you want to create for your occupant with them.

Here are a few concepts from this lecture:

1. Coin drop - A concept that describes designing a game in such a way that the player is rewarded enough so they will strive for the next reward, but hard enough that they will need to pay to continue playing. This is the principle behind boardwalk games, slot machines, and arcade video games.

2. Reward - An item, event, or space that creates a sense of satisfaction for the player upon completing a task. The different types of rewards in gaming are:

• Rewards of Glory - Have no impact on the gameplay itself but are things that will be taken away from the experience. This reward is based solely on the sense of achievement felt for overcoming challenges.
  
• Rewards of Sustenance - Given so players can maintain their character's "status quo" and continue playing. These include things such as health and extra lives.
• Rewards of Access - These have 3 features - they allow access to new locations that were previously inaccessible, they are generally used only once, and they have no value to the player once they've been used. These include keys and passwords. Another way of viewing these rewards is newfound access to new characters or experiences that were not available before.
  
• Rewards of Facility - Enable the player's character to do things they could not before or enhance abilities they already possess. These increase the number of strategies available to the player in the game.

3. In architecture, most of the rewards that we use are rewards of access, glory, and sustenance, when we give resting spaces.

4. Denial - By withholding a reward from a player, the game designer makes earning that reward much more rewarding.

5. Typical denial methods in architecture include changes in height, views, intervening screens and foliage, partial reveals, layered walls with views, creating spaces that slow one's progress, enticing corners, and Zen views.

6. Oku - A Japanese urban design principle that describes space similar to the way an onion is structured. Spaces are laid out in a twisting, folding pattern with rewarding spaces or rest areas laid along the path. Eventually the sequence reaches an end point.

7. The 7 Persuasive Technology Tools - 7 components of computer programs, also utilized by game designers, that describe different ways that users interact with the program and vice versa. They are:

• Reduction - Reducing complex behaviors to simple tasks
• Tunneling - Leading users through predetermined sets of actions, step by step
• Tailoring - Providing information relevant to individuals to change their attitudes or behaviors
• Suggestion - Suggesting behavior at the most opportune moment
• Self-monitoring - A tool that allows people to monitor their attitudes or behaviors to achieve a predetermined goal or outcome
• Surveillance - Allowing people to monitor each other
• Conditioning - Using principles of operant conditioning to change behavior

8. Tunneling will be treated as a primary goal for our spatial designs, as it describes how we use space to lead users through sequences.

9. Suggestion is the first tool for tunneling. It describes placing visual cues, forms, and other hints that guides a player or occupant through a space.

10. Architectural Weenies - A term coined by Walt Disney after the hot dogs that his crew used to entice dogs to run across the set in a movie. He used the same ideas in the architecture of his amusement parks to entice visitors to them and allow the person to orient themselves.

11. The concepts of Kevin Lynch are useful when describing suggestion in urban spaces. In his book, The Image of the City, he lays out 5 concepts that can be useful for describing how to move through space.

• Landmarks - Identifiable objects
• Paths - Channels for travel
• Districts - Distinctive sub-areas with their own character
• Edges - Perceived boundaries
• Nodes - Focal points and intersections

12. Reduction discusses how many different activities can be simulated or designed into games, but is also useful for describing the way that gamers become so good at analyzing the logic of systems of rules.

13. 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.

14. Montessori Method - A method of teaching that focuses on the senses as a medium for absorbing information, then having that sensory information interpreted by the intellect. Through this method, students learn to solve problems based on an evaluation of their surroundings or data presented to them and interpret an answer based on the information given.