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.