Change of plans for the 9/11 class

Unfortunately, Rafael Vargas will speak next week instead of this one. Bethesda Softworks is currently finishing the development of Fallout 3 and they are doing some extra work tonight.

Don't worry though, because I have all the semester's lectures prepared, so we'll just move through onto the next section, entitled Basic Human Functions and Emotional Responses to Space in Architecture and Games. The homework assignment for this chapter is as follows:

Journal prompt – Real Virtuality: Choose and describe a game you have played that uses the prospect/refuge relationship and the idea of peril in some part of its gameplay. Describe a theoretical building structure of your own design that utilizes concepts specific to this game as though you were designing a real – world version of a level for that game. Feel free to speculate on its potential use. Use diagrams and sketches if you deem necessary.

Here are the concepts from this lecture:

1. Like shelter, food, water, and other things, "play" can be described as a basic human need. According to Dutch historian Johan Huizinga, author of Homo Ludens, play requires imagination and the interpretation of our surroundings. When this is compared with "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs", this definition of play fulfills the needs of "self-actualization" and "esteem."

2. Huizinga also argues that play is not "in culture" but "of culture", meaning that while others regard it as an escape or distraction, he believes that it serves needs outside of itself and is fundamentally important. This idea is illustrated by how the games of various cultures represent important ideas to the cultures they come from. (Chess as military strategy, the cooperative singing and work games of Civil War-era slave children that were a counter to the otherwise oppressive environment, etc.)

3. When games create play, that play creates a dialog with another basic human need, survival, to elicit emotions from players. To survive in a game is to stay in the magic circle of the game and keep playing, losing, dying, or being eliminated is tantamount to being yanked from the world of the game.

4. The Problem of the Protagonist - An element of some games where the player character begins the game in a condition of natural weakness and must upgrade themselves to remain in the game and respond to rising challenge (video games, Checkers, gaining money or tokens in games like Monopoly.)

5. Refuge - An intimate, enclosed space providing the cover of shadows and protection from external hazards, as well as the ability to view these hazards from within the refuge. Humans tend to feel safe in these spaces.

6. Prospect - A wide-open and often well-lit space that is viewable from the refuge that may or may not contain threats. In these spaces, humans often feel unsafe or ill-at-ease.

7. Secondary refuge - A refuge that lies beyond the prospect, often presented in games as a goal for the player.

8. The buildings of Le Corbusier are often cited as being mostly made of prospect spaces, both in the interior and in some of the exterior spaces. Frank Lloyd Wright on the other hand, utilizes mostly refuge spaces, with houses that are hidden among trees and a focus on the hearth as the center of the house.

9. The articulations of prospects, refuges, and secondary refuges in games are often used in games to lead players through a space. They also build varying degrees of comfort in the enemy encounters of video games, where refuges provide cover and prospects leave the player open, but also give a cinematic feel to combat. Games from the Metal Gear series are well known for using articulations of hiding places and cinematic battle areas to create a tense experience.

10. Shadow - A lack of light in a space caused by the light source being obscured by a physical object, creating a place for something to hide itself.

11. Shade - Sometimes referred to as "mystic light", is an ethereal and transcendental lighting condition that is neither completely light or dark. Commonly used in Gothic structures.

12. Shadowspace - A perceived refuge space within a larger space that is differentiated by a darker lighting condition than the other parts of the same space. This creates the perception that the darker space is a different space altogether and one where someone can hide from enemy view. This term was coined by the team who created Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell.

13. Shade obscures objects and gives them a ethereal look. Shade is used by game designers to both entice players into a mysterious space, or to create atmospheric ambiguity, a condition where the player is unsure of whether they are in a safe, holy area or about to be attacked. This condition is often used in games from the Zelda series.

14. While shadow and shade have been used to discuss safe conditions, moving from a light condition to a dark one makes the occupant of a space feel uncomfortable, as though they are walking into danger. Games like Half-Life 2 use areas where the player must wander from light to dark to create scary moments such as zombie and alien attacks, and also to hide surprises for the player.

15. Materiality plays a role in human safety as well. Humans feel comfortable when they are exposed to outdoor views and natural settings. This is why people in cubicles hang posters of forests or canyons on their walls. Frank Lloyd Wright understood this and laid many of his house designs in natural wooded areas, and mandated that this tree cover be featured in any perspective drawings. In classic epic literature and video games, the material quality of spaces deteriorates as the player progresses to the final villain's lair and show the hero's level of danger.

16. Height can be used for both refuge and peril. Height can be articulated to give an occupant or player the perception of being able to look out over danger without being in danger, but can also be used to instill a sense of peril from vertigo. This can create dramatic moments in both architecture and games.

17. Another paradigm shift: in architecture, we often try to make the occupant feel safe and comfortable. Game design calls for the designer to create both moments of fear and safety, with the safe spaces serving as rewards for overcoming danger.

18. Challenging space - A built space that creates in an occupant a sense of uneasiness based on varying conditions of: light vs. dark; prospect vs. refuge; height vs. vertigo, etc.