Concepts and journal prompt for the 9/4 class

Hey everyone,

Here are some of the concepts from the second week lecture: Introduction to Game Design. I'll be posting the concepts from each lecture for your own review and designs. Many of these concepts are taken straight from the textbook, Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals and will serve as the foundation of our discussions for the rest of the semester.

First thing's first though, here's this week's journal prompt:

Journal Prompt: Meaningful Play: Play a game, board or video game, and describe its rules (or in the case of a video game, what abilities or movements are allowed in the game), the narrative atmosphere it creates (setting, story, characters, etc.) and the goal of the game. Determine if all of the games elements fit into and affect one another in a meaningful way or if something could be changed or added to make the game more meaningful (example: are the rules reflective of the story of the game or are the narrative elements just a “paint job” applied to a set of rules that could create any game.) Describe any changes or additions you make and how you think they will affect the overall experience. Then think back to a building you have been to or a project you have had where an element of the building did not fit into the overall concept (this part is easier with your own projects and/or ones you have had juries on) and create the same analysis you did with the game. Describe what could have been changed to make the building more meaningful.

With that, here are the summarized versions of the concepts from this lecture:

1. Games communicate with players through 3 very important methods that can inform architecture:

• Adjustment of behavior - creating conditions that get the user to act in a way that the designer wants while simultaneously setting up opportunities for unplanned behaviors.

• Transmission of meaning - Using the structure of the design and symbolism to convey ideas and/or narrative.

• Augmentation of space - Connecting the user to a database of information that can inform their exploration and experience of a place.

2. Game - A system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome. Games are different from the concept of "play" since they are governed by a set of rules that dictate player action and control the movements they can make.

3. Meaningful play - Meaningful play in a game emerges from the relationship between player action and system outcome; it is the process by which a player takes action within the designed system of a game and the system responds to the action. The relationships between actions and outcomes in a game are both discernible and integrated into the larger context of the game.

4. Architectural design is usually done from a top-down point of view, therefore, we will adopt a new definition of design: Design - The process by which a designer creates a context to be encountered by a participant, from which meaning emerges.

For architecture, this will mean that the designer is the architect, the context is the building or urban space, the participant is the occupant, and the experience the occupant has in the space is what creates meaning for our architecture.

5. Games are systems of representation, everything within them stands for something else. Games are made up of signs and abstractions of things that exist in the real world or the narrative world that is created within the game.

6. System - A set of objects with individual identities interacting to create meaningful patterns that are different from any of the individual objects, all within the environment. Systems have 4 parts which are important to this definition: the objects in the system, the attributes of those objects, internal relationships between them, and the environment that the system takes place in.

7. There are 4 types of interactivity for working through a game and an architectural space:

Cognitive - Psychological, emotional, and and intellectual participation

Functional - Functional or structural interaction (players using controllers in a game and the function of the building systems and the occupant's interactions with them in a building)

Explicit - Participation in designed choices and procedures

Beyond the object interactivity - Interaction with the culture outside the immediate system

8. The Magic Circle - The space within which the game takes place. It is a special place, marked off from our normal reality, where the rules of the game are law and carry weight.

It takes a commitment to enter the space and an openness to the experience of playing a game. This is called the lusory attitude, the willingness to immerse oneself in a gamespace.

9. Gamespace - The environment created as the setting of a game. This is not to be confused with the Magic Circle.

An element of this lecture is also a design brainstorming game called GameGame. A free copy can be found at http://gamegame.blogs.com/ It can be a useful tool for learning the game design process and coming up with ideas for your final project. It is recommended that you use sticky-backed paper to attach the card print-outs to a set of playing cards so they can be easily shuffled.