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.