Homework and concepts from the October 9th class session

Hello all,

I wanted to address a general tendency that I'm noticing in some of your journal entries. A lot of you are doing the entry within the hour or two before class, and ending up with some incomplete results. Also please begin discussing some more important pieces of architecture besides those in your immediate surroundings. Discuss important buildings you have been to or are familiar with through your architectural education. This is what the class is ultimately about after all. I commented on a few of your papers from last class that this should change, so I hope to see better and more complete analyses from now on, or I may need to make the assignment a bit stricter.

Don't forget, next week is the mid-review for the class, located in the Crough Center. You need two 24x24 boards, one for your building and one for your game. I will have some of my own graduate student colleagues on the jury and they're very excited, so make sure you have a good presentation.

For the journal prompt, I have 2 different options. You will get the same amount of points for each, but I just thought I'd open one up for discussion. It's more complex so feel free to address it if you are feeling brave.

Journal prompt 1: Real Virtuality: Play a game of any kind with others. Describe the game and observe the actions, reactions, and personal interactions of yourself and the other players, then document your findings (this works better for non-video games). Discuss how the rules caused you and the other players to behave the way you did and try to describe the strategies and even "player personalities" that emerged. Then, find a space either in a building or urban environment where people gather. Observe their interactions and discuss how the space facilitates their behavior. Describe their actions and/or try to name their "player personalities" as well.

Journal prompt 2: Opinion: Phenomenology is a hotly debated philosophy that, when applied to architecture, relates to "spirit of place." It is the idea that when one visits a site, urban environment, or piece of architecture they must put aside all priory knowledge and experience the physical and sensory qualities of the space wholly in and of itself. As stated in the lecture, game designers debate whether or not a game can fully immerse a player in its world or if real world influences on the player shade their experience of gamespace. As game design and architecture collide, the question arises then whether or not game design proves to be a phenomenological supplement to architectural design; due to the immersive quality of games; or if they "simulation gap" and the "immersive fallacy" ring true. What do you think?

Now that that's out of the way, here's the info from this past week's lecture:

1. Simulation gap - The idea that the interpretation of a game's events depends on an individual user.

2. The immersive fallacy - An argument against the idea of total immersion in a game based on the idea that each individual is different and will bring their own outside experiences into the game world. The term is coined by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman.

3. Game design is a second order design problem, which means that the designer is creating a formal structure that indirectly influences the experiences of those interacting with it.

4. Architecture can share this definition of design when architects take the experiences of the building occupant into account.

5. Emergence - The experience and actions that emerge from interaction with a formal system of rules such as the system of rules within a game, a mathematical algorithm, or even the structures of a building.

6. Possibility space - Spaces, created by sets of rules, that allow for different and varied experiences to occur.

7. Miniature garden aesthetic - A design aesthetic of Mario and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto that describes a possibility space that simulates traveling through multiple natural and man-made environments, similar to a Japanese garden.

8. Overview - A method of exposing the player to the entirety of a possibility space through a fly-over or numeric tracking of progress through space. This can be helpful for showing the player the game's game state.

9. Tour - An initial encounter with a space that allows opportunities to see spaces or objects that are initially unaccessible, but will be encountered later.

10. 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.

11. Iterative design - A method of design in such a way that allows for imaginative or emergent behaviors to happen.

12. The argument over emergent or non-emergent spaces is embodied within the conflicts between urbanists such as Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses.

13. Degenerate strategies - An emergent strategy that exposes the falsehood of the game world. Also known as "cheating."

14. Some games, such as Konami's Metal Gear Solid embrace the ability to utilize the outside world to enhance in-game experiences, such as in the Psycho Mantis fight.

15. Game designers also create secrets or surprises for players to discover within the game world by establishing strict spatial rules and breaking them, such as the spaces that break the 1-screen-tall format of Super Mario Bros.