Games

This link is an article written by Frans Mäyrä (homepage and blog) at the University of Tampere in Finland. He discusses pervasive gaming in the context of Johan Huizing's Homo Ludens, written in 1938, about games:

He summarised the formal characteristics of play by defining it as a free activity which is outside ordinary life, is not connected to our everyday material interests, and yet – and perhaps exactly because of this liberating 'escapism' – can absorb us intensely and utterly.

Mäyrä also points to something that Jesper Juul's 'Half Real' book focuses on - the fact that although games are 'free activities', they are still governed by rules, and the importance of this tension between being bound by rules, and yet being free to choose and to play. This is very important. It is why games are important (e.g. one can make mistakes without it being critical) and immersive. I think people who dismiss computer games are often people who have not played them themselves, and see gameplay as being a waste of time or a 'lesser' activity than other activities, and as being frivolous by their very nature, and thereby not worthy of serious study.

(This has somehow led me to an article on RFID tags, explaining how they work, and how they can be used for people-tracking. The article mainly deals with security and contacting people at large events, but as it also suggests that it is much better than GPS - partly because it can work inside - and so has got to be worth a close look for using with Mobile Bristol.)

Mäyrä briefly discusses 'social gaming' as well, and this idea is an aspect of what my own project is based around. I like the sound of the game 'Songs of North' [sic] he mentions, where the mobiel device becomes a window into another reality, populated by spirits and the like. As I've also discovered, however, the screen is not really the best way of engaging the user, but rather, 'the game immerses players into a rich audio world where wolves howl and eagles screech', through a hands-free headset, with the device taking second place.

He finishes (no pun intended) by noting both the "utopia of a distributed creative agency of thousands of game players communicating and interacting with each other via inspirational game worlds that are also intimately linked with the local and bodily realities of these individuals and communities, and

"The dystopian alternative, on the other hand, warns us about a world in which it is impossible to distinguish between emergency calls and ruses of warring virtual tribes, and where school, work and sleep are affected as day and night are invaded by never-ending and perpetually present games."

I've also been reading about the 'Girls n Games' conference. Two interesting anecdotes told by Mary Flanagan to do with girl gamers: girls wrote to the developers of Harry Potter to ask to be able play the character of Hermione, and Grand Theft Auto is very popular amongst 10 year-old girls, who like to drive around in cars, exploring this virtual world, rather than undertake the tasks. This suggests that gamers want to identify with their character, as they would with a character in a TV programme, a film or a novel, and that different people can have very different experiences of virtual worlds.

Really useful research and comments on player-centered game design here .

Going Mobile column on Gamasutra. This one mostly about top games companies in mobile games. Not so much about pervasive gaming though.

Presentation/Proposal

1. What I've been working on: a location-based game, played with hand-held device with integrated GPS.*

2. Key themes and interests:

• the virtual and the real;
  
• narrative;
  
• interactivity;
  
• (human) interaction;
  
• play;
  
• interfaces.

3. Important features of interactive narrative:

• Interface/aesthetics;
• Quality and context of narrative;
• Pace and suspense as key to good narrative;
  
• Emotional and dimensional perspectives;
• Repetition/patterns -> deepens interaction (familiarity);
• Feedback encourages interaction;
• Context -> prediction -> participation -> interactivity;
• Observation -> Exploration -> Modification -> Reciprocal Change;
• Player as investigator;
• Choice -> cause and effect;
• User-generated content;
  

4. Influences:

• Blast Theory;
• The works of Neil Gaiman (in particular The Sandman comics and American Gods);*
• Hellblazer comic, created by Jamie Delano and John Ridgway (John Constantine originally created by Alan Moore in Swamp Thing);
  
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - comic by Alan Moore;
• His Dark Materials Trilogy, by Philip Pullman;
  
• H.G. Wells;
• Brunel;
• Modernism;*
• Brazil - film by Terry Gilliam;*
• The Sims computer game, by Will Wright;
• Grand Theft Auto;
• IPerG - EU Pervasive Gaming project - 'Persistent virtual world' and LARP (live-action role-playing) games.

5. Initial Future Research:

GAMES (in order to deepen/broaden understanding of diverse experience of gaming):

• Shadow of the Colossus - tactics and interface;*
• Neverwinter Nights - role-playing, user-generated content (characters and modules);
• Dreamfall - The Longest Journey - adventure/quest game with two realities/worlds;
• Spore (when it comes out!) - user-generated content.*

READING (in order to broaden understanding of theory):

• Half Real by Jesper Juul - fiction and rules in computer games;
  
• Gender Inclusive Games Design by Sheri Graner-Ray;
• This Is Not a Game by Dave Szulborski - Alternative Reality Games
• Theory of Fun by Raph Koster.

INTERNET (in order to keep up to date):

• Blast Theory
• IPerG
• Gamasutra - game news;
• Games Without Frontiers blog (Finnish Ph.D researcher)*
• The Lodologist Jesper Juul's blog.
  

Pervasive Gaming 2

I have looked at this area before (here), and am returning to it because of the direction my work is taking. The Showcases area of the IPerG site demonstrates four examples of work. The first is Epidemic Menace, and example of what they descibe as Crossmedia games. By this they mean individual game that combine a variety of devices, interfaces and media. They are also

potentually acessible anytime and anywhere by a wide range of media devices.

This is an exciting development, although the work they are doing is looking three or four years into the future.

The next 'showcase' is what they term Socially Adaptable Games, which

researches how to develop games that integrate with, and connect to, other social activities of everyday lives.

This involves looking at the social aspects of games. What is particulary striking for me here is the fact that they state that the games are

designed to be partialy virtual and partialy physical.

Then there's the Massively Multiplayer Reaching Out, which is looking at extending online Massive Multiplayer games to be played anywhere, with mobile technology. This is more to do with accessing virtual worlds on the go it seems, rather than the integration of virtual and real.

Next comes the really interesting 'showcase', which is Live Action Role-Playing games (LARP) which use mobile technologies to enhance the experience. Live action RPGs have been around for quite a while, with people being able to live out their Dungeons and Dragons fantasies, dressed up as their character, running around in the woods on a Sunday morning. (I acually know someone who admits to doing this! Should I even admit to knowing someone like that?!) It's the user-orientated experience that's important though, in particular user generated content - that personal experience of a game that can be a very important part of engaging a user as with Spore (which I discussed here. It's also a way for individuals to explore different roles that they wouldn't otherwise have the chance to.

These are really the main areas that I'm looking at for my own work, although there doesn't seem to have been anything new on the IPerG website since I last looked.

More research

Things seem to be hotting up in the computer game world, with the X-box 360 out a while ago, and both Sony and Nintendo lining up their new products for releas later this year. There's a lot of talk about new directions for games. Will Wright (inventor of the Sims games) is soon to release a new game, called Spore. (Video demo here). One of the main things he learnt from Sims is that people like to make their own content, which is exactly what Spore does, as explained in my last blog. At the same time, Nintendo are soon to release what they are now calling the Wii (no longer Revolution), with the controller that has a motion sensor. This has been demonstrated at E3 today, with a version of tennis that involves real arm movements. Kind of active interactive! And you don't have to keep collecting the ball from the net. The BBC's report is here.

Sony's PS3 also apparently has a motion sensor of sorts - you can tilt a plane by tilting the controller for example. GameSpy don't feel the PS3 is as innovative as the Wii, but it's quite likely they both have other things up their sleeves, and E3 is presumably a way of testing responses for new products with plenty of time to make changes before release.

These are clearly the two directions that innovations for games are moving in - user created content, and innovations in controllers. I imagine with Spore that although the player can create their own creatures, the look and style of the world is defined by the designer. In the real world, of course, buildings are made with different materials in different parts of the world. It's not clear yet from what I can see whether there will be the possibility for this difference in Spore. That said, you would probably expect a consistent look in a computer game. Although here it is described as being more of a toy that you play with, creating things, than a typical game.



This article is about the research and prototypig of a game like Spore. Like a major film, it takes lots of people, lots of time with lots of money. The prototyping of small parts at a time allows you to find out what works and what doesn't - they test

solutions that people think might work

. They can also, of course lead the designer in new directions. A good prototype

should be fast, cheap, relevant, applicable, and focused!

Using something that already exists to test ideas on makes it simpler and quicker, and cheaper. And it's suggested that you try the riskiest ideas first rather than spend lots of time on other parts surrounding them. The whole thing has to work as a whole, of course. Even if the different parts work, they have to all fit together.



Overall, then, it's important to try lots of small bits out, get feedback; improve, change, disgard as appropriate, and kind of allow an organic process to evolve into a finished product.



There is also an overview of Will Wright's keynote speech at the GDC, where he talks about his view on research. Reading, talking, surfing the web is perhaps fairly obvious. He uses the metaphor of a tree to describe, with ideas and decisions being the branches, twigs and leaves. The big decisions, necessarily come early, and thus the trunk. He also talks about the level of realism within a game. A lot of his research is into how things work, but then uses fiction to make the game playable. I guess this is how some of the best novels work. (I'm thinking in particular of Neal Stephenson's rather wonderful Baroque Cycle, which I recently read. The mix of a wide sweep of real historical 17th and 18th century figures and ficional ones is quite staggering at times.) It's the fictional element and being able to do things that you can't in the real world, that usually makes games fun and compelling. Whilst the fact stuff can be interesting enough so that you learn things while you play, and possibly generate the desire to find out more.



Wright also talks about the need for trialling lots of prototypes (as above), and then about the need for 'hooks' for each level, to give the sense of progress and change having been brought about by the player, presumably. And the process of deconstruction, in researching how things work in the real world, and reconstruction, in recreating these things in the game world. But it's the idea of players being inspired to think ,or learn, about about a subject that he keeps coming back to, and I'm not sure that an 'author's' intentions can ever be fully realised (if at all), particularly in such a game. Although it does, apparently, give you a reasonable feel of how large and diverse the cosmos is. It's interesting that he sees what he does as something of a mission in that he tells his audience: "Change your players!" (And he doesn't mean swap them for different ones!) He is clearly deeply interested and inspired by the content of the game, however, that perhaps he just wants to share this.

More Games

I'm back to looking at game stuff having been looking at some other areas of research, such as Stefano Giovannoni, a designer who produces work for the like of Alessi. Alberto Alessi speaks very highly of Giovannoni, for obvious reasons, and of his approach to the relationship between form and function, in

knowing not only how to reach the highest possible quality of a project [...], but also being understood by the largest amount of people possible.

I love the stuff he designs too - they are the sort of things that you want to pick up, touch or sit on, and they make you smile. It's the use of colour, materials, and simple, clear lines:



The influence of modernism is so obvious in his work - and I'm hoping to get to the modernism exhibition at the V&A this weekend.




This is what good interface design is all about, and the relationship between form and function are just as essential in games design. I just read about Spore in an article at GameSpy. The story is about a year old, but the idea of players being able to control the evolution of a character all the way from a micro-organism in the primordial slime, to inter-galactic explorers/conquerors is fantastic. You can design the look of your animals and your world, so that it's a personalised experience. And this in a universe where there are other players creating their own worlds.

And there's academic work ongoing, looking at the potential role of such RPGs in education. One project at the University of Minnesota has modified the software for Neverwinter Nights to allow students to play the role of a reporter covering the story of a train derailment with dangerous chemicals, in a fictional town. This had also been done previously with a game centered on the American War of Independence, a couple of years ago. (Perhaps this acknowledges the element of fiction within history?) And the use of GPS enabled handheld devices in an Environmental Engineering Studies game. There are also a number of links here at the MIT website on using games in learning.