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Game Design http:www.cs.chalmers.seCsGrundutbisskurserspeldesign

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Title: Game Design http:www.cs.chalmers.seCsGrundutbisskurserspeldesign


1
Game Designhttp//www.cs.chalmers.se/Cs/Grundutb/
iss/kurser/speldesign/
  • Staffan Björk

2
Some General Points
  • Teachers
  • Staffan Björk (staffanb_at_cs.chalmers.se)
  • Locations
  • Lectures in Grace Hopper
  • 10.00-12.00
  • Exercises in Grace Hopper (12) and Erik Stemme
    (3)

3
Learning Objectives
  • After successfully completing the course you
    should be able to
  • Understand the role of a game designer within a
    game design project
  • Motivate different perspectives on games and use
    of games, both from practical and ethical aspects
  • Discuss game design features explicitly using
    both de facto industry concepts and academic
    frameworks
  • Pitch game design concepts for an audience
  • Relate current game designs to earlier examples,
    from the direct predecessors to the first
    recorded examples
  • Plan game design projects according to best
    practice descriptions
  • Develop a game design concept from initial idea
    to a full game design concept, using iterative
    design processes and prototyping
  • Specify target audiences and develop game design
    concepts for these
  • Analyze different game design using analytical
    tools to be able to
  • Suggest design changes and
  • Compare different game designs

4
Aims of the course
  • Focus on Game Design
  • Not Implementation
  • Not Graphics
  • Not Sound
  • Not Project Management
  • Not Business Models
  • Not IPR
  • Gameplay Design
  • Interaction Design
  • Game Design
  • All types of games not only computer games

5
Aims of the course, cont.
  • Counter-part to Simulation Engines
  • Game Designer is the natural step from Lead
    Programmer
  • But also an area with strong aspects of
    interaction design
  • Working efficiently as programmer requires
    understanding of game design

6
General Structure
  • Several small assignments
  • Two individual
  • Two in groups
  • Three exercises
  • Training in pitching
  • Low Fidelity Play Testing
  • A lot of writing
  • Train communication argumentation
  • Seek use references
  • Expected to play discuss games
  • Supervision is to help with projects and with
    writing
  • No exams

7
General Structure, cont.
  • Parts of the Course
  • History of Games
  • Famous Game Designers
  • Analyzing Games
  • Narratives Games
  • Designing Games
  • Communicating Design Ideas
  • Games Education
  • The Book
  • Use chapters
  • Use exercises during lectures

8
Why is Game Design important?
  • The core of a game
  • Still underdeveloped area
  • Interaction Design
  • Improve game industry
  • Current knowledge
  • Licenses
  • Sequels
  • Work from good game designers

9
A Word about Simulations
  • Course Focus on Games
  • Interaction Design most distinguishable in that
    area
  • Applicable in many other areas
  • Encouraging behaviors
  • Balancing users
  • Steering activities
  • Adjusting activity to player actions

10
Formal Requirements
  • Assignments
  • What is a game? 10, Monday 20080128
  • Game Analysis 20, Thursday 20080214
  • Oral presentation of project 10, Tuesday
    20080226
  • Project report 20, Monday 20080303
  • Personal report 40, Friday 20080307
  • Course Evaluators
  • Reporting
  • By email
  • Send to staffanb_at_cs.chalmers.se
  • Have Gameplay Design in the signature

11
The Role of Game Designers
  • Related texts Chapter 1

12
Responsibilities of Game Designers
  • An Advocate for the Player
  • Have clear vision of target group
  • Providing good gameplay
  • Creating ideas
  • Ensuring quality
  • Making sure that intended gameplay is achieved
  • Project Leader

13
Skills Required by Game Designers
  • Communication
  • Writing
  • Speaking
  • Compromising
  • Finding Ideas Inspiration
  • Extensive knowledge of games
  • Extensive knowledge of gameplay

14
A Player-Oriented Design Process
  • Involve players
  • No, not yourselves
  • Iterative Design
  • Setting an initial goal
  • Stepwise developing and refining
  • Evaluating against initial design goal
  • See Human-Computer Interaction Interaction
    Design for more details and specific methods

Generate Ideas Identify Target Group
Evaluate Playtest
Formalize Ideas Create Specification
Test Ideas Implement
15
Game Exercise First to 12
16
Game first to 12
  • The winning condition is to be the player that
    makes the shared value reaches 12
  • The two players take turns increasing the value
    by 1 or 2
  • The shared value begins at 0

17
Break
18
Book Exercise 1.2 D.O.A
19
What is a Game?
20
Definitions of Games
21
D. Parlett
  • Game historian with focus on board games, word
    games, and card games.
  • Distinguishes between informal and formal games.

puppies play
means ends
playing around
Has a winner
sandbox play
every game is its rules
Parlett, D. The Oxford History of Board Games,
1999.
22
C. C. Abt
  • ...a game is an activity among two or more
    independent decision-makers seeking to achieve
    their objectives in some limiting context.

Abt, C. C. Serious Games, 1970
23
J. Huizinga
  • Play is a free activity standing quite
    consciously outside ordinary life as being not
    serious, but at the same time absorbing the
    player intensely and utterly. It is an activity
    connected with no material interest, and no
    profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within
    its own proper boundaries of time and space
    according to fixed rules and in an orderly
    manner. It promotes the formation of social
    groupings, which tend to surround themselves with
    secrecy and to stress their difference from the
    common world by disguise or other means.
  • Magic Circle

Huizinga, J. Homo Ludens, 1938
24
R. Caillois
  • Free
  • Separate in time and space
  • Uncertain
  • Unproductive creates no goods or wealth
  • Governed by rules
  • Categories
  • Competition Agôn
  • Chance Alea
  • Make-Believe Mimicry
  • Vertigo Ilinx

Callois, R. Man, Play and Games, 2001
25
C. Crawford
  • A closed formal system that subjectively
    represents a subset of reality.
  • Interactive representation (the cause-effect
    relationship)
  • Conflict (obstacles that challenge the goal
    pursuit)
  • Safety (psychological experience of danger,
    without the physical realization thereof)

Crawford, C. The Art of Computer Game Design
26
B. Suits
  • To play a game is to engage in activity directed
    towards bringing about a specific state of
    affairs, using only means permitted by rules,
    where rules prohibit more efficient in favour of
    less efficent means and where such rules are
    accepted just because they make possible such
    activity.
  • or
  • playing a game is the voluntary effort to
    overcome unnecessary obstacles.

Grasshopper Games, Life, and Utopia, 1990
27
G. Costikyan
  • A game is a form of art in which participants,
    named players, make decisions in order to manage
    resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a
    goal.
  • From Costikyan, G. I Have no Words and I Must
    Design

28
E. Avedon B. Sutton-Smith
  • Games are an exercise of voluntary control
    systems, in which there is a contest between
    powers, confined by rules in order to produce a
    disequilibrial outcome.
  • From Avedon, E. Sutton-Smith, B. The Study of
    Games

29
K. Salen E. Zimmerman
  • A game is a system in which players engage in an
    artificial conflict, defined by rules, that
    results in a quantifiable outcome.
  • Game design is the process by which a game
    designer creates a game, to be encountered by a
    player, from which meaningful play emerges.
  • From Salen, C. Zimmerman, E. Rules of Play

30
J. Juul
  • Rules
  • Variable, quantifiable outcome
  • Value assigned to possible outcomes ( -)
  • Player effort
  • Player attached to outcome (game contract)
  • Negotiable consequences
  • A game is a rule-based formal system with a
    variable and quantifiable outcome, where
    different outcomes are assigned different values,
    the player exerts effort in order to influence
    the outcome, the player feels attached to the
    outcome, and the consequences of the activity are
    optional and negotiable.

31
http//www.jesperjuul.dk/text/gameplayerworld/
32
J. Juul, cont.
  • Transmedial
  • Games not bound to a specific media
  • Some games are implemented on several different
    media

33
J. von Neumann O. Morgenstern
  • Theory of rational behavior for interactive
    decision problems. In a game, several agents
    strive to maximize their (expected) utility index
    by choosing particular courses of action, and
    each agent's final utility payoffs depend on the
    profile of courses of action chosen by all
    agents. The interactive situation, specified by
    the set of participants, the possible courses of
    action of each agent, and the set of all possible
    utility payoffs, is called a game the agents
    'playing' a game are called the players.
  • From Von Neumann, J. Morgenstern, O. Theory of
    Games and Economic Behavior

34
T. Fullerton, C. Swain S. Hoffman
  • A closed formal system
  • Engages players in structured conflict
  • Resolves in an unequal outcome
  • From Fullerton, T., Swain, C. Hoffman, S. Game
    Design Workshop

35
Assignment 1
  • What is a Game?

36
Assignment 1
  • What is a Game?
  • 1400-2000 word argumentation for your personal
    definition of what games are.
  • An individual assignment due in 1 week
  • Learning outcomes
  • Reflect on your personal view on what a game is,
    and how others may differ in their opinion
  • Write argumentative texts where you take one
    position with motivations and argue against
    possible objections
  • Compare games that belong to different
    categorizes to analyze the common features and
    differences between genres and mediums of games

37
Assignment 1, cont.
  • Requirements
  • One sentence definition
  • Examples counter-examples of things that fit
    the definition
  • Comparison to the definitions presented today
  • Answer the following questions
  • Is a 100 meter dash a game? A Horse race?
  • Is Sodoku a game?
  • Is Roulette a game? Russian roulette?
  • Is a game played if two computer programs met
    each other in Chess over the net?

38
Thank you!
  • Questions?
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