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Loss Points

September 18, 2012 Aram Zucker-Scharff — No Comments

Loss Points
A loss point happens when you believe that you can’t win. Loss points are a big problem in game design because they are the moments when players stop engaging. In turn-based games, for example, they often result in lots of orphaned (half-finished) games. In real-time multiplayer games they are the moments when players log out mid-game, screwing the balance for everyone else. And in narrativist games, they are the moments when the player sees that he’s not really doing anything meaningful in the game, just following instructions.

It’s very difficult to convince a player to keep playing beyond a loss point. They have no real incentive to continue, and sense that their time would be best spent doing something else. That is why games are bad at storytelling, irrespective of the quality of their writing. It’s why LA Noire and Heavy Rain are both initially impactful, but pretty boring to play. They’re easily mastered, their frames are not particularly fascinating, and the sensation of being a rat in a maze (the loss point) only grows. At some point I simply forget to pick up the joypad.

http://www.whatgamesare.com/2012/09/great-story-bad-game-should-the-walking-dead-be-nodal.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WhatGamesAre+%28What+Games+Are%29

Three players

September 16, 2012 Aram Zucker-Scharff — No Comments

“In any fiction, no matter how ambitious its scope or profound its theme, there was only ever room for three players…”

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Build your own ARG course – [THATCamp Games 2011]

September 13, 2012 Aram Zucker-Scharff — No Comments

http://goo.gl/LiUBd

Build your own ARG course

Suggestion: make your own Google Doc for your group, and copy whatever helps from this doc into that one.

This document is for participants in our bootcamp to identify courses they’d like to design as an   ARG wrapped around an RPG.

More information on practomime.
Overview of Operation LAPIS

–Roger, Kevin, Steve, Emily, and Mark

Learning objectives: one big, two sub
ARG play objective: generally “Save the world by X”
RPG play objective: narrative object McGuffin style, and/or final product like a report to an authority figure
Outline story-arc of RPG (including time period, setting, characters, etc.)

Integrate mechanics/activities: collect important objects? annotate important primary and/or secondary sources? Role-playing! (Mastery of a learning objective can always be expressed as performance as a master of that learning objective.); collaborative development of role-playing performances; collaborative development of reports/papers/briefings in both layers

Examples


Iliad 9: Learning objectives: 1) Summarize narrative of Iliad 9; 2) analyze speech of Achilles in Iliad 9 in its cultural context; 3) make a comparative analysis of Iliad 9 with modern heroic literature/film

ARG play objective: save UConn by making students aware of the ethical implications of senseless glory-seeking
RPG play objective: save the fictional island of Connos by persuading the greatest warrior …

Inform 7 Bootcamp [THATCamp Games 2011]

September 13, 2012 Aram Zucker-Scharff — No Comments

Inform 7 Bootcamp Notes

 

Find slides at http://aramzs.me/7j

Find example at http://aramzs.me/7k

More examples at – http://iat.ubalt.edu/blodgett/TCG/

Inform 7 – entirely graphics free.

Natural language

 

Errors tab -> Problem button will tell you where things have gone wrong.

 

You can change the code as the came is running.

 

All you need to create a room is the room name.

 

[Room name] is [direction] of [room name]

 

Directions:

East

West

North

South

Up (above)

Down (below)

in

out

You can also declare something enterable (thing).

 

When dealing with directions ‘of’ can always be replaced by ‘from’.

 

You can declare a group a Region. – Group of rooms that are adjacent and share some attribute.

“There is a region called the cave. Everything in the cave is…”

 

Rooms can be lit or unlit. Unlit is completely dark, they need an inventory item to light it.

 

All objects are “thing” type and must be declared. If they are declared in a room they do not need to remain in that room.

 

You can create doors, which can be locked or unlocked. Doors do not have to be “Doors” they can be other things, like grates.

 

You can create something outside of a room (or without a room) and move it in later.

 

Using some will make the thing plural (a collection of multiple objects.)

 

No article causes it …

Build Your Own ARG: Philosophy [THATCamp Games 2011]

September 13, 2012 Aram Zucker-Scharff — No Comments

Course: introduction to ethics/moral philosophy

1. Learning objectives: one big, two sub for a course unit

Big: understand and apply utilitarianism to novel situations

Sub:
– understand/apply act-utilitarianism
– rule-utilitarianism

(utilitarianism: what’s morally right is what produces the best consequences)
(best actions versus following the best rules)

2. ARG play objective: generally “Save the world by X”

Save the world by making a compelling utilitarian argument for why humans should exist

3. RPG play objective: narrative object McGuffin style, and/or final product like a report to an authority figure

– Convince Skynet (the machine) not to wipe humanity off the planet

– Create multiple teams to address each kind of utilitarianism

– Arguing with each other, individual arguments trying to strengthen the whole

– Time travel aspect, each team represents the philosopher who espoused the theory (character sheets? worldviews?)

– And end up with this is the best argument?

– Skynet has these 5 reasons why the world should be destroyed (novel instances) — class breaks into 5 teams to address each?

– Utility is useful, but useful to whom? (metaquestion of the unit)

– Debate, have this be hashed out in a forum

– Point is to convince the machine that we’ve either made the right decision or that we’ve learned from our mistakes

4. Outline story-arc of RPG …

THATCamp Games: Narrative Puzzles Links [THATCamp Games 2011]

September 13, 2012 Aram Zucker-Scharff — No Comments

THATCamp Games: Narrative Puzzles

Links for the Bootcamp:

Used during presentation:


Personal Effects: Dark Art http://bit.ly/Ao1LYd

http://www.ethanhaaswasright.com/

www.exoriare.com and www.arg.exoriare.com

The Portal 2 Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i-nMWgBUp0

http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/hunt/2006/hunt/mirror_mirror/

Used during hands-on puzzle activity:


arcanegalleryofgadgetry.org/bootcamp/BenFranklinPuzzle.pdf (by Amanda Visconti, based on Elisabeth Cohen’s “Lost In Paraphrase” mechanic)

http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/hunt/2005/lip (by Elisabeth Cohen)

Links for Further Reading:

“General” puzzle-related


Microsoft College Puzzle Challenge (resources):


https://www.collegepuzzlechallenge.com/PuzzleTools.aspx


Harvard Hunt Archive


http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/hunt/

http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/hunt/2005/tm/ (a sample metapuzzle, with solution)


MIT Mystery Hunt


http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www/

ARG-related:


Unfiction.com (forum for ARG aficionados/newbies) Online resources for solving various types of puzzles: http://www.unfiction.com/resource/otools/

Cloudmakers list of puzzles from The Beast (along with solutions and some discussion): http://cloudmakers.org/trail/#3.0


(Complete trail can be found at: http://cloudmakers.org/trail/)

Note: The Cloudmakers were the largest and most active “team,” or group of players working to solve the mystery behind Evan Chan’s death and to explore the A.I. universe


Interesting (very) early ARGnet forum discussion (~2002) on “starting a game.” That is, what makes a game “good”, and why cryptographic puzzles are not always enough (without some compelling hook into the narrative):


http://www.argn.com/forums/index.php?topic=185.0


Bibliography of digital resources for ARG design and play:


http://www.arcanegalleryofgadgetry.org/bibliography/

A …

Occupy Session: Critical Game Design [THATCamp Games 2011]

September 13, 2012 Aram Zucker-Scharff — No Comments

The Occupy Session: Critical Game Design

 

http://thatcampgames.org/2012/01/19/session-proposal-occupy-game-design/

 

Attendees have interest in Occupy movement, serious games, critical pedagogy

 

Some of the games mentioned in this session:

 

Monopoly Mod: http://games.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2011/07/15/monopoly-mod/

A Force More Powerful http://www.aforcemorepowerful.org/game/

Up Against the Wall… http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12246/up-against-the-wall-motherer

Grow a Game http://www.tiltfactor.org/growagame/play.html

Spent http://playspent.org/

The Curfew http://www.thecurfewgame.com/

Kabul Kaboom http://www.acmi.net.au/68A5FD6A7EC34525948645CE443F8227.htm

Phone Story http://phonestory.org/

McDonald’s Video Game: http://www.mcvideogame.com/index-eng.html

September 12th http://www.newsgaming.com/games/index12.htm

 

Serious game designers can’t control how players will take a game and run with it

 

With serious games in the classroom, is it possible to design with no agenda? To learn how to think about these issues on a meta level? (fostering critical thinking)

 

What about students designing their own games to learn about these topics?

Make an argument with a game? Remember that trying and failing is also a learning experience

Encouraging students to mod games

Creatively misuse what already exists

Approaching games as text, ask students to deconstruct it

Use Grow a Game to highlight specific Occupy issues

Can pull out specific mechanics or models too

Genre descriptions

Spent: “bad” game design, it’s unwinnable, but that’s the point

 

What makes a game critical, serious?

a “message”?

Are there commercial games with a critical/social justice component?

Sim City, Civilization

 

These games have an agenda, a point of view

And are they preaching to the choir?

Is knowing why/by whom the game was made affect how you feel about it? Whether …

Gaming from the academy [THATCamp Games 2011]

September 13, 2012 Aram Zucker-Scharff — No Comments

You may not believe it, but your professor loves video games. Educators are becoming passionate about gaming and The Humanities and Technology Camp: Games, put that passion to work.

THATCamp Games, taking place January 19 to 22, was an un-conference focused on the the intersection of education and gaming. Attendees came from a number of different perspectives, there were educators looking to integrate games into the classroom, instructors in game design, game makers and more.

Over the four days, the attendees watched a film about gaming, participated in game design and development workshops, and attended self-generated sessions on a variety of topics.

Of the many sessions there were three strong threads: teaching through games, teaching game theory, and teaching game design.

Teaching through games.

Of the three strong threads at #THATCamp, using games as teaching tools was one of the strongest.

Alternate Reality Games were a significant part of the event, there were two ARG-focused workshops.

“Build your own practomimetic (ARG/RPG) course” was run by Roger Travis[http://livingepic.org], Kevin Ballestrini[http://kevinbal.blogspot.com/], Emily Lewis[http://twitter.com/#/blueathena14], Mark Pearsall, and Stephen Slota[http://practomime.com]. The goal of the presenters was to provide a framework for educators to build an “ARG wrapped around an RPG.” The work was based off of Operation LAPIS, the team’s …

Build Your Own ARG session notes [THATCamp Games 2011]

September 13, 2012 Aram Zucker-Scharff — No Comments

Work doc – http://goo.gl/LiUBd


Practomime –
Ancient Epic and Modern Narrative video games – as the bard could not sing the same song on successive nights, so too the Halo player can’t play the same exact level from night to night.

The Plato’s cave model of education needs modification.

Continuous narrative instead of modules.

Map learning objectives to play objectives.

 

Learning objectives: one big, two sub
ARG play objective: generally “Save the world by X”
RPG play objective: narrative object McGuffin style, and/or final product like a report to an authority figure
Outline story-arc of RPG (including time period, setting, characters, etc.)
Integrate mechanics/activities: collect important objects? annotate important primary and/or secondary sources? Role-playing! (Mastery of a learning objective can always be expressed as performance as a master of that learning objective.)

 

My group (Snow Crash ARG):

Objectives:

Read and demonstrate understanding of the novel. (summarize the narrative / identify the key characters)

Defining/understanding cyberpunk as a genre.
Using the novel to help analyze the genre.

Getting the cyberpunk literacy (you don’t know what is going on but you’re ok with it.)
Connect the contemporary context.


ARG Objective:

Discover the power and repercussions of online avatars through discovering and uncovering ‘code words’ of power.

Connecting the metaverse and the real world – what happens in one can influence …

Role Playing Games (RPGs In the Classroom) [THATCamp CHNM 2012]

September 13, 2012 Aram Zucker-Scharff — No Comments

Role Playing Games (RPGs In the Classroom)
THATCamp CHNM 2012

**
This document created by session participants and
licensed Creative Commons, Attribution

Let’s DO this! I’m setting up a github org, list your github account (or make and then list your github account) and I’ll invite you to a github org I’ve set up for this. I will add folks on this doc as admins for https://github.com/rpgframework
Participants, twitter usernames + email addresses

Adeline Koh @adelinekoh [adelinekoh@gmail.com] github: adelinek
Gavin Craig @craiggav
Nigel Lepianka @truexstory
Laura Webber @lwebber
Douglas Eyman @eymand
Andrew Turner @ajturner – github:ajturner
Weston Schreiber @WestonSchreiber
Paul Logasa Bogen II @plbogen
Aram Zucker-Scharff @chronotope – azuckers@gmu.edu – github: aramzs
Larry Milliken @larrymilliken
Erica Miller Yozell @emilleryozell
Anastasia Salter @anasalter
Amanda Visconti @literaturegeek / github: amandavisconti
Gerol Petruzella @gpetruzella [gpetruzella@gmail.com] github: gpetruzella

Note to Participants: ^Perhaps add emails if you want to get involved with this so we can notify you of changes?

Original Proposal:

Role Playing Games (RPGs) in the Classroom: Fleshspace vs. Digital (A #THATCamp CHNM Session Proposal)

Posted on June 15, 2012

1

We are being increasingly encouraged to “gamify” the classroom. Educators such as Cathy N. Davidson (Now You See It)(@cathyndavidson) and Jane McGonigal (Reality is Broken) have suggested that games can help engage students in deeper ways …