kunabi brother's Blek
Being asked to describe Blek my brother rattled off: It's an open-ended experience with singular game mechanics and deep, bauhaus-informed design. Huh! Just imagine working with a guy who can say something like that about a game. Yes, it can be complicated. But Blek isn't.
Jonathan Blow's Braid
Braid has the potential to change the way you think about reality. It will certainly change the way you think about video games.
Pizza Hut's Book It Program
Some of you may remember Pizza Hut's (now thirty-year-old!) program for encouraging reading. It certainly wasn't called "gamification" at the time, but this video retrospective is an interesting example of how folks talk about the intersection of incentives, 'meaningful' work, and branding/marketing.
Building on the success of programs like SETI@home, foldit is an initiative that was mentioned in last week's class, mapping the domain of protein folding (and solving that) onto a game that humans can play— Taking a look at their Aboutpage is an interesting example of how people are talking about something which isn't quite perceived as a game, or gamification, or... And of course, there's a quite unusual context to the design of the game and the game mechanics whose story (which is itself pretty interesting; check out this interview for more detail on the background and design process).
This is a fascinating example of a particular subculture in the console gaming world where folks explore and exploit various glitches by interacting directly with the game's memory through various elements of gameplay — this is one of the more famous examples, "beating" Super Mario Bros. in six minutes.
Hemisphere's Osmos
Enter the ambient world of Osmos: elegant, physics-based gameplay, dreamlike visuals, and a minimalist, electronic soundtrack.
"Monopoly's Inventor: The Progressive Who Didn't Pass 'Go'" and "The Lost Female Genius Behind Monopoly"
If there is a "hidden curriculum" in SimCity and other Sim games, it lies here. Shoshana Zuboff's 1988 book In the Age of the Smart Machine describes the confusion and alienation of workers in factories and offices as computers were first introduced over the previous decade. Physical contact with the production process had been an important source of practical knowledge; for example, workers at pulp mills that Zuboff studied had been able to tell whether anything was wrong merely from the color and odor of the pulp. Now the workers were asked to make decisions based on information flashing on a computer screen. This shift deemphasized sensory knowledge and put a premium on more abstract, "intellective" capacities. This is exactly what SimCity teaches: the management of complex systems based on "intelligent scanning" of streams of constantly changing information.
twitch.tv, e.g. "Field of streams: how Twitch made video games a spectator sport" and "What's Twitch? Gamers know, and Amazon Is Spending $1 Billion on It"
When StarCraft II debuted in 2010, it was embraced by a global community of rabid fans who had been playing its predecessor for more than a decade. Suddenly, eSports seemed like more than just a niche pastime for a few passionate players. It was a way to create and maintain a loyal fan base, a community that helped to advertise the game and drive major sales. "That was kind of the 'aha' moment," says Rod Breslau. "Major game developers now see eSports as a really lucrative way to market a title and extend the life of a franchise. Suddenly it’s the golden goose everyone is chasing."
Games for Change specifically, its mission:
Founded in 2004, Games for Change facilitates the creation and distribution of social impact games that serve as critical tools in humanitarian and educational efforts.
We aim to leverage entertainment and engagement for social good. To further grow the field, Games for Change convenes multiple stakeholders, highlights best practices, incubates games, and helps create and direct investment into new projects.
Jonathan Blow's "Truth in Game Design"
Will Wright points out that while playing games, people engage a game in their head, and what counts is this mental world. The key insight here is that a game, despite the fact that it is a working system with moving parts, rules, and processes, is still a representation.
Scarlett also said that she had “executed” poorly at times, and I, thinking of Sean Plott’s concerto analogy, wondered if she had lost battles owing to clumsy fingering. “No, no, no,” she said, and suppressed a chuckle. “We’re at the point where we don’t, like, mis-click on the keyboard. That’s not an issue.” The execution mistakes were all in the timing, she explained. It was a matter of being out of step with the orchestra. “There’s this one unit that Terran has”—a widow mine—“that takes a long time to recharge between attacks, like forty seconds. But it does a massive amount of damage in a small area. So I’m trying to send my cheap units that move really fast out in front, to take those hits. I’m trying to split my other units into small groups first, so they don’t get wasted on his units with high hit-points and low damage. So I’m trying to control those all, to run past his strong units in the front, and I’m also trying to use my flying units—I have to make sure they don’t get clumped up too much, because he has another unit that does area damage to those.”
"The Beast is Unleashed: Capcom’s Seth Killian explains the most famous minute in competitive gaming". You can find the video, which Wayback Machine did not archive, here:
Ian Bogost's "Gamification is Bullshit" , viz.
This rhetorical power [of 'gamification'] derives from the “-ification” rather than from the “game”. -ification involves simple, repeatable, proven techniques or devices: you can purify, beautify, falsify, terrify, and so forth. -ification is always easy and repeatable, and it’s usually bullshit. Just add points. and his Unit Operations