Posted: January 21st, 2010 | Author: Gregory Trefry | Filed under: Casual, Game Design | Tags: ebay, facebook, LinkedIn, venture capital | No Comments »
Dean Takahashi had a good talk with a number of venture capitalists over at Venture Beat. The most interesting point I thought came from Tim Chang who had this to say:
Gaming 3.0 is about leveraging game mechanics and models to re-invigorate other markets: humans are inherently geared towards addictive behaviors and biases that can be exploited through game mechanics like points, achievements, and leveling up. Gaming + Commerce = Swoopo. Gaming + Music = Red Octane, Harmonix. Gaming + Healthcare = Lumos Labs. Gaming + Local Search/LBS = FourSquare. I often joke that “gaming will rescue us all.” I don’t mean that we all become hardcore WoW players, but that we can utilize game constructs to perhaps revive other industries which no longer monetize as effectively via macro-transaction or advertising.
It’s definitely something I kept thinking about while writing Casual Game Design. More and more I think the lessons of casual game will make a greater impact outside of the game industry than in it. Now I wish I had chapters in the book looking at the “game” mechanics of things like collecting friends on Facebook or bidding on eBay auctions.
Posted: January 20th, 2010 | Author: Gregory Trefry | Filed under: Big Games, Teaching | Tags: Big Games, nyu, Teaching | No Comments »
Big Games
New York University / Interactive Telecommunications Program – Spring 2010
Greg Trefry
gtrefry at iamtheeconomy dot com
646-644-1995
Office Hours: Friday after class, 6-6:30 PM or by appointment
Download Syllabus
Class Description
What happens to games when they escape the boundaries of our tabletops and desktops and TV screens and living rooms? From massively multiplayer online games to networked objects that turn the city into a gigantic game grid, new forms of super-sized gaming are expanding at an alarming rate and opening up vast new spaces in which to play. Whether these games are measured in terms of number of players, geographical dimensions, or temporal scope, they represent a new trend in which the ‘little world” created by a game threatens to swallow up the “real world” in which it is situated. This class is a hands-on workshop focused on the particular design problems of large-scale games. In this class students: develop a foundation of basic game design understanding from which to approach the specific issues particular to big games; analyze existing digital and non-digital large-scale games, taking them apart to understand how they work; as interactive systems; and work on a series of design exercises that explore the social, technological, and creative possibilities of large-scale games.
The class will be broken into three sections: People, Time and Location. The first section People will focus on games that bring together large numbers of players into one game. The second section Time will focus on games that stretch over long periods of time and begin to integrate with our everyday lives. The Location section will examine ways in which games can utilize specific spaces and integrate with the world around us. For the final we will bring all of these ideas together to create games that challenge established notions of gameplay.
Assignments
- Game Presentation on a Big Game
- People Game: a game for a large number of people
- Time Game: a game that spans a large amount of time
- Location Game: a game about a location
- Final Team Project
Expectations
- Attend the class and talk – For every two absences your grade will be lowered one letter grade
- Do all of the reading
- Turn in all assignments on time and complete. For each week your project is late you lose one letter grade.
Grading
15% In-class discussion and weekly blog comments
10% Game Presentation
15% People Game
15% Time Game
15% Location Game
30% Final Project
Class Schedule
January 22 / Class Intro
In Class
What are Big Games
What do people think they are
My expectations for the class
January 29 / Game Design Basics
Readings
- Marc LeBlanc, MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research, http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/pubs/MDA.pdf
- Tracy Fullerton, Game Design Workshop, Chapter 3, pages 49-81
In Class
- Play Poker
- Play Mafia
February 5 / Role-Playing
Readings
- Start playing World of Warcraft
- Waskul, Dennis; Lust, Matt (2004). “Role-Playing and Playing Roles: The Person, Player, and Persona in Fantasy Role-Playing”, http://www.colorado.edu/ibs/pb/thornberry/socy5031/pdfs/waskul_lust_role_playing.pdf
In Class
- Play The Pool
February 12 / People Game Due
Readings
- Richard Bartle, “Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players who suit MUDs,” http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm
In Class
- We will play each team’s People Game
February 19 / All the Time
Readings
- Play What to Wear, http://apps.facebook.com/what-to-wear/
- Play Parking Wars, http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=31435010008
-Byron Reeves & J. Leighton Read, Total Engagement, selection
In Class
- Hand out water guns to play Assassins over the next week
February 26 / Alternate Realities
Readings
- Jane McGonigal, “This Is Not a Game: Immersive Aesthetics & Collective Play,” http://www.seanstewart.org/beast/mcgonigal/notagame/paper.pdf (if for some reason the link doesn’t work, Google the paper title. You’ll find it)
- Montola & Waern, “Ethical and Practical Look at Unaware Game Participation,” 2006
March 5 / Time Game Due
In Class
- Teams will introduce players to their game.
- Each game will be played over the following week
March 12 / Everywhere
Readings
- Linda Hughes, “Beyond the rules of the game, Why Are Rooie Rules Nice?,” Game Design Reader, page 504-517
- Raph Koster, A Theory of Fun, Chapters 2-3, pages 12-47
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s TED talk on flow, http://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html
In Class
- Play a Scavenger Hunt
- Play Capture the Flag
March 26 / Location
Readings
- History of Grand Central
- Henry Jenkins, “Game Design as Narrative Architecture,” http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/games&narrative.html
In Class
- We will all meet at Grand Central by the clock
April 2 / Location Game Due
In Class
- We will play each team’s Location Game
April 9 / Sports
Readings
- E.H. Gombrecht, In Praise of Athletic Beauty
- Dave Hickey, Air Guitar, “The Heresy of Zone Defense,” pages 155-162
In Class
- Play Touch Football
April 16 / Managing Big Projects
Readings
- Ken Birdwell, “The Cabal: Valve’s Design Process for Creating Half-Life,” http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19991210/birdwell_01.htm
- Rory McGuire, “Paper Burns: Game Design with Agile Methodologies,” http://gamasutra.com/features/20060628/mcguire_01.shtml
April 23 / Playtest Finals
In Class
- We will playtest each team’s game
April 30 / Finals Due
In Class
- We will play each team’s Final Game
Posted: January 13th, 2010 | Author: Gregory Trefry | Filed under: Game Design, Hardcore | Tags: modern warfare 2, one button | No Comments »
Matthew Kaplan provides a great wrap up of reactions around the game criticism blogosphere to the airport/terrorist level in Modern Warfare 2. I’m a little surprised at the number or writers voicing rather strong opinions on the level without yet playing it. Of course there’s been so much talk about this level and the position it puts players in, that it’s very easy to have an opinion. However, I do think this level bears playing to get the full measure of its impact.
When described the level before playing, I thought it seemed like a rather obvious attempt to court controversy. And after playing it I hold to that opinion, but I don’t really fault the game designers at Infinity Ward. Sometimes obvious is the right approach and with a game as unsubtle as Modern Warfare 2, obvious fits right in. As I played the level I felt genuinely disturbed. I felt helpless. I felt a little dirty. And I think that’s exactly what the game designers wanted. So they did their job.
I think much of the discussion of the scene has ignored the fact that this scene is not a significant departure from the mechanics of MW2. You have no real agency in this level. You are along for the ride. If you try and shoot the terrorist you are quickly gunned down. Essentially you are forced to simply follow along, navigating the space. However this is not unusual within the mechanics of the game. The game repeatedly puts you in short sequences where you must press a specific button. Walk up to the railing and press X to clip on. Ferociously tap X to throw a knife. In all of these situations the game reduces the player down to one button press. The game asks you to press now and then plays out the action for you.
This level is not really any different. I suppose it allows the player to shoot civilians if they want. But other scenes allow me to press X more than I need too as well. This sort of narrow interaction channel drastically limits player choice in an attempt to deliver a moment of narrative clarity. Sometimes this is the thrill of rappelling down a cliff wall, sometimes it’s the emotional wallop of witnessing terrorism. It’s not a deep and subtle interaction, but then one button press interactions don’t tend to be subtle. They tend to be obvious and to the point.
Posted: January 8th, 2010 | Author: Gregory Trefry | Filed under: Game Design | Tags: Interviews, LinkedIn, Podcasts | No Comments »
Another Castle (art by Rachel Morris)
Charles Pratt has been conducting a series of great podcasts with different game designers and academics under the name Another Castle. He’s interviewed everyone from
Eric Zimmerman to
Jesper Juul to
Heather Chaplin. He even interviewed
yours truly–giving me the chance to expound on the Come Out & Play Festival, my definition of “casual” games and the design process and style taxonomy behind Jojo’s Fashion Show.
I highly recommend checking them out. They’re great listens for anyone thinking about games. Here’s the list of all of the shows.
Posted: January 4th, 2010 | Author: Gregory Trefry | Filed under: Casual, Game Design | Tags: books, Casual, Game Design | No Comments »
My book, Casual Game Design: Designing Play for the Gamer in All of Us is due out in February. Quite a mouthful, I know. The book lays out some basic frameworks for thinking about game design, then delves into the specific mechanics of a number of different casual games. While I was writing it, I had E.M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel in mind. I’ve always admired the way he offered tools for thinking about the writing fiction by looking at specific choices and elements from novels good and bad. It’s all about reading and appreciating.
When I sat down to write this book, I wanted to do something similar with games. I won’t claim to match Forster’s wit or insight, but hopefully the book provides thought provoking analysis of game mechanics. It’s all about playing games and then thinking about them–why they work, why they don’t. Hopefully people will find it useful. I know I found writing it enlightening–I got to spend months playing games and thinking about them, talking with other designers about games. And really, there’s no better practice for a game designer than playing games and thinking about them.
Posted: January 2nd, 2010 | Author: Gregory Trefry | Filed under: Game Design | Tags: Exploits | No Comments »
Guessing by that little parenthetical under “2 for 1 cocktails” the owners of Cabana Bar had to a little iterative design work to close an exploit in their system. If it’s not against the rules people will find a way to get the biggest bang for smallest buck.
In this book I dissect a range of different casual game mechanics in an attempt to find out how they work and why they engage players.