Game Design http:www.cs.chalmers.seCsGrundutbisskurserspeldesign

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Game Designhttp//www.cs.chalmers.se/Cs/Grundutb/
iss/kurser/speldesign/

• Staffan Björk

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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)

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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The Role of Game Designers

• Related texts Chapter 1

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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

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Skills Required by Game Designers

• Communication
• Writing
• Speaking
• Compromising
• Finding Ideas Inspiration
• Extensive knowledge of games
• Extensive knowledge of gameplay

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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
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Game Exercise First to 12
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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

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Break
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Book Exercise 1.2 D.O.A
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What is a Game?
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Definitions of Games
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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

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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

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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

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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.

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http//www.jesperjuul.dk/text/gameplayerworld/
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J. Juul, cont.

• Transmedial
• Games not bound to a specific media
• Some games are implemented on several different
  media

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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

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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

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Assignment 1

• What is a Game?

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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

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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?

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Thank you!

• Questions?