Activity 1:
Non-Video Game Design Project
(adapted from CMPS
80K Jim Whitehead)
by yourself or in a group of up to four, create a (simple?
board? card?) game.
The goal of this project is to get a sense of what the
essential nature of a game is, and how they are structured
to get a certain effect/behavior. You might even get new
insights into games by making one, such as the
"magic
circle" phenonomenon. To keep it simple,
develop a game that is not a video game (if you really
want to do a videogame now, see me).
You can develop any kind of game, so long as it does not
use a computer. Some possibile categories for your game
include, but are not limited to:
* Board game
* Card game
* Puzzle game
* Car trip game
* Party game
* Game played with a group of friends
* Game show
* Role playing game
* Children's game
* A "forbidden" game, like "spin the bottle"
You can find some samples at
http://dmoz.org/Games/Video_Games/
But game must be original. No minor variants on existing games. The exception
to this would be "culture jamming," which would involve changing the
content (and maybe the rules) of an existing game to make a point say, an Anti-Monopoly
game to show the downside of capitalism/marerialism. Here's an extensive
overview of culture
jamming; the classic approach is
altering ads.
Guidelines for the project are as follows:
* The game must have a name
* The rules must be typed,
* Game elements (game pieces, boards, cards, dice, etc.)
* No restrictions on game media (cardboard, cinder blocks,
plastic, leather, it's all OK)
* No restrictions on game genre.
* Game play must not involve breaking laws or campus
regulations (the "Don't get your professor in trouble"
rule; no drinking games)
For your non-video game design project, you must turn in
the following items:
* Description of rules, with title of the game on the
first page
* Either a copy of game materials (board, game pieces,
etc.), or a photograph of game materials, depending on
which makes the most sense. (For example, if your game
uses cinder blocks, please submit a photograph; we don't
want the blocks themselves.)
* Description of the experience you and others had while
playing the game . If it's a learning game, did it work?
We are interested in how your initial expectations of the
attitudes or behaviors held up, or changed, after the game
was played. What rules or other changes needed to be made
to make the game achieve its objective? Secondarily,
analyze whether the game is fun -- do people like to play
it? Finally, if you were to develop another game, what
would you do differently?
optional: Photograph of the
game being played (black and
white is OK)