Game Design
From Mmswiki
These are approaches on 'creating' GBL-applications. As impressive as most commercial games look like, 'new' games rely mostly on skinning (signs and stories), slight modding (rule systems) and maybe some additional extras - to already known and successful games and game mechanics.
Contents |
Repurposing
This is game design from the 'outside', using unchanged off-the-shelf commercial games like "civilization" or quiz games put into an educational setting. The game itself may be scrutinized for the reliability of the information delievered, used as a motivational 'opener' to the topic, or to teach principles not directly related to the game's overt theme like systemics, collaborative or recherche skills etc. (See e.g. Puentedura's text about the repurposing of commercial games for education [1] or Jenkins' and Squire's text on the use of 'Civilization III' [2]) Dedicated educational games may have a similar approach created beforehand, e.g. for GameLab's "Ayiti: The Cost of Life", where there's a lesson plan available [3].
Skinning
This is the stripping of some or all of a game's visuals and audio, i.e. it's narrative elements and base metaphors, until the respective core game mechanic is left. New elements will then be used as new 'skin' to adapt the appearence, appeal and narrative context of actions to a specific objective and audience. Best known online examples are probably the numerous variants of the shooting-gallery-ilk like "Moorhuhn" [4], a specific simple 'shoot'em up' game where you have to aim and shoot at moving targets like in a shooting gallery.
The classic 'Moorhuhnjagd', the racist right-wing 'Border Patrol', the leftist ironic 'Bush Shoot out'[5], and a skinned abstract version without narrative. Similar game mechanics, different narrative skins.
Some examples for games which are easily skinned and refittable for educational purposes:
- Card games like "Happy Families" [6] resp. "Quartett"[7]; or "War" resp. "Stechen" [8]
- Not exactly a game in this incarnation, but easily skinnable: Trading Cards [9]
- Quiz games like "Trivial Pursuit", for obvious reasons
- Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) [10] - because they consists mostly of narrative 'skin' and little game mechanics, i.e. they can be customized in detail without changing the existing net-based infrastructure.
Modding
This is the modification of rules, the 'moving' of a known rule system through its rulespace [11]. Rules may be modified e.g. for a different numbers of players (e.g. a class of pupils), shorter playing time (e.g. 45 minutes), collaborative play (e.g. class against the teacher), different rules for moves (e.g. that before every move the player has to answer a quiz question) or in a host of other ways complementing the educational content of the game. Furthermore games may thus be adapted to certain situations or to support a certain learning objective in skill or attitude requirements. This is one of the most common 'evolutionary' ways new games are developed.
- "A new card game starts in a small way, either as someone's invention, or as a modification of an existing game. Those playing it may agree to change the rules as they wish. The rules that they agree on become the "house rules" under which they play the game. A set of house rules may be accepted as valid by a group of players wherever they play. It may also be accepted as governing all play within a particular house, café, or club.
- When a game becomes sufficiently popular, so that people often play it with strangers, there is a need for a generally accepted set of rules. This need is often met when a particular set of house rules becomes generally recognised. For example, when Whist became popular in 18th-century England, players in the Portland Club agreed on a set of house rules for use on its premises. Players in some other clubs then agreed to follow the "Portland Club" rules, rather than go to the trouble of codifying and printing their own sets of rules. The Portland Club rules eventually became generally accepted throughout England and Western cultures."
- – Quote from Wikipedia article "Card Games" [12]
For some examples of rule-dimensions see "Rulespaces - Topological metaphors for structuring games" [13]
Add-Ons
Add-Ons are little extras added to an existing, already functioning game, like extra event-cards in Monopoly, or an expansion set of quiz cards in "Trivial Pursuit". Add-Ons are somewhere positioned between modding and systemic accretion: They expand the possibilities of the game, but strive not for a rule change, change of narrative context or systemic emergent gameplay.
One of the best known examples of 'educative' Add-Ons in the last years - due to the extensive media coverage - probably was the US military's "Most Wanted" deck of cards in the aftermath of the Iraq war[14].
Another easy to apply educational add-on could be the exchange of a dice by a large set of question cards with five questions of increasing difficulty on it. The player may choose whether and what question will be answered. 'No question' will always yield a '1', higher ones their respective value if answered correctly. This is a simple implementation of a quiz-element, but should be reconsidered carefully in games where the randomized-movement-element is seen as more important than the speed-of-movement-element. Thus, a seemingly harmless add-on may strive into modification-territory!
The same goes for expansions of the well-known Rock-Paper-Scissors-game, though here it may wander into the territory of accretion, since the complexity of the possible interactions increases. For example in this variation of Robot-Ninja-Zombies-Pirates-Monkeys [15].
Systemic modelling and accretion
Simulations rely on a set of interconnected elements affecting each other and thus provide for a complex gaming experience. Systems are 'created' by starting with a small stock of elements, behaviours and connections (rules), followed by the addition of more elements in incremental little steps, with phases of playtesting and balancing the game. This is called 'accretion and tuning'. For example for a game of "BA study of educational sciences", you could start with a 'student' (as a playing piece or a 'sim'), 'learning objectives' (ressource cards to be gained or skill-levels to be acquired) and a 'time schedule' (the game board or schedules of lectures spread over three years). Then add complicating relations (required cards to move on resp. patterns of preconditions to be met), random antagonistic or supporting events (event cards, limited ressource cards), helpful or hindering coplayers (incentives for cooperation but also for competition), etc. etc. (See e.g. Sims' designer Chris Trottier's text on systemic accretion an tuning [16])
- "Players enjoy complexity – especially the power that comes with powerful tools. What they do not like is “uninteresting decisions,” or games that leave them confused or with too many “easy” decisions – decisions where there is no learning to be had."
- – Kurt Squire, "Game Based Learning"[17]
Existing board games or card games can be used as starting point for a systemic expansion by adding rules and/or playing material to the existing set. For example there are forms of "Sorry!" (resp. "Pacheesi", "Mensch Ärgere Dich Nicht!") or Chess which depend on card expansions [18][19]. "Carcassonne" [20] may be seen by its numerous expansion packs as another example of game design - or rather adding complexity to an existing game - by tuned accretion.
Unusability
Irritation and puzzlement can lead to new cognisance about one's expectations and habits. Games that break with expectations we have concerning gaming can enhance the gaming experience - but can also lead to frustration, fear or aggression. Thus the more radical approaches (like "Starpower"[21]) should be part of a greater educational concept to help the player cope with her experience. (See e.g. Gonzalo Frasca's texts, e.g.[22][23], for german readers Jens Wiemken [24], too)
Transmediality
Using games for making movies, audios, comics, stories - or other games. Games can not only be played in, they can be played with, with a concrete beyond-game result as goal. This may lead to skills and hands-on-knowledge about other media types like comics ("Gamics" - comics created out of in-game screenshots [25][26]), movies ("Machinima"[27]) etc., or generally an insight into the creational and receptional processes and properties of media (See e.g. Marshal McLuhan, Seymour Papert, Jens Wiemken).
Rules
Rules define the abstract boundaries and laws of a game. What is the player allowed to do? What is the starting state of the game? When does it end? Rules give the player, like narratives, orientation in a game, they give him a possible set of actions to choose as moves (or something similar). Unlike narratives, the rules are usually not open for interpretation and are, due to their abstract nature, culturally more invariant. Games like Senet, The Game of Ur, Backgammon, Yut, Sorry!, Pacheesi etc. share as racing games similar regulative traits, though the narrative background may be as diverse as the cultures they stem from.
Narratives
A narrative explains why the player should act like he or she is supposed to act in the game. These narrative explanations may be as concise as the use of a background metaphor (e.g. "war", "trade", "race"), maybe supported the design of playing material (e.g. a battlefield, a marketplace, a racing track). But they may be also as elaborate as a complex, branching background story in adventure games, where the overall goal may be the interpretation of the story, to determine what the right actions would be in the first place.
Toys and games
The less rules and narratives a game has, the more it turns into a toy, and vice versa. Complexity of rule and narrative bound actions changes to innovative handling and insistent interaction with the toy. Toys may be, especially as digital toys, not only objects to go around, but also environments (microworlds) to go around in.
Related topics
- Storyspaces and Rulespaces - Topological metaphors for structuring games [28][29]
- Educational Game Design - Some hints on what to look out for when creating a learning game
- Collaborative Games - game mechanisms which may foster cooperative play
- ARG - Alternate Reality Game - an easy to skin game concept
--Weytan 11:28, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
