Why Games are awesome
Some of our “readings” begin to provide some background about what is so special with games to make them worthy of so much attention here. At a very superficial level I want you to see
- Games and Play are an essential and universal part of human culture, and deserve attention for being able to be more than entertainment. This takes work because we arrive with some deep-seated and subconscious prejudices about games being important or worthwhile for serious adults.
- Videogames have some important and useful affordances as a technology. Videogames are not passive content, but designed experiences.
- Videogames are an important part of modern culture. Their play has become embedded in how we make meaning of the world collectively and how we understand our lives.
- Since games are now easier for novices to make, they are becoming a vernacular: regular people not only see meaning through them, but create them to make new meanings. By learning a bit of how to make games here, you are building a literacy which in the future may be seen as basic.
- Videogames are important sites of learning. Both as designed experiences and as centers of social worlds, games recruit collective learning and participation in ways of which teachers, reporters, and activists should take heed.
Generally, our introductory material is taken from
- Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal
- How to Do Things with Videogames by Ian Bogost
- The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell
These are not the only prophets of gaming, but these books (and the talks you’ll watch) are a useful onramp. Some other authors/works to consider as you begin to learn about games:
- Chris Crawford on Game Design by Chris Crawford - Similar to Schell’s book, a seasoned designer thinks hard about what games are all about from a practical perspective.
- Theory of Fun by Raph Koster - This designer explains in a few slides how he thinks games and people work.
- What Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee - It’s about more than school.
- Serious Games by Clark Abt - We often make the mistake of thinking that all thought on how to make use of games, even videogames, is very new. This should be a suitable antidote.
- Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse - Some people say that life is a game. This philosophical work explores what kinds of games we play in life.
Of course, there’s tons more. Don’t forget that since videogames are an active area of thought, not all of the good stuff is academic in origin, there’s a lot of writing accessible online. Many of the people who write about games in books also have blogs, TED talks, etc. They usually mention other thinkers in their work. Gamasutra is a clearing house for a lot of academic games writing, but use Google Scholar to look into specific topics, and Google generally to find out about interesting games/uses for games.
Keeping up with games online
It can be tough to find more thoughtful writing about games or learn about interesting titles off the beaten path if you don’t know where to look. Here are a few resources to help you get started.
Critical Distance - A weekly metablog of game criticism. This is how I keep up with interesting thinking about games. Criticism like this is very different than the reviews that are more prevalent on game news sites.
Kill Screen - Their weekly newsletter mentions a handful of interesting games and tells me just enough about them to get me going. There’s a lot of new stuff out there. It’s impossible and pointless to try and keep on top of it all. But this helps to make sure I don’t just pay attention to what I already know about.
Steam and Humble sales - A quirk (and maybe the eventual downfall) of the recent game retail scene are deep discounts on indie games from Steam and the Humble Store. Although iOS games are never a part of this, these sales can make it cheap and easy to experiment with new games, different from what you’d normally play.
Game Design Resources
ARIS
We have of course seen ARIS. Here are some relevant links to aid you in its use:
- ARIS Project Homepage
- ARIS Editor v1 (until Sept. 3???)
- ARIS Editor v2 (temporary link until Sept. 3, functional but not feature complete, games will be frequently erased, require a separate client)
- ARIS Manual v1
- ARIS Manual v2 - I could use a ton of help writing this in the next month or so.
- ARIS Tutorials
- My Tutorials at the Local Games Lab ABQ Blog - Many of these are ARIS tips.
Most importantly, ARIS is more than a piece of software. It’s a collection of people around the world interested in combining mobile, augmented reality, storytelling, and games. Read and use the ARIS author forums at:
Other Tools
I also want to make an effort to look at and possibly use other kits that make game creation a possibility for non-programmers. I have heard of many, and been actively looking into a few over the last several moths, but never done any serious work with these kits. Please feel free to help make this list and fill in details. If you can produce tutorials etc. for these tools, it may be easier for others (in this class and in the world) in the future. We will especially want to know about what software the authoring tool runs on, what platforms you can develop for (and at what prices), how easy it is to find and play games made with the software, and what kinds of games it is easiest to author with that tool.
GameSalad - Make desktop and iOS games with the free version which runs in OS X and Windows, Windows and Android for $$. Looks mostly geared to platformers, but fairly generic. Good documentation but look at modding an existing template to get up and running.
Game Maker - Another one that comes up a lot. Looks a little similar to GameSalad.
RPG Maker VX Ace - Primarily geared towards classic RPGs: menu based combat, isometric view of a map with buildings and characters on it. Costs money but sometimes is cheap on Steam.
App Inventor - Blocks-based, visual app development environment for Android. Free.
Scratch - Not really a game maker, more of a “learn to program visually” tool, but used to make games.
FreshAir - Kinda like ARIS. Quizzes and item interactions are easy to author. Web-based authoring tool. Cross platform. Costs money to have others play your game.
Taleblazer - also kinda like ARIS. Probably easier to make simulation type content. Uses the block-style programming language like Scratch. Cross platform: Android and iOS. I would be especially interested for someone to learn this tool and make tutorials for others.
MS Excel, or google spreadsheets - on the back end, many games are little more than spreadsheets where math happens. You can create interactive systems with cells and equations using Excel, leaving the visual design out for the moment. There are even people who use Excel as an actual game engine, putting in graphics and everything (just google it). You can even use interactive google gadgets to create game elements easily from spreadsheet cells.
Google sites - Using hyperlinks, you can turn a website like this one into a rudimentary game engine somewhat like choose your own adventure stories.
Modding tools in commercial games - Many games come with their own modding tools. These can sometimes be used to create games very far from the one you begin with. My first educational game was a mod of Civ. 3.
What else?
Burque
This city can be difficult to get to know well. If you grew up here, you are likely full of its cliches, the stories about Albuquerque we tell tourists. But you also grew up in one or more neighborhoods and have a lived experience to share and deepen. There are parts of this city you don’t yet know about, and if you’re anything like me, you might not have looked enough into the cliches to see the vibrant living stories behind them.
I have a parable from the world of cooking. I grew up with chicken pot pies as a easy-to-make, always-ready dinner. They were in the freezer and you just pop them in the oven. As I grew up and started to appreciate food, I realized these were not that good. It was hard to imagine a non-cynical reason why they existed. And likewise I wrote of chicken pot pie. Many years later, I made a chicken pot pie from scratch and my mind was opened. It was fantastic. This is a food you could get homesick for. Even a poor imitation might remind you of how truly triumphant chicken pot pie could be.
This class gives you license and responsibility to investigate your own prejudices and to take a new look at this city. But just knowing that may not be enough help to get started. Here are some links that may help you start to dig in (and also to realize that part of a modern city is online):
- The Official City Website
- New Mexico Mercury - Indie news for the state. Mostly environmental coverage. V.B. Price helped start this site and is a frequent contributor. He is a retired Honors professor and still teaches here. He has two books we will be looking at. Also, I took my first Honors class from him.
- Only in New Mexico - This is Jim Baca’s blog. He used to be our Mayor among other things.
- Duke City Fix - A metablog and community site. There are discussion forums, regular bloggers, etc. This one would be a good one to dig around for a while.
- Walk Albuquerque
- Duke City Wheelmen
- reDiscover Nob Hill