What is play? Pt. I

COM 427Sept. 3

QUIZ!

1. Salen and Zimmerman propose 3 broad forms of “play”.

Which of the following is NOT one of these 3 forms?

a) “Game play”b) “Ludic activities”c) “Instinctual play”d) “Being playful”

2. Salen & Zimmerman: “Play is free movement within a more _________ structure”

a) transformativeb) rigidc) neo-classicald) turbulent

3. For TL Taylor, the notion of play as “__________” takes into consideration the full range of social, technological, legal, cultural and economic relationships involved in gameplay.

a) twerkingb) assemblagec) post-modernismd) ludology

4. “They can stand in and do work for us, monitoring our play, automating actions, providing key information, and in general facilitating a range of both mundane and complex action.” (Taylor, pp. 333-334)What is she referring to here?

a) robotsb) gnomesc) game modsd) sweatshop workers

5. BONUS!

Of today’s authors (Salen & Zimmerman, Taylor), which are game designers & which are sociologists?

a) Salen & Zimmerman: game designers; Taylor: sociologistb) Taylor: game designer; Salen & Zimmerman: sociologistsc) trick question: they’re all psychologists

Order of play

1. Definitions (Salen & Zimmerman)

2. “Assemblage of play”

3. Overview of Final Project Assignment #1:“Exploration of a Toolset”

Play from design perspective Play from sociological perspective

Play

What words & concepts do we normally associate with play?

What words & concepts do we normally view as opposite to play?

Play

“free movement within a more rigid structure”

does this say anything about play’s relationship... to work? to media? to education?

“gameplay”“the formalized interaction that occurs when players follow the rules of a game” (p. 303)

• non-videogame examples?

• videogame examples?

“ludic activity”“games, and all of the non-game behaviors we also think of as ‘playing’: a kitten batting a ball of yarn, two college students tossing a Frisbee...” (p. 303)

• non-videogame examples?

• videogame examples?

“being playful”“a spirit of play is injected into some other action”(p. Salen & Zimmerman, p. 303)

• non-videogame examples?

• videogame examples?

“The Card Game” S. 2 Ep. 24

play as “assemblage”

“While looking at a game as it is presented as a boxed product may tell us something about the given structure of the artifact or its imagined player, understanding it as a lived object—as a playful artifact—comes via an attention to the assemblage that constructs our actual games and play” (Taylor, p. 332)

Bogost: What is the argument mounted by the game’s rules & mechanics?

Aarseth: How do games convey meaning?

machineoperator

diegetic

non-diegetic

Galloway: what are the major ‘actions’ that video games entail?

Salen & Zimmerman: what is play?

Taylor: How is play produced through the relationships between multiple “actors”?

Other (online) players/communities

Friends/family

Hardware

Designers

Copyright laws & EULAs

PLAY

Groups of 4: What’s the assemblage?

List the “actors”

Major League Gaming Summer Championship, Raleigh, August 2012 –Soul Calibur tournament

LANcouver (gaming event in Vancouver), July 2011 – Tabletop gaming

Playing DS – from http://www.flickr.com/photos/josephers/3085216456/sizes/o/in/photostream/

Playing @ Hill Library – from http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6219/6291517214_edbb741c11_z.jpg

Exploration of a Toolset: 10%

• Hardcopies due at the start of class on September 17.

• Solo assignment: 4-5 page (double-spaced) report, based on your research of a game development toolset

• Come to us (or email) if you REALLY WANT to use a modding environment instead of what you were assigned

• This will NOT be the same environment you use for your final project. This will instead position you as an expert resource for teams that DO use the environment / toolset you studied.

Integrated Game Development Environments

Interactive Fiction1. Inform 72. Twine

2D Games3. Construct 24. Adventure Game Studio5. Fixel6. Stencyl

Xbox Live Indie7. XNA

Virtual Board/Card Games8. LackeyCCG9. VASSAL engine10. Game Crafter (Physical Games)

Minor Pay Wall11. Game Maker12. Rpg Maker

Heavy Ordinance (To be researched but not used for this class)13. Unity 3d14. Unreal Engine15. Ogre 3d