Nothing ventured nothing played
- Why should we develop, buy, play, and teach specific games?
- Convey experience (the what, what it is to experience archaeology), VERSUS
- Show how systems, methods, findings interact to produce experience, OR
- Reveal what is unknown or debated (how knowledge is established or contested).
- Can game genres or games as interaction modes be compared to what is learnt?
- Can a schematic framework show what can be communicated and why it should be done?
- Plus criteria revealing when useful? Avoids banal gamification?
Roger Caillois: modes of play?
| Challenge modes | Engages because you | Archaeology | Pros and Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Competition Agon (competition / strategy) | Compete against people, long-term decision making | Civilization? All those build empire games.. | -Means to end +Strategic + Engaging |
| Chance Alea | Humour, handle unpredictability | Could Spore be an archaeology game? | -No causality + Engaging |
| Vertigo Ilinx |
Mastery of commitment, mental focus, multi-tasking | The extreme parkour of Assassin’s creed? | -Distracts +Ergodic appreciation + Engaging |
| Mimicry mimesis |
Observation, control and humour and roleplaying | If Sims 4 was used as anthropological machinima? | -Difficult for interfaces +Build empathy + Engaging |
Turin August 2018
CAA2017 movie of slides
CAA2017 Stuart Eve talk
Types of Mechanics
- Game progression mechanics (mechanics to progress the player through the game)
- Performance mechanics / Rewards and skills mastery mechanics (mechanics to encourage the player to improve and extend their range of skills and judgement)
- Narrative mechanics (tools to progress /unfold or bring together one or more apparent story threads in relation to game play). Are dramatic mechanics a subset?
- Behavioural & Role assimilation mechanics (mechanics become habit through repeated gameplay, accustomed to
see things in certain ways) - Insight and reversal mechanics (mechanics that disrupt the in-game or real-world expectations and presumptions of the player acquired previously or during the game in order to reveal to them a viewpoint taken for granted, or to supplant the view created by gameplay but a view the designer wants them to suddenly by alienated from).