So I’ve returned from a short but wonderful trip to Hamburg (too short, really). Below you’ll find slides plus notes for the talk I gave at Raum Schiff Erde, a conference put together by a group of Reboot adepts. I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed the laid-back atmosphere, the curious venue and the nice talks. Many thanks to Sebastian, Matthias and the rest for the crew for inviting me, and for all their hard work.
The talk’s title refers to alchemists’ quest to turn lead into gold, which sometimes feels similar to what we’re trying to do with pervasive games in public urban places.1 To summarize: I start by talking about the fact that games are essentially useless, and that this means applied game design should look for useful results in second order effects. I argue that the contribution of urban games lies primarily in the increased diversity of use of our streets, which is a good thing in itself. I talk about the care designers need to take with the games they deploy, since not everyone is looking to play and we should respect that. Playing games is a voluntary thing by definition. Towards the end I go into different strategies for using games to increase systemic awareness using several games as examples. I wrap up with a look at reward systems we commonly find in games like Foursquare, which now serves as templates for a lot of work in this area. I feel that this leads people away from what game design is about in the first place: creating interesting activities.
Some recommended sources that served as input for this talk:
- James Wallis, Callois Completeness
- Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
- iMomus, Pervasive urban gaming: count me out, and in
- Ian Bogost, Persuasive Games: Check-Ins Check Out
- In the sense that the initial aim might be unattainable, but the insights we gain along the way might be worthwhile in itself. [↩]
What do you get when you cross a game with an opera?
The warrior named Fees on her platform
I’ve just added a write-up to the project section. It’s about Mega Monster Battle Arena; a cross between a game and an opera commissioned by Dario Fo, which we were involved with at the start of last year. I still have fond memories of this project, it was our first foray into theatre, something I’m hoping Hubbub will do more of in future. The collaboration with Daniël Hamburger was a lot of fun too. It’s not every day you sit down to hash out an adaptive music system that will be played live by a band during performances.
I wrote about this earlier at Leapfroglog, but now it’s in its rightful place here. Enjoy.