PAPER: Performance meets games: considering interaction strategies in game design

Mata la Reina testing rehearsal at Intermediae Matadero Madrid, 2012. A droid (dressed in black) admonishes a player offscreen in the picture with the interphone open awaiting orders from the control room. Source: J. L. Durante.
Mata la Reina testing rehearsal at Intermediae Matadero Madrid, 2012. A droid (dressed in black) admonishes a player offscreen in the picture with the interphone open awaiting orders from the control room. Source: J. L. Durante.

Elena Pérez & Lara Sánchez Coterón (2013) Performance meets games: considering interaction strategies in game design, Digital Creativity, 24:2, 157-164, DOI: 10.1080/14626268.2013.808963

Abstract
This contribution offers an evocative conceptual framework to inspire thinking about game design in an alternative way. If proceduralism focuses on crafting game systems, we advocate recovering the relevance of players’ interactions by pulling digitally mediated games out from the screen into the physical world where gameplay and players can intersect and interact. We draw on certain performance strategies to illuminate some currently under-explored game design resources. We use several case studies that help us describe what we call ‘human-to-human interaction’ (H2HI) in game design in three different levels: first, having designers improvise according to players’ actions real time; second, substituting computer game characters for human actors who perform according to players’ suggestions; and third, looking outside the traditional computer game environment for a computer-mediated human playground. These cases help us raise some conjectures about the possibilities of recovering the physical and social essence of performance for digitalmediated games.

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14626268.2013.808963

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Lecturing on Game Studies & Game Design

Shigeru Miyamoto Diseñador de juegos como Mario Bros o Zelda (imagen tomada de http://blogs.lavanguardia.com/materiales-anomalos/shigeru-miyamoto-el-camino-recorrido)
Game Designer Shigeru Miyamoto (pic from http://blogs.lavanguardia.com/materiales-anomalos/shigeru-miyamoto-el-camino-recorrido)

In Spain, Game Design field is finally reaching the University. This 2013/2014 teaching course I will be lecturing in some spanish universities. A Grade, a Master and a PhD Program.

«Game Design Theory & Game Studies» in 3rd and 4th year degree courses in the Digital Games Design and Development Degree, at ESNE college of Design and Innovation.

«Art» in the Design section of Master in Digital Games at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

I’m also Honorary Contributor in the PhD Program at the Fine Arts College of Universidad Complutense Madrid, as New Media and Game Studies researcher.

Presenting our new game design in Netherland

They Are, local multiplayer audio game about temptation by YOCTOBIT
They Are, local multiplayer audio game about temptation by YOCTOBIT

Last week (from 31st july to 3rd august 2013) Nacho Pintos and myself (Game Desginers at YOCTOBIT) have been presenting our last game design at Bosch Art Game contest. This local multiplayer audio game called They Are has been one of the finalist of this competition.

Bosch Art Game 2013 #1 -  41

 

Here we are, and those are the Bosch Art Game finalists’ statements

 

And this is the Bosch Art Game International Competition finalist interview. You can find here our main inspiration concepts for our local multiplayer audio game THEY ARE (from minute 1:57)

Bilbiografía sobre Diseño de Juegos (work in progress)

Taller Diseño Personajes y Diseño Agil de Juegos. Lara Coteron y Manuel Donada
Taller Diseño Personajes y Diseño Agil de Juegos. Lara Coteron y Manuel Donada

A petición del grupo de alumnos del taller de «Diseño de Personajes y Diseño Ágil de Juegos» que impartí junto con  Manuel Donada durante la I Semana de la Ilustración y el Dibujo en el Museo ABC, voy a tratar de ir confeccionando un listado de textos y recursos sobre diseño de juegos.

Mas allá de esta lista de «manuales»  y tal y como les comentaba en el taller a los participantes, creo que un modo básico para aprender a diseñar juegos es jugar y analizar diseños de otros autores. También creo que resulta muy interesante abrir el foco hacia materiales, trabajos y textos de diseño en otros ámbitos como el diseño de interactivos, recursos relacionados con HCI (Human Computer Interaction), etc.

En este listado hay diferentes acercamientos al diseño de juegos y los posicionamientos  de estos autores con respecto al diseño de juegos ofrecen diferentes políticas de creación. Debo decir de antemano que yo no comparto todas las posturas, ni todas las metodologías que aparecen en algunos de estos textos, pero de todos modos me parece necesario citarlos. De momento, ahi van algunos libros de texto:

Salen, K. and Zimmerman, E. (2004). Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge,
Mass.: The MIT Press.

Adams, E. and Rollings, A. (2007). Fundamentals of Game Design. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Pearson Prentice Hall.

Bateman, C. and Boon, R. (2006). 21st Century Game Design. Hingham, Mass.: Charles River
Media, Inc.

Fullerton, T. (2008). Game Design Workshop, Second Edition: A Playcentric Approach to
Creating Innovative Games. Burlington, Mass.: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Rouse, R. (2005). Game Design. Theory and Practice. Wordware

Flanagan, M. (2009). Critical Play: Radical Game Design. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press

Dunne, A. (2005). Hertzian Tales: Electronic Products, Aesthetic Experience, and Critical
Design. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Norman, D. (1988). The Design of Everyday Things. New York, NY: Doubleday, 1990.

Norman, D. (2004). Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things. New York,
NY: Basic Books.