Workshop wrap-up

Game Design Workshop "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be." -- Kurt Vonnegut

Game Design Workshop META THEMES Day 2 - Pleasure in games Day 3 - Games as performance art Day 4 - The play of identity

Game Design Workshop Play and performance

all gameplay is performance

all gameplay is theatrical

performance is improved by gameplay's theatrical magic "as if”

performance is scary, games are safe

play is autotelic, performance is telic, & gameplay can be both

performance makes gameplay systems legible

richard schechner "playing is at the heart of all performance.”

jane mcgonigal "performance is at the heart of all play"

Game Design Workshop Play and performance Cyberspace This term was inspired, apparently, by William Gibson’s observation that children playing video games seemed to "develop a belief that there is some kind of /actual /space behind the screen, someplace you can’t see but you know is there" (McCaffery, 1992). They and other computer users, in ways similar to the reception of film and television programs, "/believed- /in" the diagetic space projected by computer games. The Performance of Cyberspace: An Exploration Into Computer-Mediated Reality, Barbatsis, Fegan & Hansen

Game Design Workshop Play as Performance the game the player game play

Game Design Workshop Some of the things we are going to do Explore other schemas for design Play together Work in teams as well as separately Fully develop workshop game projects

Game Design Workshop “ The play of make-believe is never a win or lose proposition. It is... either a win or non-win thing. When you lose at play, you learn something. Enjoy your mistakes. Plato said, “Life must be lived as play.” The Art of Play, Gary Izzo