1. Ready, Set, Play!
Getting Started with Game Development
Susan Edwards, Hammer Museum
@jolifanta
Seema Rao, Cleveland Museum of Art
@artlust
David Schaller, eduweb
@davidschaller
5. Ready, Set, Play!
What type of museum?
What is the goal?
Who is the audience?
What do players do?
What is the space?
Is it social?
Synchronous or asynchronous?
What is the role of staff?
Is content intrinsic to the game?
6. What type of museum?
Natural History Museum
Ecosystems
7. What is the goal?
Institutional goal > Understand how ecosystems work,
and how we influence ecosystems.
Sustainability.
Experience the information.
Player goal >
Primary = Foreign element introduced – you have to
return the ecosystem to balance.
Levels = Player evolves – natural selection (Spore game
tried to do this)
8. Who is the audience?
Kids first (adults pretend to be kids)
8+
9. What do players do?
Earn something that they can then place within the
ecosystem machine and see what happens
System loses pieces, put pieces back to return balance
Feedback with a CO2 meter.
Manipulate the abiotic (non-living) factors, see how
biotic reacts.
10. What is the space?
Not a kiosk on a small screen in the gallery.
In the museum – possibly progressive. Can player
experience the ecosystem in the museum? Stations
in the galleries relate to the game.
11. Is it social?
Yes – individual actions, but group decision-making
influences each step.
12. Synchronous or asynchronous?
Does it have to be synchronous because it’s in-
gallery? No.
If it doesn’t have a start and end, it could be
asynchronous.
You are playing synchronously. Overall game is
asynchronous.
13. What is the role of staff?
Provide content.
Build a balance board – a mechanical system that
players manipulate. Can also do this virtually.
Needs to be unfacilitated.
Staff does maintenance.
29. You Rock!!
Thank You!
Susan Edwards, Hammer Museum
@jolifanta
Seema Rao, Cleveland Museum of Art
@artlust
David Schaller, eduweb
@davidschaller
Editor's Notes
SEEMA: Imagine a game that you enjoyed – feelings? What were you doing?
DAVE: What were you thinking about?
We all have a personal history with play…. Knowing your team’s game-personality is useful. Use your own history with games as a resource. You may not make games – you may hire a game developer. We want to empower you to understand the process.
We are going to pretend to design a game. You are going to help us.
This session will only work if you participate. We aren’t going to make you dance or sing, we just need your idea.
There are more things to think about – we’ll bring
SEEMA
SUSAN
PROJECT goal
PLAYER’S end goal
Make point here about how all the rest of the questions are normally not done in sequence – it’s a circular/holistic process
Goals can be about different kinds of experiences > emotional, delivery of facts, understanding systems, skill development
SEEMA
DAVE
DAVE Defines space
SEEMA picks out the different types
DAVE
DAVE defines what it is
SEEMA asks why they said which – points out that it’s fuzzy
SUSAN
Development, game running, maintenance
SUSAN – asks for elevator speech
DAVE – explain what this is
SEEMA – look at our game – which is it?