1. 1
DESIGNING AN
APPLIED GAME
FOR YOUR
MUSEUM
An interactive workshop
Pietro Polsinelli for MDT 2018

2. What is this?
These are the slides that as a teacher I used to
introduce and follow the exercises of an interactive
full day workshop. All the participants had a paper
copy of a booklet that you can find in PDF form here
together with other material:
http://bit.ly/explainingmaterial
2

3. Description
How can a museum, research or any cultural centre acquire skills for working with games and
persuasive projects avoiding common pitfalls?
In this interactive workshop, each participant will design her own game on a theme of choice. Each
participant will have an exercise booklet to be filled with the progressive definition of a game
centred on the theme of choice. Many of the diverse dimensions of an applied game will be explored
through a specific exercise. We will alternate introductions, doing the exercises and providing
feedback.
Source for more in-depth explorations after the workshop will be provided.
3

4. INTRO
4

5. Digital for museums: it can mean anything...
But we have a very specific interpretation in mind.
Our two applications are diverse:
AUTOGRAPHY is a persuasive application - i.e. focused on influencing behaviour
OPERA KIDZ is a game proper, focused in creating a learning experience.
But they both rely on the same conceptual framework.
5

6. Digital for museums: it
can mean anything...
I have some experience in the applied games field.
6

7. A perspective on
games and cultural
heritage - I
There are two very different ways to connect
games and cultural heritage.
One is where your artsy corner of the universe
is reproduced and used as background of your
game. The world of “Leonardo” in Assassin
Creed. This is in line with the view of art-as-
decoration, to which no one who has the
slightest level of art expertise would
subscribe - still in the game’s world it is the
prevalent view.
You more or less copy works and paste them into
an existing mechanics.
7

8. A perspective on games and cultural heritage - II
A completely different perspective is where you take
the experience of art as a transformative process,
and you try to relate to what the artist wanted to
do in her context, and generate from that a new,
highly connected transformational experience.
Searching for a transformative concept: this is how
we worked on both our applications.
8

9. Maximizing evocative diegetic connectivity
The principle of our design is summed up by the notion of evocative diegetic
connectivity, as an evolution of what presented in this publication:
https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3116630
9

10. GAMES:
NOT TOYS,
NOT GAMIFICATION,
NOT CLONES
10

11. 11

12. 12

13. 13
BUT:
MAY DESIGN
BEYOND
THE LONELY
SCREEN

14. LEARNING?
TRUST ME!
14

15. BEYOND GDD:
CHANGE
15

16. 16
Daniel Cook, game development is risky:

17. VARIETY OF
LANGUAGE
17

18. BOOKLET
ORDER
18

19. The order matters
A narrative idea makes it impossible to define
mechanics later; but mechanics do allow structuring
narrative later. That is why the flow of exercises
follows this order:
theme / knowledge base, mechanics, story
not
theme / knowledge base, story, mechanics
Tell that we need mechanics early. This sensitivity
is what makes a good game designer. + production
skill & authority. Authority must be from authorial
source.
Raph Koster: So that’s my rule: if I have an
experience I want to get across, the first thing I
ask myself is “how do I model this experience
mathematically?” It ends up opening many more doors.

20. exercise
Define different usage contexts,
and a roadmap for inclusivity.
20
Define the audience and inclusiveness criteria for your
game.

21. #
21
ITERATION #1

22. THEME
22

23. FIND A THEME
23
MECHANIC
S

24. Intro
Games are a media apt for dealing with any theme.
The belief that games are just for entertainment,
and hence need light themes is not current any more.
My own work shows that games can be used for
creating transformative experiences dealing with
super serious themes.
See https://www.open-lab.com/games/
24

25. Example themes
- About the process of preserving open air art works
- About the history of the creation / creator of a certain artwork
- Setting a game in the context of a special building / museum
- Creating a game that supports experimenting with a complex topic in a lab
- Raising social awareness about a certain theme of a temporary exhibition
- Recreating the life of a certain special person, researcher
- Expressing emotions and empathy through in-game storytelling of an emotional
story
- Creating community with networked game collaboration / competition
- Create a game for promoting the museum visit to people that have not been there
25

26. exercise
You may need to revise this
definition in the light of the
following exercise on knowledge
bases.
26
Define a theme or a set of possible themes.

27. Exceptions, distinctions, learn more
See http://www.gamesforchange.org/games/ for many
applied game examples.
27

28. AUDIENCE
28
MECHANIC
S

29. Intro
Your game is meant for which audience?
29

30. example Example
“The four things that people
typically enjoyed personally about
MUDs were:
i) Achievement within the game
context.
ii) Exploration of the game.
iii) Socialising with others.
iv) Imposition upon others.”
A SIMPLE TAXONOMY
http://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm
30

31. example Example
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/motivations.pdf
31

32. Intro - inclusiveness
http://gameaccessibilityguidelines.com/full-list/
32

33. KNOWLEDGE BASE
AND MODELS
33

34. 34
Design a path for learning
to happen
MECHANIC
S

35. Intro
Is there a set of schemas / tables that summarizes
your domain knowledge? An index? A book accessible
to the general public?
The deliverable requested is in the form of a
spreadsheet.
35

36. example Example
36

37. example
37
Also knowledge not yet turned in
quantified metrics is useful:
https://kmse.open-lab.com/learn-
more/

38. exercise
- situations, choices and
consequences
- art works, mysteries and solutions
- problems, recipes and mistakes /
consequences
- puzzles and step-by-step solutions
- two or more character interactions
and (social) reactions
All these should somehow connect your
domain and “real” life.
38
Keeping in mind your chosen domain, create a list of
either:

39. 39
Minimal combinatorial space
knowledge

40. Intro
In order to represent your domain in the game dynamics, you need to define a set of
composable atoms from the domain that can be put together in different ways. So say if
you have a narrative domain, and you have two stories that your characters may
experience, each independently with 3 possible outcomes, you have a space of six
possible outcomes. If you have 10 independent stories with three choices, you get 3^10
possible outcomes – 59.049.
But actually probably not all paths are possible. So if you have say 5 independent
stories of level 1, each with 2 possible outcomes, 5 of level 2 and 5 of level 3, and
stories are always 1 -> 2 -> 3, you have 5x2 = 10 possible stories at level 1, 2 and 3;
so 10x10x10 possible outcomes = 1.000. But is it so? It’s likely that the possible
paths are even more restrictive.
I won’t delve into this any deeper (this is a topic for the Explaining With Games
book), but consider this when preparing for the concept research for an applied game.
So the elements are: composable atoms and possible paths.
40

41. example Example
You need a choice for say every 30
seconds, episodes last 1 min and you
can have at most 15 of them. Your
total play through is 15 minutes -
quite short. I am horribly
simplifying, but it gives you an idea.
41

42. exercise
42
Exercise: a tool https://planetcalc.com/3757/

43. exercise
Compute the combinatorial space
of the domain defined in the
previous exercise.
43
Exercise

44. CONCEPT
44

45. 45
Brainstorming
#dynamic

46. Intro
Card: brainstorming as designing little feasible
experiments
http://www.lostgarden.com/2010/08/visualizing-
creative-process.html?m=1
Even games that apparently lack any narrative, can
greatly benefit from a good quality coherent
narrative core. And this probably holds for any
project / enterprise whatsoever. Just sticking ideas
one after the other gives an impression of progress
but the result…
46

47. Intro - WARNING
A game where you learn is not necessarily a
narrative adventure game where you make choices.
This actually almost never works, and can be a very
expensive choice.
47

48. example Example: Football Drama
Mission:
The game is about epic and poetry.
The game reveals that there is poetry in the
contextually crazy world of football and leads
through a unique learning experience about unusual
perspectives on the game.
Pitch:
Football Drama: the only football management game
where you can lose the championship and win the
game.
An epic, dramatic and satirical coaching story.
48

49. exercise
Write the mission of the game in
280 characters. No more.
49
Mission:

50. exercise
Write the pitch of the game in
280 characters. No more.
50
Pitch:

51. Example concepts
51

52. example Example concept
52

53. exercise
What would a main screen of your
game look like?
53
Sketch

54. A-HA
MOMENT A-ha Moment #dynamic - Games are for healing
Ask yourself: how does
your game heal?
54

55. A-HA
MOMENT A-ha Moment
You are designing with a thesis in the background. More than likely in applied
games.
55
From https://emshort.blog/2018/01/02/the-art-of-dramatic-writing-lajos-egri-and-games/

56. #
56
FEEDBACK #1

57. LEARNING #1
57

58. 58
PROGRESSION
.

59. Intro
Progression is built in the application mechanic / game loop, using an analogy represented in the graph:
The graph is a classical graph on games’ flow often quoted, from Flow: The Psychology of Optimal
Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
59

60. Solves the problem!
A culture of error, the curse of
knowledge: games are perfect for
dealing with that!
60

61. 61
Diegetic Connectivity
#learning

62. 62
.
.

63. Intro: definition
63
we articulate a story-driven approach to single-
player serious game design called "diegetic
connectivity,"
where task, mechanics, and story are tightly bound
through conceptual relationships and aesthetic
presentation
https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3116630

64. Intro
Even physics can become more diegetically connected:
https://twitter.com/bfod/status/947595173600645121
64

65. exercise
65
Remove any number from the game
How do you express the metrics?

66. example
66
Connection between methodology and in-
game mechanics
Connection between period graphic
language and in-game iconic language
Connection between historic societal
context and in game context
Could you do without any number?
Articulate diegetic connectivity.

67. exercise
67
Diegetic connectivity in your game
List the point of diegetic
connectivity of your game.

68. Exceptions, distinctions, learn more
(a) Diegetic elements:
“Any game element that is rooted in [is perceivably part of] the story world”.
[Diegetic Connectivity 2017]
(b) Skeuomorphism:
“Skeuomorphism is where an object in software mimics its real world counterpart.
The “trash can” is, perhaps, the most recognizable skeuomorphic object.”
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/skeuomorphism-is-dead-
long-live-skeuomorphism
(a) Refers to any kind of in-game representation of the topic - not necessarily involving
any realistic esthetic.
68

69. 69
A problem with fun
LEARNING

70. Learning games have a long
tradition of not being fun at all
Walking from home to the office, I meet young kids
say six, eight years old, walking with their
parents. But they never just walk: they notice
things nobody else does, they jump, dance, explore
new movements. Whatever situation they are in, kids
find a way to make it fun. And they are a joy just
to watch.
Then I pass in front of a high school. These
teenagers don't seem to have fun at all. They look
at each other suspiciously. Sometimes they laugh,
and suddenly look sad again. They've grown enough to
have an agenda, of which they actually are quite
unsure of. They are… scared. It will take some time
for them to regain that pure notion of fun in some
form.
70

71. 71
LEARNING
Koster’s
Fun IS learning

72. 72

73. A-HA
MOMENT A-HA Moment: fun IS learning...
First a-ha: that is the key!
Second a-ha: they are learning all the wrong things!
Third a-ha: fun is learning is just the beginning of a research!
73

74. Learning:
Fear, Surprise, Joy
74
#learning

75. Intro
The hidden theme of anxiety in learning processes.
75

76. example Intro 2
Process of going from confused to clear.
76

77. exercise
“Fun is cognitive mechanical
process through which we convert
fear into happiness through
surprise [gaining clarity]”
Write up three cases where the
loop applies in your game.
77

78. Exceptions, distinctions, learn more
This is taken from:
Precision of Emotion: A New Kind of "Fun" Approach
in Educational Games
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP-LNRtwpb8
https://www.slideshare.net/SeriousGamesAssoc/erin-
hoffmanjohn-effective-games-why-we-cant-have-nice-
things-yet
78

79. What does a teaching
game need to do?
79

80. Intro
These are reasonable requirements.
80

81. Exceptions, distinctions, learn more
This is inspired by:
Precision of Emotion: A New Kind of "Fun" Approach
in Educational Games
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP-LNRtwpb8
https://www.slideshare.net/SeriousGamesAssoc/erin-
hoffmanjohn-effective-games-why-we-cant-have-nice-
things-yet
[TODO and: your game should… Teach Like A Champion]
81

82. A-HA
MOMENT A-HA Moment: Embrace the painful part of learning your topic
Painful learning could be
fun AS A game challenge!
82

83. 83
Why your games does not
teach?

84. exercise
84
Lack of clarity of core emotion
No surprise preceding
satisfaction
Lack of tension
Exercise: check for your game teaching quality

85. A-HA
MOMENT Games are not a great media for learning
85
Micro loop with depth, feedback and a progression.
"All these go through the micro loop. You need the pause, the thinking, the coming
back.”
Well: replay with feedback (only games!), permadeath and replayability (only games!).
So for some things...

86. 86
FOCUS
IN-BETWEEN
SPACES

87. example Intro: there are in-between spaces in games
87

88. exercise
Define which in-between spaces
you need. Define the style and
content of these, and how they
can become opportunities for
teaching / learning.
88

89. Exceptions, distinctions, learn more
See
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/PietroPolsinelli/201
70126/290010/Inbetween_Spaces_And_Their_Design.php
89

90. MORE
MECHANICS
90

91. example Artificial Intelligence?
The term is highly ambiguous.
In games it may mean:
- The AI as the opponent, tuned to
eventually lose.
- The AI of the Non Player
Characters (NPCs)
http://gameinternals.com/post/20725583
30/understanding-pac-man-ghost-
behavior
91

92. exercise
Define which parts of your game
may need an AI tool.
92
Exercise: Which AI you may need?

93. FEEL
93

94. example Intro
[Show the feel game play]
Vlambeer, game feel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ
dEqssNZ-U
94

95. exercise
Define why and when your game if
plain fun to play - or even when
watching someone else play.
95

96. (NO)ESTIMATING
96

97. example
97
What is your applied game budget?