Taking ARGs Back from Marketing and Museums
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The document discusses the benefits of exercise for mental health. Regular physical activity can help reduce anxiety and depression and improve mood and cognitive function. Exercise causes chemical changes in the brain that may help protect against mental illness and improve symptoms.
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To demonstrate how to practically apply the “Heads Up” design philosophy, this talk presents a series of prototypes and finished games that explore this space. Each game will be related back to the “Heads Up” design values as a measure of its success.
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In this presentation we will examine one of gaming’s most culturally contentious and well-known genres: fighting games. Specifically, this is a historical tour through the genre’s humble beginnings, with games like Karateka and Kung-Fu, right up to the current explosion of online-capable, arcade-perfect 2D and 3D battlers. Our goal is to weave together the development of fighting game mechanics — what are the stylistic and gameplay choices that make a fighting game and how have they developed? — with the concurrent development of their boisterous and exciting but often highly problematic player culture. Using emblematic examples from fighting game’s history — some well-known, some not — we will look at the history of the genre holistically, exploring technological, cultural, and design elements that have brought both the games and the players to their current state.
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This talk will cover the history of the economic class of your "average" gamer, a comparison of the markets being targeted by the current sections of the industry and the strategies being used, and some analysis of the challenges economic class plays in maintaining an creative development culture. Not all doom and gloom, this talk will also highlight positive strides in the industry in recent years, proven strategies and case studies, (yes, yet another talk with a Kickstarter section!) and as many discussions of people getting it right as discussions of the problems our industry faces.
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In this session, attendees can expect to learn about the ways that implementing procedural content generation can affect your overall workflow, your approaches to early implementation and prototyping and importantly the manner in which you iterate your designs. Although all of this will be presented in the context of the development of “Easy Money?”, the lessons imparted are intended to be generally applicable.
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In this satire-drenched and badly-photoshopped image-filled presentation, participants will be invited to imagine an alternate universe where women are people and men are… well, men. The videogame industry, as such, is heavily female-dominated, with “boy games” being a niche, low-budget genre mainly enjoyed by middle-aged househusbands. Most representations of men in mainstream, triple-A “female power fantasy” games are as little more than sex objects, and all of them promote a very narrow ideal of what a man’s body ought to look like. Men who play multiplayer games are continuously subjected to flirtatious comments, unsolicited game-related favours from other players, and demands for pictures of themselves. While a number of male gamers arguably find this sexualisation “empowering” (because we all know that men enjoy being attractive, and women enjoy looking at attractive men!) others, unfortunately, find it exploitative and degrading, reinforcing the stereotype of gaming being a female-only hobby.
Furthermore, very few men themselves feel inclined to enter the game industry, both due to this perception of a “girls’ club” and to the discouragement given to boys from an early age in pursuing math and engineering as careers. Men tend to feel unwelcome in the presence of Playgirl pinup posters on cubicle walls, corporate meetings at Chippendales and similarly objectifying establishments, and the proliferation of “booth dudes” at game conventions. It’s easy to say that women are pigs and/or socially awkward nerds who don’t know any better, but, as many of us are happy to point out, “we’re not all like that!” Clearly, we can do better.
Fortunately, there are many inroads being made today in making men feel more welcome in our industry, from Men in Games social gatherings (to which women are also invited, of course!) to MENtorship programmes in college/university engineering programmes to companies such as Him Interactive and Binary Brothers creating games “by real men, for real men”. These initiatives do have their detractors in the “but women are objectified in games too!” sense (because, you know, they’re always so strong and muscular and powerful and all) as well as the “why does everything have to be about GENDER, anyway; why can’t we all just make GAMES?” sense. However, unless and until some kind of worldwide social upheaval takes place, well, we’re just going to have to take what we can get, right?
No Show 2012 - Tim Crosby - Can You Write That Down
Six flavor of quarks, six colors of M&Ms, and six varieties of game design documents: coincidence? Almost certainly. But can you really take that chance?
Whether you’re trying to record design decisions, refine project scope, or get investors on board, a good game design document can be critical factor in success. Get vital tips on choosing the right format and crafting the perfect document to lead to a more perfect game design. We’ll discuss document structure, defining goals, best tools for the job, place in a game’s lifecycle, pitfalls to avoid, and examples of both good and bad design documents. Whether you’re a fledgling developer or long established and looking to improve your process, you’ll walk away with a clearer understanding of how to make the best design documents possible. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll learn to love great documentation as much as I do.
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