Interactive Drama
As background for this assignment, read “Dramatic Techniques in Orchestrating Human Response” from "Computers as Theater" by Brenda Laurel. Also read Chapter 6 from Jesse Schell's "The Art of Game Design" for some tips on how to come up with game ideas.
In this assignment, you will design and implement your first game about a social issue. The game will be a kind of life-action role playing game. That is, it is going to be played with real people, moving around and acting in a real physical space. You will work in teams. Your team members are going to be game characters; the rest of us are going to be the players.
- Pick a social issue that you are all passionate about.
- Decide what experience you want the players to have.
- Decide on a "story" you want to tell. This should be more of an "impression" or a micro-story, because you will have maximally 20 minutes to play your game.
- How can you capture this experience and this story through game mechanics? (For example: What is the game space? What characters and props are in this space? What will the players do? How do they interact with each other, with the other game characters, with other game objects? How is the end of the game determined?)
Due on Tuesday of week 4
Bring a complete draft of your game design paper to class (typed). This paper should have two parts. Part 1 is a detailed description of your game design. Someone should be able to reimplement your game based on this description. Part 2 is a critical analysis of your game design. What player experience did you want to create? What design decisions did you make in order to create this experience? What effects do you want to achieve with your mechanics? Why did you choose to use certain props? What did you do to give life to the game characters? What did you do to immerse the player? Refer to the articles and chapters you have read about storytelling and game mechanics.
You should prepare this paper as a group. And the first version you bring on Tuesday should not be a rough draft. We will critique this design paper in class on Tuesday. You will have time to revise it until Thursday, which is when the final version of the design paper is due and you will lead the playing of your games in class.
See below for a list of guiding questions.
Due on Thursday of week 4
Part 1
You will lead the playing of your game in class. Come prepared. Bring everything you need. You have maximally 20 minutes. At most 5 minutes of those 20 minutes can be used for prep time.
Part 2
The final version of your game design paper is due.
Some questions to think about when developing your game and writing your paper
- What social issue is this game addressing? What are the goals of the developers? Does this game achieve these goals?
- What story does this game tell? Who are the characters? What are their desires, needs, hopes, fears?
- Does this game create a powerful experience for the player? Does it let the player experience a situation different from his/her ordinary life? Does it let the player see the world through somebody else's eyes? Does it create empathy toward the game characters? How do mechanics, story, aesthetics and technology contribute to this experience? What could be changed about the design or implementation of the game to make the experience stronger?
- Is the game immersive? What aspects of the mechanics, story, aesthetics, technology create this feeling of immersion? In what ways could the game design or implementation be changed to create greater immersion?
- Does the game flow? That is, is it challenging, but not too difficult? In what ways do the game elements create flow? In what ways could they be changed to improve the flow?
- Are the rules of the game clear? Do the players know what to do? Is it clear how their decisions affect the outcome of the game?