my game developers Conference 2004

Here's my recap of the week in San Jose:

The Game Tuning Workshop

For the first two days, I attended the Game Tuning Workshop. It turned out really good. There was three group exercises and a number of smaller ones, all more or less related to fundamentals of game design. These were contextualised into the MDA framework (Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics), largely conceived by Marc LeBlanc. First, we played a card game version of the famous Sissyfight. After getting to grips with the game, the task was to modify it according to certain aesthetic goal. Our group finally came up with a version where Supermodels were catfighting for fame and fortune. We tried to design a kind of collecting instinct to the game with sets of three desired objects (wardrobe, etc.) that gave specific advantages in gaining the staus of Über-Supermodel. The self-esteem points were converted into age and weight which the players were supposed to avoid, or they could drop out of the game... I guess it worked ok but we fell out of time and did not get to playtest it properly. Oh well, it was good fun :)

The second exercise was about The Three Musketeers, an abstract board game for two players. The task was to suit it for three to four players. We ended up with a four player version, where two players tried to cooperate as two sets of three musketeers and the other two with two sets of cardinals. The result was that the strategy aspect increased, but we kinda lost the story aspect of it, with six musketeers, etc. The other groups had some nice efforts, like introducing D'Artagnan and a love interest, etc.

The final exercise I guess I liked the best, even thought they all were really good. The task was to create a paper simulation of a digital game, while trying to retain the essence of game play. We picked out Asteroids :) The result was pretty ok, a two-player card game where we at least managed to include the asteroids splitting into smaller parts, and a kind of ping-pong-esque dueling feel to the game. I think the best effort was in our session by a group that made Wario Ware into a weird collage of card, board, and parlour games. Awesome, and hilariously funny!

I really enjoyed the workshop, and it was exactly what my Ph.D., shifting steadily towards more and more design considerations, needed. I certainly found first-hand proof that the MDA framework is a useful conceptual tool. Thanks to the brilliant faculty and all the group-mates I was working with!

Paper Asteroids

During the evenings, there was some good sushi, beer, etc. with Gonzalo Frasca, Jane McGonigal, Ian Bogost (pictured), David Thomas, Drew Davidson, and other fellow game researchers/designers. Cool!

Conference begins

Come Wednesday and the turnout of people at the convention center was at least fourfold. I attended John Hopson's Behavioral Game Design (pretty good), Neil Young's LotR keynote (good), and Andrew Mound's talk on coin-ops and Internet gambling (nothing I did not already know). I also hung out at the Academics group gathering, and afterwards went to see Matteo Bittanti's manifesto for better game criticism. Hear hear!

Also, the Expo floor opened. Nothing too impressive there, I think. The indepent Game Festival nominees were nice to see and try out. I also finally got to try Matsuura-san's Mojib Ribbon at the Sony section - didn't really get anythig going with it, though, with all those kanjis and controls I couldn't properly figure out...

The evening went by in The Game Developers Choice Awards, which were ok, but I developed a stomach ache out of nothing and had to call it a night quite early. Luckily, I was feeling better in the morning. Anyway, it was nice to see that LeBlanc & Andrew Leker of the Tuning workshop faculty got Independent Game Festival awards for their Oasis game, something I should have already tried out...

Masaya Matsuura awarded!

Thursday: Lovely experiments

Thursday opened with the Love Story Challenge, hosted by Eric Zimmerman. There were three game designers - Raph Koster, Warren Spector, Will Wright - who had been assigned to come up with a game concerning a love story. Let me tell you something: Will Wright is the Man. He literally wiped the floor with Koster and Spector, as he introduced his 'Collateral Romance', a 'First-Person Kisser' game within a game (BF1942 meets Casablanca). Brilliant stuff, great session.

Next I turned into a fan boy and went to see Tetsuya Mizugushi, the creator of Space Channel 5 and Rez, among other games. It was good, especially when he demoed early prototypes and development phases of <b>Rez</b>. He did not give any details, but supposedly there is a sequel at works for PSP or Nintendo DS. Fascinating!

The afternoon was filled with the Experimental Gameplay workshop, which was really good. Highlights included the Indie GameJam results, Katamari Damashii designer demoing the weird & wonderful game, and Chaim Gingold's analysis of Wario Ware. His points in the talk, titled 'Playing games with game design' were essentially similar to my own observations about it in relation to game mechanics and the 'mechanics library' I'm in the process of collecting for my thesis.

After a disappointing Game Hotel event - well, a bunch of us were so hungry that we fled before Matsuura-san and the supposedly better part of it begun - we visited a couple of parties, USC and Carnegie Mellon, before ending up at the Fairmont lobby, the hub for post-day-GDC partying.

The Giant of Game Studies, Dr. Jesper Juul

Friday: tired and expired

Friday started fine, with another interesting talk by Tim Stellmach & Craig Derrick about aestetic goals and how they relate to everyday project planning and management. Good stuff. After Will Wright's mind-blowing contribution to the Love Story challenge, I was a bit disappointed with his talk. It had interesting parts, no doubt about it, but branched out in all kinds of directions and even though the talk managed to amuse people (myself included), I was left a bit underwhelmed.

The most positive surprise for me personally was James Paul Gee's talk about learning and games. He really knew his stuff, including games, and I was quite impressed with his learning/gaming principles. Gotta buy the book! Speaking of books, I bought Game Design Workshop by Fullerton, Swain & Hoffman (publ. by CMP Books) and Design Research, edited by Brenda Laurel. Both seem very useful.

A number of times, there were clashes in the schedule between two interesting talks taking place simultaneously. One such thing was Peter Molyneux vs. Nicole Lazzarro's talk about player experiences. Under slight peer pressure, I opted for Molyneux and it wasn't anything special. He demoed Movies, Fable, and Black &White 2, which all looked intriguing, but also the brief demos left lots and lots of core questions unanswered. To end the five day event, I attended Gonzalo's roundtable about academics and developer relations, which gave birth to a lively discussion, but it was quite hard to squeeze anything concrete out of it. The last night ended with an over-prized dinner and general tiredness...

A source of inspiration

Overall, I was very pleased with my first ever GDC. Without the two-day tutorial, it would have been good, but the Tuning Workshop really made my week. It was inspiring to see about fifty people in the workshop, all fascinated with games and really motivated with the exercises. I mean, we must have been a dream bunch for the faculty, too. Personally, I restored acres of belief into the game industry, being tutored and working with these folks. As I was mainly attending the game design talks, my view of the event is only partial, but I felt that generally people were very pleased with the design track, at least.

Best of all, the workshop gave me a killer idea on the flight back home - something that the readers of GwF will find out eventually, but I'll keep it under wraps for now ;)