We have a bootleg game. Let’s make a some variant of it.
Every time you start a new prototype duplicate the project.
Add a rule / change a rule
Over the years Pippin Barr designed dozen of Snake variants, some more conceptual, some more humorous.
Play a few random ones and pick your favorites:
Joke variant but good
It’s Snake, but every fruit has 5 effects assigned to it randomly.
Eat the fruits to reveal their effects, then use them to your advantage… or die trying.
Procedural rule change.
Let’s all read the introduction of The Beauty of Games by Frank Lantz about Serpentes (one sentence each).
Tetris BUT first person
Tetris BUT first person
Tetris BUT every block adds a column
Tetris BUT it always gives you the worst possible pieces.
Hateful Tetris
Kind of Asteroids BUT you can scavenge the enemy ships and add pieces to yours
Osmos (let’s consider it an asteroid-like) BUT your movement make you lose mass and you absorb enemies if they are smaller
Game mashup
Cat Mario aka Syobon Action – influential “troll” game
BRAINSTORM: Change or add one verb
Reimagine the game around a different action or an extra action.
Avoid classic secondary mechanics like powerups or classic arcade features.
Look for a simple modification that CHANGES EVERYTHING.
Example: Feed- some asteroids are alive and must be fed so instead of shooting you take pieces of the “dead” asteroids and you shoot them on the “living” ones
Let’s play the Underrated Verbs Battle Royale
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1THqLUvZQQ2-CQUTQ0ePiPyC2krFVMsLydu94Qm0RMaA/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.dreao2l9v2nn
Try to sketch out the idea with the help of your AI assistant.
If it’s too hard to describe or implement you are already overscoping it: stick it to one rule, one mechanic.
Make it Multiplayer
Lunar lander for 5 players
Kind-of Asteroids but for 2 to 4 players
BRAINSTORM: Make your game multiplayer
Consider:
-competitive symmetrical
-competitive asymmetrical
-cooperative
-asynchronous
-turn based
The easiest way would be to have two players competing symmetrically (pong) or working independently on the same goal (clearing asteroids)
But let’s imagine something more transformative.
Think about how the theme could shift as result.
Use your AI assistant to prototype a variant.
Play Forms
Man, Play and Games was written by french sociologist Roger Callois in 1961. The book introduced important terminology in game studies. He describes four “play forms” that are the basis for the enjoyment of games.
These components can be present in different degrees in each game:
Agon, or competition. Present in skill based, competitive game like sports or chess.
Alea, or chance. Present in gambling games like slot machines or roulette.
Mimicry, or mimesis Present in role playing games or pretend games.
Ilinx, or vertigo Present in perception altering play, like merry go round and visually intensive videogames.
Callois also differentiated between two kind of games:
Ludus – structured activities with explicit rules (competitive games)
Paidia – unstructured and spontaneous activities (child play, sandbox, toys, creative games)
How are these components manifesting in your game?
Does asteroid have vertigo?
Fun
“Fun arises from trying to understand the pattern of a game.”
-Raph Koster
“The truth is, your self knows what fun means. Because you know when something is fun — for you. So start there. Not with trying to define it, because you already have defined it.”
-Bernie DeKoven
8 types of fun:
Sensation, Game as sense-pleasure
Fantasy, Game as make-believe
Narrative, Game as unfolding story
Challenge, Game as obstacle course
Fellowship, Game as social framework
Discovery, Game as uncharted territory
Expression, Game as soap box
Submission, Game as mindless pastime
-Hunicke, LeBlanc, and Zubek
Another Asteroids for one player and multiple performers.
Tetris-like block as narrative device
Arcade games as poetry
Arcades are designed to eat your quarters. Contemporary casual games want to keep you engaged for as long as possible.
Progression in flow is dynamic (dynamic difficulty adjustment) and player-driven. The goal is to induce a state of “flow”.
BRAINSTORM: Reimagine asteroids for a different kind of player or fun
Can you imagine a version of your game that boosts the less dominant components like chance or vertigo?
How can the gameplay be turned into a non-competitive, sandbox, open ended, or “creative play” game, how can it be expressive or narrative…
Prototype the variant by affecting the least rules and mechanics as you can.
Technology
Videogames are tied and built upon layers and layers of technology and defined by what’s technically possible.
Some of the most interesting experimental games are starting from “software toys” and build a gameplay around it.
Fluid simulation, less direct control, 2 extra actions, rich functional aesthetics.
Physics
Soft Body
Brainstorm: Software toy
Add a system that would have been technically impossible when the game came out.
Look at the sketches on openprocessing for inspirations AND implementations.
You can start from an existing software toy and rebuild your assigned game around it.
Beyond the Screen / Beyond the code
What if the variant kept the game/gameplay mostly intact but affected the way the game is played?
If the arcade variant didn’t yield any interesting results, as homework you can propose a variant of any existing game that transforms the interfaces or the play situation.
What happens when the act of playing has consequences?
A kind of frogger
Games made of games
It captured the emergence of “challenges” now very common in game streaming. (Minecraft, GTA)
Massage me by Mika Satomi and Hannah Perner-Wilson
Glitch Hunting in Skate 2
No wrong way to play
A blog devoted to unusual ways to play videogames (2013-2017)
The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft by Angela Washko
“For four years, I created performances as The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft inside the most popular online multiplayer role-playing video game of all time. As a long-time community member, I stopped playing the game “normally” and began traveling to major towns to discuss the oppressive ways in which women were treated in the game-space with other players. This led to longer discussions about feminism with players from geographically varied places meeting together in this virtual public space.”
Game Art
What if games were used as media to make non-games or non-interactive artworks?
Art mods
Super Mario Trilogy by Myfanwy Ashmore
Cory Archangel’s version
Video essay about Super Mario Clouds and the authenticity of the “erasure”
A collage game / poem / net art piece
The Black Room
Rosemarie Fiore’s long exposure screenshots
Brainstorming
For this option you don’t have to work on your assigned game, but choose an existing game that is well known (iconic).
You don’t have to start a working prototype in class but you have to pitch a project that can be summarized in one sentence that describes: A) your process from the user/manipulator perspective B) The game you are intervening on and C) the reason to do so.
The sentence should suggest some kind of audio visual result. We can discuss the technical feasibility.
Example:
I will take long exposure photos of classic Atari games like Tempest to highlight their spatial patterns.