digitaldust

Iglab ran Fear of Death last night. It was a Killer game, played around Corn St, using twitter to assign targets. We all had moustaches and had to brandish a wooden spoon at our targets for a kill. Simon was experimenting with the idea of not using any bespoke software to enable the game and see if it could all be done with 3rd party platforms, ie Twitter, Twitpic, existing iphone apps, etc. There were 12 players to start with. Two playtests were run, each about half an hour long.

As it was an experiment, and especially as it was using Twitter, things didn’t go perfectly. But it was interesting to observe the way the players dealt with the breakdowns (or lack of start up) in gameplay.

Although the smartphone Twitter apps that everyone was using were very advanced and supported what was needed, there was a lot of clicking around to carry out the checking in and target acquisition, they’re not designed for the tweeting and reading required by the game. At the beginning of the game there was a lot of unfacilitated software/knowledge transfer. I personally downloaded and then used a new Twitter app on my iphone, and a couple of other people did the same.

Even though the game story encourages players to split up and be alone the breakdowns caused a lot of clumping and chatting. Players group together to discuss the game itself, analyse the technology and discuss personal strategies for iphone use.

Most of the conversations I was party to were either suggestions about technology based improvements to the game or the design of bespoke apps/software to support it, the problems with Twitter, or the use of the iphone and its Twitter apps. So a big part of the socialisation was really around 3rd party technology use, not about the gameplay itself.

The game set up with Twitter, picture taking, etc took about 40 minutes at the beginning. Many people had returned to base before both the first and second games had been closed, so there was a big discrepancy between ‘play’ time and ‘non-play’ time. Maybe 3 to 1. Lots of people drifting in and out of the nearby pubs to get drinks and drink them in front of the milk bar. There was still a lot of cohesion through the whole 2 hours that I was there. One or two people left, but mostly people stuck around. All participants were prompt, and were there at the 7pm start time. I didn’t see how it ended and how it all broke up.

Although the discussion did drift a bit, most did come back to or were inspired by the technological framework of the game. It would be worth doing a straw poll at the beginning to work out people’s backgrounds. But of the people there nearly all work in technology related jobs, and I think at least half were programmers. So it is natural for the participants to discuss these subjects.

Build yourself a travel kit to make your public transport journey more pleasant. From the UWE Centre for Transport and Society.

… as they teach a Gorilla that it will one day die

Scientists Successfully Teach Gorilla It Will Die Someday

The Pomodoro system is really helping me out. This week has been much more productive than normal I think, or at least I can look back on exactly what I have achieved. The technique really seems to do two things for me. First, that it does really help me focus on one thing at a time. Secondly, and I think most importantly, makes me aware of how little I can actually do in a day. Which might sounds negative at first, but is vital for long term planning, and mental well being.

More of less finished my PhD progression report and prepped my talk for this week’s Gesture, Technology and Play symposium. Completing the two of those has made me quite excited, galvanized and enthusiastic about my overall PhD project and academic life.

Was interviewed for Fry’s English Delight. Talked about the future of keyboards in light of touch, gesture, mobility and our changing relationship to serialized text. Should really write up my notes from that.

Went to London and saw this beautiful installation at the Barbican.

Also popped in and saw the wonderfully chaotic Tate 10 year anniversary celebrations.

Next week I’m giving a talk at the Play Research Group’s annual symposia.

Start Date: Monday 17th May, 2010 – 09:30
Location: Pervasive Media Studio, Bristol

Bodies, rhythm and digital games.

This talk will cover Henri Lefebrve’s rhythmanalysis technique and discuss how it may be applied to digital, non-digital and pervasive games. As well as his methodology, his work on bodies, gestures, traffic, exchanges and daily rhythms all bring insights to the practice of game playing.

Rhythmanalysis, in its original formulation, can be used to describe the way games fit into society and the larger patterns of how play fits into everyday life. It is also well suited to explore the lower level detail of gameplay itself in a physical and embodied manner. Because of this it gives a tool that can describe gaming from the second to second button-mashing dance of gameplay, though game structures, to play sessions and ultimately how games fit into the wider, cultural and societal cycles of our lives.

Many discussions of gaming describe it as a break in the everyday or an escape into an alternate world of fantasy and the virtual spaces of digital games make this separation appear more stark. However the fundamentally physical, repetitive and rhythmic characteristics of games are intrinsically a reflection of their quotidian nature. Exploring the interactive eurhythmia that games create through the specific linear and cyclic rhythms of gameplay opens up these cybernetic texts to a physical and embodied analysis. It provides a way to understand certain game patterns in ways that narrative and ludological approaches cannot.

It has been a while since I’ve written anything, due to a potent and potentially dangerous combination of workload and procrastination. However I’ve just started using the Pomodoro technique last week, and it is really paying dividends already.

The thing that really got me enthusiastic was Cirillo’s contextualizing it through Bergson, Minkowski and Becoming. Call me a philosophy snob, but it just rung more true than all the efficiency chat around GTD.

So far it has done two really important things. Firstly it does keep my mind on the tasks I’ve got, but more importantly, the granular day planning makes me very aware of what I can actually, reasonably, achieve. Which is always a lot less than I think I can do.

For example, right now I’m in the middle of writing my RD1 progression report for my PhD and I’ve been pomodoro-ing it from beginning to end. The draft took about twice as long as I had originally planned, which became quite apparent very early on. So I’ve been able to plan around that. It is obviously having a knock on effect elsewhere, but not to the extent that it is driving me crazy like all the other writing projects I’ve had.

The Pomodoro thing is making me break it down into planned sections, as well as making me take breaks to think about things. It does help me focus, both through the little, crunchy blocks of time and with the enforced breaks. All up it has a lot in common with a micro-Scrum sort of a process.

My biggest concern is that it has a silly name. I now have to say to people that “I’m just off for a couple of Pomodoros.” Maybe if they were Bergsons I would be happier.

Prezi is now much more based on skill than chance. I’ve just started using it again, and I have to say that it is much better and easier to use than it used to be. They’ve just fixed a few of the little niggles that I had last time I was using it. Last time I gave it a go was October, last year, and it was still a bit ropey, but I think it has probably just reached the point where I would happily cut over and use it instead of keynote for many things. Keynote is still quicker, and integrates better with the desktop, but Prezi suits where I’m coming from for teaching.

The Prezi I built for a lecture on chance and skill in game design.

The other great thing is that they offer a free, educational tier in their pricing model. Though four, purely text based, prezis take up nearly 10% of by 500Mb. So if I start bunging images in (something I want to do) I wont get very far.

Went along to the Computation Turn and presented my paper on Patterns in the Digital Humanities. The keynotes from Katherine Hayles and Lev Manovich are online there as videos.

The one major thing I came out of it with was realizing that recognizing shapes is not the same as recognizing patterns. Most of the time when someone says they see patterns in data sets and visualizations, they see shapes in the data, not patterns.

Also the HEAT workshops keep progressing. Still looking into behavior change through both mobile devices and serious gaming as part of that.

A busy week, though looking back I don’t know why or what filled it. However I know it took me all week to get an ethics approval application in, which mostly involved filling in a few boxes.

Lots of presentations at the beginning of the week from the students I’m teaching on Play and Games. They came back with initial concepts for their serious board game designs. Quite a lot of good work, and we were quite impressed with a smattering of proper citations and name checking in the talks. Some nice ideas coming out, though many still have their heads stuck in the Monopoly space.

The previous week I was impressed with the quality of the Play and Games essays, and finally after collating, double marking, remarking and all the other tedious admin stuff that makes up teaching we got them finished and back to the students. It probably isn’t methodologically accurate but we did see a massive increase in the students marks between last year and this year. The average mark last year was 51, and this year’s average is 61. There are probably lots of factors in the mix, but I do think that between Ian and myself we got the students to actually read, dissect and analyse academic articles. As well as getting them to think through constructing an argument, writing coherently and lastly doing proper citations and referencing (big thanks to Ian who I think did most of the work on it). Phew… it paid off.

The choices of essay topic were interesting as well, considering that, apart from one, they are all boys. I gave them a choice of four topics, with some starter texts on each. 23 wrote about girls and gaming, 22 wrote about immersion, 11 on simulation vs narrative and only 2 on definition.

Segueing onto something completely different, On Friday I went to the DCRC’s Pervasive/Invasive seminar/workshop on the ethics of pervasive media. A bunch of interesting talks, much interesting chat, and one big realization for me. That we’re already there in discussion the ethics of these things, pervasive media is not something way off, we are in that posthuman space already. Which marries up with a few other things I’ve been reading and pondering recently by way of Katherine Hayles and Andy Miah. The Future Has Arrived. Though I’m sure Sam will pull me up on my loose attitude towards thinking about this and what we can or cannot do or say about how we create, imagine and relate our present and future.

Started the week by going to this month’s Sandpit as a kind of kick off for my DCRC funded research project, Attitudes to Pervasive Gaming. Wow! It was busy. It almost seemed like there were more people there than at Hide and Seek.

Although I’ve not started data collection for the project I used the occasion to do a bit of observation and collect some participants for later phone interviews. My initial plan of trying to interview people at the sandpit isn’t going to work. It is just too hectic at the event. So I think I’m going to drop back to fewer face-to-face, and more phone interviews. But the good news I think is the project is starting to take shape.

Also had Tom Burton, Beef’s Technical Director in this week for our industry talk. Again a dismal turn out from the students, but that meant it was more informal and we chatted about Tom’s path from university to running his own business, alongside how to use technology in creative ways.

Otherwise there was much marking going on, I finished my share of the Play and Games essays. Which, I have to say, have largely been better than last years. There is some truly outstanding work, and far fewer that made my eyes spin trying to understand them. I think our rigorous tutorial plan last semester to tie the students down and make them think seems to have paid off.