Ian Bogost mentioned in the Tiny Subversions Blog
Ian Bogost’s talk at the Montreal International Games Summit is mentioned on the Tiny Subversions Blog. Read more here.
Celia Pearce in the Houston Chronicle
An article in the Houston Chronicle about World of Warcraft and baby Grace Quotes Celia Pearce regarding Warcraft, online communities, and the nature of online relationships. Read the full article here: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/main/5336859.html
Playology December 3rd at 6pm in EGL: music games
This week playology will be discussing and playing music games.
With the recent release of Rock Band, and the popularity of the Guitar Hero, music games have spent much time in the spotlight recently. The music genre of games presents unique and simplistic gameplay, combined with music as the main focus of the game. As designers and critics, there is much we can learn from these easy to learn methods of gameplay.
We will be playing Guitar Hero 1 - 3, Rock Band, Donkey Konga and others. Bring your own games and show off your favorite music game as well.
Telepresentation live from Denmark 4:30 pm Tue Nov 27 in Skiles 002
Douglas Wilson & Miguel Sicart
ITU University of Copenhagen
De Menezes International: Designing a Multiplayer Political Game
De Menezes International is a political game about terrorism, surveillance, and paranoia. The game, a Half Life 2 mod, sets players as civilians in an international airport. But there’s a twist: one of the players may or may not be a terrorist. Inspired by games like Mafia and Shadows Over Camelot, as well as recent news events, De Menezes International bases its gameplay around conversation and argument. The game is currently in production at IT University of Copenhagen by a team of over 20 Masters students.
Tuesday’s tele-presentation — broadcast live from Denmark — will feature two parts. Douglas Wilson, one of the game’s designers, will first recount the evolution of the central game concept. In particular, Doug will explain how a traditional point system can work in a serious game, as well as measures the team used to discourage griefing.
Afterwards, Miguel Sicart, the project supervisor, will briefly talk about the role of the project within ITU’s Media, Technology & Games program. With an eye towards Game Studies curricula, Doug and Miguel will discuss the positive and negative aspects of such a large project class.
Winter Demo Day December 12
You are cordially invited to the Digital Media Winter 2007 Demo Day from 4:00-7:00 PM on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at -
Wesley New Media Center
Skiles Classroom Building
686 Cherry Street - Ground Floor
Georgia Tech
We have many exciting demos to show off at this year’s event, including extraordinary student and faculty projects in Interactive Narrative, Tangible Media, Experimental Games, Interactive Television, and Digital Film. Refreshments will be served.
More information can be found at: http://dm.lcc.gatech.edu/demoday/
Please direct inquiries to Matthew McIntyre at 404-385-7551 or at matthew.mcintyre@lcc.gatech.edu
Playology Monday 11/06 at 6pm in EGL
We will be screening Darkon, a documentary film on Live Action Role-Playing (LARPing).
Following the screening we will have a mini-LARPing exercise.
About the film:
For a trailer visit: http://www.darkonthemovie.com/
Darkon, a documentary recently aired on the Independent Film Channel, is described as:
One of the few non-comedic movies by gamers, about gamers, and ultimately for gamers, Darkon (Ovie Productions/Seethink Productions, 2006) is a documentary that focuses on the activities of the Darkon Wargaming Club, a fantasy live-action role-playing (LARP) group in Baltimore, Maryland.
Moreso than movies of any sort by non-gamers about role-playing gaming (e.g., the execrable Mazes and Monsters), Darkon explores the purposes, positive aspects, and benefits of the hobby and the motives people have for participating
in it. While it also hints at the all-consuming effect RPGs can have on their participants, it is ultimately more of an apologia for the hobby than an examination of it.
From a technical point of view, Darkon is well filmed, excellently scored, and structurally sound. One thing it does not do, however, is explain what a LARP is. Naturally, this does not matter much as far as gamers are concerned, but the
absence of such explanation severely limits the value this film could have had as a tool for telling the non-gaming world about something about which it has limited awareness and little understanding. It is also a little on the long side, with multiple, interchangeable battle scenes, some of which could have been cut in lieu of some interviews with some third parties who could have helped put LARPing and RPGing in context.
A product of its times, Darkon draws as much on the genre of reality television as it does on that of documentary, with asides to the camera by its various subjects that shed light on their motivations and relationships in and out of
the game. Depending on whether one likes reality TV or not, this could be seen as either a benefit or a detriment.
Some of the costuming and props used by the Darkon LARPers are impressive, with especial kudos going to the Dark Elf players (who do not appear in the film nearly enough). Firing catapults and a wooden fortress that is actually burned at the end of a battle demonstrate the willingness of this club’s members to go above and beyond in their gaming.
Overall, Darkon is worth a watch by anyone interested in seeing a particular side of the gaming genre. It is likely, however, to be just as confusing as it is enlightening to outsiders, and does not go nearly as far as it could have toward producing an understanding of the hobby to those not already familiar with it.
Darkon is 93 minutes long. It premiered and won the Best Documentary Audience Award at the 2006 South By Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, and is an official selection playing at the Hot Docs, Maryland Film Festival, Silverdocs,
LA Film Festival, Britdoc and Melbourne International Film Festival. It aired on the Independent Film Channel Nov. 12, and that might thus be a good place to keep an eye out for it.
dorkbot Nov 7
The next dorkbot-atl meeting will be held on Wednesday, November 7th at 7:30 pm in the Couch Building (music department) at Georgia Tech, in the first floor rehearsal hall.
Full details are available at: http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotatl/
This month’s dorkbot will feature an informal presentation of my new work Flock (for saxophone quartet, dancers, electronic sound, video, and audience participation) in preparation for the piece’s premiere at the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts in Miami in December. I have developed Flock in collaboration with Mark Godfrey, Liubo Borissov, Frank Dellaert, Dan Hou, Justin Berger, and Martin Robinson.
Flock is a full evening performance work for saxophone quartet, conceived to directly engage audiences in the composition of music by physically bringing them out of their seats and enfolding them into the creative process. During the performance, the four musicians and up to one hundred audience members move freely around the performance space. A computer vision system determines the locations of the audience members and musicians, and it uses that data to generate performance instructions for the saxophonists, who view them on wireless handheld displays mounted on their instruments. The data also drives the real-time generation of a multi-screen video animation and an electronic soundtrack.
More information about Flock is available at: http://www.jasonfreeman.net/flock/