donderdag 23 april | 10:00 – 17:00 uur | Amsterdam
Wilt u uw onderwijs verbeteren met game-based-learning? Denkt u na over hoe u speelsheid kunt inzetten in design? Onderdeel van een game studio? Staat u op het punt om iets te gamificeren?
Dit seminar Spelenderwijs is het huiswerk wat u nodig heeft. Deze dag geeft u een samenvatting van de psychologische processen die van belang zijn als u onze fundamentele speelsheid wilt gebruiken in games, onderwijs of ontwerp. We bespreken de bekendste en bewezen onderdelen en belangrijke onderliggende principes met hun interacties en voorwaarden.
Een dag vol kennis over spelen en spel. We nemen spel serieus en duiken in spelpsychologie. We zijn zelf spelers in een verhaal over spelers. We benadrukken het belang van feedback en het netwerk van mogelijke effecten. We spreken steeds vanuit praktische voorbeelden en onderzoeksresultaten.
U bent zelf interactief. U doet mee aan verschillende brainstormvormen en geeft en ontvangt feedback. U wint of verliest. U bouwt mee aan uw eigen lesmateriaal.
Deze dag geeft u de benodigde basiskennis over wat de kracht van speelsheid is en wanneer het in welke vorm kan bijdragen – en wanneer niet.
10:00
Introductie
Spelen & spel
Serieus spelen
12:30
Lunch
13:30
Spelpsychologie
Spelers
Verhaal
Feedback
16:30
Evaluatie
Praktisch Tarief €200 p.p. of sociaal/educatief tarief €140 p.p. Deze speelse dag is geschikt voor 4-12 deelnemers. Inclusief lunch & materialen. Locatie Centrale Martkhal, Amsterdam.
note: Van alle behandelde kennis krijgt u een overzicht van de onderliggende publicaties + suggesties voor meer informatie.
Deze seminar is ook per groep te boeken. U kunt eventueel samen aan een casus werken tijdens de workshop. De workshop kan ook in twee dagdelen opgebroken worden. Groepstarief €1.200 + kosten of sociaal/educatief tarief €840 + kosten. Op uw locatie of op locatie in Amsterdam.
I am looking forward to this weekend when I will take part in REGENERATE Game Jam with Stijn and Sebastian. We made a game together before in 2013. We made Stretching It as part of The Bridge literally connecting people between the Biennale in Venice and Musuem square in Amsterdam.
Now we are going to see what we can imagine, build and play in just one weekend. We know the subject will be something along the lines of “games that celebrate futures that are sustainable, democratic and equitable.” but the exact theme will be revealed this Friday at the start of the Game Jam.
The resulting games will be published here amidst the impressive collection of games from the earlier REGENERATE game jams. I suggest you click around and play a few things.
Posted inGames|TaggedGame, Game Jam|Comments Off on REGENERATE Game Jam
One of the things – leading to many of the other things – is how we describe it. What we think it is doing. Which is not what it is doing at all.
If it quacks like a duck, looks like a duck and walks like a duck it is, in this case, still not a water fowl. Because AIs like ChatGPT seem conversational we talk about them in human terms. Because we can interact with it in more or less the same way we interact with other humans we think it has human-like intelligence. It does not.
Over the years I have found it helpful to remind myself that computers are big calculators and all the magic produced comes from processing a binary code. This also goes for AI which is still a system running on a calculator. More specifically, what we are dubbing AI now are actually LLMs; Large Language Model. These are models that are the result of releasing machine-learning on a large corpus of human interactions to generate the most likely next words in any given conversation. Very elaborate predictive text and very good at that but nothing more.
This is very different from how humans have conversations. We understand a topic (or not) that we are having a conversation in. We go back and forth to stored information in our heads, connected by the concepts we have embedded them in, puzzle them into the context we and the conversation are currently in and apply what we think is the perspective of our conversational partner to our next logical statement which we convert into a shared language. All steps are altered by emotional cues along the way.
Even if I am only trying to predict what my next likely language should be, I am tapping into grand concepts such as culture, perspective switching, emotional responsiveness and the moral ambiguity of appropriateness. In the blink of an eye and without really being aware of all the marvelous cognition that is going on.
AI or LLM does none of that. It isn’t really an IT. We are coherent entities constantly trying to make sense of the world, each other and ourselves. Within our thinking and emotional landscape we constitute ourselves or by our thinking and experiences we are who we are. We make ourselves up or are made by the things we interpret from our reflection in the world as ourselves to be. Whichever way around there is an I holding this all together. There is no such I in AI. There is a model that is the result of applying machine-learning to a corpus directed to predict language. This model cannot emotionally hold elaborate concepts. This model cannot think, understand, feel, ponder, question or imagine. It can produce language that seems conversational to you and you will do all the thinking and feeling.
Because ChatGPT interacts with us they way we interact with other entities, we think it is an entity and we name the products we see like the products we see of other entities. We ask AI questions and ‘it gives answers’. There is so much in this short statement and when interacting with AI/LLMs all of it is untrue. Firstly, as mentioned above, there is no ‘it’ in the sense meant here. There is no coherent entity with a mind of its’ own. Even in the use of ‘gives’ something decidedly human is implied. The give-and-take of conversation in which we bend our minds to each other, take each other’s perspective, often turn our faces to each other, open ourselves up to emotional processing and share knowledge possibly gained from hard earned experiences. With so much going on every part of an interaction can be really seen as a gift – a part of yourself you give to another person. So that they might consider it, feel it and possible internalize it into their coherent self. So we say we give answers. AI/LLM does none of that. We might more accurately say ‘model produces’. Answers. No, not really answers either. Answers exist only in relation to questions. We expect when I ask you a question and you make the effort to form an answer that you do all the cognitive and emotional processing and use all the knowledge that you posses and deem relevant to my question and formulate what you think it is I want to know to the best of your abilities into an appropriately packaged answer. Lovely. AI/LLM model produces the statistically most likely language following the language you input (your question) based on the patterns of language in the corpus the model is based on. So in the human sense of how we see and describe the question-and-answer interaction, these aren’t answers at all.
We do all these things so effortlessly that we think they are easy. We think if something has the same results they are made by the same process. But they are not. An AI/LLM produces conversational language that looks like we might have made it. But the model did not produce in the same way as we make.
There is so much more but it mostly comes down to AI/LLM isn’t an entity. The model cannot and does not consider because the model has nothing to consider with. AI/LLM has no concept of truth because there is no way for the model to hold any concept. AI/LLM also doesn’t actually hallucinate because the model has not imagination to make anything up with and doesn’t have a perception of reality to break. No learning, thinking, growing, understanding or analysing.
My Game Frame workshop is intended to loosen up a few things. To create a looser approach to a (difficult) subject. To loosen up the interactions and relationships between people that work together. To loosen ourselves from our usual thinking and positions. To let it flow.
We can do this by smashing the button of our playfulness. Where we might allow ourselves to think and do the opposite of what we should do, to giggle and be the bad actor and to try and beat the system we usually work in. Or we can dive into and investigate the smallest interactions that we would otherwise ignore. We might allow chance where we usually attempt to apply control. We can just see what happens.
First we define a universe to play with and define the players and pieces in it. Then we can shuffle them about until it strikes a chord that pleases us. A hint of something that is interesting to explore further. We try to catch this into a rule-based-system. By doing this we may find interactions that are governed by rules that look like our actual interactions or show up our real rules by breaking them. We can see our universe from a players’ point of view and experience our (lack of) actionable options.
Doing all of this is a creative undertaking. During the day we can take up various roles in the group. As game designing is likely an unfamiliar process to everyone involved, we can interact with new sides of each other and ourselves. This is a playful day to get to know each other in a different context.
A Game Frame day is not about the resulting game. Although it will be playable, your game will most likely not be finished nor will it be a Great Game. That is perfectly fine as the game itself is not the point. We can let go of that too and instead focus what the process brings us.
So come and build yourselves a game with me. About any topic that has relevance to you and your people and to have a good day together.
Please e-mail me with all your questions and bookings or find me on Mastodon
Who wants a read this book with me? Starting January the 12th Rules of Play – Game Design Fundamentals
This book has been on my shelf for ages. I have read other works of Salen and Zimmermann (or Katie and Eric) but not this book. THE book. Even though it’s from 2004, because it’s about the Fundamentals I think it continues to be relevant and interesting.
Rules of Play has 4 units: 1. Core concepts 2. Rules 3. Play 4. Culture and a game to play after each unit. I propose we read a unit every two weeks and meet online / RL to discuss and play the game
Please join our thread running on Mastodon whilst we read here or contact me at priscillaharing[at]hotmail.com to join
Check out the Rules of Play Wiki find the book at MIT Press or get a (digital) copy from your local or university library.
From the bones and knuckles games in early Egypt to the latest VR immersion, we have long been playing games. Due to ongoing technical development, the level of realness for our make believe environments are changing (Valkenburg & Peter, 2006). Here we investigate concepts involved in learning and behaviour change for three game environments that each have a different way in which they make themselves more real to us.
Alternate Reality Games A multimedia platform of storytelling, collaboration required to solve challenges, persistent world, no avatar representation.
Massively Multiplayer Online Avatar based interactions, persistent world, social interactions, both collaboration and competition with other players.
Exergames Physical movement as game control, both with and without avatar representation, often used in rehabilitation/physical therapy settings.
The puppet master is the game master or storyteller of the ARG environment. This is the person (or persons) weaving the players content in with the narrative and providing clues and challenges where appropriate. A starting point of an ARG is known as a ‘rabbit hole’ or ‘trail head’. The ‘rabbit hole’ is defined by Merriam-Webster’s dictionary as “A bizarre or difficult state or situation, usually used in the phrase down the rabbit hole. From the rabbit hole that Alice enters in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.” Usually such a starting point into the game is online. The division between the players and the puppet masters is dubbed the curtain, referring to the red velvet drapery a magician uses to hide the mechanisms behind his trickery so that the audience might stay in a state of wonder. The This Not a Game – or TING- rhetoric is maintained at the player-side of the curtain. Everything that the players interact with is real in the sense that it is functional; websites, places and persons referred to in the game play actually exist and can be interacted with by the players. Nowhere does the game describe itself as a game, the fiction of the alternate reality that is built in an Alternate Reality Game is maintained throughout.
“Players were never meant to believe the This Is Not a Game rhetoric… it was obviously a game. There was nothing we could do about that. What we could do was make it a game with an identity crisis. If I know it’s a game and you know it’s a game, but IT doesn’t know it’s a game, then we’ve got a conflict.” Elan Lee, lead game designer of ARG The Beast in McGonical, 2003.
Alternate Reality Gaming can be further defined by six key attributes (McGonical, 2004).
Cross-media
Pervasive
Persistence
Collaboration
Constructive
Expressive
The game play occurs across multiple media platforms; public phones, postal services, movie trailers, an episode of a television series, billboards and fax machines have all been used in ARGs. Often, some form of online presence or online entrance to the story is central to the game. The game play of an ARG is pervasive in the sense that it spreads itself into normal everyday life. The concept of a ‘magic circle’ defining a field of play is challenged by placing (part of) the game play in the real world and using the real world for the needs of the game play. When an ARG runs, it runs constantly, whether you as a single player are interacting with it or not. The game play is persistent; it does not wait for any one player. It will continue to run 7 days a week, 24 hours a day until the game has run its course. By providing challenges that are impossible to solve individually, the ARG forces collaboration as an integral part of any ARG experience. Such collaboration is also given shape by the required constructive nature of the environment. There is no ready-made platform for player interaction in an ARG. Communities are constructed by and for the player base. An ARG might require a platform to support and manage the necessary involvement of the player base but it does not provide it. Intertwined with the constructive nature is also the expressive nature of this game environment. Players create pieces of content as they build the game together and player created content is absorbed into the game play. There is a constant interaction between the players and the narrative of the game.
For example the ARG The Beast has been claimed to be the game that successfully introduced ARG’s to a larger public. This murder-mystery in a future setting intrigued players for 12 weeks in 2001. It was created as a promotion for the movie A.I. An example of a smaller ARG is Chain Factor. This puzzle based ARG started in the Numb3rs episode Primacy (aired first November 9th, 2007) in which players needed to find and crack several codes to stop the world’s economy from being destroyed. The Primacy episode featured short commercials to lure players to start playing at www.chainfactor.com, see Figure 1 for a screenshot of the website. As you can see in Figure 1 the game starts off with a fairly simple puzzle-game. Further game play included several clues and codes embedded in the Primacy episode. and clues in physical locations, see Figure 2 for an example. Other codes that unlocked ‘cheats’ could be found on billboards throughout the country. On December 12, 2007 the game was successfully ended by entering all ‘ShutdownKeys’ simultaneously on twelve specific computers in twelve different (physical) locations (Haring, 2010).
Massively Mulitplayer Online
Massively Multiplayer refers to the vast amount of people that are simultaneously involved in this gaming genre. Online refers to the place where the game environment and all its players reside. MMOs exist “on and over the internet” (Chan & Vorderer, 2006). The combination of these two aspects comes with its own set of technical difficulties, involving the support needed for an online world in which every player can interact with the world and with other players. As technology develops the MMO environments have become more responsive to the players and can hold a large amount of players at any one time.
The genre of MMOs is characterised not only by its vast amount of players, but by that these players interact in a “single, integrated, persistent gaming world.” (Chu, 2008).
Single world
Integrated world
Persistent world
All the players interact in a single and integrated world, where their actions have effect on other players, the environment or the overall narrative. This brings in the technical challenge of tracking and supporting the massive amount of players and their actions and keeping the virtual world updated accordingly for everyone- in real time. To lessen the burden of such massive data traffic a game is often run split over several servers, known as ‘shards’ (Chu, 2008). As with ARGs, the persistent world of an MMO does not wait for any one player to start or stop playing, the narrative and development of the game world continues regardless.
There are several MMO game genres, of which Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) are the most popular (Chu, 2008). This genre leans heavily on avatar development and in-game interactions between gamers and between gamers and Non Playing Characters (NPC). MMORPGs add physicality, social interaction, avatar-mediated play, vertical game play and perpetuity (Chan & Vorderer, 2006) to the persistence of any MMO.
“These Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) are make believe universes in which real people interact with other real people through digital representations of themselves; millions of people participate in these worlds (Castronova, 2007)”
One famous MMORPGs is World of Warcraft. The players running around in such worlds spend – on average – 24 hours a week in their MMORPG, the vast majority is male (89%) and their average age is 26.7 years old (Yee, 2009). The time spent in this type of gaming environment sparked all sorts of concerns about social isolation. However, research has shown that playing a MMORPG increases social capital (Wellman, Haase, Witte, & Hampton, 2001).
MMOs have had much attention from researchers in the area of excessive online gaming, with concerns especially on addiction and mental disorders. The pervasive and highly social aspects of MMO – as well as the multimillion player base – raised theories and research on the addictive nature of this gaming genre (Kardefelt-Winther, 2014).
Exergames
In general terms ‘exergames’ are those games that are controlled by bodily movement. These games require an input that goes beyond using buttons or keys to exert influence over the game environment.
There was concern that games would make us less physically active. Video games have moved from the arcade games popular in the 1970’s and 1980’s into our living room and are now on mobile platforms and in our pockets. This has also meant that we went from playing games (mostly) while standing up, slamming on big push buttons and/or rattling a joystick to playing games (mostly) while sitting down and manipulating smaller buttons or keys with a finger (Bogost, 2005). By adding to our screen-time and our sedentary lifestyle, gaming was thought to be bad for your health and especially the health of young people (Vandewater, Shim, & Caplovitz, 2004). In a time when the problem of child-obesity is of epidemic proportions, these concerns seem relevant. Renewed attention was given to a different method of game interaction; still on a screen but obliging the player to move around in order to control the game. Exergaming seemed like a promising solution to the threatening gaming behaviours of our children
In order for exergaming to work, some sort of sensoring is required. Sensors that can capture our bodily movements became more advanced and cheaper – making their way from research and therapeutic settings into peoples’ homes. Exergames are now used voluntarily in many living rooms, where the physical interaction is not viewed as ‘exercise’ but the whole game experience is viewed as entertainment. Interacting with an exergame requires a certain expenditure of energy – more than a sedentary screen based interaction would – but not to the same amount as the original physical interaction that is being mimicked in the game environment (Daley, 2009).
Comparing three environments
ARG
MMO
Exergame
Persistent
X
X
Avatar based interaction
/
/
Physical activity
/
X
Magic circle
X
X
Social interaction
X
X
/
Presence high
Self
Social
Spatial
Virtual environment
/
X
X= always /=sometimes
Persistence we have seen explained in both the ARG and MMO descriptions as an important characteristic of those games; the environment does not wait for any ones player interactions. Avatar based interactions create room for another level to interact with the game; through a self-developed persona. Both MMOs and Exergames allow for such virtual representations, although neither game genre uses it exclusively. Physical activity is core to Exergaming and is usually a part of an ARG – one has to get up and do something in the real world – but it is not mandatory to be physically active in order to interact with the ARG. I have discounted the button pushing or typing on a keyboard in the MMO environment as physical activity.
