Administrative:

1
Administrative Design New Game Project

• Apply the principles of Iterative Design
• First run of games in class March 28th in class
• Short document describing goal operational
  rules (1-2 pages)
• Main point bring a working prototype
• Class will be given a questionnaire evaluating
  the game
• Answered questionnaire will be returned to game
  designers (questions about meaningful play)
• Game designers modify game as they see fit

2
Administrative Design New Game Project (2)

• Apply the principles of Iterative Design
• Final deadline April 20th in class
• Short document describing goal operational
  rules (1-2 pages)
• Final working game
• Class will be given a questionnaire evaluating
  the game
• Answered questionnaire will be returned to
  instructor (questions about meaningful play)
• Document deadline April 24th in class (see next
  slide)
• Announcement about final exam exemption April
  25th (per e-mail)

3
Talking Points Design New Game Document

• Note always justify your assertions by pointing
  to material from class/book
• Length 7-10 pages
• Describe the game what it does (operational
  rules, idea)
• Overall game meaningful play?
• Game as system
• Explain the 4 elements (attributes, etc) for the
  game
• Interactivity
• Map the anatomy of choice answer the five
  questions for the game
• After thought things you would have done
  differently

4
Final Thought Design New Game

• Avoid worst-case scenario spending time on this
  project and still need to do Final Exam
• Start working on the two projects now
• Reward one less exam to worry about
• And have fun creating your own game!

5
Complexity and Emergence in Games(Ch. 14)
6
Deterministic Games

• Every players action has a single pre-determined
  outcome?
• Yes Deterministic game

7
Chance Games

• Every players action has a single pre-determined
  outcome?
• No Chance game

8
Perfect Information Games

• Does the player knows all information about the
  current state of the game?
• Yes perfect information game

9
Imperfect Information Games

• Does the player knows all information about the
  current state of the game?
• No imperfect information game

10
Categories of Digital Games (from Artificial
Intelligence perspective)
Chance
Deterministic


Chess
Perfect information
Chutes and Ladders
Civilization
Imperfect information
FPS

• Borderline games that could be classified either
  way?
• It is going to happen unless we use math
• As usual just provide a clear explanation

11
Systems and Complexity
(this is not computational complexity, which
studies how hard is for computers to solve a
given problem)

• Reminder
• What is a system?
• Why can game be viewed as systems?
• Systems Complexity ways in which parts interact
  within a system
• Four categories of systems complexity
• Fixed
• Periodic
• Complex
• Chaotic

12
Complexity and Meaningful Play

• Are these two related?
• What happens if there is no relation between play
  elements?
• Example Grid game
• Lets add complexity relations between play
  elements
• Does it achieves meaningful play?

13
Emergence

• Behavior of the overall system is greater than
  its parts
• Example simple operational rules but vary and
  unpredictable results vary and unpredictable
  results
• Obvious example complex operational rules and
  operational rules

• Pong
• Warcraft (is it simple?)

14
Classes of Object Interactions

• Coupled objects are linked recursively
• Non-gaming Example ant colony
• Game example?
• Context-dependent changes are not the same over
  time
• Non-gaming example behaviors of the colony under
  attack versus harvesting
• Game example?
• Emergent system interactions are coupled and
  context-dependent
• To achieve emergent behavior in a game Tuning
  (or iterative design) is needed