Carey Lam - Revision history

Carey: /* Production 7 */

2019-04-06T22:13:59Z

‎Production 7

Carey: /* Production 5 */

2019-02-28T05:16:48Z

‎Production 5

Carey at 05:16, 28 February 2019

2019-02-28T05:16:12Z

Edmund: /* Game Proposal */

2019-02-19T18:55:47Z

‎Game Proposal

Carey at 17:58, 7 February 2019

2019-02-07T17:58:09Z

Carey: /* Production 4 */

2019-02-01T00:29:48Z

‎Production 4

Carey: /* Production 4 */

2019-02-01T00:28:08Z

‎Production 4

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:13, 6 April 2019
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	== Production 7 ==		== Production 7 ==
		+
		+	Production 7
		+	The analysis that I want to undertake is in reference to the game “Grand Theft Auto 5”, however, this particular game that I want to draw attention to is a reconstruction and modification of this game. As Grand Theft Auto is a traditional role-playing game where you play as a specific character(s) and go through the experiences in which the developers want you to go through. This iteration of Grand Theft Auto that was adapted is a more literal take on the idea of “role playing” and puts the player in the game as their own custom created avatar living in this “microworld” as Marone would define it (2016). The adaptation itself has the same foundational framework as Grand Theft Auto does; mimicking the spaces, NPC’s (non-playable characters), and gameplay, however, what is presented is this world which can be molded and made into whatever the users wish to do with it. Although not a true “sandbox” game, it very much replicates some of the same intricacies that those games would.
		+	In order to play this game it is currently only on an invite-only basis which the developers choose who get to join the server. As of right now it is currently only available to select content creators/streamers/ and youtubers with the hopes to open more servers. Within the server there are an allocated number of players who can inhabit it, they are to create their own avatars and live out their lives within this world. Through the play that happens it establishes itself in a serious manner in which Huizinga presents in his talks of the nature of play. “Inside the playground an absolute and peculiar order reigns. Play creates order, is order. Play demands order, absolute and supreme. Deviation “spoils the game” robs it of its character and makes it worthless” (1955, p 105). The game adopts this value very literally in how it was conceptualized and maintained. Through the construction of these avatars, the player and user must literally “become” these characters and stay in role of how they have personified their avatar. It very much takes the role-playing genre and runs with this idea to the extreme. Examples of avatars that people have created and taken on are old senile senior citizens, foreigners, parents, etc. With the incorporation of voice chat and other inputs, users have free reign of what they want to do and how they wish to portray themselves, with the one condition that they must remain in this literal role that they have self-constructed at all times.
		+
		+	To understand the ways in which learning can be viewed in this game, the use of Marone’s playful constructivism is used to ground a theoretical understanding of what takes place. Highlighted in the work are three key ideas which contextualize this idea; they are: situated cognition, constructionism and social constructivism (2016). Significant in these ideas of constructing knowledge and learning is that it is a process in which the environment itself – the people, social interaction, physical environment, etc, all play a part in how we conceptualize knowledge and form it (Marone, 2016). It is through this on-going negotiated meaning making that occurs in which learning can come about.
		+
		+	In the same vein as sandbox games which allows for vast variability, this game lends itself in the same way. With the potential to encounter other players, and their various “roles” they can make meaning out of their experiences and actions to generate new knowledge systems and understandings of the world. One particular thing that I think it particularly does well is taking normalized things within society and making parody of them. Sutton-Smith describes that play has potential in defining social norms and identity, and that the use of play is essential to cultural formation (Flanagan, 2009). There is one particular example that illustrates this point well, as gameplay unfolded there was creation of gangs that people belonged to – one group in particular muddles our normalized conception of what a “gang” is. They call themselves the “prune gang”, which is made up of senile elderly characters who create mischief and havoc around the city. This parody on our assumed perceptions of both gang and the elderly parodies these normalized notions that we hold true and calls on us to think in a different manner. Stenros describes games as a “closed formal system that subjectively represents a subset of reality”, taking this in regard, perhaps this orchestration of play is a subset of a subjective reality that their users engage with and construct their view of the elderly and bring that into the game (2017, 504). Again, the affordance of such a dynamic and fluid nature of gameplay allows for and calls upon its players to continually nourish the game through their own various engagements which welcomes their input that allows for these moments. It also lends itself well in considering what Nolan & McBride allude to in that true ludic spirit of learning with games resides in the engagement itself and not in defined “learning outcomes (Nolan & McBride, 595).
		+
		+	Another way in which we can analyze this game is through its very clever design of mimicry that is enacted. From the need of “money” to buy things or do things, to character customization, or to its’ resemblance of our naturalized westerner perspective of life it presents a simulation of what it is like in the “real world”. Something that Gee mentions is how in games we can embody certain perspectives and create actions that are subject to that world to solve problems (2007). In this thinking, the mimicry of a society similar to us, allows the player to enter this space with perhaps a digital embodiment that is completely different than the one they occupy in the physical. Because of this, they walk around a simulated world similar to our contemporary one with different affordances and privileges that they may/may not have. This is where the idea that puts forth comes into fruition, knowing these affordances, they must now inhabit these bodies and create a way of living for themselves and create solutions or strategies that are different to their own outside of the game. What this also touches upon is how the procedural rhetoric of the game allows for acquisition of learning (Bogost). In the way that the game imposes rules and mechanics that the player must follow, creates the way in which the player engages with the game in this way. By situating themselves in these “roles”, confines the way they establish themselves within the game and must carry on playing. Due to the limits of this authentic “role-play” it calls on users to work collaboratively and draw on each other’s strengths. Gee discusses that in games, because of limitations like this or the making of jobs/classes in games, it calls for players to have “cross-functional teamwork” (2007). This requires users to pull together their specializations to work together to integrate and share in order to reach their common goal (2007). He also mentions that this kind of thinking could transfer over into other ventures outside of the game which this game does, as a lot of the players are content creators or streamers they work together to creating videos, content, etc for their respective brands. Through this it also creates these hubs of community through these spaces of affinity where active participation has low barriers and allow for genuine collaboration (Marone, 2016).
		+
		+	A final point of consideration that is valuable is looking at the game as itself as a modification or hack of an already popularized game. At the core it exemplifies the tenet of production pedagogy which is that rather than looking at games as “objects to think with”, they extend to “objects to think and do with” (Thumlert et al, 2018). The previous considerations show the influence of games and how the construction of knowledge and learning through games are orchestrated in games through various means. They take shape in the way the games mechanics are enacted and the learning as a product of the environment both literally and socially by how players negotiate these meanings. Even within this analysis of a game within a game, it highlights this concept that game is both object to think and do with, which can create opportunities for exploration of different ways of knowledge acquisition and construction.
		+
		+	Sources:
		+	Marone, V. (2016). Playful Constructivism: Making Sense of Digital Games for Learning and Creativity Through Play, Design, and Participation. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, 9(3).
		+	Gee, J.P. (2007). Are Video Games Good for Learning? In Worlds in Play: International Perspectives on Digital Game Research. New York.
		+	Thumlert, K., de Castell, S., & Jenson, J. (2018). Learning through game design: A production pedagogy, The 2018 European Conference on Games Based Learning Book: ACPI Press. (Short)
		+	Stenros, J. (2017). The Game Definition Game, Games & Culture, Vol. 12(6) 499-520. Skim through and note interesting concepts. See also this fun Game Definition generator created by Molleindustria.
		+	Bogost, I. (2011). How to Do Things with Videogames. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
		+	Nolan, J., & McBride, M. (2014). Beyond gamification: Reconceptualizing game-based learning in early childhood environments. Information, Communication & Society.
		+	Huizinga, J. Nature and Significance of Play as a Cultural Phenomenon.In K. Salen and E. Zimmerman (Eds.) The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology (pp. 96-120). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
		+	Caillois, R. The Definition of Play and the Classification of Games. In K. Salen and E. Zimmerman (Eds.) The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology (pp. 122-155). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

	== Production 8 ==		== Production 8 ==

@@ Line 59: / Line 59: @@
 == Production 5 ==
 	The concept of ‘play’ is something that is abstract and has various dimensions to it, which makes confining it to a definition difficult. That being said, Callois and Huizinga provide important aspects to help develop a framework of how we may begin to look at it. Something that is shared between the two, is the nature of play itself must be “free” (Callois, 2005). In regards to the idea of “free” Callois states: “play must be defined as a free and voluntary activity, a source of joy and amusement. A game that someone is forced to play would at once cease being play” (2005, p 125). If we take this into consideration, free has the tenet of being enjoyable and absent of coercion in order to be considered as “free”. A second distinction that is made by both authors is the removed element/space that play and game takes place in. In Callois’ words: “the game's domain is a restricted, closed, protected universe: a pure space (2005, 105). Huizinga refers to it as “separate” however, “within limits of space and time, defined and fixed in advance” (1955, p 128). Thinking about it in this way also highlights another important attribute of play, that it is different than “ordinary” life and in engaging with it, it creates its own course and meaning (Callois, 2005). A last consideration that needs to be articulated from the framework that is presented is the consideration regarding establishment of rules or the state in which the participants partake in. These governing rules are in part what establishes the ludus components of the game which then establish the way in which play can unfold with unknown outcomes.
 	A game that I want to explore under this scope of ludus and the conditions of play is the game “Player Unknown Battlegrounds” (PUBG). The concept of the game is a battle royale, where there is a lobby of 90-100 players and the main objective is to be the last person or squad to survive. If we break the game down into Caillois’s classification system there are three in particular that stand out in this game – Agon, Mimicry, and Alea.
 	Agon preoccupies itself with the aspect of equal competition and equal chance in which competitors meet under ideal circumstances to render precise winners (Callois, 2005). The aspect of Alea concerns itself with chance and the creation of a passive player who does not deploy their skill or intellect to determine outcome (Callois, 2005). Therefore, this game neither lends itself to either extreme, rather like the example Callois (2005) illustrates with card games (having will over the hand that is dealt, but chance because of the luck that is required to get certain cards), it is a mixture of the two categories that create the governing rules and nature of play. As players must navigate through the map, there is a sense of chance and luck in what you can find in terms of weapons/armours/and vehicles, but they still retain that feeling of ability to demonstrate proficiency through skill and intelligence in how they manage to use these resources. In keeping with the idea of ludus, it encompasses this tension that is brought out through engagement with game and play. Huizinga illustrates this concept in saying “tension in play, tension means uncertainty, chanciness; a striving to decide the issue and so end it… (player)wants to “succeed” by their own exertion” (Huizinga, 1955, p 105). How play unfolds in this game enacts this very condition in which players must use their own means and prowess to relieve this tension either by winning or failing out and starting anew.
 	The other category that perhaps lends itself to creating the condition of play is mimicry. PUBG itself is a game that is enjoyed by many due to its realism to various aspects – guns, mechanics of shooting, etc. What this enables players to feel is a sense of immersion, also from various other ways in which the game is designed to simulate you being there – being first person, noises are multi-directional, sound is heard differently depending on distance, etc. The act of creating such an environment sets up the sense of mimicry in that you are enveloped in the world of the game itself and personify yourself with these avatars who are soldiers at war with each other. This guise that mimicry enables exhibits many of the characteristics of play: liberty, suspension of reality, and delimitation of space and time, which only further deepens the level of immersion that the players feel as they live out the experience of being something they are not(Callois, 2005).

← Older revision		Revision as of 05:16, 28 February 2019
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	== Production 5 ==		== Production 5 ==
		+	The concept of ‘play’ is something that is abstract and has various dimensions to it, which makes confining it to a definition difficult. That being said, Callois and Huizinga provide important aspects to help develop a framework of how we may begin to look at it. Something that is shared between the two, is the nature of play itself must be “free” (Callois, 2005). In regards to the idea of “free” Callois states: “play must be defined as a free and voluntary activity, a source of joy and amusement. A game that someone is forced to play would at once cease being play” (2005, p 125). If we take this into consideration, free has the tenet of being enjoyable and absent of coercion in order to be considered as “free”. A second distinction that is made by both authors is the removed element/space that play and game takes place in. In Callois’ words: “the game's domain is a restricted, closed, protected universe: a pure space (2005, 105). Huizinga refers to it as “separate” however, “within limits of space and time, defined and fixed in advance” (1955, p 128). Thinking about it in this way also highlights another important attribute of play, that it is different than “ordinary” life and in engaging with it, it creates its own course and meaning (Callois, 2005). A last consideration that needs to be articulated from the framework that is presented is the consideration regarding establishment of rules or the state in which the participants partake in. These governing rules are in part what establishes the ludus components of the game which then establish the way in which play can unfold with unknown outcomes.
		+	A game that I want to explore under this scope of ludus and the conditions of play is the game “Player Unknown Battlegrounds” (PUBG). The concept of the game is a battle royale, where there is a lobby of 90-100 players and the main objective is to be the last person or squad to survive. If we break the game down into Caillois’s classification system there are three in particular that stand out in this game – Agon, Mimicry, and Alea.
		+	Agon preoccupies itself with the aspect of equal competition and equal chance in which competitors meet under ideal circumstances to render precise winners (Callois, 2005). The aspect of Alea concerns itself with chance and the creation of a passive player who does not deploy their skill or intellect to determine outcome (Callois, 2005). Therefore, this game neither lends itself to either extreme, rather like the example Callois (2005) illustrates with card games (having will over the hand that is dealt, but chance because of the luck that is required to get certain cards), it is a mixture of the two categories that create the governing rules and nature of play. As players must navigate through the map, there is a sense of chance and luck in what you can find in terms of weapons/armours/and vehicles, but they still retain that feeling of ability to demonstrate proficiency through skill and intelligence in how they manage to use these resources. In keeping with the idea of ludus, it encompasses this tension that is brought out through engagement with game and play. Huizinga illustrates this concept in saying “tension in play, tension means uncertainty, chanciness; a striving to decide the issue and so end it… (player)wants to “succeed” by their own exertion” (Huizinga, 1955, p 105). How play unfolds in this game enacts this very condition in which players must use their own means and prowess to relieve this tension either by winning or failing out and starting anew.
		+	The other category that perhaps lends itself to creating the condition of play is mimicry. PUBG itself is a game that is enjoyed by many due to its realism to various aspects – guns, mechanics of shooting, etc. What this enables players to feel is a sense of immersion, also from various other ways in which the game is designed to simulate you being there – being first person, noises are multi-directional, sound is heard differently depending on distance, etc. The act of creating such an environment sets up the sense of mimicry in that you are enveloped in the world of the game itself and personify yourself with these avatars who are soldiers at war with each other. This guise that mimicry enables exhibits many of the characteristics of play: liberty, suspension of reality, and delimitation of space and time, which only further deepens the level of immersion that the players feel as they live out the experience of being something they are not(Callois, 2005).
		+
		+	Sources
		+	Huizinga, J. Nature and Significance of Play as a Cultural Phenomenon.In K. Salen and E. Zimmerman (Eds.) The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology (pp. 96-120). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
		+
		+	Caillois, R. The Definition of Play and the Classification of Games. In K. Salen and E. Zimmerman (Eds.) The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology (pp. 122-155). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

	== Production 6 ==		== Production 6 ==

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:55, 19 February 2019
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	Hello everyone I am attaching my video with my thoughts of a potential game, hope you enjoy and have some comments or ideas. https://youtu.be/wzUDhbvpHe4		Hello everyone I am attaching my video with my thoughts of a potential game, hope you enjoy and have some comments or ideas. https://youtu.be/wzUDhbvpHe4
		+
		+	Edmund: Nice. I was wondering to what extent learning could be incorporated into this game, and I think you have some good ideas.
		+	For the first scenario: Are you thinking along the lines of initial access & limitations (e.g. hat x makes you more elfish so you start with less of currency y, less frequent turns etc.), or is it affecting game play/experiences more consistently?
		+	The unfair start, and a hack (either within the rules or outside them) to make it interesting, address structures, restore balance, etc. is a cool mechanic.
		+
		+	PS I hope you and Miranda are still looking to collaborate down the line. I think I want to do something different for the class project, but it's not entirely different and some stuff may well translate with your work.

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:58, 7 February 2019
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	== Production 8 ==		== Production 8 ==
		+
		+	== Game Proposal ==
		+
		+	Hello everyone I am attaching my video with my thoughts of a potential game, hope you enjoy and have some comments or ideas. https://youtu.be/wzUDhbvpHe4

← Older revision		Revision as of 00:29, 1 February 2019
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	Something to highlight is the less prominent focus of game design and development as a way to support critical competencies and digital literacy through creative problem solving, collaboration, and programming skills (Jenson, 2017). As a group working through the design process, there are many voices and factors to account for, which require communication and collaboration which is an emphasis for any design team to strive for (Fullerton, 2014). Unknowingly, we went through this “iterative design process” without even realizing it ourselves at the time. We had gone through the mechanisms to reassure ourselves that the concept was 1. Enjoyable, 2. Playable, and lastly to look for improvements that could be made. In doing so, formal elements such as rules, objectives, resources, and outcomes were being constantly maneuvered or re-shaped in order to create new experiences that had to be tested and re-thought. In the process of doing this, it structures a certain way of thinking broadly referred to as “digital literacy” or more specifically as “computational thinking” (Jenson, 2017). Jenson states: “the true pedagogical and ludic spirit of learning with games ‘resides in the engagement itself and not in its extrinsically defined “learning outcomes”’ (Nolan & McBride, 2014, p.595). In this process, not only were we exposed to some of the intricacies of game-making, however, the experience itself of designing and collaboratively working together sets the stage for more authentic learning to take place, through the collection of knowledge of multiple perspectives and ideas.		Something to highlight is the less prominent focus of game design and development as a way to support critical competencies and digital literacy through creative problem solving, collaboration, and programming skills (Jenson, 2017). As a group working through the design process, there are many voices and factors to account for, which require communication and collaboration which is an emphasis for any design team to strive for (Fullerton, 2014). Unknowingly, we went through this “iterative design process” without even realizing it ourselves at the time. We had gone through the mechanisms to reassure ourselves that the concept was 1. Enjoyable, 2. Playable, and lastly to look for improvements that could be made. In doing so, formal elements such as rules, objectives, resources, and outcomes were being constantly maneuvered or re-shaped in order to create new experiences that had to be tested and re-thought. In the process of doing this, it structures a certain way of thinking broadly referred to as “digital literacy” or more specifically as “computational thinking” (Jenson, 2017). Jenson states: “the true pedagogical and ludic spirit of learning with games ‘resides in the engagement itself and not in its extrinsically defined “learning outcomes”’ (Nolan & McBride, 2014, p.595). In this process, not only were we exposed to some of the intricacies of game-making, however, the experience itself of designing and collaboratively working together sets the stage for more authentic learning to take place, through the collection of knowledge of multiple perspectives and ideas.
		+
		+	Sources:
		+	Fullerton, T. (2014). Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovation Games, NY: Taylor & Francis
		+	Jenson, J. & Droumeva, M. (2017). Revisiting the media generation: Youth media use and computational literacy instruction, eLearning and Digital Media.
		+	Nolan, J., & McBride, M. (2014). Beyond gamification: Reconceptualizing game-based learning in early childhood environments. Information, Communication & Society.
		+	Thumlert, K., de Castell, S., & Jenson, J. (2018). Learning through game design: A production pedagogy, The 2018 European Conference on Games Based Learning Book: ACPI Press.

	== Production 5 ==		== Production 5 ==

← Older revision		Revision as of 00:28, 1 February 2019
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	== Production 4 ==		== Production 4 ==
		+
		+	Production 4
		+	Upon reflection of our experience constructing a game in class, it accentuates further this notion of “paidia”, and how it plays a part in constructing knowledge. In this case paidia is parallel to this idea of “play” that Nolan and McBride characterize as one of their dimensions for digital game-based learning. They share similarities in that they both require active engagement from participants, a sense of freedom and spontaneity (Nolan & McBride, ). From the investment that was shown in each game design from the groups, it was evident to see that there was meaningful engagement with the material. As a pedagogical discourse, digital game-based learning, as Jenson notes is “at the forefront about addressing disengagement and developing 21st century learning and skills” (Jenson, 2017, p.213).
		+
		+	To illustrate how this meaningful engagement with the assignment was enacted, it can be demonstrated through Nolan & McBrides “dimensions framework” (2014). The dimensions of autonomy, play, affinity, and space are all components to this framework which encompass the nature of how game-based learning as a principle creates authentic and student-driven work. As noted previously, the dimension of “play” has shown that it was orchestrated in a fashion where students had freedom over what could be done. This directly correlates to the dimension of autonomy, which gives control over to the students to take the exercise or work into their own hands and do what they will with it. Something that Nolan & McBride allude to is through this “the teacher emerges almost spontaneously as whoever has the knowledge, ideas, or inspiration in the moment and the willingness to share” (2014, p.604). This was proven in the designing of our games, as people had many ideas to propose, they become facilitators of learning as they bring unique outlooks to what can be done, how it should be implemented, or modified, which is then shared with their peers.
		+
		+	In terms of the dimension of space, although it was done using a “classroom”, I would say that in the way that the exercise carried on, as well as the autonomy that was given, it transcended what we could describe as “traditional”. The importance in this, is that it was pointed out that the environment which this “situated learning” would take place influences and is influenced by the other dimensions (Nolan & McBride, 2014). As I reiterate, the space itself was one which provided no constraints nor did institutional or instructional constraints hinder the process. With each dimension conjunctively in an ideal state, it creates an environment and affinity to the work at hand, which allows for open-ended, autonomous and meaningful learning which is a key requirement of game-based learning (Nolan & McBride, 2014). This ultimately leads towards this notion of production pedagogy, which critique’s “alienated learning” and counteracts this through the process of giving agency to the learner to determine what is meaningful to them (Thumlert et al, 2018).
		+
		+	Something to highlight is the less prominent focus of game design and development as a way to support critical competencies and digital literacy through creative problem solving, collaboration, and programming skills (Jenson, 2017). As a group working through the design process, there are many voices and factors to account for, which require communication and collaboration which is an emphasis for any design team to strive for (Fullerton, 2014). Unknowingly, we went through this “iterative design process” without even realizing it ourselves at the time. We had gone through the mechanisms to reassure ourselves that the concept was 1. Enjoyable, 2. Playable, and lastly to look for improvements that could be made. In doing so, formal elements such as rules, objectives, resources, and outcomes were being constantly maneuvered or re-shaped in order to create new experiences that had to be tested and re-thought. In the process of doing this, it structures a certain way of thinking broadly referred to as “digital literacy” or more specifically as “computational thinking” (Jenson, 2017). Jenson states: “the true pedagogical and ludic spirit of learning with games ‘resides in the engagement itself and not in its extrinsically defined “learning outcomes”’ (Nolan & McBride, 2014, p.595). In this process, not only were we exposed to some of the intricacies of game-making, however, the experience itself of designing and collaboratively working together sets the stage for more authentic learning to take place, through the collection of knowledge of multiple perspectives and ideas.

	== Production 5 ==		== Production 5 ==