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PROFESSOR: But this is going to be
used to set some of the ground rules are based on the--
so that we can actually talk a little bit about what projects
you want to be doing for assignment one.
Just a reminder, assignment one is
all about picking one mechanic and going as deep as you can.
And that doesn't just mean using the same mechanic over and over
again.
This is exploring all the different ways
that you can use a single game mechanic.
And that game mechanic will be whatever you want to choose.
So a lot of brainstorming is going to be around that.
But you can do brainstorming around themes like--
I wanted to make a game about--
the game is about time travel and snowball fights and CPEs
[? chemicalese. ?] So you can do that.
But, if you were to brainstorm with that,
I would suggest try to develop that into,
what is it about that theme that you're really interested in?
Is it about the stealth?
Is it about consequences?
And try to bring the conversation back
to game mechanics.
And for those of you who can't remember the working definition
I gave you on Wednesday, I'm describing game mechanic
as something a player does to change game state, right?
So this guy Alex Osborn--
not the high tempered in the image there--
he was working in advertising, and he actually sort of coined
the word--
I think he coined the word-- brainstorming.
And wrote it up in "Applied Imagination"
as a practice to just get a lot of ideas
on the table, sort of without any regard
to quality but quantity.
And the reasoning behind that is that if you can just
get a ton of ideas, then there's going
to be some good ideas in there.
And you can go through a process later on--
usually for us it's going to be during the team formation
process--
where you decide whether it's the actual idea
that you want to work with.
But how to get enough ideas on the table so that you--
there's a couple of gems in there for you to find.
And that's what this exercise is going to be all about.
A couple of things I want you to remember while we do this.
One, you don't criticize any of the ideas that have come up.
And I do want to say anything built on that idea.
Suggest something that-- if you can't think of a better way
to say that idea or a better spin to that
just throw that out as a new suggestion.
You don't criticize the stuff that's
been out there because you don't want to intimidate anybody
from sharing their ideas.
The worst thing that you can do is, somebody says,
I want to make a game about blah.
And then he says, that's stupid.
Wow, that was kind of dumb.
I can't believe you said that.
Things like that.
And then it's like that person may
have even better ideas along the way
but now would be hesitant to share that with the class.
And one of those ideas might be--
might end up having been the idea that you would have
loved to be on the team on.
So no criticism.
If you want to judge the ideas on whether it is good or bad,
you do it at the end of the brainstorming session,
once you've already got all the ideas on the table.
Then you can just decide for yourself which
ideas you want to work with.
We want to go kind of freewheeling.
It's OK for you to come up with ideas that are impractical,
that are too ambitious, that maybe don't even really fit
the criteria of this project.
That's fine.
The idea is to get the ideas out,
and other people are going to come up with ideas
that are appropriate.
This is not the time for us to self-censor and decide is
this an idea that fits or not.
Just throw it out.
I will write things down.
I'll keep things on the computer screen
so that you'll be able to see it [INAUDIBLE]
Again, we're trying to go for quantity.
This is a direct quote from Osborn,
we're just trying to get as many ideas as possible.
So try to keep it fast.
Give me a little time to write things down on screen--
to type out things.
But otherwise just keep throwing out ideas.
Bad ideas are great because it adds to the quantity
and it gets--
it stops you obsessing about the bad idea
and then you can move on to other ideas.
Build on ideas.
Try to combine stuff that you're already
seeing, that other people have already suggested.
You can combine them to use something
that's pretty awesome.
Lego and Star Wars is pretty awesome.
And then Lego plus Star Wars is pretty darned awesome.
Or Marvel and Capcom, right?
Marvel vs. Capcom, right?
And that's what I'm saying.
All right, so I'm going to talk a little bit
about just the principles of doing this
because this is the first time I'm going to be a facilitator.
But in the future, you're going to be doing this on your own.
And once you've formed your teams
you may go through another second brainstorming phase.
So you want to keep it kind of relaxed.
And this is-- if it helps I'll probably turn off
the recording, Start off by throwing out the worst
ideas that you can think of.
Just start suggesting them, and I'll write them.
Don't interrupt anyone.
I'm going to be the facilitator and secretary,
so I'm going to be the person who's going to be writing up.
Actually if you can help me with the facilitate thing.
Right.
No, I'll do the typing.
If you notice there are people who are hesitant to talk
or trying to get a word in edgewise,
help me identify them so that they
can say what they need to say.
And I'll talk a little bit more about the facilitator role.
I've explained a little bit about the process.
Actually I [INAUDIBLE] process right now.
And then the principal question is
what is the one game mechanic that a team could work on
for assignment one.
what is the one game mechanic that you want to work.
What's the one game mechanic you would
like somebody else to work on.
What is the one game mechanic nobody should be working on.
Throw it out here, OK.
And I'm going to write down everything.
So you're going to have to do this on your own,
in your own teams as well.
So it's important for us to define--
if you are doing a brain storming session by yourself,
it's important to define what is the aim of the session.
Is the aim of the session to get so many mechanics that you'll
be able to identify at least one that you will be
able to start your project on?
So if you're creating a brainstorming session
for yourself, make sure that you are defining
that problem ahead of time.
If it's too complicated-- say you're
trying to brainstorm a solution to a design problem,
or something like that, and that problem
has a lot of interlocking parts--
you may need to divide it up into separate brainstorming
sessions.
So articulate them as simply as possible
so that everybody knows what they're brainstorming towards.
So far I've been explaining the problem and aim
of the brainstorm session.
The problem is that you don't have a project team yet.
And Rick is going to help the ideation
and is going to discourage criticism if any of you
automatically go, whew, that was dumb.
Just stop smacking or [INAUDIBLE] He's
going to call you out.
And he's also going to identify if people are having trouble
getting a word in edgewise.
Both of us will try to encourage some combination of the ideas.
So we may throw in ideas which are just combining things
that would be on the board.
After this I'm going be playing the secretary,
and my job is just record every idea.
And just keep an eye on the time.
Probably we'll run this properly for about 20 minutes.
And then after that, the rest of the class
will be yours to be able to discuss among ourselves
and identify what projects we want to work on.
I'll try--
[INAUDIBLE] brainstorming.
Again to try to combine, I guess.
But if you're keeping it fast and flowing,
then I don't even need to do much more than just write.
RICK: When you're brainstorming on your own, that's
really, really hard to make sure you're rotating
the role [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Yeah, you might want to break
your brainstorming session into like two 10
minute chunks or something and get a different person
to be secretary.
And that just makes it easier for the person who is secretary
to then contribute later.
OK any questions?
OK, all right, let me bring up a little text for this session
again.
Sorry about the family photos.
Is this too dark?
Actually let me just [INAUDIBLE] What [INAUDIBLE] doing?
Probably too big but, uh--
Oh, jeez.
Just one sec.
Is this still chopped up?
Yeah.
It's still chopped up, OK.
[INAUDIBLE] But this should work.
And I'm going to--
I can do columns in this thing, right?
Can I?
I can do tables?
OK, all right I don't think I can do tables.
Oh, wait, tables.
Perfect.
OK, all right, I am just going to type what you say.
What kind of game mechanics do people want to work on?
Go for it.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Building.
AUDIENCE: Path building.
PROFESSOR: What?
AUDIENCE: Path building.
PROFESSOR: Path building.
AUDIENCE: Auction.
PROFESSOR: Auctions.
AUDIENCE: Resource packaging.
AUDIENCE: Guarding.
PROFESSOR: Oops.
Oh, darn it, it doesn't just add new columns, OK.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] one row.
AUDIENCE: And then [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: All right, sorry about that.
AUDIENCE: Trading.
PROFESSOR: Trading.
AUDIENCE: Stealth.
AUDIENCE: Attack.
PROFESSOR: Sorry, one at a time.
AUDIENCE: Attacking.
PROFESSOR: I heard stealth.
AUDIENCE: Attacking.
PROFESSOR: Attacking.
AUDIENCE: Destroying.
PROFESSOR: Destroying.
Did I hear one from here that's not on the board?
I thought I heard--
AUDIENCE: Manipulating.
AUDIENCE: Time.
AUDIENCE: Pushing.
PROFESSOR: Pushing.
AUDIENCE: Regulating time.
PROFESSOR: What?
AUDIENCE: Is that true though?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: Cheating.
PROFESSOR: Cheating.
AUDIENCE: Rules, changing rules.
PROFESSOR: Changing rules.
AUDIENCE: Lying.
AUDIENCE: Inquisition.
PROFESSOR: Sorry, one at a time.
AUDIENCE: Guessing.
PROFESSOR: Guessing.
AUDIENCE: Prayer.
PROFESSOR: Prayer?
AUDIENCE: Yeah, why not?
PROFESSOR: OK.
AUDIENCE: Bombs.
PROFESSOR: Bombs.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Prayer bombs.
AUDIENCE: Where's Armageddon, bro?
AUDIENCE: Manipulation of player's emotions.
PROFESSOR: Manipulation of emotions.
AUDIENCE: Gestures.
PROFESSOR: Gestures.
AUDIENCE: How about drawing?
PROFESSOR: Drawing.
AUDIENCE: Writing.
PROFESSOR: Writing.
AUDIENCE: Hidden goals.
AUDIENCE: Erasing.
PROFESSOR: Hidden goals.
What was that?
AUDIENCE: Erasing.
PROFESSOR: Erasing.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] effectively ending the game.
AUDIENCE: Accidental victories.
AUDIENCE: Asymmetry.
AUDIENCE: Symmetry.
AUDIENCE: Uncomfortable situations.
AUDIENCE: Puzzling.
When a puzzling situation [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Puzzling situation.
AUDIENCE: Designated winner and loser.
PROFESSOR: What was that about winner and loser again?
AUDIENCE: Designated winner and loser.
AUDIENCE: Cooperating.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Everyone loses.
AUDIENCE: Everyone wins.
AUDIENCE: Defector.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: What was that?
AUDIENCE: Defector.
PROFESSOR: Defector.
And what's that one in the back I missed?
AUDIENCE: Hidden agenda.
AUDIENCE: Well, that didn't [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: No one knows what's happening.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] organizations.
PROFESSOR: What was that?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] organization.
AUDIENCE: You in the back.
AUDIENCE: Oh, alliances.
AUDIENCE: Story telling.
AUDIENCE: Frisbee.
AUDIENCE: More dice than you know what to do with.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Intimidation.
AUDIENCE: Map building.
AUDIENCE: Deck building.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Oh, army building.
I'm just keeping that up.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] building building.
AUDIENCE: Meta building.
PROFESSOR: Meta building.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] building.
AUDIENCE: Recursively recursing.
AUDIENCE: Damaged terrain.
PROFESSOR: Damaged terrain.
AUDIENCE: How about damaged terrain?
PROFESSOR: Wait, damaged?
What?
AUDIENCE: You said damaged, didn't you?
PROFESSOR: No, no, no, no.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
AUDIENCE: Damaging terrain?
AUDIENCE: Yeah, terrain that [? damages ?] [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: How about terrain?
AUDIENCE: [? Fights ?] everywhere.
AUDIENCE: Non-playable characters.
AUDIENCE: Playable characters.
AUDIENCE: Too many playable characters.
AUDIENCE: How about multiple roles?
AUDIENCE: Climate.
AUDIENCE: Shared player characters.
PROFESSOR: What?
AUDIENCE: Shared player characters.
AUDIENCE: Growth.
AUDIENCE: [? Solitude. ?]
AUDIENCE: Pain.
PROFESSOR: Paint.
OK.
AUDIENCE: Decline.
AUDIENCE: I said, pain.
PROFESSOR: Oh, pain, OK.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Oh, pain.
AUDIENCE: No, I just [? paid. ?]
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
AUDIENCE: Listening skills.
AUDIENCE: Mispronunciation.
AUDIENCE: Telephone mafia.
AUDIENCE: Knowledge of random pop culture facts.
AUDIENCE: Mash-up.
AUDIENCE: Trivia.
AUDIENCE: Mash-up, whatever that means.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Who gets the [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Onomatopoeia.
AUDIENCE: There was another one over here.
AUDIENCE: Disease.
It was who gets the [? shiny. ?]
PROFESSOR: Disease.
Who gets the shiny--
I can't believe I spelt that right?
AUDIENCE: [? Time ?] [? to ?] [? leave. ?]
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Time travel.
AUDIENCE: Collecting too much.
AUDIENCE: Double meaning.
AUDIENCE: Resource management.
AUDIENCE: Poison.
AUDIENCE: [? Research, ?] I mean, [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Racing.
PROFESSOR: So what?
Did I miss--
AUDIENCE: You wrote that earlier.
PROFESSOR: What was that?
AUDIENCE: [? Cannibals. ?]
AUDIENCE: Robots.
AUDIENCE: Settlements.
PROFESSOR: Settlements?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
And hunting.
AUDIENCE: Survival.
AUDIENCE: Pirates.
AUDIENCE: Parallel worlds.
PROFESSOR: Parallel worlds, and I think I missed something.
AUDIENCE: Pirates.
AUDIENCE: Exploring.
AUDIENCE: Cool looks.
PROFESSOR: Cool looks.
AUDIENCE: Tabletop [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: There is another one over here.
AUDIENCE: [? Knobby. ?]
AUDIENCE: Zombies.
AUDIENCE: Plants.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Copy right over it.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
PROFESSOR: OK, I didn't catch-- what did you say?
AUDIENCE: Patent trolling.
AUDIENCE: Mercy killings.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Pets.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Music.
PROFESSOR: Music.
AUDIENCE: Fear.
PROFESSOR: What was that?
AUDIENCE: Fear.
PROFESSOR: Fear.
AUDIENCE: Sound, why not?
PROFESSOR: Sound.
Other things in games that you like or don't like?
AUDIENCE: Wrestling.
AUDIENCE: Forcing someone to change their moves.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Shooting stuff at people.
AUDIENCE: Fake difficulty.
PROFESSOR: What?
Fake difficulty?
AUDIENCE: Listen and repeat.
PROFESSOR: Listen and repeat
AUDIENCE: It would be better for everyone
if we all just worked together.
AUDIENCE: Do we have cooperation?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
PROFESSOR: It would be better for everyone
if we all just worked together.
AUDIENCE: Competitive cooperation.
AUDIENCE: King raising.
AUDIENCE: Oh, yeah.
AUDIENCE: King killing.
PROFESSOR: That's a word for that.
AUDIENCE: Stabbing.
PROFESSOR: Stabbing.
AUDIENCE: Designated psychopath.
AUDIENCE: Social commentary.
PROFESSOR: Social commentary.
AUDIENCE: Prisoner's dilemma.
PROFESSOR: Prisoners dilemma.
AUDIENCE: Turkish delight.
AUDIENCE: Morton's fork.
PROFESSOR: What was it?
AUDIENCE: Morton's fork.
PROFESSOR: I don't know that one.
AUDIENCE: You have two choices, either one will doom you, so.
AUDIENCE: Fork.
PROFESSOR: Fork.
AUDIENCE: Doom.
AUDIENCE: Death.
AUDIENCE: Glory and honor.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: I guess permanent changes in [? journal. ?]
Growing changes that last between games.
AUDIENCE: Rule making.
PROFESSOR: Rule making.
AUDIENCE: [? Kettles ?] and balls.
PROFESSOR: Well, that's--
AUDIENCE: That's [INAUDIBLE] [? huge ?] [? conference. ?]
PROFESSOR: I'll just write it down anyway.
AUDIENCE: Brainstorming.
PROFESSOR: Have to come up to [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: [? Scatter ?] [? brainstorming ?]
AUDIENCE: Meta-gaming.
AUDIENCE: Tree climbing.
AUDIENCE: [? Storm ?] [? champion. ?]
AUDIENCE: Yeah, [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Possession.
AUDIENCE: Tent building.
Illegal possession.
PROFESSOR: I think I missed something.
AUDIENCE: Tent building.
PROFESSOR: Tent building?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
AUDIENCE: Capture the flag.
AUDIENCE: Fire building.
PROFESSOR: Building.
Capture the flag.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: You wrote it up and [? captured it? ?]
PROFESSOR: What was it?
AUDIENCE: Confusion.
PROFESSOR: Confusion.
And you said?
AUDIENCE: Packing.
PROFESSOR: Packing.
AUDIENCE: Confucius.
PROFESSOR: Confucius?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: Philosophical.
PROFESSOR: I can't believe--
Philosophical.
AUDIENCE: Limited board information.
PROFESSOR: Limited?
AUDIENCE: Information about the board.
PROFESSOR: OK, board information.
AUDIENCE: No talking.
AUDIENCE: Progressive [? walking ?] mechanics.
AUDIENCE: Screaming.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] moves.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Funny voices.
AUDIENCE: Do we have voice in general?
PROFESSOR: You do now.
AUDIENCE: Bankruptcy.
AUDIENCE: Progressive bankruptcy in [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Folding.
PROFESSOR: Folding.
AUDIENCE: Total domination.
AUDIENCE: Last man standing.
PROFESSOR: What was that word?
AUDIENCE: Last man standing.
PROFESSOR: Last man standing.
AUDIENCE: The American dream.
AUDIENCE: [? Completely dominated. ?]
AUDIENCE: Trying to find information.
AUDIENCE: Manifest destiny.
AUDIENCE: The rules are the game.
AUDIENCE: Make the rules up.
AUDIENCE: Charity.
AUDIENCE: Game within a game.
AUDIENCE: Cooperation where one person's secret
leads them [INAUDIBLE] anyway.
PROFESSOR: One person leads us secretly anyway.
AUDIENCE: Coopetition.
AUDIENCE: [? Water ?] [? games. ?]
AUDIENCE: Basic [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Searching.
AUDIENCE: Don't worry about it.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Hiding.
AUDIENCE: The game doesn't [? die. ?]
AUDIENCE: Revenge.
AUDIENCE: Torpedoes.
AUDIENCE: Hiding [? from the reds. ?]
AUDIENCE: Hiding from the--
AUDIENCE: Torpedoes.
AUDIENCE: Multi-level board.
AUDIENCE: Not throwing dice at people.
PROFESSOR: Which leads to throwing dice--
AUDIENCE: Anger management.
AUDIENCE: Single player.
AUDIENCE: Drinking.
PROFESSOR: Single-player?
AUDIENCE: Single-player drinking game.
AUDIENCE: Single-player drinking anger management.
AUDIENCE: Players [INAUDIBLE] [? learn ?]
AUDIENCE: If you can't beat them, join them.
AUDIENCE: Unicycling.
AUDIENCE: Therapy.
[INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: What was that?
AUDIENCE: Therapy and unicycling.
AUDIENCE: And unicycling.
AUDIENCE: Unicycling therapy.
AUDIENCE: What was that?
AUDIENCE: Cooperative unicycling.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
PROFESSOR: I feel I'm missing this one.
AUDIENCE: No, [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: You combined the two of them.
AUDIENCE: Morse code.
AUDIENCE: Build-your-own code.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Hidden messages.
AUDIENCE: Language barrier.
PROFESSOR: What was that?
Language barrier?
AUDIENCE: Yeah, language barrier.
AUDIENCE: Mastermind.
AUDIENCE: Horticulture.
AUDIENCE: [? Game ?] after.
AUDIENCE: Gaming [? laughter. ?]
AUDIENCE: Mining.
PROFESSOR: Mining we got.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: [? Data ?] mining.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] you can say it again.
AUDIENCE: Pick a card, any card.
AUDIENCE: 104-Card pick-up
AUDIENCE: Worst sequel ever.
AUDIENCE: Worst sequel ever?
AUDIENCE: Which of the 104 cards Is missing?
AUDIENCE: Never playtested this game.
PROFESSOR: What?
AUDIENCE: Never playtested this game.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
AUDIENCE: Playtesting.
AUDIENCE: Player modification of game.
AUDIENCE: Knocking everything over.
PROFESSOR: What?
AUDIENCE: Knocking everything over.
PROFESSOR: Knocking everything over.
AUDIENCE: No time to explain.
PROFESSOR: Also a name of a great game.
AUDIENCE: Follow the leader.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Take down the leader.
AUDIENCE: The leader follows you.
AUDIENCE: Opportunistic [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Did I spell that right?
Oh, good.
Write
AUDIENCE: Figure out who's following who.
AUDIENCE: Predator and prey.
AUDIENCE: Prediction.
PROFESSOR: What was that?
AUDIENCE: Prediction.
PROFESSOR: Prediction.
AUDIENCE: [? Profitability. ?]
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: [? Panace-- ?]
AUDIENCE: Invisibility.
AUDIENCE: Getting to roll [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Through avatar?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: Moral choices.
AUDIENCE: The world is ending, let's have fun.
AUDIENCE: Moral ambiguity.
AUDIENCE: Feedback loops.
AUDIENCE: Mind reading.
AUDIENCE: Immoral ambiguity.
AUDIENCE: Mind control.
AUDIENCE: Imitation.
AUDIENCE: Immortality.
AUDIENCE: Flattery.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: What was that real fast?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] we're going fast.
AUDIENCE: When did we start doing this?
When did we start?
PROFESSOR: It's been almost 20 minutes, almost.
AUDIENCE: Typing.
AUDIENCE: Prettiest princess.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Highly adaptable.
AUDIENCE: Discrimination.
AUDIENCE: Who can eat the most food?
AUDIENCE: Fashionista.
AUDIENCE: Coffee.
AUDIENCE: Illness.
PROFESSOR: Illness?
Did I miss something?
AUDIENCE: [? Boiled ?] [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] foil.
AUDIENCE: Tin foil.
AUDIENCE: Plane crash.
PROFESSOR: Plane crash?
AUDIENCE: MacGyvering
AUDIENCE: Archery.
AUDIENCE: Assassination.
AUDIENCE: Pirates.
PROFESSOR: I think we had pirates.
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: Beating the professor.
PROFESSOR: Beating the professor.
AUDIENCE: Not physically.
AUDIENCE: [? Feasibly ?] broke.
AUDIENCE: Bluffing.
AUDIENCE: [? Petty ?] [? cash. ?]
AUDIENCE: Time travel.
AUDIENCE: Time travel's on there.
AUDIENCE: Someone said that in the future.
AUDIENCE: Space travel.
PROFESSOR: Space time?
AUDIENCE: Space travel.
PROFESSOR: Space travel.
AUDIENCE: Multiple mediums.
AUDIENCE: Slow and painful.
AUDIENCE: Quick and painless.
AUDIENCE: Quick and painful.
AUDIENCE: Loyalty.
PROFESSOR: Quick and pain-- what that royalty?
AUDIENCE: Loyalty.
PROFESSOR: Loyalty.
AUDIENCE: Swapping [? piece ?]
AUDIENCE: Fully drunk.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] out from under.
AUDIENCE: Running [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Dogs.
PROFESSOR: Dogs.
AUDIENCE: Cats.
AUDIENCE: Sore losers.
AUDIENCE: Flipping the board.
AUDIENCE: Flipping part of the board.
But not being able [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Knocking over pieces.
AUDIENCE: Air ducts.
AUDIENCE: Organized mayhem.
AUDIENCE: [? Ducks ?] in the air.
AUDIENCE: Mischief.
AUDIENCE: Finding your lost friends.
AUDIENCE: Finding your drunk friends.
AUDIENCE: Finding your [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: What was that?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] your lost friends.
AUDIENCE: Vampirism.
PROFESSOR: What was that?
AUDIENCE: Vampirism.
AUDIENCE: Changing [? goals. ?]
PROFESSOR: I think we had that, but I can't remember.
AUDIENCE: Giving up on your dreams.
AUDIENCE: Mobile board.
AUDIENCE: Storytelling--
AUDIENCE: Mutually assured destruction.
AUDIENCE: Storytelling that riffs off of Crayola colors.
PROFESSOR: --on Crayola colors.
AUDIENCE: Multiple boards, was it?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: And what was it between?
AUDIENCE: Mutually assured destruction.
AUDIENCE: There you go.
AUDIENCE: Knowing when to give up.
AUDIENCE: Going outside.
AUDIENCE: Well, that was a waste of time.
AUDIENCE: [? Black ?] tile.
AUDIENCE: 300.
AUDIENCE: [? Wet ?] [? tile. ?]
PROFESSOR: OK, we have more than enough ideas.
So I feel that one thing that we could do
is sort of weigh in on which ones might fit
the criteria of class better.
So that's not necessarily saying that any of them--
that we're going to identify-- are good or bad ideas.
But it seems like if you were to do something on that you would
fit the criteria pretty well.
AUDIENCE: So you want people to call out?
AUDIENCE: What are the criteria?
PROFESSOR: Well actually I thought that we'd just identify
it as instructors because--
some feedback for everyone.
What we suggest today doesn't necessarily
mean these are the only ones that you can work with.
After this class is just open to you.
You form a team.
Come back on Wednesday with a team.
Talk with each other.
At the end of class you can stand up and say,
I want to do something on--
OK I'm going to identify trading as one which I think
is a mechanic, right?
So if I want to do something on trading,
[? I would ?] go and talk and figure out
whether you want to be on the team.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: No more than four.
I'm going to suggest at least as many people
as you have players in your game.
So if you are making a four player game,
you need a four player team.
That's why you need a four person team because it just
makes it easier for you to test, slightly--
at least in the early stages.
If you want to make a two player game,
you need at least two people.
But you can have four people in a two player game.
More people than that it's hard to schedule
and you go kind of slowly.
But four people making a two player game [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Yeah, or try different-- simultaneous
prototyping and riff on each other's ideas.
Things that I see that fit the requirements--
discarding, path building.
Building, I think we go into more specific stuff
later, so I'm going to look at that.
AUDIENCE: Hidden goals.
PROFESSOR: Hidden goals.
AUDIENCE: Manipulating time?
PROFESSOR: Manipulating time.
Manipulating time I think is probably
more like combination of different mechanics.
AUDIENCE: Yeah, more of a theme than it is a mechanic.
PROFESSOR: Yeah.
Theft I guess could be a mechanic--
picking something that somebody else doesn't want you to take.
AUDIENCE: Decline?
Like growth and decline, those two.
PROFESSOR: Growth and decline.
AUDIENCE: Is there [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: So these two, right?
I think these two combined-- yeah, definitely
something that-- actually, I think even separately is fine.
Some sort of mechanic about slowly just rolling downhill,
right?
You could make a game just about that.
Let's see.
There's a lot of stuff here now that I realize
how many ideas got thrown out.
There's a lot of stuff here that does fit.
So everything that I'm identifying here
doesn't mean that these are the only things that fit.
But just trying to give you some information about--
like [? voting ?] I think can be taken
in a million different ways.
And that's exactly-- it's all [? voting. ?] But how you do
different kinds of [? voting ?] can be explored in so many
different ways in a game.
AUDIENCE: Auctions?
PROFESSOR: Auctions?
Yes.
Frisbee, I actually think it's a great--
it's a [INAUDIBLE] like you can only do things
with this one thing, right?
And I think [? Tron ?] only scratched the surface
about what that could be--
although probably too dangerous but--
Terrain in general, all of these I think fit--
AUDIENCE: Especially if you were thinking of tiles.
AUDIENCE: Or little armies shooting each other.
AUDIENCE: Multiple roles is pretty close to it.
It does need a little bit more what
the roles are actually doing.
AUDIENCE: Whether you choose from a collection of roles.
AUDIENCE: Or having multiple roles.
PROFESSOR: Having multiple roles simultaneously.
I think you want to probably identify
something a little more specific off the multiple roles
basic idea.
But you can do that in your team.
Just scrolling down a little bit more.
Racing is more like a whole genre.
So maybe identifying something inside racing.
A mechanic will be things like boosting, for instance, is
a mechanic.
I'm going to say, not Nazis, not pirates, not robots.
These are things that show up in games and often
the more often they show up in games the less interesting
the game often gets.
AUDIENCE: Resource management?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Yeah, resource management,
again, is kind of a category of mechanics.
I think you want to identify a specific kind of resource
management, whether it's like supply and demand--
I think there's already tons of things
that you can do with just plain supply and demand.
Trading also fits in resource management, right?
But trading is more specific than resource management,
I feel.
So inside resource management there's
a pile of different ideas, and you want
to focus on probably just one.
I want to be a little bit more specific on what
I mean by that.
I don't mean that your game should just have one idea.
It means I want you to identify a game mechanic that
can be played by different people in different ways
through the course of the game.
So there's a lot of different ways you can execute a trade.
Then that's why I think that's a good fit.
But the end result is still exchanging something
with somebody else, right?
So you can see that you're comparing apples
to apples here.
AUDIENCE: Guessing?
PROFESSOR: Guessing?
Yeah.
Yeah, there we go.
All the different ways you can set up-- like intuit ideas.
That's one that needs someone to do
a really deep dive in because if you just
do a shallow guessing game, it's a shallow guessing game
and it's not interesting.
But if you really think hard about how do I--
all the different ways I can make guessing interesting--
Deck building is a good mechanic but really, really hard
to do for any kind of assignment in this class,
even in your last assignment.
The reason for that is deck building
implies lots and lots of cards.
Lots and lots of cards makes it hard to iterate because you're
generating a ton of things just to make a single prototype.
You want to make a second prototype
you're going to generate a new batch of cards--
time consuming.
You're going to have blisters on your hands cutting things out.
That's my warning about deck building.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: That game had deck building.
PROFESSOR: That game was a kind of very, very narrow--
fairly elegant implementation of a deck building game.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: A variation could be handled,
but you only have seven cards that you can have
at any one point [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Yeah-- things like deck building,
card drafting, and everything-- anything that
comes from the collectible card gaming world,
you have to be very cautious of because of the difficulty
it is to prototype something like that
because it generates so much stuff
each time you want to do a revision.
Which is not to say it doesn't fit the criteria.
It's just difficult to execute.
Resource management definitely came up twice.
Instead of MOBA you might want to think
of something like [? lean ?] pushing, or tower--
not tower in the sense of genre but defending a tower.
AUDIENCE: What are MOBAs?
PROFESSOR: MOBAs are games like League of Legends, Dota 2.
It's a genre title for multi--
AUDIENCE: Multi-player online battle arena.
PROFESSOR: --Player online.
Yeah.
It's a team based game, usually five a side.
But these are all genre conventions.
There's nothing that requires that.
Bankruptcy is something that shows up in a lot of games
but usually as a lose condition.
It would be really interesting to think of all the ways
that you can go bankrupt in an interesting way
because reality is that actually there's a lot of them.
In reality you can go bankrupt to your advantage.
Permanent changes to the game.
Difficult prototype again.
But it's still possible.
You're going to generate a lot of games
that you're going to hand out to people.
And the difficulty about it is that you don't really
see the feedback until someone's played the game multiple times.
So good idea, difficult to prototype.
Again a lot of stuff here is great.
I'm just looking for things I can comment on.
Torpedoes is kind of really interesting actually.
I know it's a noun rather than a mechanic.
But there are things that torpedoes
do that are not things that projectiles do in many games.
They're stealthy things.
They are launched from things that are already hidden,
but they give away where they were shot from.
All the countermeasures that are involved in torpedoes.
Everything that has to do with something
like code breaking, hidden messages, language barrier.
I feel that exchanging messages in a way
that you're hiding the message at the same time
might actually be something that one team could actually just
take on for this assignment.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Yeah, try to identify something they can go deep in--
that you can do a lot of different
takes within the same game on just that one mechanic.
Same thing that has to do with any kind of clothing,
changing avatar customization, and everything like that.
That one's a bit tricky because usually
that's in service of a larger game where
the avatar customization has some varying level of utility.
If you're going to do something like changing your clothes,
the point is to change your clothes.
The point isn't in service of some other game.
In that game I think the point is in fact
to change your clothes.
And in fact [INAUDIBLE] changing clothes.
If you haven't seen the game that I'm talking about
it's called Dress for the Show.
It was one of the games from last year.
These could be difficult to prototype
because of the cleanup process.
You might want to--
yeah, it's difficult to play in class too so keep that in mind.
This one's kind of hilarious.
Anything that has to do with drinking, please
don't make a drinking game in this class.
I can't officially test it in class.
And that would be--
I'd have to answer to the committee on curriculum.
And I don't want to do that.
AUDIENCE: They are good expressions
of the guessing aspect of it though.
PROFESSOR: What drinking games?
AUDIENCE: No, the finding games.
PROFESSOR: Oh, the finding games.
AUDIENCE: And the drinking game, but--
PROFESSOR: OK, so hopefully that gives you some idea.
Of all the ideas that have come out, some of these ideas
fit what we're looking for.
I'd say, if anybody wants to in class--
hey, I really want blah.
Just go for it.
I'm just going to copy and paste this
into a file that's visible only to students in this class
and upload it on our [INAUDIBLE] site.
So, they'll either be in the announcements
or in the handouts section so that you
can refer back to this.
The class email list is--
it should be game-design.
But I haven't updated the list yet, I think.
So let me just check this.
[? Moira? ?] Yeah.
It's just game design.
I suspect it has last year's students on it,
which means it's not useful.
Yes.
It has last year's.
[? S-P-14-C-M-S-6-0-8. ?] That's our list.
OK, I'll have to fix that somehow.
I am going to add S-P--
I'm going to figure out exactly what the name of our email
list.
And then I'll put that definitely
on the announcements page.
So you can all discuss online as well.
Otherwise, that's class so if anyone
has anything to yell out--
AUDIENCE: Show up Wednesday with your team or pitch
on Wednesday?
PROFESSOR: On Wednesday you should
come in knowing what mechanic or mechanics
you feel like working on.
If you have your team, even better.
If you don't have your team by Wednesday,
it's a very short amount of time, so I think it's OK.
But you should have your team by the end of Wednesday.
OK?