The program of the conference Experiencing Games: Games, Play, and Players (First Nordic Digra August 16-17, 2010, Stockholm, Sweden) is published. We accepted 14 papers and two workshops. The workshop descriptions can can found at the program page.

Staffan Björk is building version 2.0 for game design patterns (http://www.ninja.sics.se/gdp2/). Staffan is also updating and adding patterns from my Character-Driven Game Design. I am looking forward to seeing how the patterns will change after Staffan’s update.

Petri Lankoski likes

Character-Driven Game Design

Create your Like Badge

You can download the Character-Driven Game Design now. Scroll down for the actual download link (the PDF is around 2M).

The print version is also available (35euros + handling).

Introductory speech at my defense:

Honoured Custos, honoured opponent, ladies and gentlemen.

My research is about designing single player character-based computer games.

With character-based games, I mean games such as Thief II: The Metal Age, Fahrenheit, Ico, and Half-Life.

From the design point of view the player character, the character controlled by a player, is the most important character in the character-based games. Game designer Steve Mereztky claims that “the element that is  most likely to leave a positive lasting impression on players are the primary character or characters“, because “humans are hard-wired to respond to other humans“. However, some researchers and game designers have been critical towards whether player characters can have personality at all, because the character is controlled by a player. It is argued that the presentation of the character is irrelevant, because it does not make one to play differently. I think that this is a simplistic view that overlooks how gameplay can guide interpretation and playing experience.

Read the rest of this entry »

Academic dissertation to be presented for public examination with the permission of the Research Board of the Aalto University School of Art and Design Helsinki, in Sampo auditorium (Media Centre LUME), Hämeentie 135 C

on May 12th, 2010, at 12 noon.

MA Petri Lankoski “Character-Driven Game Design: A Design Approach and Its Foundations in Character Engagement”

Opponent: Phd Ian Bogost, Georgia Institute of Technology

Custos: Professor, DA Lily Díaz, School of Art and Design Helsinki

Welcome!

Research on games has grown into a research area of its own. This conference aims to bring together researchers in the Nordic countries that focus on the study of games and gaming, be it on-line, computerised, or in the physical world. Based on the Nordic tradition on user-centered design, the first Nordic DIGRA conference will place a particular focus on studying design for player experience, and research on tools and methods for player-participatory design.

Read the rest of this entry »

A study reports enhanced attentional resources of action game players:

This work further documents the enhanced attentional resources of action video gamers and establishes faster reaction times in that population without a notable loss in accuracy. These effects were seen throughout the age range studied suggesting similar effects of action game playing from the early school years through to adulthood. While causality can only be inferred with a training study, the findings are in accord with attentional changes that have been previously trained in NVGPs using action video games.¹

Study also site several other studies showing similar results.

Notes

1. Dye, Green & Bavelier (2009). The development of attention skills in action video game players.  Neuropsychologia 47(8-9), pp. 1780-1789, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2009.02.002.

Now, after handling in the dissertation manuscript, I have really started to read and seek new things. Now on my table is following books:

• Flint Dille & John Zuur Platten, The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design (Lone Eagle Publishing Company, 2007). The book, so far, is a very practical and though-provoking look at writing and designing  action games.
• Wendy Despain (ed.), Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing (AK Peters, 2008). I have read seven first chapters and found them bit shallow.
• Pernard Berron & Mark J.P. Wolf, The Video Game Theory Reader (Routledge, 2009).  16 essays looking at video games on various perspectives.
• Grant Tavinor, The Art of Video Games (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). Tavinor, using the framework of analytical philosopohy, studies video games. The content of the book (by looking at the table of contents and Tavinor’s presentation at the Philosophy of Computer Games conference) ranges from defining video games to relations between fiction and games, as well as emotions in games.

There are at two of books I like to get:

• Miguel Sigart, The Ethics of Computer Games (The MIT Press, 2009).
• Alva Noe, Out of Our Heads (Hill and Wang, 2009).

Inger Ekman and I wrote a chapter, Hair-Raising Entertainment: Emotions, Sound, and Structure in Silent Hill 2 and Fatal Frame, for the book Horror Video Games: Essays on the Fusion of Fear and Play edited by Bernard Perron (published by McFarland Publishing). The book should be out early October.

Many publishers ask researchers to secure copyright owners permissions for screenshots for academic works. However, typical academic use falls under fair use. Jesper Juul writes that following argument (that permissions is not needed) can and should be used when publishers ask the permissions:

1. Precedent: Video game reviews, commentary, as well as a large body of academic scholarship uses video game screenshots under assumptions of fair use.
2. The court decision of U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals SONY v BLEEM 9917137v2 ruled that screenshots can be used under fair use (http://laws.lp.findlaw.com/getcase/9th/case/9917137v2&exact=1)
3. To assert the copyright of the game developers, we have added game developer and publication year under each image.