Creating compelling museum games (We Are Museums 2016)

Frankly, Green + Webb
@marthasadie

Why games?
•Gameplay is engagement
•Gameplay is learning
•Games can reach a large
audience
•Museum content can make great
games (interesting subjects,
objects and stories)

What’s going wrong?
•Lack of digital and games knowhow or dedicated
resource
•Specifically a lack of understanding of the game
design process from clients
•Lengthy crippling sign off processes
•A lack of flexibility in the game design process
linked to funding structures - often decisions
are made before games experts have had a chance
to feed in and then are locked in.
•Small budgets or tight schedules that don’t
allow for testing and development
•A poor fit between objectives and outcomes of
the game – little learning or engagement
•Lack of understanding about the audience
•Failure to market – nobody played it
•No shared learning or insight passed on.

What’s going wrong?
•Lack of digital and games knowhow or dedicated
resource
•Specifically a lack of understanding of the game
design process from clients
•Lengthy crippling sign off processes
•A lack of flexibility in the game design process
linked to funding structures - often decisions
are made before games experts have had a chance
to feed in
•A poor fit between objectives and outcomes of
the game – little learning or engagement
•Lack of audience understanding
•Small budgets or tight schedules that don’t
allow for testing and development
•Failure to market – nobody played it
•No shared learning or insight passed on.

Roflpillar by Lucky Frame

What is a game?
A game is a:
• simplified
• fair,
• fascinating,
• empowering
• and enclosed world
• whose purpose is to provide structured
play through
• moderated yet unscripted actions and
• learnable dynamics
• with the goal of winning through
victory or achievement
- Tadgh Kelly

What is a game?
Games are belief engines. Games are canvases for stories in motion.
Games are a challenge and a learning activity. Games are ideas. Games
are explorations both intellectual and meaningful. Games are positive.
Games make life better. Games help you feel success when all around
you is grey and confusing. Games are change. Games are illuminating.
Games are insightful. Games are irreverent. Games are very old. Games
are very new. Games are tests. Games are addictive. Games are
pressure. Games are motivational, inspirational and educational. Games
are fun. Games are exercise. Games are good for body and soul. Games
are about you. Games are projections. Games are worlds which we
superimpose on this world in order to escape or make sense of it.
Games are dynamic, chaotic and delightful. Games are there to be
mastered, used up and then forgotten. Games are participatory,
cultural and shared. Games are demanding. Games are emotive. Games are
sometimes indescribable and yet all too real. Games are made, but more
than the sum of their made parts. Games are a constant source of the
strange. Games are risky. Games are playful. Games are one of the key
experiences that life is for. Games are brilliant. Games are an art
form. Games are numinous. Games are thaumatic. Games belong to us.
– Tadgh Kelly

What is a game?
A game has:

What is a game?
A game has:
• Mechanics
• Dynamics
• Aesthetics
(Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc, Robert Zubek 2001
http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/pubs/MDA.pdf

What is a game?
A game has:
• Mechanics
• The formal rules of a game. How the
game is played, what actions the
player can make, the win or fail
states, how rules are enforced.

What is a game?
A game has:
• Dynamics
• How the rules act in in motion. How
they respond to player input and
interact with other rules. The “run-
time” behaviour of a game

What is a game?
A game has:
• Aesthetics
• The player’s experience of the game.
Is it fun? Social? Frustrating?
Hilarious?

What is a game?
Mechanics
Dynamics
Aesthetics
Player
Designer

What makes a good game?

• Compelling gameplay mechanics
(intrinsic rewards)

(intrinsic rewards)
• Balanced continuous challenge
(learning curve)

(intrinsic rewards)
(learning curve)
• Satisfying play feel (look, feel,
sound, heft)

(intrinsic rewards)
(learning curve)
• Satisfying play feel (look, feel,
sound, heft)
• Compelling extrinsic motivation (not
always necessary)

What makes a good game
with purpose?

What makes a good game
with purpose?
• A good game design process

Cat On Yer Head by Playniac www.playniac.com

The iterative game design
process
• Identify objectives (DO NOT SKIP)
• Identify mechanics that fit
• Draft a game
• Prototype and test it
• Revise
• Test again
• Revise
• Test again
• Revise
• Test again
• Revise
• etc

The implications?
• Be clear about objectives, the
mechanics will flow from that – these
can be the brief
• Leave room in the development process
for the actual development – must be
flexible enough for this
• Test it early – leave budget and time
for this
• Bring in many voices
• Think about how you are going to
distribute and market it
• Evaluate and share insight – within
your institution and outside too

Creating compelling museum games (We Are Museums 2016)

Recomendados

Recomendados

Más contenido relacionado

La actualidad más candente

La actualidad más candente (20)

Destacado

Destacado (8)

Similar a Creating compelling museum games (We Are Museums 2016)

Similar a Creating compelling museum games (We Are Museums 2016) (20)

Más de Martha Henson

Más de Martha Henson (6)

Último

Último (20)

Creating compelling museum games (We Are Museums 2016)