Slides for all presentations of the eponymous panel organized at the DiGRA/FDG conference 2016 in Dundee.

1. Slide No. 1MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
DiGRA/FDG Conference 2016
Dr. Stefan Werning (Utrecht University)
PANEL: From practice-based game research
to game design as cultural technique

2. Slide No. 2MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Analytical Game Design /
The Utrecht Game Lab
http://www.ugamelab.nl
http://bit.ly/2arST2L

3. Slide No. 3MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
‚Analytical‘ games
EGs currently do not follow the
dispositif (Foucault) of education
but of …
• … art (Simony)
• … activism (Cow Clicker)
• … products (A Slow Year).
• Games-on-Games
(Caruso et al., 2013)
• Critical modification
(Loring-Albright, 2015)

4. Slide No. 4MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Analytical Game Design
• More and more acceptance of
“critical making” (Ratto, 2011)
– Sightlines conference
– “One way to understand games better is to
experiment with their design” (Waern and
Back 2015, 341)
– Games on games” (Caruso et al. 2013) as a
form of “playable game criticism”
• Notion of ‘experiment’ and
experimental practices
– Iteration
– Remixing and bricolage
– Playfulness
• Directly combining scholarly
reflection and (digital) prototyping
– Usually formally separated
– Using COTS tools and materials
• Game Maker: Studio, RPG Maker, Unity 3D,
Twine
• Asset marketplaces
Ratto, Matt. "Critical making: Conceptual and
material studies in technology and social life." The
Information Society 27.4 (2011): 252-260.

5. Slide No. 5MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
STEP 1:
From experimental play to
Analytical Game Design
Werning, Stefan: “From Analytical Play
to Analytical Game Design”
• Focuses on the playfulness of the
process by connecting it to
analytical playing practices
– Speed-running, in-game photography,
cosplaying, let’s playing
• Defines Analytical Game Design
with reference to practice-based
research in other domains
– Music, literature, performance, architecture
• Game design as cultural technique
– Conceptualizing and expressing issues through
game design

6. Slide No. 6MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
STEP 2:
Game experiments
as essays
Stephanie de Smale: “Game Essays
in the Digital Humanities”
• Framing digital game prototypes
with Adorno as game ‘essays’
• Discusses applications of game
essays within a digital humanities
framework

7. Slide No. 7MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
STEP 3:
Domain-specificity of
game experiments
Kamp, Michiel: “Parameters of
Musical Interaction in Games”
• Transferring the idea of the game
essay to a different discipline
• Experimenting with parameters of
soundtracks responding to game
states and player interaction
• Experimentation allows for going
beyond analytical techniques
borrowed from film music studies

8. Slide No. 8MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
STEP 4:
Experimenting as a mode
of amateur creation
Hurel, Pierre-Yves: “Amateur Game
Design as Reflexive Practice”
• From the essay as object to
game-making as reflective
practice
• Ethnographic perspective on
amateur game design
– Affordances of tools like RPG Maker for
experimental practices

9. Slide No. 9MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
TRANSITION

10. Slide No. 10MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
DiGRA/FDG Conference 2016:
From practice-based game research
to game design as cultural technique
Dr. Stefan Werning (Utrecht University)
From Analytical Play to Analytical Game Design

11. Slide No. 11MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
The Cases
• 1) Remaking Passage
• 2) Variations on Asteroids
• 3) Remixing My Cotton-
Picking Life
• Have all online for
download

12. Slide No. 12MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Analytical Play

13. Slide No. 13MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Analytical Playing Practices:
Tool-Assisted Speed-Running
• Smooth transition from
playing to ‚reverse-
engineering‘
• Creative analytical process
– Experimental set-up
– Rigid documentation of results
• Playful approach
– Testing hypotheses
– Rhetorical situation (Bogost)
 Not about designing
games but ‚designing‘
play situations

14. Slide No. 14MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Analytical Playing Practices:
In-Game Photography • Analyzes the categories of
realism in game worlds by
emulating a photographic
gaze
• Creates an intuitive
understanding of
perspective in games vs.
film/photography
– E.g. many familiar perspectives only
implementable through detached
camera
Poremba, Cindy. 2007. “Point and Shoot. Remediating
Photography in Gamespace.” Games and Culture 2 (1):
49–58.

15. Slide No. 15MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Other Analytical
Playing Practices
• Videography
• Let’s Play-ing
• Theorycrafting

16. Slide No. 16MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Experimental research
approaches in other domains

17. Slide No. 17MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Conceptual point of origin:
The ‚Kuleshov experiments‘
• Partially compiled from fragments
of pre-existing films
• Part of an ‚experimental culture‘
– Other experiments such as ‚creative geography‘
or ‚creative anatomy‘
• Fostered quantifiability
– E.G. Kuleshov demanded quantifying the actors‘
movement in time and space, referring to the
work studies of Frederick Taylor
– Formal notation of movement in front of a
camera
 Tools for ‚rapid prototyping‘
Prince, Stephen, and Wayne E. Hensley. "The
Kuleshov effect: Recreating the classic
experiment." Cinema Journal (1992): 59-75.

18. Slide No. 18MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Conceptual point of origin:
The ‚Kuleshov experiments‘
• The experiments create knowledge
not primarily as ‘texts’ but by
affording …
… variation/iteration,
… bricolage, and
… ‘remixing’.
• GOAL: ‘Translate’ the Kuleshov
experiments to (digital) games.

19. Slide No. 19MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Practice-as-Research in
Architecture and Design
• Parametric Design
– Describing complex system behavior
through the relationship between elements
– Mapping the possibility space of
architecture and urban design
• Creating games as a reflective
design strategy (Brand, 2006)
• Inherently playful
– Intuitive (tangible) rather than rational
(legible) approach to design
Brandt, Eva. 2006. “Designing Exploratory Design
Games.” In Proceedings of the Ninth Conference on
Participatory Design: Expanding Boundaries in
Design - PDC ’06, 1:57. New York, New York, USA:
ACM Press. doi:10.1145/1147261.1147271.

20. Slide No. 20MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Practice-as-Research
in Historiography
• 3D visualizations in museums
• Historical reenactments
– Re-playing battle scenes or social /
domestic situations
– Experiental, embodied form of insights
• Also applies to (the history of)
games: The Royal Game of Ur
– Partially found/reconstructed
– Little contextual knowledge
L. Finkel, “On the Rules of the Royal Game of Ur,” in
Board Games in Perspective, ed. I. L. Finkel, London,
2007, pp. 16-32.

21. Slide No. 21MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Practice-as-Research
in literature
• Play as a means of coercing the
mind to seek unconventional
connections
• Arbitrary constraints as a
defining property of games
(Suits)
– Self-imposed constraints unlocking playful,
uncertain creative behavior
– Cf. Costikyan on managing uncertainty in
games
• Oulipo
• Surrealist gamesL. Finkel, “On the Rules of the Royal Game of Ur,” in
Board Games in Perspective, ed. I. L. Finkel, London,
2007, pp. 16-32.

22. Slide No. 22MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Practice-as-research in
performance studies and
music(ology)
• Performance studies
– Nelson, Robin. 2013. Practice as
Research in the Arts. Principles,
Protocols, Pedagogies, Resistances.
London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
• Music
– Synaesthesia (Alexander Skrjabin)
– Theme and variations

23. Slide No. 23MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Other Examples: Film
• Supercuts: Kogonada
– Analysis through multiple contingent
juxtapositions of footage
– Aestheticization of the ‘message’
• Video essays: Catherine Grant
– Theodor W. Adorno,
“The Essay as Form”:
• Apparent spontaneity of presentation
• Emphasis on rhetorical sophistication
• Exaltation of the incomplete
• Rejection of a purely deductive logic
• Antipathy toward systematic dogmatism
• Treatment of non-scientific, often
unconventional subject matter
• Central importance of play
• Image of a meandering, exploratory journey
Pourciau, Sarah. "Ambiguity Intervenes: The
Strategy of Equivocation in Adorno's" Der Essay
als Form"." MLN 122.3 (2007): 623-646.

24. Slide No. 24MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Defining
Analytical Game Design

25. Slide No. 25MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Analytical Game Design:
Theory-Driven Design
• Procedural bias (Bogost/Wardrip-
Fruin) in My Cotton Picking Life
– Discrepancy between picking volume and quota
– Picking cotton through button clicking
• Two buttons, one for each hand/arm
• Cooldown of the buttons
• Button label (Alright, I had enough.)
• Desktop version is more physically straining
(move mouse between buttons)
– Aesthetics
• Cartoon style  projection space for the player
as part of the game
• Male protagonist
• POV: main action is 'framed'
– Feedback
• During play only visual feedback (hardly any
change visible)
• After play, relative feedback in %
• No absolute indication of the 'product' (in g)
– Warning upon being idle
• Fixed 3-4-second interval
• Suggests off-screen space (panoptic)
– Mobile-phone screen ratio
• Systematically modifying these
parameters
– E.g. showing the ‘quit’ button only after a delay or
extending the cooldown with each pick/over time
Bogost, Ian. "The rhetoric of video games." The ecology of
games: Connecting youth, games, and learning (2008): 117-
140.

26. Slide No. 26MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Analytical Game Design:
Theory-Driven Design II
• Dimensions of persuasion in games
(de la Hera, 2013)
• 1) Signs
– Visual +
– Auditive =
– Haptic =
– Linguistic +
• 2) Systems
– Narrative =
– Cinematic -
– Procedural ++
• 3) Contexts
– Social --
– Affective +
– Sensorial =
– Tactical +
• Identifying unused areas and map
the procedural elements onto these
areasde la Hera Conde-Pumpido, Teresa. "A Conceptual Model for
the Study of Persuasive Games." Proceedings of DiGRA. 2013.

27. Slide No. 27MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Analytical Game Design:
Bricolage and Remixing • Bricolage
– ‘Making do’ with existing material
• 'Remixing as a form of
bricolage
– Only applicable to game experiments since
‘sampling’ is usually not possible!
• Critical Modification:
‘Remixing’ Settlers of Catan
• Breaksout
• Related concept:
Variations on a theme
Loring-Albright, Greg. 2015. “The First Nations of
Catan: Practices in Critical Modification.”
Analogue Game Studies 2 (7).
http://analoggamestudies.org/2015/11/the-first-nations-
of-catan-practices-in-critical-modification/.

28. Slide No. 28MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Analytical Game Design: Heuristics
• Minimalization
– Miniroids
• Maximalization
– Maxiroids
• Inversion
– Inverted Asteroids

29. Slide No. 29MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Analytical Game Design:
Documenting the Process
• The design process itself creates
meaningful questions
– Demonstrates the “fragility” (Barr) of gameplay systems
• Primary Change
– Chests ‘prolong‘ life (or rather: rejuvenate the player)
– Alternatively, chests make the player faster
• Emergent behavior
– The player can (and will want to) explore the ‚limits‘ of the
environment (which in the original programming don‘t exist)
– Changes the player‘s perception of the environment (more
natural than metaphorical)
– The increasing speed turns the game into an increasingly
frantic ‚race‘ to the next chest
• Sensibility towards potentially relevant
design contingencies
– Need for quantification: e.g. frequencies of chests containing
treasure
– Omitting the fish eye effect
– Environment really ‘infinite’ or not
– Resolution (100x16) becomes ‘tangible’
• Documenting the development process,
e.g. through developer diaries (Pedgley
2007)
Pedgley, Owain. "Capturing and analysing own
design activity." Design Studies 28.5 (2007): 463-
483.

30. Slide No. 30MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Analytical Game Design:
Productive irritations • EXAMPLE: Educational
Asteroids
– Modelled after The Typing of the Dead
– intentionally leaves many areas sketchy
• Encouraging critical
engagement through
‘unfinished’ design
– Existing (experimental) games often
foster an ‘immersive’ rather than a
critical disposition
• Unfinishedness in the Kuleshov
experiments
– No back story, establishing shot or
‘resolution’
• Alienation/defamiliarization
(Berthold Brecht)
– ‘Disfiguring’ part of a design to open it
up for critical engagement

31. Slide No. 31MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Analytical Game Design as
Cultural Technique

32. Slide No. 32MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
(Analytical) Game Design
as a Cultural Technique
• Consequence of ‘productive
irritations’
– Encourages players to fill in the blanks’
– Opposes the regular, often commodified
playing disposition
–  similar to analytical playing practices
• Cultural techniques (Winthrop-
Young)
• Learning to perceive the world
in terms of game affordances
• Game Literacy
– Both reading and writing
Werning, Stefan. 2016. “Analytical Game Design. Game-
Making as a Cultural Technique in a Gamified Society.”
In The Playful Citizen: Knowledge, Creativity, Power,
edited by René Glas, Sybille Lammes, Michiel de Lange,
Joost Raessens, and Imar de Vries, tbd. Amsterdam:
Amsterdam University Press.

33. Slide No. 33MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
TRANSITION

34. Game Essays
as Critical
Media and
Research
Praxis
Stephanie de Smale
Utrecht University
T: @stephaniedsmale | DiGRA/FDG Conference | August 2 ‘16

35. Outline
1. Adorno and the Essay
2. Essays in Humanities research
3. The dual function of game
essays

36. 1. Adorno and
the Essay

37. Play and the Essay
Luck and play are essential to the essay. It does not begin with Adam and Eve but
with what it wants to discuss; it says what is at issue and stops where it feels itself
complete -not where nothing is left to say. Therefore it is classed among the
oddities.
(Adorno 1984, 152)

38. The Form of the Essay
The essay remains what it always was, the critical form par excellence;
specifically, it constructs the immanent criticism of cultural artifacts, and it
confronts that which such artifacts are with their concept; it is the critique of
ideology.
(Adorno 1984, 166)

39. Towards defining the game essay
“an interactive audio-visual
work that embodies and
questions games and play”

40. Slide No. 40MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
TRANSITION

42. ‘THE FIRST EXPERIMENTAL
WORK WITH SOUND MUSIC
MUST BE DIRECTED ALONG
THE LINE OF ITS DISTINCT
NONSYNCHRONIZATION WITH
THE VISUAL IMAGES.’
(Eisenstein, Alexandrov and
Pudovkin 1949 [1928], p. 84)
‘The most striking and
immediate impression [of
correspondence with the
audio] will be gained, of
course, from a congruence of
the movement of the music
with the movement of the
visual contour — with the
graphic composition of the
frame.’ (Eisenstein 1957
[1942], p. 173)

43. Analysing film music:
• Musical functions (cf. Copland, 1949)
• Music-image relations (cf. Cook 1998)
• Sound-image structure (cf.Chion 1994)

44. Analysing film music:
• Musical functions (cf. Copland, 1949)
• Music-image relations (cf. Cook 1998)
• Sound-image structure (cf.Chion 1994)
1. Creating a more convincing atmosphere of time
and place.
2. Underlining psychological refinements--the
unspoken thoughts of a character or the unseen
implications of situation.
3. Serving as a kind of neutral background filler.
4. Building a sense of continuity.
5. Underpinning the theatrical build-up of a scene,
and rounding it off with a sense of finality.

45. Analysing film music:
• Musical functions (cf. Copland, 1949)
• Music-image relations (cf. Cook 1998)
• Sound-image structure (cf.Chion 1994)
1. Creating a more convincing atmosphere of time
and place.
2. Underlining psychological refinements--the
unspoken thoughts of a character or the unseen
implications of situation.
3. Serving as a kind of neutral background filler.
4. Building a sense of continuity.
5. Underpinning the theatrical build-up of a scene,
and rounding it off with a sense of finality.

46. Analysing film music:
• Musical functions (cf. Copland, 1949)
• Music-image relations (cf. Cook 1998)
• Sound-image structure (cf.Chion 1994)
1. Creating a more convincing atmosphere of time
and place.
2. Underlining psychological refinements--the
unspoken thoughts of a character or the unseen
implications of situation.
3. Serving as a kind of neutral background filler.
4. Building a sense of continuity.
5. Underpinning the theatrical build-up of a scene,
and rounding it off with a sense of finality.

47. Analysing film music:
• Musical functions (cf. Copland, 1949)
• Music-image relations (cf. Cook 1998)
• Sound-image structure (cf.Chion 1994)
• Mickey-mousing
• ‘Anempathetic music’
(Chion)
• Conformation,
complementation, contest
(Cook)

48. Analysing film music:
• Musical functions (cf. Copland, 1949)
• Music-image relations (cf. Cook 1998)
• Sound-image structure (cf.Chion 1994)
Synchronization points

49. • ‘Ludic’ and ‘cinematic’ game music (van Elferen 2011),
based on ‘rules’ and ‘fiction’ binary (Juul 2005)
• Functions? Music-image relations? Audiovisual flow?

50. • Noninteractive, adaptive and
interactive music (Collins 2008)
• Ergodic/nonergodic musical gameplay
• Interacting with musical parameters:
Rhythm Timbre
Melody Dynamics/intensity
Harmony etc.
• Experimenting with musical
gameplay?

51. • Cinematic: ‘marrying’ pre-
existing music (cf. Julia
experiments)
• Ludic: Rhythm gameplay
• ‘Manual’ input maps (cf.
Guitar Hero?) to create synch
synch points
• Experimenting with game
mechanics (‘soft’ vs. ‘hard’
rules for matching beats)

52. Slide No. 52MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
TRANSITION

53. Playing RPG Maker ?
Amateur Game Design And
Video Gaming
Pierre-Yves Hurel – pyhurel@ulg.ac.be – Liège Gamelab – Lemme – OMNSH - LabJMV

54. Game creation tools
 Thesis : DJAOUTI Damien, 2011, « Serious Game Design :
considérations théoriques et techniques sur la création de
jeux vidéo à vocation utilitaire », thèse de doctorat en
Informatique, Université de Toulouse III
 Contributive website : creatools.gameclassification.com :
485 tools
 Non-specialized tools and specialized tools

55. Construct 2
 Downloaded 3 billions
times (multiple versions)
 230.000+ users registered
on the official forum
 5.600 games published on
the official « arcade »
section
 650+ users on an un official
French speaking forum

56. State of the art
On game-making tools : mainly about learning
code
(Burke, Kafei, Gee, Tran, …)
On related practices : mods.
(Sotamaa, Unger, Postigo, …)

57. Methodology and scope
 Ongoing ethnographic approach
 12 in-depth interviews so far
 8 face to face (+/- 80 minutes)
 4 via emails
 I started with founders of communities
 Supposedly experienced and reflective
 Main themes discussed in interviews:
 How did you start making games ?
 Why did you continue ?
 Why do you use this specific software ?
 => General questions to let « pop up » what matters for the
respondents

58. « Imaginary video games »
 “With my best friend, when I was a kid, we would often make fake
video games with Legos for each other. So we took our Legos
and we made Zeldas or Metroids […]. To retrieve objects that
made us stronger we had to go to other areas. […] It was a sort of
fantasy of making a video game” (a respondent)
 “When I was a child [...] I would put pieces of paper together [to
make] Mario’s levels. I had a little character [...] in a cardboard
screen, with cardboard joysticks and then I would scroll it on
screen, trying to simulate a video game [...]. As it was not
electronic we could not play it, […] was very frustrating!” (a
respondent)

59. « Imaginary video games »
 “When I was a child, I would play Zelda on Nes [Famicom] and I
would […] draw my own Zelda on paper. […] It was a sort of
labyrinth […] and I showed my brother with a pencil where he was
going. I would tell my brother ‘ok here you can do that or use
that weapon and so on.”
=> From an experimental paper’s game to an actual video game.
 Pretending to make games : a fantasy, a simulation… a game ?

60. Tools, games, or toys ?
 RPG Maker : “something as a toy.”
 “We don’t develop on RPG Maker, you play RPG Maker.”
 “Messing around”, “test”, “experiment”.
 “When you’re starting out, you don’t approach making a ZZT
game by saying, ‘Here is the vision of the thing that I want to
make; how can I build that with ZZT?’ It’s much more natural to
ask, ‘Here are the pieces that ZZT gives me; how can I fit them
together in an interesting way?’” (Jeremy Penner)

61. Tools, games, or toys ?
 “This ‘game’ becomes more adult when it has a lot of constraints […]. For
example, I have to adapt the game I make to fit into the program, but it
is part of the creator’s pleasure to play with these constraints” (a
respondent)
 Two kinds of playful attitudes ? Project versus Improvisation ?

62. Conclusion
 Users are not only users :
 Makers
 Players
 Explorers
 Experimenters
 Community members
 …

63. Bibliography
 Anthropy, A. “ZZT”, Los Angeles: Boss Fight Book, 2014.
 Burke, Q and Kafai, Y.B. “Decade of Game Making for Learning: From Tools to Communities” in Handbook of
Digital Games, edited by Angelides, M.C. and Agius, H. 689 709. Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
2014.
 Boutet, M. “Jouer aux jeux vidéo avec style. Pour une ethnographie des sociabilités vidéoludiques”, Réseaux,
173-174 (2012), 207.
 Djaouti, D. “Les usines à jeu”, thesis chapter in “Serious Game Design: considérations théoriques et
techniques sur la création de jeux vidéo à vocation utilitaire”, Université de Toulouse, 2011, pp. 166-199.
 Gee, E.R. and Tran, K.M. “Video Game Making and Modding”, in Handbook of Research on the Societal
Impact of Digital Media, ed. by Barbara Guzzetti and Mellinee Lesley (Information Science Reference, 2016),
pp. 238–67.
 Postigo, H. “Of mods and modders: Chasing down the value of fan-based digital game modifications”,
Games and Culture, n°2, 2007, pp. 300-313.
 Sotamaa, O. “When the Game Is Not Enough: Motivations and Practices Among Computer Game Modding
Culture”, Games and Culture, 5 (2010), 239–55.
 Unger, A. “Modding as Part of Game Culture”, in Computer Games and New Media Cultures, ed. by Johannes
Fromme and Alexander Unger (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2012), pp. 509–23.

64. Slide No. 64MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16

65. Slide No. 65MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Critical modification

66. Slide No. 66MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Modifying board games in
commercial contexts
• Risk (1957)
– Encapsulates Cold War rationality and the logic of world
domination
• Risk Black Ops (2008)
 Risk – Revised Edition (2008)
– Resource system based on cities and capitals
– Differentiated, even partially dynamic and open mission goals
– Incentivizes a more defensive, strategic playing style
• Risk Legacy (2011)
– Sequences of interrelated game sessions
– Permanent modifications to the game itself
• EX: Also re-envision traditional games as
related to conflicts
– Monopoly
– Ticket to Ride (functions of American railroads for American
warfare)

67. Slide No. 67MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Critical modification of
board games • Modifying Settlers of Catan to
address its alleged cultural bias
• EX: Re-designing the Checkered
Game of Life …
– persuasive game, portable game
• … allows for identifying how the
game reflects its respective socio-
cultural context.
– Limited interaction among players:
individualistic vs. social perception of life
Loring-Albright, Greg. 2015. “The First Nations of Catan:
Practices in Critical Modification.” Analogue Game
Studies 2 (7).
http://analoggamestudies.org/2015/11/the-first-
nations-of-catan-practices-in-critical-modification/.

68. Slide No. 68MCMV14005/3 – 05/08/16
Collective modification as a
quasi-simulational process
• Caruso Et Al., “Games on RPGs”
– Games like The Linear RPG etc. expand the
Canonical Narrative Schema developed in French
Semiotics and Narratology
• Manipulation, Action and Sanction
• EX: Genre elements of RPG games
– Relationship between player and environment:
Recettear (EasyGameStation)
– Quantification: Parameters (Nekogames)
– Spatial exploration:
The Linear RPG (Sophie Houlden)
– Character classes:
A healer only lives twice (Playism)
• Metaphor: Genetic algorithms
– (Attention) economy as simulation environment
– Social and economic success as ‘fitness function’