games for health - micah hrehovcsik - serious game classification for game designers
DESCRIPTION
Speaker at Games for Health Europe Conference 2014TRANSCRIPT
Games and Interaction
Tactical Forms- A Classification of Applied Games for Game Design
Micah HrehovcsikHKU University of the Arts Utrecht
School of Games and Interaction
Game Design Lecturer, Researcher and Theorist
gi.hku.nl
Joeri TaelmanUtrecht University
Joep JanssenDe Hoogstraat Revalidatie
Niels KeetelsHKU University of the Arts Utrecht
Design
research?
Game Design
Research?
It’s about opening
up the black box of
game design.
There’s a problem with applied
game taxonomy!?
What about Sawyer & Smith’s
2008 “Serious Games
Taxonomy”?
No way!
Now pay attention! Serious games ≠ training
& education games. -Sawyer & Smith 2008
Current applied
game taxonomy is
used as a way to
“get all parties on
the same page”
and “provide a
snapshot of the
current state of
serious games
industry” -Sawyer &
Smith 2008
Uh? So… what kind of
game do I need to design?
“The primary goal of any applied game is the use and
usefulness of its game activity outside the domain of the game
itself” – van Roessel & van Mastrigt-Ide 2011
An applied game could be any genre or have any
game mechanic as long as the game achieves its
desired goal(s) -Michael & Chen 2006
Wow… All I need to do
now… is read through allthe literature about
applied games and
become an expert in a
specific domain.
What would really be
useful though… is a
few good examples.
Where are all
the applied
game clones?
Classification!!! My game
design power has increased
tenfold! I have the power of
“tried and true gameplay
solutions.” - Fullerton, Swain & Hoffman 2004
However “genres are a mixed blessing
to an entertainment game designer…
genres also tend to restrict the creative
process.” - Fullerton, Swain & Hoffman 2004
Restricted creative
process!!!
Sorry, but those tricks won’t
work for applied game design!
But… game mechanics
like randomness, time
compression, perfect
communication worked
for entertainment games
fun!!! -Michael & Chen 2006
Aaah!?
Entertainment Genres !!!
But a lot of work has already
been done on applied game
taxonomy!
How can the idea of
Tactical Forms really
add to this? What!? You mean…
Tactical form is a term to
describe the way an
applied game’s
deployment is designed
for a certain context.
GAMING: The Future’s Language
Richard Duke 1974
THANK YOU