Speculative Game Design A manifesto for allowing players to rehearse alternative

presents and plausible futures

Paul Coulton

@mysticmobile

A ManifestoR r

Research into Design Research through Design Research for Design

Process Artifact

New Knowledge

GAMES ARE ART… get over it

Art Games

art games is an insufficient term to consider many games, and it is currently “a stand-in for a yet unnamed set of movements or styles, akin to realism of futurism

Ian Bogost

Speculative Design

use fiction no commercial constraints

prototype driven irreverant

Auger Coulton

Future

Present FutureTime

Probable Plausible Possible

Josepth Voros

Possible

Present FutureTime

Probable - likely to happen

Plausible - could happen

Possible - might happen

Future

Critical Design

Present FutureTime

Probable Plausible PossiblePreferable

Design Fiction“deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to

suspend disbelief about change... It means you’re thinking very seriously

about potential objects and services and try to get people to concentrate on those – rather than entire worlds or

geopolitical strategies. It’s not a kind of fiction. It’s a kind of design. It tells

worlds rather than stories”

Bruce Sterling

Design Fiction“deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to suspend disbelief about change... It means you’re thinking very seriously

about potential objects and services and try to get people to concentrate on those – rather than entire worlds or

geopolitical strategies. It’s not a kind of fiction. It’s a kind of design. It tells

worlds rather than stories”

Bruce Sterling

With roots in ancient philosophy ‘diegetic’ can be a rather troublesome word for those outside

media theory. Thankfully design fiction’s purposes diegesis simply to refer to the world of the story (and therefore anything that exists

in that world, is diegetic). Thus it follows that a diegetic prototype is a

prototype that exists within a story world

Design Fiction

Design Fiction“deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to suspend disbelief about change... It means you’re thinking very seriously

about potential objects and services and try to get people to concentrate on those – rather than entire worlds or

geopolitical strategies. It’s not a kind of fiction. It’s a kind of design. It tells

worlds rather than stories”

Bruce Sterling

Engendering ‘disbelief about change’ is commensurate with speculative design’s, upon which design fiction draws, focus on generating understanding and insights as

opposed to finished products, i.e. its role is: “not to show how things will be but to

open up a space for discussion”

Design Fiction

“So a design fiction is (1) something that creates a story world, (2) has something being prototyped within that story world, (3) does so in order to create a

discursive space.” “Although this definition appears straightforward, complexity

arrives when we consider what something may be”

Lindley and Coulton

are games diegetic?

mimesis and diegesis describe ways of presenting a story. In mimesis, the story is acted out. In diegesis, the story is narrated. Mimesis is show. Diegesis is tell.

games can be both diegetic and mimetic

PresentPresent

Future

Domestication

TechnologyEmergence

Alternate Presentsor Lost Futures

Speculative Futures

Past

adapted from James Auger

The What If?

Past

“We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future”

Marshall Mcluhan

Speculative Game Design

PresentFuture

Time

Plausible

Possible

Past

Plausible

Possible

Critical Games

thus far the focus of the critical games created has primarily

been either: critiques of current events or practices; or critiques

of games themselves

Critical Games

Phone Story - Mollie Industria giant joystick - Mary Flanagan

Persuading through Games

Persuasive TechnologyProcedural Rhetoric(Gamification) VS Persuasive Games

liminal liminoid

Persuasive Technology

B.J Fogg

Captology - reduce a problem so that it can be addressed through the promotion of minor behavioural change for easily understood and uncontroversial goals.

Persuasive Technology

HighAbility

LowAbility

HighMotivation

LowMotivation

TargetBehaviour

Desire

d Traje

ctory

of Use

rs

FACILITATOR

SPARK

SIGNAL

SIGNALThe Facilitator is a trigger

that also makes the desired behaviour easier

to perform.

The Signal is a trigger that identifies an appropriate time to perform a

particular behaviour for those already motivated to perform that behaviour.

The Spark is a trigger that provides the initial

inspiration to change behaviour.

B.J Fogg

Rhetoric

Pathos(empathy)

Ethos(credibility)

Logos(logic)

CONTEXT

Aristottle

Logos - would utilise facts, statistics, analogies, and

logical reasoning.

Ethos - would draw upon credibility, reliability, trustworthiness and

fairness.

Pathos - would appeal to our emotions and draw

upon feelings of fairness, love, pity, or even greed,

lust, or revenge.

Rhetoric of Design

Rhetor Audience

Speech

Intent

Expectations

Rhetoric

Graphic Designer Audience

Image

Inte

ntExpectations

Visual Rhetoric

Rhetoric of Design

Designer Users

Product

Inte

ntExpectations

Design as Rhetoric

Rhetoric of Design

Richard Buchanan

Game

Game Designer Player

Rule

sInteraction

Game Design as Rhetoric

Rhetoric of Designthe basic representational mode of videogames is “procedurality”, enacted through rule- based representations and interactions and, when used to reveal processes or concepts of another system, present the player with a procedural rhetoric

Ian Bogost

Interactive System

Interaction Designer User

Syst

em L

ogic Interaction

Interactive Systems as Rhetoric

Rhetoric of Design

Coulton

Developing In-Game Rhetoric

Mudlark

Climate Change

Weather

Flow

Storage

Scale

Charles and Ray Eames Powers of 10

COLD SUN

Framing Speculative Game Design

Present FutureTime

Plausible Possible

Speculative Game Design should be plausible

Pathos(empathy)

Ethos(credibility)

Logos(logic)

Framing Speculative Game Design

PresentFuture

Time

Plausible

Possible

Past

Plausible

Possible

Speculative Game Design should embrace the plurality of realities of both designers

and players.

Framing Speculative Game Design

Speculative Game Design can encompass both mimesis and diegesis.

Diegesis+

Mimesis

Framing Speculative Game Design

Speculative Game Design should be iterative.

Framing Speculative Game Design

including the rhetoric

Framing Speculative Game Design

Speculative Game Design should be participatory.

Framing Speculative Game Design

Speculative Game Design should utilise rhetoric rather

than captology.

Reflection

These strategies are not intended to be used to rank games in relation to some perceived quality about what may or may not make a ‘good’ speculative game design, but are to help designers reflect on the appropriate uses of rhetoric and their responsibilities when designing such games.

Questions

Banksy @mysticmobile