Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Institute of Play with MOMA

Google Hangout with staff from the Institute of Play. Panel made up of IoP staff & MOMA staff. Greg OBrian discusses how iterative design is so important, because what you plan is never what actually happens and you learn so much by watching how people actually use the game. Description of workshops they held at MOMA. Ninja Game - makes everybody look like a fool, total leveling effect. Arc: Playing games to rethinking a game that already existed to eventually creating a joint game. Emphasis on experimentation. "Creating something by actually experimenting with it,doing it  figuring out if it worked...A different way of working for us."

Brian xxx on benefits of working in teams. Having a group to playtest interactive stuff. Having the game in group memory. Shows you where the holes are. Designing interactive systems for groups of people requires people. Leads to a fuller design, taking into account multiple perspectives. Games take on a life of their own and are all about how they interact with other people besides the designer.

"I got home last night and I realized that I made a game! And it's a game that I want to play. And I never thought that I would be a game designer."

Creative, collective thinking. Creativity is a group effort. We all have good ideas, but the understanding of this collection of them is more powerful. Being in teams forces you to understand the way somebody else is processing information, and can lead to a better result. Sometimes working teams brings out unknown skills that you didn't realize individuals have.

Engaging in game activity is really hard at first - it's a totally new way for most people to interact at work. Playtest. Being part of a game is very different from planning one. When you imagine a game, you imagine a particular kind of play behavior - this is probably not what most people will actually do when they play. Iterative playtesting is essential. Experiment, fail, do it again. Without going through the testing process, you aren't going to know what works. Playtesting can be hard for game designers - watching you best-laid plans turned to chaos. This isn't what I thought would happen - this is bad - this is good, how do I get more of it - this person says they are having fun but they clearly are not. Takes practice to get good at facing it.

MOMA redesigned their meeting room. Was a big table. Now no table, various kinds of seating at various heights, one wall chalkboard wall.  Has made meetings more relaxed.

IofP is making a game for MOMA visitors in collaboration with MOMA staff. Having done the game workshop beforehand made the process of collaborating on a game much smoother - they had a shared vocabulary, some understanding of constraints and what the game could do. Ability to focus on one narrow goal. "We want people to do this in the gallery." Not "we want lazers and lots of cool stuff."

A lot fo the challenges MOMA has are the same challenges you face in any large physical game. "How do we do engagement in the museum" and "how do we make a game" seem to be very similar problems. They ahve been playtesting the game with random museum visitors - walking around the galleries, walking up to people, "Hi. Would you test this game for us?"

Their workshops are usually 3 days long. They find that is optimal to create trust and engagement. But they have done shorter workshops, perhaps one afternoon. MOMA workshop was 3 half-days - people did their normal work in morning, workshop in afternoon.