203: Back to Basics

[Robert Yang]

Back to Basics

After a failed attempt at teaching game design through Counter-Strike mods, one UC Berkeley teacher learned that the best way to engage his students was also the most primitive. Robert Yang recounts how playing outside helped his students learn the fundamentals of game design.

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[Same River New Water]

Where's Berkeley? California?

I'm moving there.

 

[Zekko5]

Interesting article. Good writing!

I should read more of these Escapist Magazine articles. So far every one of them has been interesting till the end!

 

[Clemenstation]

Good call on playing outside. The reproduction and endless proliferation of longstanding game genres (FPS, RTS, yadda yadda) has a lot to do with the fact that the computer science kids who go on to make games are hopelessly tunnel-visioned.

 

[kawligia]

I LOVED de_piranesi but I'm one of few I guess. I think people don't like it because it "seems" too big. It's really not that big, but when you are on top the wall and want to get down (or vice-versa) you do have to go the long way around. That makes it seems "big."

Anyway, I enjoyed this article. It was interesting.

 

[G-Mang]

"Currently, the vast majority of game developers and educational institutions wrongly ghettoize a game design education to a small contingent of computer science students"

This quote I can really get behind. I'm a huge game design hobbyist with a passion for creating and analyzing games, but I'm not a big programmer, and as a result, I'm taking Film+Digital Media instead of Game Design.

 

[jwalters]

Wow, this was a great read on learning game design in a different way, thanks for your insights! I really wish I could take the class... and I discovered my new favorite word: ghettoize

 

[CaptainCrunch]

...
In saying that, perhaps it was the way the class was taught what makes a good map during class? Could also be the toolset you used in modding Counter-Strike?

It's likely both. The balance in the tools for making games, or even just modding them, is balanced heavily in favor of technical users. You could teach a class that is all about using the tools, and students might make a playable level with no ability to translate that information into interesting gameplay. You could also teach a class about how to make the gaming experience better, and students might make a phallus so massive that it crashes everyone's client just by looking.

The choice of the instructor is whether to reach a left-brained or right-brained student. No wrong answer there.

 

[samsonguy920]

I think I see the underlying theme here, that more developers and teachers should remember, if one way fails to work, don't try to pound it in like some baboon trying to get a square block in a triangular hole...find a different approach. And on the other hand, if the piece fits in the slot too well, as from constant usage, then its time to find a new piece to fit in. Some game developers just try to stick with what works, and then wonder when sales go down. It's called mediocrity, and it will haunt you if you stay in one place for too long.

 

[Silva]

This article was great in many ways. Very interesting and quite poignant. However, there was one point I have to disagree with strongly.

Games are NOT older than novels. They are older than film in the non-computer sense. If you allow a regression from your subject of computer gaming to just gaming, then you have to regress on film and novels too. In that case, novels are the oldest, because their ancient form, the verbal saga, is far older. I'm talking thousands of years older, here.

It just seemed unfair to regress one medium and not the others, wording it in that way. But I liked the enthusiasm.

 

[Robert Yang]

Games are NOT older than novels. They are older than film in the non-computer sense. If you allow a regression from your subject of computer gaming to just gaming, then you have to regress on film and novels too. In that case, novels are the oldest, because their ancient form, the verbal saga, is far older. I'm talking thousands of years older, here.

I think that's a remnant from a larger point (but kind of irrelevant to this article) that I wanted to make which is core to my personal game development philosophy - how people always shoehorn video games into some progression of narrative / depiction of reality (e.g. epic verse > novel > film > video games!) but really games are on a separate track, in my mind, a progression of abstraction (e.g. hunting and gathering > Tag > Basketball > Monopoly > video games!)

From my own limited knowledge about the history of narrative, I'd argue the verbal saga was almost more of a performance (with the bard improvising, changing stuff around for the audience) than a written text. I'm kind of taking a page from Johan Huizinga's "Homo Ludens" with my perspective - though I think he goes a little far in saying it's older than culture, and I'd rather make a distinction between simply "play" and a "game," and now I feel I'm rambling so I'll stop now.

... and Mentor: that sounds like a pretty good class. Unfortunately I have to spend half the semester here (class is less than 2 hours a week, and that's pushing attention spans already) on basic workflow stuff (these were students with no game development experience, remember) - skills like building in 3D space, navigating the editor, troubleshooting errors... Stuff that is generally assumed of the paradigmatic game dev student (CompSci background, skilled with computers in general). So maybe the answer is easier, though less professional, tools, which is what I'm looking into for a future level design class. Right now I'm thinking Sauerbraten. [http://www.sauerbraten.org/]

 

[boholikeu]

Ah, DeCal... Good to see it's still going strong despite all the controversy it has had over the years. When I was at Berkeley I always wanted to do a "gaming appreciation" course, but I never got around to putting it together.

Anyway, great idea on your part with taking the game design course outside. It's much easier to focus on game play when you are working abstractly like that (IE without all the shiny graphics and "I wanna make a pirate level!" getting in the way). Though if you decide to return to computer levels next semester, might I suggest forbidding students from adding textures/environmental details to their levels? It seems to me that doing so might encourage more students to make a level that's fun to play rather than one that just "looks cool".

 

[wordsmythe]

Games are NOT older than novels. They are older than film in the non-computer sense. If you allow a regression from your subject of computer gaming to just gaming, then you have to regress on film and novels too. In that case, novels are the oldest, because their ancient form, the verbal saga, is far older. I'm talking thousands of years older, here.

I think that's a remnant from a larger point (but kind of irrelevant to this article) that I wanted to make which is core to my personal game development philosophy - how people always shoehorn video games into some progression of narrative / depiction of reality (e.g. epic verse > novel > film > video games!) but really games are on a separate track, in my mind, a progression of abstraction (e.g. hunting and gathering > Tag > Basketball > Monopoly > video games!)

From my own limited knowledge about the history of narrative, I'd argue the verbal saga was almost more of a performance (with the bard improvising, changing stuff around for the audience) than a written text. I'm kind of taking a page from Johan Huizinga's "Homo Ludens" with my perspective - though I think he goes a little far in saying it's older than culture, and I'd rather make a distinction between simply "play" and a "game," and now I feel I'm rambling so I'll stop now.

I don't think you're wrong, Robert. Play (though not necessarily with a rule set that would form a distinguishable "game") was likely part of our lives before we split off from the other apes, as most social mammals partake in various forms of play. I'd imagine the first rule-sets were derived from basic codes of ethics, whether or not they were explicitly described in words.

The novel may be part of a storytelling tradition that goes back nearly as far as spoken language, but each step in that journey (from oral to written verse, from epic to personal, from poetry to prose) was considerably more revolutionary and controversial than the move from games to video games.

 

[TheDoctor455]

Interesting article.
Wish UCR was doing something like this...

 

[jsnfloyd]

This article was great in many ways. Very interesting and quite poignant. However, there was one point I have to disagree with strongly.

Games are NOT older than novels. They are older than film in the non-computer sense. If you allow a regression from your subject of computer gaming to just gaming, then you have to regress on film and novels too. In that case, novels are the oldest, because their ancient form, the verbal saga, is far older. I'm talking thousands of years older, here.

It just seemed unfair to regress one medium and not the others, wording it in that way. But I liked the enthusiasm.

You really think early man weren't playing games before they were well versed?

I'd like to imagine that they challenged one another to who could bring home the most kill or some other feat or contest.

 

[Silva]

This article was great in many ways. Very interesting and quite poignant. However, there was one point I have to disagree with strongly.

Games are NOT older than novels. They are older than film in the non-computer sense. If you allow a regression from your subject of computer gaming to just gaming, then you have to regress on film and novels too. In that case, novels are the oldest, because their ancient form, the verbal saga, is far older. I'm talking thousands of years older, here.

It just seemed unfair to regress one medium and not the others, wording it in that way. But I liked the enthusiasm.

You really think early man weren't playing games before they were well versed?

I'd like to imagine that they challenged one another to who could bring home the most kill or some other feat or contest.

I said a verbal saga. Verbal.

Your "games" include a story in them by involving telling the others about their contrasting "score" or achievement to measure against. A saga or story, as a way of communicating the rules of your game, is a part of what makes a game what it is.

"I killed a wild deer today and brought it home, I bet you didn't kill more" is still a story, just not a very elegant one.

 

[jsnfloyd]

This article was great in many ways. Very interesting and quite poignant. However, there was one point I have to disagree with strongly.

Games are NOT older than novels. They are older than film in the non-computer sense. If you allow a regression from your subject of computer gaming to just gaming, then you have to regress on film and novels too. In that case, novels are the oldest, because their ancient form, the verbal saga, is far older. I'm talking thousands of years older, here.

It just seemed unfair to regress one medium and not the others, wording it in that way. But I liked the enthusiasm.

You really think early man weren't playing games before they were well versed?

I'd like to imagine that they challenged one another to who could bring home the most kill or some other feat or contest.

I said a verbal saga. Verbal.

Your "games" include a story in them by involving telling the others about their contrasting "score" or achievement to measure against. A saga or story, as a way of communicating the rules of your game, is a part of what makes a game what it is.

"I killed a wild deer today and brought it home, I bet you didn't kill more" is still a story, just not a very elegant one.

I think a child plays before it speaks. This argument, while interesting in a what came first sort of way, is entirely fruitless. I certainly don't think the author meant any dis-respect to any media outside of games.

As for the article itself. I found it to be a very enjoyable read. That's a class I would love to take, but it's too bad I live on the East Coast. I like that the class is about problem-solving for the sake of fun.