Looks like a great event coming up in NYC on March 10th: Cross Media NYC. It includes a great bunch of speakers (including Jeff Gomez). Here is the description:
Our goal is to bridge the gap between the different media sectors in order share information and find new opportunities. We want the gaming people to meet the TV people, the publishing people to meet the web video people, and everyone to meet the advertising people but let’s be honest, in the end, it’s all about the money.
The media industry has grown up with regulation and significant barriers to entry. The internet has eliminated many of those barriers by giving the general public tools to create their own content and, as a result, radically changing media business models. Now what?
This is not your ordinary listen-to-talking-heads gabfest. We will have one jam packed panel with 5 executives from key sectors that will act as the bridge between 4 technology demos and 2 cross media case studies. The event will move quickly – New York style – with company introductions from the floor allowing everyone to know who is there and what they do. We want something big to come out of this.
The event will focus on:
1. Demonstrations of new cross media technologies.
2. Case studies of successful cross media projects.
3. Networking opportunities between industry sectors.
4. Emerging cross media business models.
5. Discussions about how large media companies are melting the silos internally.
Key questions:
1. What do executives in the media business need to know in order profit from the “melting silos�
2. What opportunities are there to work with other sectors?
3. Who has done this successfully in the past?
Key industry sectors appearing at the event:
* Video (Web video, TV, Film, DVD)
* Internet (Websites, Podcasts, Social Media, Marketing, Music, Email)
* Gaming (Social Gaming, Console)
* Publishing (Magazine, Books)
* Mobile (Apps)
* Advertising
* Merchandise
A few years ago I started developing a card game to teach transmedia design skills. I had to put it aside because of work and study commitments, but now I’m keen to develop it again. As part of my research into this I looked at a few design card games and so I’d share them here. I’m sure I’ve come across others, but I didn’t buy or download them and can’t find my list anywhere. So please tell me of others you find. In the meantime, check out these great card design games:
Grow a Game is developed by Values at Play, which is a research project concerned with assisting and encouraging “designers to be mindful of what values their computer games promote. We would like to see a diversification of video game values to include positive principles like equity, creativity, diversity, and negotiation, along with the traditional tropes of violence and machismo”
The game involves coming up with a game from cards with Verbs, Challenges, Games and Values. The video on the site shows Mary Flanagan running a workshop and it seems to do the job of making values part of the design process extremely well. I really like the idea of including values in a game (or even, going further, including all elements that influence the design of a transmedia fiction — say, copyright and exclusive commercial agreements could be elements that constrain the design. But this depends on what the goal of the transmedia design game is: to teach how the various influences on design affect the outcome of a transmedia fiction, or whether it is about educating about the different design elements one needs to know when designing a transmedia fiction, and so on).
The IDEO Method Cards have a slightly different goal to Grow a Game:
IDEO Method Cards is a collection of 51 cards representing diverse ways that design teams can understand the people they are designing for. They are used to make a number of different methods accessible to all members of a design team, to explain how and when the methods are best used, and to demonstrate how they have been applied to real design projects.
The deck really is beautiful, and is split into four categories: Learn, Look, Ask and Try. Under each of these categories are cards that provide methods to design with people in mind. For instance, under ‘Learn’ you analyse information you’ve collected to identify patterns and insights using (for instance) ‘Affinity Diagrams’. Under ‘Look’, you observe people to discover what they do rather than what they say they do, using (for instance) ‘Rapid Ethnography’. Under ‘Ask’ you enlist people’s participation to elicit information using (for instance) an ‘Unfocus Group’. Under ‘Try’ you create simulations to help empathize and evaluate proposed designs, using (for instance) ‘Paper Prototyping’. Here, the game is more about method, which can be the focus of a transmedia fiction design game too.
The Once Upon a Time game is actually a storytelling game, but can be used for instruction. They explain that the game can be used “to exercise essential skills in reading, decision making, cooperative play, and creativity”. But beyond these functions, the game offers a set of story elements that make up the design of a story (which can be used then in designing transmedia fictions). There are three cards in this set: ‘Once Upon a Time’ cards (which are sub-divided into Characters, Items, Places, Aspects, and Events), ‘Happy Ever After’ cards (which are endings), and ‘Interrupt’ cards (which you use to interrupt another person’s story). This game has some elements (specifically the story elements) and mechanics that could translate well to a transmedia fiction design game.
Ari Jarvinen created this game to “teach analytical thinking through theory”.
In GameGame, players compete in designing games. Players collect and trade cards in order to create a complete game design. In between, one player gets to play a game publisher, while the other players try to sell their game concepts to her. In the end, the best game design is decided in a vote. Let the best game win!
Now in this game there are both design elements and those ‘meta’ elements that influence design. There are BLAH card categories. The ‘Component’ cards describe what players manipulate in the game (for instance, a chess piece). The ‘End and Victory Condition’ card describes how the game can be won (for instance, ‘Bingo!’). The ‘Theme’ card describes the thematic level of the game (for instance, real estate trade in Monopoly). The ‘Goal’ card describes what effort is being put towards, the directive (for instance, save the Princess). The ‘Environment’ card describes the actual environment of the game (for instance, a chess board or football pitch). The ‘Interface’ card describes the interface tool a player uses (for instance, a joystick or tennis racket). The ‘Game Mechanic’ card describes what players do (for instance, trading). The ‘Assets’ cards are pretty clever and fun. They describe things that you are able to achieve as a designer (for instance, work game journalists into a frenzy about your game or headhunt a top designer to work on your team). I find this design set has a lot of parallels with what I initially looking to do with the transmedia design game (especially when you consider the inclusion of an ‘interface’ — which in my transmedia design game involves combinations of interfaces such as a keyboard and flicking pages in a book).
Do you know of other card games or any other type of design game that you like?
Last year, Andrea Phillips and Jay Bushman of Alchemy Storytelling started an online website called My Super First Day. The idea is anyone can contribute to the fiction: “Think up a superpower and write the story of your first day with it. Did you use your powers for good or evil? Were they helpful or worthless? Did it change your life?” You can see the contributions people have already put forward at the website. Now, they’ve opened up submissions for again and so I thought I’d jump in with a short story too. Here it is:
The First Day was Super
Oh how I remember that (real) first day I discovered my superpower. I say ‘real’ because, well, I experience every day as if it is the first day I discover my superpower. That is the down side — the catch — to my superpower. I’m well aware of this now though, and so I leave a note for myself, explaining how I’ve discovered this before. I detail how I shouldn’t call my parents, friends, workmates, no one. They are so sick of me ringing them. They’re happy for me and proud of the good I do with my power, but getting breathless phone calls and frantic visits from me every morning was too much.
I’ve tried many ways to break the news to myself. It is all about timing and easing myself into the truth. Early on I tried leaving a note on my bedside table, an audio message on my alarm, and even a poster on my roof. But that just ruined it for me. I would only have a few seconds of yelling ‘woohoo!’ before I felt like a fool. There is nothing worse than realising you’ve suddenly got a power that can help solve problems for people, solve crime, only to find the solution has already been discovered, by you. For a long time I spent each day depressed, jealous of the morning I first discovered it, and sometimes even resentful of having this superpower with such a stupid catch. But I eventually left a note on my bedroom door. That works, but I have to make sure there are no communication devices in the room, and that I gently explain the situation to myself.
It took many drafts to get that note right. It had to be short enough to ensure I would read it immediately and not throw the envelope to the ground in my race to get out the door. I also wanted to take the time to congratulate myself, and share in my jubilation for a few moments more. As you can see, I’m more at home with the downside of my superpower. But it took many sessions at Superpowers Anonymous to come to terms with it. What good is having super photographic memory when every night you forget you have it? Yes, my fellow superheroes have had many laughs at my expense. You can imagine the names I get, and the jokes.
But hey, I appreciate you giving people with superpowers the chance to share our stories. Writing the experience of my first day has helped me. I didn’t have the confidence to submit my story in the first round because I wasn’t sure how people would respond. But I can laugh about it now. So give me your best taunts if you like. It would be good to hear a new one. Oh, and if by chance you receive multiple submissions from me about my first day, please break the news to me gently.
Looks like a great event coming up in NYC on March 10th: Cross Media NYC. It includes a great bunch of speakers (including Jeff Gomez). Here is the description:
