Tandem Transformational Game Design
- 1. TANDEM TRANSFORMATIONAL GAME DESIGN Carnegie Mellon Human Computer Interaction Institute PRESENTED BY ALEXANDRA TO (AATO@CS.CMU.EDU), ELAINE FATH, JESSICA HAMMER, GEOFF KAUFMAN
- 2. TANDEM TRANSFORMATIONAL GAME DESIGN (AKA TANDEM DESIGN)
- 3. GAME-DRIVEN GOAL DELINEATION 1. Iterating on Theory and Related Goals • Iteratively make clear, well-defined goals • Use this iterated theory to make more effective games
- 4. GOAL-DRIVEN GAME DESIGN 2. Anchoring Reflection Using Prototypes • Use game prototypes to ground reflection and discussion of goals • Use prototypes to inform understanding of theory
- 5. ALIGNMENT 3. Aligning the Team’s Shared Mental Model • Give an interdisciplinary team the tools to understand each other’s contributions • Evaluate both game and research artifacts as a group
- 6. THE 7 STEPS OF TANDEM DESIGN • Delineate Goals – define your transformational goals • Literature Review - understand and define your goals, ground them in literature on related theory • Iterate Delineation – repeat goal delineation loop • Align – ensure team is moving towards the same goal • Prototype – create playable prototypes • Playtest – play game prototypes early and often for feedback • Iterate Design – repeat game design loop
- 7. DEMONSTRATING TANDEM DESIGN THROUGH OUTBREAK E AC H S TAG E O F TAN D E M D E S I G N I S F L E X I B L E , T H E F O L L O W I N G AR E S AM P L E AC T I V I T I E S F O R E AC H S TAG E
- 8. OUTBREAK FINAL DESCRIPTION • Collaborative board game • Players explore a mad scientist’s mansion and hunt for the cure to a terrible outbreak • Players are uncertain what is in each room • Find out what is in the room by playing a 20-questions-like mini game • Game Goal: comfort asking questions, comfort with uncertainty
- 9. OUTBREAK VERSION 12 Demonstrated at Meaningful Play 2016
- 11. OUTBREAK EXAMPLES DELINEATING GOALS SAMPLE ACTIVITIES • Set high-level goal of the game • Individually brainstorm sub- goals from the earlier lit review, collect and funnel as a group • After a playtest, re-center goal based on play dynamics • Set “increasing curiosity” goal • Extract from the literature through group playstorming “comfort with questions” • Set additional goal based on play “developing good questions
- 13. OUTBREAK EXAMPLES LITERATURE REVIEW SAMPLE ACTIVITIES • Take the goal, operationalize it through research literature • Take list of sub-goals and play dynamics, read literature on each for a deep-dive • Post-playtest, re-read literature to ensure that the theory implemented is true to what the literature says • One team member reviewed 15 papers on curiosity, team extracted a list of “curiosity” outcomes • Read literature on why question- asking is difficult and how it relates to curiosity • Re-read question literature and compare to play dynamics from playtest field notes
- 14. SAMPLE LOW-FI “RESEARCH ARTIFACT” FROM OUTBREAK, A LIST OF THEORIES AND OUTCOMES Theories Curiosity Outcomes Magic Circle Emotion Contagion Positive Valence/High Arousal Modeling Pluralistic Ignorance Collective/Social Identity Psychological Distancing Value/Role Consistency Imagining future and past selves Self-affirmation Compartmentalization of identity Growth Mindset Benevolent Masochism Misattribution of Arousal Increased tolerance for uncertainty Curiosity Contagion Failure is not a threat Search for unanswered questions Questions are normal
- 16. ITERATE OR ALIGN? SAMPLE QUESTIONS TO ASK • Do I know enough (bare minimum) to start making a playable prototype? • Do I need to understand the theory I’m trying to use more deeply? • Have I spent too much time on theory? Note: you should never spend too much time in a single loop
- 17. ALIGNMENT
- 18. OUTBREAK EXAMPLES ALIGNMENT SAMPLE ACTIVITIES • A group brainstorm of one- sentence game ideas based on reviewed literature • A team playtest of one member’s game prototype • A discussion of one specific theory and its relation to multiple prototypes • Six team members brainstormed 65 ideas, clustered into 15 high- level concepts • Outbreak prototype 1 designed by 2 team members, all 6 play the prototype to better eval. it • Discuss how growth mindset plays out in multiple prototypes
- 19. OUTBREAK EXAMPLE GAME IDEAS FROM ALIGNMENT #1 “A high-stress, escape the room game where you ask questions to find clues to escape while the board shrinks” “A deck-building game using positive self-affirmation and identity cards” “A role-playing spaceship game where you must complete your mission and fix the spaceship before it launches” Role-Playing Question-Asking Games About EmotionCaretaking Games
- 20. PROTOTYPING
- 21. OUTBREAK EXAMPLES PROTOTYPING SAMPLE ACTIVITIES • Script one single round of game play • Diverge and create two versions of the same game with one changed mechanic • Make a fully playable game in low-fi materials • Draft a rule list • Wrote a script of each question a sample player would ask and how other players would respond • Changed one mechanic to make question-asking round either timed or not timed • Draft a rule list that can be fully read and game playable for non- team members
- 22. PROTOTYPING Outbreak Version 5 Outbreak Version 8
- 23. PLAYTESTING
- 24. OUTBREAK EXAMPLES PLAYTESTING SAMPLE ACTIVITIES • Playtest just one mechanic or one round of game play with the internal team • Playtest the full game in the field with your target audience • Handoff the game to a group of colleagues to see how they play without facilitation • Team members try out a choose-your-own adventure mechanic, find that content generation is overwhelming • Field playtests at local afterschool programs with adolescent students • Handoff to a group of colleagues with instructions, observe and record playtest notes
- 26. TANDEM TRANSFORMATIONAL GAME DESIGN • Iterating on Theory • Questioning assumptions about our goals • Discovered a diverse set of sub-goals relevant to curiosity • Anchoring Reflection Using Prototypes • Articulated a relationship between curiosity and uncertainty • Kept multiple stakeholders on the same page • Alignment • Give an interdisciplinary team the tools to understand each other’s contributions • Evaluate both game and research artifacts as a group
- 27. TANDEM TRANSFORMATIONAL GAME DESIGN (AKA TANDEM DESIGN)
- 28. ABOUT THE PRESENTERS We are a research team at Carnegie Mellon University in the Human Computer Interaction Institute currently designing and studying game-based interventions. Alexandra To CMU HCII PhD Student Elaine Fath Schell Games Game Designer Jessica Hammer CMU HCII, ETC Faculty Geoff Kaufman CMU HCII Faculty
- 29. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks to the SCIPR (Sensing Curiosity in Play and Responding) project and co-PIs Justine Cassell, Jessica Hammer, and L.P. Morency, generously funded by the Heinz Family Foundation. We also thank Eda Zhang, Anny Fan, and Catherine Kildunne for their support in playtesting and designing Outbreak. To., A., Fath, E., Zhang, E., Ali, S., Kildunne, C., Fan, A., Hammer, J., Kaufman, G. (2016) “Tandem Transformational Game Design: A Game Design Process Case Study”, 2016 Meaningful Play. Carnegie Mellon Human Computer Interaction Institute tinyurl.com/tandemdesign alexandrato.com
- 30. TANDEM TRANSFORMATIONAL GAME DESIGN Carnegie Mellon Human Computer Interaction Institute PRESENTED BY ALEXANDRA TO (AATO@CS.CMU.EDU), ELAINE FATH, JESSICA HAMMER, GEOFF KAUFMAN
Editor's Notes
- #2: I’m a PhD student in the Human Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University Today I’m going to talk about…
- #3: Tandem Transformational Game Design a design process that consists of two cyclical sub-processes - game-driven goal delineation and goal-driven game design
- #4: given these 3 main tenets of transformational game design, i want to talk about two of the main ideas in tandem design iterating on theory and related goals anchoring reflection using prototypes I WANT TO BE CLEAR THAT… -the ideas in our process are not new, -these ideas already exist in game design practices and in academic research on design -but we are presenting a method for doing this in practice
- #5: given these 3 main tenets of transformational game design, i want to talk about two of the main ideas in tandem design iterating on theory and related goals anchoring reflection using prototypes I WANT TO BE CLEAR THAT… -the ideas in our process are not new, -these ideas already exist in game design practices and in academic research on design -but we are presenting a method for doing this in practice
- #8: We used Tandem Design to define our goals, align our team, and create rapid physical prototypes non-digital, increase curiosity Speaking about the SCIPR project in detail is beyond the scope of this talk, it is the case study for this design process, but i’m happy to chat with anyone afterwards about this ongoing project
- #9: Outbreak is a board game in which players explore an isolated research base They’re hunting for the cure to a terrible plague But players are uncertain what is in each room of the base and whether it can hurt them or help them They can find out by playing a 20-questions like mini-game, which we’re not going to talk about today Today, we’re going to focus on making rooms that provoke player curiosity, that make players want to ask questions
- #11: The very first step for anyone using tandem design is to delineate goals
- #12: in this first step, you may come in with a really sharp, clearly defined goal, and that’s great it’s also possible to start much broader and more vague, you will keep refining and getting clearer through tandem design’s scaffolding for SCIPR, we knew we wanted to increase curiosity, and we knew our target population was for middle school students
- #13: The very first step for anyone using tandem design is to delineate goals
- #14: in this first step, you may come in with a really sharp, clearly defined goal, and that’s great it’s also possible to start much broader and more vague, you will keep refining and getting clearer through tandem design’s scaffolding for SCIPR, we knew we wanted to increase curiosity, and we knew our target population was for middle school students
- #15: Here is an artifact that came from our first round of literature review What you’re seeing is some of our notes from a meeting in which we identified related psychological theories. This is part of a larger list, this is what we found most interesting and wanted to pursue further We went for volume first and did a little filtering and clustering and came up with this list. The transcription is on the right. So it turned out there was a lot of richness here in our first pass Curiosity turns out to be quite complicated
- #16: The very first step for anyone using tandem design is to delineate goals
- #17: in this first step, you may come in with a really sharp, clearly defined goal, and that’s great it’s also possible to start much broader and more vague, you will keep refining and getting clearer through tandem design’s scaffolding for SCIPR, we knew we wanted to increase curiosity, and we knew our target population was for middle school students
- #18: The very first step for anyone using tandem design is to delineate goals
- #19: in this first step, you may come in with a really sharp, clearly defined goal, and that’s great it’s also possible to start much broader and more vague, you will keep refining and getting clearer through tandem design’s scaffolding for SCIPR, we knew we wanted to increase curiosity, and we knew our target population was for middle school students
- #20: Here are just a few of those 65 1-sentence game ideas
- #21: The very first step for anyone using tandem design is to delineate goals
- #22: in this first step, you may come in with a really sharp, clearly defined goal, and that’s great it’s also possible to start much broader and more vague, you will keep refining and getting clearer through tandem design’s scaffolding for SCIPR, we knew we wanted to increase curiosity, and we knew our target population was for middle school students
- #23: We made 5 prototypes, today we’re only going to talk about one of them —————— Today I want to focus on one game, Outbreak
- #24: The very first step for anyone using tandem design is to delineate goals
- #25: in this first step, you may come in with a really sharp, clearly defined goal, and that’s great it’s also possible to start much broader and more vague, you will keep refining and getting clearer through tandem design’s scaffolding for SCIPR, we knew we wanted to increase curiosity, and we knew our target population was for middle school students
- #26: The very first step for anyone using tandem design is to delineate goals
- #27: Just to reiterate here are two of the main ideas from Tandem Design, and some of the benefits tandem design had for OUR process we questioned assumptions and uncovered rich information about our goals and we kept out team aligned and produced research in addition to game prototypes
- #28: Tandem Transformational Game Design a design process that consists of two cyclical sub-processes - game-driven goal delineation and goal-driven game design
- #31: I’m a PhD student in the Human Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University Today I’m going to talk about…