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SP2015 THP 3120 Gameplay and Performance Syllabus
SP2015 THP 3120 Gameplay and Performance Syllabus
david.bassuk@purchase.edu
Office: Dance RM 1031 (914)-251-6837 or (203)-312-3394 cell/text
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
Examines and investigates narrative structures, role-play and identity in game design and
how this relates to other storytelling platforms such as film and theater. Examines how blur
ring common distinctions between game and life opens new critical possibilities for perfor
mance.
Explores the genre of alternate reality or pervasive gaming, in which gameplay extends be
yond typical digital spaces to any area of the audiences life, often employing dispersed u
nconventional real world media, such as websites, emails, instant messaging, text messa
ges, phone calls, online videos, and even direct human interactions.
Engages students by designing and staging their own live alternate reality game as a mea
ns of storytelling or extending through transmedia an existing narrative or performance.
COURSE FORMAT:
The course is designed to be a group project course in which the students collaborate to
build and stage a new pervasive performance games. Weekly studio sessions are
designed to prepare the students for accomplishing this goal and to provide critique and
guidance throughout the process. The professor will guide this process, provide critical
feedback, and help the students solve difficult design problems; however, the students
will be responsible for the majority of project work.
SLIDESHOWS:
Students will be required to create project responses and papers in a slideshow format
using software that will make this possible. Microsoft powerpoint and Apples keynote
are both usable for this purpose.
EVALUATION OF W ORK:
Evaluation of student work will be primarily qualitative but numeric grades will also
be awarded. Grading will adhere to the following framework:
40% Student performance and participation: Group Creation and Participation
10% 1st Round Group Assignment: Class generated Alternate Reality Game
20% 2nd Round Group Assignment: Create a Pervasive Game
20% 3rd Round Group Assignment: Create a game after the inspiration of game
designers: Tasso Stevens or Jane McGonical
20% Group Research Project: PowerPoints on various game companies and
designers
20% Create the imagined history of a Gameplay and Performance
20%Emergence vs. Entropy paper* assignment (Final)
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You must actively use your Purchase email account and the Moodle instructional
software on the purchase website to be successful in being aware and completing all
assignments in this course. No papers will be accepted by hand everything you hand in
must be uploaded to moodle. (More on Purchase email and Moodle at the end this syllabus
on page 12)
CLASSROOM EXPECTATIONS
Please be on time, listen actively, and participate in class discussion and activities.
Please turn off cell phones, beepers, etc. at the start of class. If you need such
devices for personal obligations, please inform the instructor in advance and put
these items on vibrate.
Please return promptly from breaks.
Laptops may be used in class for note taking only. You may not email, IM,
etc. Failure to comply with this rule will result in not being allowed to use a
laptop.
It is inappropriate to carry on conversations or pass notes during class, as these
are disruptive to the class and rude to other students and the instructor.
Arrive on time. If you do arrive late, enter at the rear door, sit near the back;
please do not interrupt the class by walking across the room. Repeated late
arrivals will be counted as absences, and will lower the grade.
Clean up the area around your seat every tim e you leave class do not leave
your mess for someone else!
Water is allowed but no food eating or gum in the classroom
When students leave and return again during class, it is disruptive to the class and
to the instructor. Please use the restroom before class or, when possible, wait
until class is over.
COURSE REQUIREM ENTS
Attendance Policy / Participation
Given the courses group project format, attendance at weekly class sessions is
mandatory. More than one unexcused class session absence will lower the final grade
by one complete unit (i.e., an A will become an B, an A- will become a B-). With each
additional unexcused absence, the grade will drop an additional unit. Three absences fails
the course. Each latenesses and early departures count as half attendance.
If you miss class, it is your responsibility to find out what you missed from
classmates and submit assignments on time.
For additional absences beyond the first, points may be deducted; grade is
dropped a letter grade for each absence.
3 absences equals failing the course (this includes the one allowed excused
absence)
- W EEK
WEDNESDAY (02/04): Games as politics, games as art lecture and readings discussion:
McLuhan, Debord / Situationist International.Pervasive gaming as art lecture and readings
discussion: McGonigal. Game research presentation desk critiques and work session.
Read Pervasive Games Theory Pt 1 and Pervasive Games Theory pt 2
For Next Week
the game must challenge the players accepted perceptions and attitudes towards
commonly accepted social dynamics and communications technologies;
Create in the form of a PowerPoint: Using inspirations from multiple examples given in
the Class Forum Powerpoints write an imagined history of four projects for an
imagined company under your artistic direction. Describe in detail the four projects
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that were launched by your company over the past ten years. (Use inspiration from
diverse examples in the Forum Powerpoints!)
Explain the four projects in mission, game design, execution, and player responses.
At least two of your projects should be created in service of a furthering a social goal
or extending an organizations presence in a city or town.
At least one project should involve the extension of an art form into a gameplay
experience.
And lastly at least one game should create for one player at a time.
*Detailed Assignment Research information RE: Group Research Project: Powerpoints on various
game companies and designers
Topic: Interactive Arts: Theatre/Improv comedy
Explore the ways in which performance/theatre/improv companies are expanding their
relationships with their audiences through gameplay
http://www.chromascope.dk/
http://www.tii.se/zerogame/commedia/index.htm
http://gametophyte.org/
http://jejuneinstitute.org/index.htm
http://about.nonchalance.com/
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/wire-news/uks-royal-opera-house-launches-iphonegame_615423.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8241005.stm
-------------------------------Topic: Agency of Coney/Tasso Stevens
Explore the ways in which Coney and Tasso Stevens have explored the boundaries of
performance through expanding their relationships with their audiences through gameplay
See Vimeo and YouTube for video under topic Coney or Tasso Stevens
http://www.youhavefoundconey.net/
http://youhavefoundconey.net/vaults/mrgrandisonpresents
http://www.nomimes.com/index.html
http://www.iamtheeconomy.com/
http://www.ericzimmerman.com/
-------------------------------Topic: Big Urban Games
Explore the ways in which Pervasive game companies and pervasive game festivals are creating
a new art form of through gameplay
http://slingshoteffect.co.uk/
http://www.hideandseek.net/
http://www.comeoutandplay.org/
http://urbancodemakers.net/blog/
http://lookspring.co.uk/
http://invisibleplayground.com/%23call-for-street-games/
http://www.hideandseek.net/in-the-media/
-------------------------------Topic: Interactive Arts: New Fiction and or Hypertext
Explore the ways in which writers and storytellers are expanding their relationships with their
audiences through gameplay
http://www.storycenter.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metafiction
http://www.remixfiction.com/
http://2010.argfestocon.com/
http://www.abc.net.au/innovation/bluebird/
-------------------------------Topic: Live Action Role Play (Larp)
Explore the ways in which Larpers and ARG designers are building relationships and audiences
through gameplay
http://www.unfiction.com/
http://open.crngames.com/src/donjon.html
http://isthisarg.org/
http://nordiclarp.wordpress.com/about-the-book/
http://netninja.com/2010/06/06/arg-tools-for-iphone/
http://larpwright.efatland.com/
-------------------------------Topic: Blast Theory
Explore the ways in which the company Blast Theory has explored the boundaries of
performance through expanding their relationships with their audiences through gameplay
http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/bt/index.php
See Vimeo and YouTube for video under topic Blast Theory or Matt Adams
-------------------------------Topic: Jesse Schell/Gamification of Daily Life
Explore the ways in which the company Jesse Schell has suggested new boundaries of gameplay
now included in daily life.
http://videos.liftconference.com/video/1191988/steffen-p-walz-the-lowdown-on
http://www.insidesocialgames.com/
http://www.insidefacebook.com/
http://www.futurelab.net/blogs/marketing-strategyinnovation/2010/10/inherent_value_running_your_bu.html
http://videos.liftconference.com/video/1191988/steffen-p-walz-the-lowdown-on
-------------------------------Topic: Interactive Arts: Visual Art
Explore the ways in which visual and media artists and storytellers are expanding their
relationships with their audiences through gameplay
http://www.arthistoryofgames.com/
http://tale-of-tales.com/
http://thatgamecompany.com/
http://entropy8zuper.org/godlove/
http://synchronousobjects.osu.edu/content.html
http://www.gamescenes.org/2010/08/book-artists-re-thinking-games.html
http://gmzzz.wordpress.com/tag/jenova-chen/
http://liftconference.com/lift11/program/talk/david-calvo-beyond-transmedia
-------------------------------Topic: Jane McGonical and Games for Change
Explore the ways in which Game designers are building relationships and audiences through
redesigning social change
http://janemcgonigal.com/
http://gamesforchange.org/
http://www.q2l.org/
http://blog.urgentevoke.net/2010/07/26/what-went-right-what-went-wrong-lessons-fromseason-1-evoke1/
http://www.instituteofplay.org/context/additional-resources/
http://www.instituteofplay.org/work/
-------------------------------Topic: Augmented Reality Games
Explore the ways in which travelers and nature adventurers are building relationships and
community through gameplay
http://www.geocaching.com/
http://www.interactiveplaces.co.uk/location-specific-apps/what-we-do
http://www.geocaching.com/iphone/default.aspx
http://www.geocaching.com/
http://www.interactiveplaces.co.uk/location-specific-apps/what-we-do
http://www.tourality.com/
-------------------------------The Beast & The Big Spaceship
Explore the ways in which game and transmedia consultants are building new ways to build and
extend audiences for motion pictures and television projects through gameplay
Search online for web and game marketing approaches by J.J.Abrams
http://shenerd.wordpress.com/
http://www.giganticmechanic.com/
http://www.bigspaceship.com/who-we-are/
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Jeffrey Kim, Elan Lee, Timothy Thomas, and Caroline Dombrowski, "Storytelling in new
media: The case of alternate reality games, 20012009" First Monday [Online], Volume
14 Number 6 (17 May 2009).
The Economist, Serious fun (05 March 2009).
Marshall McLuhan, Games: the Extensions of Man, Understanding Media (New York:
McGraw-Hill,
Guy Debord, Contribution to a Situationist Definition of Play, Internationale
Situationniste #1 (June
Wikipedia article on Situationist International.
Jane McGonigal, "This Is Not a Game: Immersive Aesthetics & Collective Play," Digital
Arts & Culture 2003 Conference Proceedings (May 2003).
Jane McGonigal, Disruptive Play: The Pervasive Games, This Might Be a Game:
Ubiquitous Play and Performance at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century (UC Berkeley,
unpublished dissertation).
Watch Jane McGonigal, Saving the World through Game Design, New Yorker
Conference Video (May 28,2008).
SUNY GENERAL EDUCATION LEARNING OUTCOM ES
Course fulfills SUNY learning outcome in The Arts:
Students will demonstrate an understanding of at least one principal form of
artistic expression and the creative process inherent therein.
LIBERAL STUDIES OUTCOM ES
This course meets the following outcomes for the Liberal Studies Degree Completion
Program:
The ability to articulate and communicate clearly in written and spoken forms
Research skills including the ability to analyze and synthesize information
Responsibility to others and our community
Respect, tolerance and openness to new ideas and ways of thinking
To think critically, independently and creatively
ARTS: Core knowledge of the field and related concepts, theories and ideas
ARTS: An understanding of historical knowledge and events in the field
COM/MEDIA: Core knowledge of the field and related concepts, theories and
ideas
COM/MEDIA: An understanding of historical knowledge and events in the field
An appreciation of the intersection of media, technology and culture
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she or he must first register with the Office of Special Student Services; please call
914-251-6390 or email accommodations@purchase.edu.
You can find a description of special student services provided by the Counseling
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http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Moodle_Accessibility_Specification
YO UR PURCHASE EM AIL ACCO UNT
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M OO DLE
An on-line course management system called Moodle will be used for assignments,
announcements, and learning resources used in this course.
All students are required to participate in the Moodle assignments; it will be
assumed that all announcements on this site have reached you, so be sure to check
it frequently.
Go to www.purchase.edu/studenttutorial and review the Moodle tutorial, designed
to help you become familiar with how to use Moodle.
To access your course in Moodle, first set up your Purchase email account if you
have not done so already; log in with your Purchase username and password at
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Set up your profile: Profile button from the Administration box on the left side of
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Also in the administration box, you will see a link to the gradebook where you may
check on your grades on the Moodle quizzes and forums.
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