Session Information
| Title | Hermit Crab Game Design |
| Presenter(s) | Jake Elliott, Cardboard Computer |
| Time | Thursday, October 21, 3:00p-4:00p |
| Location | Parlor A |
| Format | Workshop |
| Description | The hermit crab is a crustacean species that protects itself by salvaging the discarded shells of other similarly-sized sea creatures and reappropriating these shells as its own shelter (and armor). In this workshop, we will explore and experiment with a set of game design practices that reappropriate online social environments into game designs. We will look at examples from emergent children's play, interactive video stories on YouTube, forum games and other practices. Then we will begin to work with a few software tools that enable the detournement and/or reframing of web-based social software into our own situated online games.
This workshop is intended for participants who are: game designers and artists interested in experimental approaches, game design instructors interested in classroom activities to spark student work, or simply participants interested in exploring the ways in which users of social software platforms construct systems of play in those contexts. Workshop participants can expect to obtain a practical understanding of the core technologies that power interactive YouTube stories and forum games. We will also cover technical strategies for using web applications such as Twitter "against the grain" by integrating their public APIs into our own games. Finally, we will compile a small stable of freely-available tools with which to connect these different components into a coherent and playable game. |