Game Title: The Universe Unfolded

The Initial Inspirations

The game I was mainly inspired by is the Table Top Roleplaying RPG “Dialect: A Game About Language and How it Dies”. Although the book for how to play it is fairly thick, the game boils down to a series of prompts to get players to craft a story and a community together.

From Sharp’s “Works of Game”, I have learnt the importance of noticing ludic affordance offered by the medium and the mechanics of the game. The game very tactfully makes use of the idea of languages as a way to prompt people into crafting their story and community. While narratives are not necessarily crafted by words, the idea of conveying intent and generating meaning is fundamental to languages, and which is what Dialect takes advantage of to allow players to craft interesting narrative that they otherwise wouldn’t have.

Is Dialect merely a game about crafting stories? Or does the mechanics of the game lend itself to deeper concepts that prod players into seeing the world in a new way? In “Works of Game”, one point of view discussed was that the a game’s mechanics are not just about what the player does, but also what it means. Unlike any other mediums, games are interactive. How designers design experiences when games are inherently unpredictable? How could designers make the game mechanics mean something when players could do so many things, and come from all walks of life? For instance, in the experimental game “The Marriage”, until it was given a title at a later time (because people were confused about what it meant), the game mechanics had little meaning. But once the title was given, the game mechanics revealed a deeper concept via a simple system.

But in Dialect, this is not a dilemma, but is exactly what powers the game. Dialect embraces the idea that players can come from all walks of life and can assign whatever meaning they want. While the main mechanic of Dialect is to create new words and to tell stories based on them, the consequence of the mechanic is that players are given a platform and a guide in which they can practice expressing themselves in ways they wouldn’t have thought of. This is a view point shared by Jonathan Blow. In “Works of Game”, it is said that he did not spend most of his energy arguing whether games are art, but rather, allow his games to be a platform in which players experience the mechanics of the game first-hand, and figure out for themselves the consequences of the mechanics.

I wanted a game that also took advantage of the power of languages to keep players a platform and a guide as to how they can express themselves in new and interesting ways. I started by removing everything about Dialect except that bit, and replaced the idea of generating new words with folding pieces of paper.

The main reason for paper folding is that I personally enjoy folding paper, and I find that similar to languages, paper has a lot of ludic affordances and is fundamental to communities and civilisations. It is a resource that most people have on hand, yet so versatile. Although it is thin and flat, there is still so much you can do with it.

Original Version

The original version of the game was run with pieces of paper from my lined notebook, as well as the following prompts:

Setup

1. Have a pile of pieces of paper on the side which players can use to fold. The more pieces of paper in the pile, the longer the game will last, and the more content the stories will have.

The Beginning

1. Each player should fold a piece of paper into something, and bring it to the center.

2. As a group, the players must come up with a story as to how their community begins, and how the 5 folded things play a role.

The Change

1. Players can continue the game by either taking a new piece of paper and folding it into a new thing, or they can re-fold an existing folded thing.

2. If a new addition, come up with a story on the new addition. If re-folding, come up with a story on how and why it was changed, and the consequences it has on the communit.

Termination

When players feel like the ending the game, or when the stories feel like they are leading to their conclusion, it is time for the stories on how the game ends.

1. Each folded thing must be folded into something new, or torn into pieces. For each thing, explain why and how the folded thing changed, or why it was torn into pieces, and the consequences it has on the community.

Final Version

The game was play-tested again with index cards and then construction cards, as well as the following new prompts.

The Setup

Have a pile of pieces of paper on the side which players can use to fold. The more pieces of paper in the pile, the longer the game will last, and the more content the stories will have.

The Beginning

As players of this game, you all will tell the story of a community in a world shared between you all. The nature of this world is up for you to decide. Is it on an alient planet? An ancient civilisation? A coffee shop in the city?

Every community has a beginning. Tell the story of the beginning of your community by folding a piece of paper into something. Once done, place it at the center and wait for the rest to finish.

When everyone is finished, each person shall explain how their folded piece relates to the beginning of your community. Every player should link their story to the existing ones.

Etiquette: Each speaks on behalf of everyone. Say “we”.

The Change

Every community changes over time. Each player shall either fold a new piece of paper if there are any left, or re-fold an existing one.

If a player folds a new piece of paper, they must explain what the new addition means to the community.

If a player re-folds an existing one, they must explain what the folded piece was before, what the new folded piece is, and what does the change signify.

Players can repeat this phase of the game as many times as they like, but eventually, all communities reach The End.

The End

All communities eventually end, but the world will live on.

Each player should take an existing folded piece, and either fold it into something entirely new, or tear it into pieces.

If a player decides to re-fold a piece, they must explain what the folded piece was before, what the new folded piece is, and what does the change signify.

If a player decides to tear a piece, they must explain what the folded piece was before, and what the tearing signifies.

Conclusion

In the three times that the game was ran, every story that was crafted was different. However, people who played the game multiple times tend to fold the same things. For example, one person folded a boat twice.

While I think construction paper feels the best for folding, I also find that every paper type had its own pros and cons:

• The lined paper from my notebook was used the most creatively by the players. Players did all sorts of things with it, including tearing it into pieces, poking holes to put a stick in them.
• The index card paper was used to create sci-fi folded pieces, and structures that could stand.
• The construction paper had the most personality, because of the colours, but I felt reservations from the players to fold whatever they wanted. Granted, the playtest with the construction paper had a crowd watching, which may have influenced how people would have normally behaved.

It is evident that different paper qualities have different ludic affordances, and hence different outcomes. I hypothesize that for games with more players with less folding experience, there should be more lined paper, so that players don’t feel that they are messing with something precious. However, for players with more folding experience, construction paper would be good as it gives them the best flexibility in what they could fold.

As for whether the game achieved its goal of being a medium for players to come together to craft stories and meaningful experiences together, I think it did, but I also think that there is room for improvement. A variant of the game could exist with instructions on folding techniques, so that players can “expand their vocabulary” to make more interesting folded pieces and hence more interesting stories.

Pictures

Playtest #1: Lined paper from my notebook

Playtest #2: Index cards

Playtest #3: Construction paper

Inspirations

Husky Hunt Quiz had just recently happened. In the event, you are given a series of puzzles to solve. The puzzles that I liked in particular are the crossword puzzles. There is great satisfaction in figuring out the questions that are easier, and that gradually illuminate the answers to the questions that are more difficult.

I thought that an interesting idea would be to have a crossword puzzle that is about trivia about Northeastern University. There would be more difficult questions, and the answers of which are just problematic facts about Northeastern University. However, players would not know the answers for them immediately, and first tackle the easier questions. Once the answers to the easier questions give clues to the more difficult ones, and they are able to figure the answers to them, there should be a dawning realization that the answers are problematic facts about Northeastern University.

The idea of a dawning realization is inspired by a previous class project that Celia told us about. It was about moving people in a train, but it turns out that the train is heading to Auschwitz. The realization re-contextualizes the activity and invokes shock within the players. I too want players in my intervention game to have this feeling.

Goal

Intervene against Northeastern University by getting people to learn problematic facts about them.

Original Ideas

I didn’t actually move forward with the crossword puzzle idea. The main feedback I received with it is that it is too passive. I can give someone a crossword puzzle, but once they solve it, they will say “oh” and move on with their life.

An idea that Celia recommended was a trivia night. It being a live event would make the intervention less passive and more active. However, it was difficult to book a night at After Hours, and given the time that I had, it was difficult to pull off an event like that.

Final Idea

An idea that was recommended to me by one of my classmates was to bring a camera and a mic, and ask random people on campus trivia questions. This was a lot easier to organize, and will have a lot of the same effect as a live trivia night. What makes this idea especially interesting is that I am able to capture a live response, and I am able to observe the responses of the person I am interviewing.

How It Went Down

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cbVt3_MdP_tcrOAI7YOrRs-_lrTy1WWW?usp=sharing

Interesting Observations

• People were most shocked by the amount Northeastern University invests into fossil fuels a few years back. They estimated far lowest.
• People were less shocked by the amount Northeastern University invests into environmental sustainability in comparison. Still, generally people estimate higher.
• I asked one person after the trivia was done what they thought. They did realize what the trivia was about towards the end.

The Initial Inspirations

Chess is one of my favourite games. With a simple set of rules, you get an intellectually enriching, and often emotionally exhilarating experience.

In the readings that we did, the art pieces that popped out to me are the ones that are based on Chess. “White Chess” is an art piece that came to mind. It is the same game of Chess, except that all the colours of the pieces are White. One might say that the game was not really changed, merely how it looks. Still, unless you can play Chess blindfolded, there will come a point where it becomes very difficult to differentiate between your pieces and your opponent’s pieces. With the same game of Chess, it speaks volumes on the meaning of war that we never really considered–what does it mean for us to be on different sides, fighting against each other? Especially when it becomes difficult to differentiate between us and them?

Still, White Chess is not merely the same as two sides being the same color. The entire game takes advantage of the intellectual and emotional aspects of Chess, thereby adding a multiplier to the underlying message.

There are other examples of Chess being sampled. For instance, various artists, including Duchamp, made Chess pieces with particular styles. In all of these instances, these appropriations of Chess took advantage of the very nature of Chess to emphasize on a different underlying message.

The same way that the simple rules of Chess allow for emergent gameplay behavior, appropriating Chess also allows for corresponding emergent messages.

Thus, I wanted to do appropriate Chess in a way that delivers an underlying message that isn’t present in the base game. The message I wanted to send across in my art piece is the cyclic nature of war. Chess is a game that has a clear end goal–checkmating the king. Once that’s done, the game is officially over. However, most wars in real-life are never that simple. They often last for several generations until no one really knows how the war began, only that they have to win it.

In the same anti-war spirit of several Dada art pieces, such as White Chess, I would like a Chess game that discuss the gruesome part of war that never ends, and to make players, what does it all mean?

Version 1

In the very first version, I wanted to remove all possible win conditions from the Chess game. Firstly, I had kings removed from the board. I had a feeling that this will make the game far less engaging, as a lot of dynamics of Chess rely on playing around the kings on the board. Secondly, I added a rule that whenever a piece gets eaten, you can have it respawned on one of its starting positions. A respawning piece may land on a Chess piece that is already there, in which case that Chess piece gets eaten and you can respawn that too.

The results of the first playtest showed that the game does communicate the message of war happening across several generations until the point where the original configuration of the board has become lost through noise and tiome. After playing for a while, both players agree that the game has become meaningless. They are just playing it for the sake of playing the game.

Although this does meet my goal, I also feel that I don’t want the message to be delivered because the players feel bored. I want players to feel engaged by the art piece, both intellectually and emotionally. This cannot happen if there are almost no consequence to the player’s actions.

Version 2

In order to add consequence to the player’s actions, I have decided to modify the rules so that whenever you respawn a piece, you have to wait have to make two moves before you can respawn another piece. The reason for this is so that the game is still endless, but there are brief moments players can feel that they got the upper-hand, as in real-life war. Still, unless the player is a professional, they will likely be unable to capture all of the pieces.

Furthermore, I have put the kings back on the board. This was a tough decision to make. The problem with removing the kings from the board is that too much has been taken away from the game of chess. Chess strategies revolve around the king, and so, without the king, chess strategies are inherently meaningless. Much of the beauty of the game is lost without the kings.

The playtest of the game showed that this version of the game is much more intellectually and emotionally engaging, and still communicates the cyclic nature of war. However, I believe there is still room for improvement. There is a lot of cognitive energy needed to keep track of how many moves you need to make before you can respawn again. What makes chess elegant is that all cognitive energy is spent on how the pieces interact, and not anything extraneous. Another observation I made is that the game is best when both sides have lost quite a number of pieces, and are trying to hold it out until they can get their respawns. I felt like the game should exist in this state more.

Final Version

For the final version of the game, I have modified the rules such that whenever you lose 6 pieces, you can bring 4 of them back. This removes the distraction of having to keep track how many moves you need to make before you can respawn again, while keeping the spicy part of the game where both sides have lost a few pieces.

When we showcased the game in class, one player managed to checkmate the other player, and both players lost 5 pieces. Thus, the respawn mechanic was not triggered. In an ironic twist, they just played a regular game of Chess. In an effort to make the game more intellectually and emotionally engaging, I have weakened the part of the game responsible for discussing the cyclic nature of war.

Post Mortem

The Chess’ checkmate rule and my message on the cyclic nature of war are inherently contradictory. A possible idea for how this game could be changed is changing checkmate such that it doesn’t end the game. For example, whenever you are checkmated, the another piece is promoted to the king, and the king simply becomes the piece that was promoted.