Experimental Game Design

nathanson

Huis Clos

by | Apr 19, 2016 |

Alexander Nathanson

Huis Clos

Introduction:

With this game I was trying to recreate what I saw when i first read ‘’ Huis Clos’’; this title is a play written french existentialist writer and philosopher, Jean Paul Sartre.
Existentialism; or the was an intrinsic part of the time, Sartre himself describes existentialist as “what all existentialists have in common is the fundamental doctrine that existence precedes essence”.This game would try to get the player in a similar situation as the characters in the play.

Requirements:

1 closed space
3 players

Rules:

The players enter the room, they all take a seat and they will be explained the rules of the game.
At the end of the game they will be left with this quote, “ Hell is the others”,which is one of Sartre’s most important quotes; which is most of the time wrongly represented, Sartre was not trying to say that others create hell, he was saying that since we only really know ourselves and the only other thing we have to look at us is other’s view of us which means that if we are surrounded by people that think badly of us we will think badly of us.

So as to manage to recreate this aspect in the game. the players will all have a different character that they will be(they need and can make their characters background story as rich as they possibly can) asked to judge one another.

1 a widow| widower
that cheated on the husband| wife and he she committed suicide
2
a usurer
used to hurt people for money
3
and a politician who doesn’t understand the struggles common people have and doesn’t respect them.

they will have 5 minutes to add details to their character.
they will be told they have 10 minutes to judge one of the three for their actions.

after the 10 minutes pass, the player that is judged will loose and the two other players will win and will be told “L’enfer C’est les autres.”

Blue Team Red Team

by | Mar 20, 2016 |

this game takes place on a dormitory floor(but it can be applied to a whole building).

this game is very simple and has as a purpose to bring people meet each other. i suppose it could be qualified as an ice breaker.

bascally you take all the rooms and divide them.

one set of rooms will be red.

one set of rooms will be blue.

but  no one is told who its other team mates are.

to get an enemy out of the game, place a white piece of paper on his or her door at night(write what team they are on it). If they were your allies they will be out of the game as if they were your adversaries.

the goal of the game is to be the last team standing.

 

the inspiration for this game came by the fact that, i feel like most ice breakers are not really usefull or fun.

and by the fact that in second to fifth year student dormitories no one tries to meet or talk to each other.

artwork 2 final

by | Feb 24, 2016 |

Merchant and Thief

rip a page from your school book

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Draw a 5×5 square grid as indicated prior

place five pen caps at each  end of said grid, the two caps on the  extremities need to be identical, one side will be the Thieves and one side will be the Merchant and Guards.

the five pieces will be explained:

Either move or Ranged attack

-The Archers 2hp: are situated on the extremities of each team, they can attack anything in a diagonal path but only cause 1 damage( every character only has 2hp) they move 1 square per turn.

– Shield master 2hp: Left of the king, he is the only character who can block arrows

– Great sword 3hp: on the right of the king, if damaged he attacks anything in a 1 square radius of him

Merchants:

-Merchant (king): moves 1 square per turn, can spawn a recruit every 2 turns (recruits are 1hp and only 1 square movement for 2 turns then choose what they become)

Thieves:

-King of thieves 2h: the king is the central cap on the board, he can move anywhere in a 3 space radius from him and if he doesn’t move when dealt damage at first exchange him for an archer on your team.

The reasons why i choose to make a game such as this because I feel like chess is a very timeless thing, there were some great chess champions at the time as well. The other reasons are that to play this game you are destroying a dada textbook( I think it would make some dada artists really happy). And thirdly i feel like making people make the game board and find the peases also resembles what Dadaists were trying to do

 

Caterpillar Final

by | Feb 3, 2016 |

To play the caterpillar:

Goal of the game:

BECOME A GIANT CATERPILLAR!!!

1: gather people in a fairly large space.

2: divide all the people in groups of four

3: the groups of four form two columns, one in front of the other

3.1: now decide where your front is and you cannot move backwards

4: to get big you must move

5: to move one column must pass under the other

6:to get big you must absorb

7: to absorb the column that is currently in front of everyone must grab another CATERPILLAR’s back

 

by | Jan 25, 2016 |

 

Alexander Nathanson

Experimental Game Design

Score:

Step 1: split up in groups of four each two people will form an arch, and they will be placed one directly after the other, this will be known as a caterpillar.

Step 2: to move the caterpillar one group of two people needs to pass under the upside arch and reform a and arch.

Step 3 : caterpillars are hungry, to eat the group that is in front needs to grab another caterpillar’s back.

Step 4: the end goal is to have one giant caterpillar.