Game Design for
Product Ideas and UI
Design
Pietro Polsinelli
@ppolsinelli
Game + X = ?
Examples
In this merging of two different fields games are more and
more used as one of the poles. Why? Feasibilty, culture,
hype.
Games for change
Games for change
5
Oh how nice it is to work as a
slave for this multinational
http://unmanned.molleindustria.org/
6
Playfied solutions
“Gamification”. Bottle bank arcade. Somemtimes, unhealthy psychological consequences.
Techniology of “fitting better”: technology for control (Foucault).
Game play is instrumental to an external goal. 7
http://thegamebible.com/
8
Cargo Bot http://twolivesleft.com/CargoBot/
Videogames are ideal for transmitting formal rules through concrete examples. This can cover a lot of
ground.
Also probe – test – rethink – probe cycle.
9
Search energy in a 3D environment.
10
The dark side
11
No narrative ideal, no purpose beyond monetization. Lenses in a skeleton: The Sims Social.
12
Measure, measure, measure.
13
Addiction by Design Natascha Schull
http://gelconference.com/videos/2008/natasha_schull
97% is given by the slot machine – study IT
Gaming as tool is not
gamification, is not art
15
Not this approach.
16
17
Opportunity &
problems
19
Finding job for game creators is non trivial. And its also quite expensive.
20
GAMES ARE EXPENSIVE...
Game design for
Uis: examples
23
Game
design as
a UI tool
This is the usage we are focusing.
Problem:
RAI Cinema -> people love
movies, people don’t go to
movies.
Make them play “movie writer”.
Melt-a-Plot: UI design includes motivation.
27
Problem:
Integrating social tools in the
enterprise (like anything else) is
conceptually complex and
practically hard.
Social Business Toolkit
Meet this “thing”. Reactions?
Social Business Game - ideas 29
We have a complex theme, a friendly approach. We basically have this problem: the cards are on the
surface. And the alternative is not very friendly. It is a learning problem.
Social Business Game - ideas 30
One way to see “make it a game”.
Social Business Game - ideas 31
Koster – Deterding definition of fun.
Social Business Game - ideas 32
“Fun is
about
learning in
a context
where there
is no
pressure”
But in school there is, and there has to be, pressure. There is here a dynamic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=x5YtkTw4wn4#!
Social Business Game - ideas 33
http://codingconduct.cc/Pawned
(See mockup.)
Turning into a strategy game
activates a feedback loop – only
the digital game can give this is a
practical, feasible way.
Why a game.
Engine core is the action / task relationship.
The technologuy of cranes up to the Renaissance.
#renaissanceCranes : not likely to become the most
popular tag today.
Problem:
History of technologycould be
fun, is not fun (a general problem
of didactics).
Genio game and toys.
Leonardo game escaping commonplaces. Also ambition of
expressing the “fermento” of the age, and for it to be
educational.
Simple strategy in a complex universe.
Strategy and simple fun.
43
My twitter stream is mostly dedicated to game design:
http://twitter.com/ppolsinelli
A blog on game design http://designagame.eu