Exam 1

Question 1

What are the rules of Morris? (9-man’s Morris)

Answer 1

1. start with a blank board
2. first phase - take turns adding pieces on line intersections until all have been placed
3. second phase - take turns moving pieces along the line segments to empty points
4. in either phase, when a player forms a windmill, she may remove one of her opponent’s pices
5. no jumps
6. the game is over when a player is down to two pieces, or can’t move

Question 2

How old is Morris?

Answer 2

Over 8000 years old

Question 3

How were games purchased in 2002?

Answer 3

CD-R

Question 4

Where were games available at 2002?

Answer 4

Big box stores: Target, Walmart

Question 5

How many games available per year in 2002?

Answer 5

30 to 50 games per year

Question 6

How much did the game industry make per year on average in 2002?

Answer 6

$5B a year!

There is $5B to be made from the 40 slots – if a slot doesn’t make $125M, it took the place of something that could have and thus makes it a failure.

Question 7

How were games purchased in 2010?

Answer 7

Internet deliveries for all consoles

Room in the market for many more games

No physical merchandize > faster product cycles

Smaller games, smaller budgest

lower breakeven point for sales

freedom to experiment

more companies

more kinds of games

Question 8

What happened to the game industry in 2012?

Answer 8

The money showed up because EA and a few others are established in the online stores.

They have marketing budgets and the game section of the App store now looks like the game section of Toys-R-Us.

People buy what they know: Monopoly, Scrabble.

People want to play with friends; they buy games their friends know.

Question 9

A Different Kind of Statis

Answer 9

The “Top 25” or 40 or so games have been the same for 2-3 years.

Those companies have the money, so they can generate new content continuously, so they are popular.

New games are occasionally “discovered” out of the thousands available.

BUT FOR A MOMENT anyone who could make a game had a chance to get rich.

Question 10

What is the primary demographic for facebook games?

Answer 10

mid 40’s women

Question 11

What is a postmortem?

Answer 11

essay about a project

Question 12

What is a feature creep?

Answer 12

things added to the program after the design is finalized

this is a ton more work

Question 13

What are content updates?

Answer 13

new levels, monsters, downloaded after initial purchase

Question 14

How long are most apps kept on devices?

Answer 14

3 weeks

Question 15

Content updates

Answer 15

are good!

keep the game being played and on the device

if you deleted it, friends won’t see you play it

continuing employment for everyone

gives you plans for post-release bug fixes

are bad!

content update = feature creep

Question 16

What is discourse?

Answer 16

Established vocabulary
• different from making definitions
–A framework for critique
• What do we talk about when we “serious game
design types” talk about games?
• What is not worth talking about?
• This is both helpful and political

Question 17

Why have a discourse?

Answer 17

• Helps games fit into academia
• Builds knowledge base: journals, books
• Infrastructure of college degrees
• publication, curriculum-building, tests
• It makes for good education
– If we agree on what the basics are, we can all
teach them more efficiently/faster.
• Building audience
• Buffer against criticism

Question 18

What are schemas?

Answer 18

Ways of framing and organizing
knowledge.
• Includes some kinds of issues, excludes
others.
• Your mental context.
• What you are doing at the moment.

EX:

Find my glasses in my car.
–You focus your mind on recognizing glasses.
–You look for glasses, find them, then forget
and leave your lunch.
• To remember your lunch, you have to
change schemas.
– That wrenching feeling you get when you try
to change your focus? Schema shift.

Question 19

What is Salen & Zimmerman’s definition of play?

Answer 19

“A game is a system in which players
engage in an artificial conflict, defined by
rules, that results in a quantifiable
outcome.”

Question 20

Why is “discernability” a good characteristic to build in to all player actions in a game?

Answer 20

Discernability in a game lets the players know what happened when they took an action. Without
discernability, the player might as well be randomly pressing buttons or throwing down cards. With
discernability, a game possesses the building blocks of meaningful play.

Question 21

How would you write about play?

Answer 21

1. Describe the social situation or genre
2. Describe how the players are arrayed in
   space and how they interact
3. Describe any equipment
4. Give definitions
5. List the rules
6. Describe some strategies for good play
7. Critique: strengths and weaknesses

Question 22

What is the iteration process in game design?

Answer 22

– Create
– Critique
– Modify
– Critique
– Modify

Question 23

What are the rules of Assassin?

Answer 23

• Players agree to play, then wait for target
assignments
• The umpire gives assignment, and the
start time, in secret
• After the start time, players hunt each
other– and go about their daily business.
• When a player is killed, she gives the
name of his target her killer.
• The last unkilled player is the winner.

Question 24

Define the umpire in Assassin

Answer 24

The “umpire” monitors the game and
assigns targets

Question 25

Define the target in Assassin

Answer 25

• A player’s “target” is another player, who
must be “killed”

Question 26

Define the safe spots in Assassin

Answer 26

“Safe spots” are locations in which players
cannot be killed
– workplace, lecture halls, places of worship

Question 27

What kind of game is Assassin?

Answer 27

an augemented reality game

Question 28

What does meaningful play mean?

Answer 28

it means there is drama in the game, you are attached to what you are playing, meaningful means fun in this case

Question 29

What is the definition of meaningful play?

Answer 29

the process by which a player
takes action within the designed system of
the game and the system responds to the
action.

Question 30

Why were there very few games prior to 600 C.E.?

Answer 30

– Games are for children. Children were
“women’s work.” Only serious manly man-stuff
got written down.
– The Catholic Church destroyed most preChristian texts.
– Most people could not write very well.
– Toys that are fun get played with and destroyed.

Question 31

How do you play Morra?

Answer 31

• A game like rock-paper-scissors for 3-5
players, playing near each other.
• Players say, “one, two, three, shoot!”
• On “shoot,” they throw out a hand with
some number of fingers up
• But don’t say “shoot!” Say a number.
• Add up the fingers; if someone said the
sum, they get a point.
• Play to 3.

Question 32

Why do we– semiotics?

Answer 32

semiotics example: spoon in assassin.

how things get meaning

Question 33

4 Semiotic concepts

Answer 33

A sign represents something other than
itself
• Signs are interpreted
• When a sign is interpreted, meaning is
conveyed
• Context shapes interpretation
• For instance: language. Words are signs!