introduction to games and storytelling workshop

Emma Westecott, [email protected]

Game Design WorkshopThe Context

The theme for the third year of Games and Storytelling (2006 - 2007) series is multiculturalism. Games and Storytelling is a joint project of University of Art and Design Helsinki, University of Tampere, Nokia and Veikkaus, designed to bring leading international experts together in a three-year-long lecture and workshop series, highlighting some important and topical developments in the culture, research and design of games. Particular emphasis during this final year is on the current tensions and transformations of culture, identity and storytelling as interactive media emerges as both artistically important new medium, as a globally powerful creative industry, and as a new kind of domain for human interactions.


Game Design WorkshopWho am I?

Currently Games Research Fellow at http://synergy.newport.ac.uk, placed in art school.

Studio Director of zerogame, one of the first games research labs hosted at The Interactive Institute, Gotland, Sweden

Independent game designer and producer

Producer at The Digital Village, responsible for h2g2.com and Starship Titanic

http://synergy.newport.ac.uk/


Game Design WorkshopMy research interests

The celebration of digital games as an expressive art form, the art of the game is centred on the player and located in a kinesthetic poetry of performance. Emotionally dramatic gaming, taking the position that the player becomes a performer within the context of the game and looking at techniques for extending the range of emotions that the game experience inspire. The potential for practice-based research in the field of game studies to extend, enhance and celebrate game form in new and creative ways.


Game Design WorkshopPlay as Performance

The field of games studies has started to map the phenomena of modern digital gaming in a flurry of inquiry. Busy with studying the game object, the player subject and the dance between, we often miss the unique opportunities presented by this mutating form as a design discipline in itself. However at the edges of this young field there is an increasingly vocal subset of the games studies community that is concerning itself with researching the game design process.

Effective design operates within set constraints; the basic design criteriaof digital game form i.e. What is the point of the game? How do you play? How does the game play feel? etc. provide an excellent framework within which to pose research questions.



Games provide a context for a fresh investigation of the meaning of and the relationship between the roles of artist, designer and player. The basic building blocks of game structure; the game world, the game rules and the game player provide a schema for experience design.

This workshop draws on the field of performance studies to exploreframeworks for thinking about game design. The study of games as performance experiences looks to centre the active nature of the play session.

Through discussion, analysis, and readings, students will look to exploregame design concepts and develop their own work over the workshop.



the game

the player

game play


Game Design WorkshopSome of the things we are going to do

Explore other schemas for designPlay togetherWork in teams as well as separatelyFully develop workshop game projects


Game Design Workshop

“The play of make-believe is never a win or lose proposition. It is... either a win or non-win thing. When you lose at play, you learn something. Enjoy your mistakes.

Plato said, “Life must be lived as play.”

The Art of Play, Gary Izzo

introduction to games and storytelling workshop

Entertainment & Humor