---
tags: carly
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# Second 189vg Workshop planning

## Mini-Presentation Challenge

*The final project asks students to give a 10 minute, 5-6 slide oral presentation on a game **not** on the syllabus, one that mounts an argument for why that game should be considered an innovative piece of storytelling. A broader premise of the presentation project is that games students argue for might be included as part of future iterations of the course syllabus.*

To help students prepare for their presentations, we will be running 4 1 hr and 15 minute workshops with the end goal of having students--in groups of three--produce mini-presentations (5 minutes, 3 slides). The workshop will be broken into three parts or phases:

### 1. Orientation to visual design & tools for presentations (focusing on using Canva) [15 minutes; in classroom]
### 2. Presentation development [45-50 min; in studio]
- students in groups of three; each with a computer ready with a shared Canva document
- start by having groups discuss the games they've chosen / are considering using for their final presentation [10 min]
- include short worksheet for students to fill out identifying key elements of their chosen games
#### **Main Task**
- Create a 3 slide presentation that offers a coherent account of what a new unit on the syllabus might look like if it included these games. {See structure from ... book.}
- Presentations will be constrained in two ways:
- Students will randomly select three lenses (developed from Schell) from a deck of cards, which they should use as frames for thinking about their games (up to two cards may be returned and redrawn once; cards can also be traded with other groups)
- Students will choose three key terms from a wall of terms, drawn from course handouts on the course Canvas page; once one group chooses a term, that term is unavailable to other groups, unless traded.
### 3. Presentation [10-15min]
- two to three groups volunteer to present

## reference
* [sign up sheet](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t1ekjrwT2X0elJedAqyJ4-RXjjOJGCB-_A9jkaHDtLE/edit#gid=1159489664)
* [Project Folder](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1z-kbGL8UuQf_b8eCAyF1iwmVeoDOKWKO)
* [carly ased the students what games they're thinking about presenting on for the final presentation, just to give us a sense of what's on their minds](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jvYOwtt4j56g0MUQLjFRh23kEWEgQXvWLsH05vgwVRU/edit#gid=45949372)

### List of Terms from course (all from course handouts that students should have access to)

Loop
Paratext
The Hero’s Journey
Trophies
Equipment
Atmosphere
Suspense
Characterization
Interactivity
Walking simulator
GamerGate
Allusion
Visual design
Choice
Empathy
Input devices
Pathos
Bathos
The sublime
Speedrunning
Plot/Plotting
Story vs. Plot
Male gaze
NPCs
Surprise
Suspense
Diegetic vs non-diegetic UI
Paranoid reading
Orientalism
Pixel art
Color palette
Life simulator

### Lenses

[Card design here](https://www.canva.com/design/DAFd4Rlillg/dfiE28r_3308t7xWhTxAtw/edit?utm_content=DAFd4Rlillg&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton)

#### Lens of Essential Experience

- Don't think about *the game*; think about *the experience of the player*
- A game isn't about recreating an experience, but capturing the essence of an experience
- What experience does the player have? What key features are essential to that experience? How does the game capture the those key features of that experience?

#### Lens of Surprise

- What surprises players when they play this game?
- Does the story have surprises? The game rules? The artwork? The technology?
- Do the rules give players ways to surprise either each other or themselves?

#### Lens of Curiosity

- Think about the player's motivations: why does the player want to achieve the goals this game has set forth?
- What questions does the game put into the player's mind?
- What does the game do to make them care about these questions?

#### Lens of Endogenous value

- Endogenous: "caused by factors inside the organism or system"; "internally generated"
- Endogenous value = things that have value *only* inside the game (e.g., monoploy money)
- The more compelling a game is, the greater the endogenous value that is created in the game
- What is valuable to players in this game? What do player's really care about in the game, and why?
- How is it made valuable?
- What is the relationship between value in the game and the player's motivations?
- What are players' feelings about items, objects, and scoring?

#### Lens of Problem Solving
- What are the problems players have to solve to succeed in this game?
- Are there hidden problems that arise as part of gameplay
- How does the game generate new problems so that player's keep coming back.

#### Lens of Functional Space
- What is the space in which the game really takes place, when all the surface elements are stripped away?
- Is the space discrete or continuous?
- How many dimensions does it have?
- What are the boundaries of the space
- Are there sub-spaces? How are they connected?
- How would you abstractly model the space of this game? How might you diagram it on a single slide?

#### Lens of Goals
- What is the ultimate goal of the game?
- Is the goal clear to players?
- Is there a seires of goals? How are those goals related? Are they meaningfully related?
- Are the goals concrete, achievable, and rewarding
- How are short- and long-term goals balanced?
- Can players decide on their own goals?

#### Lens of Skill
- What skills does the game require from the player?
- Are they interesting and rewarding skills?
- Which skills are dominant? Are any missing?
- How do the skills relate to the broader experience of the game?
- Is the level of skill right?

#### Lens of Chance
- What in the game is random? What feel random?
- What kinds of feelings does randomness provoke in the game? (Challenge? Excitement?)
- What risks can players take in the game? Are they interesting?
- What is the relationship between chance and skill in the game?

#### Lens of Choice
- What choices does the game ask the player to make?
- Are those choices meaningful? How and why?
- How would the game be different if the player were given more, fewer, or different kinds of choices?

#### Lens of Progress
- What does it mean to make progress in the game?
- How is progress made visible?

#### Lens of Physical Interface
- What does the player pick up and touch? What does this feel like?
- How does this map to the actions in the game world?
- How does the player see, hear, and touch the world of the game? What makes the game real in the player's imagination?

#### Lens of Interest
- What aspects of the game capture the interest of the player immediately?
- What does the game let the player see or do that they have never seen before?

#### Lens of Obstacle
- What is the relationship between the main character and the goal? Why does the character care about it?
- What are the obstacles between the character and the goal?
- Is there an antagonist? What is the relationship between the protagonist and antagonist?
- How big are the obstacles?
- Does the protagonist transform? If so, how so? If not, why not?

#### Lens of Freedom
- When do players have freedom of action? When do they feel free?
- When are they constrained? How do they feel constrained?
- What is the balance of freedom and constraint?

## live event support
Carly - MC floating
Christine - canva in classroom
Casey - presentation zone
Madeleine - directing people
Dézhawn - presentation zone
Chris B (4-6pm)
Emily (4:20-8pm)
Siriana (4-7:30pm) - canva in classroom

## space and gear prep
classroom - laptops + assets (atleast 1 of each: downloaded video, gif, embedded video, etc.)

main studio - colored computers
## materials to prep
* Lens cards (3-4 sets on bright card stock)
* Wall of terms (2 sets on 2.25 buttons)
* [Worksheets](https://www.canva.com/design/DAFd4o3LWl0/914qAG-EdCMFJfAGtopl6A/edit?utm_content=DAFd4o3LWl0&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton)
* Grabbing screenshots from games played, renmaing the screenshots and dropping them in this [google drive folder](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XO25GTasJ4QI6eQmw7R30DDRUvchT6em)
* [Dys4ia](https://freegames.org/dys4ia/) (2012, Flash game available at this link)
* Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons(2013, PC, phone, PS3 and PS4, Xbox 360 and One, Switch)
* Gone Home (2013, PC/PS4/Xbox One/Switch/iOS)
* Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture (2015, PC, PS4)
* Her Story (2015, PC/Android)
* Firewatch (2016, PC/PS4/Xbox One/Switch)
* Return of the Obra Dinn(2018, PC/PS4/Xbox One/Switch)
* [Noven](https://haraiva.itch.io/novena) (2018, Bitsy game available at this link)
* Untitled Goose Game (2019, PC/PS4/Xbox One/Switch)
* Disco Elysium: The Final Cut (2021, PC/PS4/Xbox One/Switch)
* Life Is Strange: True Colors (2021, PC/PS4/Xbox One/Switch)
* The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe (2022, PC/PS4/Xbox One/Switch)