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00:59 - "regal"
01:10 - spoiler-free Game of Thrones micro-recap
03:40 - you might call it a new direction
05:02 - Kickstarted on April 1st: Emperor's New Clothes!
10:47 - going back to Hogwarts
20:50 - "Is this better than playing Skyrim? [Y/N]"
25:52 - the bottom line (and more)
34:02 - upcoming event: you can now sign up for DASH 5
35:58 - The End
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Music: instrumentals from "Code Monkey" and "I Crush Everything" by Jonathan Coulton
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In earlier days of the internet, I participated in several games of Nomic that had tacit goals to create a boardgame experience as the surface level of the game (Nomic being Peter Suber's laboratory activity for a constitutional law course he taught in which there is a game in which the basic move is changing a rule of the game). It is almost effective, but when you're vote-mongering and examining every proposed rule change for metagame issues, play doesn't support really building a game.
ReplyDeleteSometime last year, Brendan and Mike and I played a round of Nomic face-to-face in which we were grabbing any generic game piece at hand and trying to incorporate it into gameplay. The nomic started with four rules, and made it to 40 rules before an infinite loop occured coincident with a "done" feeling. Might be time to try playing something like that again.
But a couple times, I've found it helpful for game design by taking Calvinball as a model, "I roll a handful of dice, four 5s, what does that mean?"
Nomic! I've played that. One could argue that the card game Fluxx is a codification of that concept (ever-changing rules), though in practice, Fluxx is more about bookkeeping than creativity.
ReplyDeleteI also heartily agree that exploring "what would be a fun activity?" is a great general starting point for game design. :)
The Emperor's New Clothes talk actually reminded me of something Game-related: http://www.interngame.com/marino/page.php?id=craps, a Craps puzzle with blank dice where the dealer told you what you rolled, and figuring out how the "rolls" were determined was the first part of the puzzle.
ReplyDelete(So apparently I'm going to keep dragging things back to puzzlehunts whether you like it or not)
Thanks for the link to blank-dice craps! I could see that puzzle mechanism being generalized to a number of casino games, esp. those using cards.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the interesting thing about ENC is the storytelling aspect, and how players can get into a "rule war" by making up different things on the fly. :)