Fiona French, Course Leader BSc Computer Games, Associate Director; and Barbara Zambrini, Producer : Gamelab London, London Metropolitan University

My Thoughts

This was a rather silly session (for the most part) in two parts – the first you describe two characters for an ARG that teenage (16 year old) girls would enjoy. Then designing the narrative and outlining the game using two of the characters (since they were posted on the wall). Some notes on the introduction lecture and final designs I noted below, they also are meant to be scanning them for online, heh.

Notes

Why do girls turn off from science and technology? What about a game that will engage them into these things? Need an ARG:
– Aimed at teenage girls, to get into science
– ARG = Alternate reality game
– Interactive narrative, unfolds over time
– Mystery, puzzles to solve
– Marketing – trail leads to product (used by marketing successfully)

What’s it like to be 16 again?

Things to consider, from a discussion with these 16 year olds:
– Design your own character – personalise something, choice of gender for the character
– Traditional stuff (GTA4 had just come out), alcohol, fighting, adventure, music, street fighters
– Less traditional: Shopping, clothes, daincing, coooking, makeup, fashion
– Much less traditional: Romance, pregnant, boys/girls, love in a car, dating game

Hackney’ …
– Shopping? cut throat…
The Dancing Cook off!
– Defeat michael jackson to win
Big Brother House
– Voted out, friends
Skins
– Drugs, sex, rock and roll. Who knows how to play it though?
Romantic
– 3 people competing for a single guy. Get lucas to focus his attention on you
Mad Maniac
– Tekken – Small Man (Baby) vs. Grandma Mary
Beat da Streets
– can you stop gun, drug and knife crime in hackney?
– 3 avatars in the game. Amelia -helpful, pretty. K head Kaylo – alcoholic, annoying, bothers you. Lovie Pooie – find a toilet for her, homeless.

From the workshop:
Characters:
– An unisex balloon egg thing who can shapeshift, a pair of teenagers who do parcour, a skater girl, a trainspotting introvert and secret DJ girl, and more.
Designs:
– (Ours) In a world where anti-knife robots steal cutlery, only Alex and Lewis, Parcourers, can stop the robots, eg: The recycling robot who recycles cups before they are finished.
– Shapeshifting balloon thing – allows player customisation and the merge of them in one big whole
– Teenage skateboarder who gets a possible cosmetics contract. Science with checking out actual PH levels in makeup and the physics of skateboarding. Finding out of cosmetics companies are evil or not kinda – Lust inspired.