game jam

Designing Games for Affect

A Two-Year Post-Mortem

Kaelan Doyle Myerscough

For games, affect theory lets us look at a game’s mechanics, visuals, soundscape, systems of interaction, and forms of movement as contributing to a specific affect. In my Master’s thesis, I focused on the affect of intimacy, which I understood as a vulnerable, precarious closeness, the feeling you might get sharing a passing look with a stranger on a train or opening up to a friend about an insecurity. I looked at Overwatch, The Last Guardian, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to see how they created different kinds of intimate affects. I found that each game, in its own way, created a sense of intimacy through its systems of interaction, visuals, sound, and temporality. Continue Reading →

The Game Jam

Creativity and Community

Jonathan Rodriguez

Game jams are not without controversy. Ostensibly a community-based event that fosters enthusiasm and creativity, game jams do not always reflect these ideals in practice. As the lead organizer of two game jams in Waterloo, Ontario, I’ve had the opportunity to develop a perspective on what this event is—and no, it doesn’t live up to its hype, but jamming is not a terrible idea. The enthusiasm, creativity, and community promised by game jams are important and needed in a performance-obsessed society, and although game jams do not always deliver on these ideals in practice, they have the potential to do so. Continue Reading →

Pseudo Game Jam Winners 2014

The Results Are In

FPS

After receiving 33 submissions for the FPS editors managed to narrow a fantastic selection of procedural poems down to 6 finalists. From those 6 we then engaged in a lengthy debate as to which one should be declared the winner of the first (annual?) Pseudo Game Jam. And, at the end of that debate, we decided that…declaring just one winner was a downright shame. So, thanks to the fine folks at The Games Institute, we now have three sets of prizes and three winners! Continue Reading →

Pseudo Game Jam

Results (Group C)

FPS 4 Comments

The results are in! We received 31 procedural poems throughout the month of July. The poems were then anonymized, and distributed to three editors each, where they were scored for clarity, how well they fit the theme, and their ingenuity. Based on those scores we have narrowed it down to 6 finalists. But rather than posting all the poems and finalists at once, we’re going to publish 10 poems, including 2 finalists, each Wednesday for the next three weeks. In the meantime the judges will conduct a second round of judging, and we’ll announce the winner on August 27th. Below is the third group. We’ll announce the winner next week! Continue Reading →

Pseudo Game Jam

Results (Group B)

FPS

The results are in! We received 31 procedural poems throughout the month of July. The poems were then anonymized, and distributed to three editors each, where they were scored for clarity, how well they fit the theme, and their ingenuity. Based on those scores we… Continue Reading →

Pseudo Game Jam

Results (Group A)

FPS

The results are in! We received 31 procedural poems throughout the month of July. The poems were then anonymized, and distributed to three editors each, where they were scored for clarity, how well they fit the theme, and their ingenuity. Based on those scores we… Continue Reading →