Festival2012/Submit/Build hackable games
Contents
Build Hackable Games
- Title of session: Build hackable games
- Your name and affiliation: {Alan, Bobby, Chloe, Pomax} @ Mozilla
- Session format (select Design Challenge, Learning Lab, or Fireside Chat): Design Challenge
What will your session or activity allow people to make, learn or do?
Participants will make games that have hackable:
- game spaces: a player will be able to change the design of a game space to understand how it influences the way in which designers use avatars, enemies and system sprites.
- core mechanics: a player will be able to change the core mechanics to create different patterns of action within a game. A game’s core mechanic is the action of play; the activity players do over and over again in the game, like jumping, collecting, or shooting.
- graphics and sounds: a player will be able to add graphic assets and sounds from the web
- characters & storylines: a player will be able to modify the storyline and characters of the game
- <new things that participants devise>
We'll provide some art and sound assets from OpenGameArt and the Liberated Pixel Cup, and there are assets from BrowserQuest that participants can use as well. We'll also provide some libraries that provide common functionality like 2D collision and physics.
How do you see that working?
We will introduce the design challenge and the constraints when participants arrive. They will form small groups and work on a hackable game. On the second day of the challenge, participants from the first day can return and continue working, and new participants can arrive and start a new game or join an existing team. At the end of the second day we would like to have time for demonstrations so teams can show off what they made.
How will you deal with 5, 15, 50 participants?
Participants will form small (3-5 person) groups, so this should not be a problem during the design challenge. If there are too many groups to demo their work on the final day, we can demo some of the projects and put the rest online. For very high turnout, we may need additional helpers and moderators to run the session.
How long within your session before someone else can teach this?
Groups should be able to help each other shortly after the session starts.
What do you see as outcomes after the festival?
We will have some prototype hackable games produced by the community that we can hopefully build into a curriculum. The session will help us explore the question 'what is a hackable game?'.
Participants will leave with a prototyped concept. We will provide these follow-up opportunities:
- Continue working on their game and submit it to Game On II
- Work with us to build hackable games for Webmaker
- Host a Webmaker event and have guests hack their game
