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07 . 03 . 10
Try Grow-A-Game online!
Posted by tiltfactor in Coming Attractions, News, critical play, values at play | No Comments »
06 . 16 . 10
A Unique Design Approach
A recent article highlights Dartmouth College’s rather unusual approach to game design by basing the process in humanistic thinking. Influenced by Professor Mary Flanagan’s commitment to social change design and human values through the Values at Play project, the students enrolled in Dartmouth’s games courses bring their eclectic backgrounds to the design process to make unique games. Currently in the works at the lab: games for pressing healthcare issues, a game on sustainability and biodiversity, metadata games, and research with the Games for Learning Institute, focusing on the links between industry designers’ everyday knowledge and popular learning theories.
Posted by tiltfactor in News, Uncategorized, critical play, values at play | No Comments »
04 . 20 . 10
Fantastic Visitors, Spring 2010!
Doris Rusch, MIT Gambit Game Lab
Wednesday April 28
3pm talk, “Purposeful Game Design”
Dr. Rusch discusses how she explores abstract concepts related to the human condition in her game design, primarily using metaphors to find links between sites of strong emotion and game play.
Tiltfactor Laboratory, 304 North Fairbanks, Dartmouth College
Thursday April 29th
Rusch visits 10am -12: Game Design: Values at Play Course
Product Owner: Akrasia
http://gambit.mit.edu/loadgame/akrasia.php
Product Owner, Executive Producer, Lead Designer: The Bridge
http://gambit.mit.edu/loadgame/thebridge.php
Doris C. Rusch holds a postdoctoral position with the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab in the Programme at Comparative Media Studies at MIT. Before that she worked at the Institute for Design and Assessment of Technology at Vienna University of Technology. In her habilitation project titled “Once More with Meaning”, Rusch investigates the medium specific characteristics of digital games and their potential to produce a wide range of emotionally satisfying and deeply meaningful experiences. Although her work is theory-driven, she aims at applicability of her research to actual game design with the goal of pushing the boundaries of games as media. Rusch has an eclectic background having completed studies in German Literature, Philosophy, English and Comparative Literature at the University of Vienna, where she also received her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics. Her work in computer game studies is part of a larger interest in “narrative worlds” that expands over books, comics, and films.
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Marcin Ramocki, Filmmaker
Tuesday May 11th 2010 at 5:30
Marcin Ramocki, Dartmouth alum from 1995, shows his film on videogame art, 8-Bit. Screening and talk with the filmmaker at 530 pm, Loews Theater, Dartmouth College.
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Lucas Welch, Soliya
Thursday May 13th 2010 at 10am
Lucas Welch, Founder & Chief Innovation Officer of Soliya, a non-profit organization using new technologies to facilitate dialogue between students from diverse backgrounds across the globe. Welch visits 10am -12: Game Design: Values at Play Course to launch the dialogue building game design assignment.
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Digital Humanities Symposium 2010
Friday May 14th, 2010 - All Day Event! Visitors include scholars in digital arts and humanities areas, project demonstrations. Free registration on the website includes breakfast, lunch, reception(s), demonstrations, talks.
A cosponsored Digital Humanities Symposium, Dartmouth College – Visitors Welcome!
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Dr. Helen Nissenbaum
Tuesday May 18th
Visit with Helen Nissenbaum, Professor, New York University, Media, Culture, and Communication & Computer Science; Senior Faculty Fellow, Information Law Institute
Dr. Helen Nissenbaum visits var_d and the co-sponsors of ISTS, Digital Humanities, Philosophy, and Tiltfactor.
Posted by tiltfactor in News, Uncategorized, values at play, variable_d | No Comments »
12 . 01 . 09
Guerrillas Say, Try it!
Tonight, Kathe Kollwitz of the Guerrilla Girls joined the variable_d salon to discuss activism in a digital age. Formed in 1985, the artists assumed the names of dead women artists and wore gorilla masks in public, concealing their identities and focusing on the issues rather than their tastes adn personalities. Between 1985 and today, over 100 women, working collectively and anonymously, have produced posters, billboards, public actions, books and other projects bring gender issues to the forefront of public debate and discussion.
Our variable_d discussion centered around questions of anonymity, data, inequity, and strategy. How the group arrived at decisions, consensus, and maintained confidentiality were all subjects for lively debate. Ms. Kollwitz noted that at times, one will simply not know if something is an effective approach until she tries it. All the planning in the world can enter into a campaign, but it is always a little bit surprising what connects with people, and what does not. She suggests, “Try it!”
The DIALOGUES are student-conducted interviews and conversations with leading artists, scientists, and scholars of our time with the support of the Digital Humanities initiative. The conversations are digitally mediated via SKYPE software and held in the context of the weekly digital salon at Tiltfactor.
Posted by tiltfactor in Gender Politics, News, art, values at play, variable_d | No Comments »
12 . 01 . 09
on cooperation
Tiltfactor explores human values in games and in the game design process. Some of these values include things like sharing, loyalty, privacy, and cooperation. Often, these values are necessary for altruistic acts to occur. Looking at the evolutionary roots for altruism, however, Dr. Michael Tomasello, a developmental psychologist, studied how 18 month old children will automatically assist an adult who needs help opening a door. This behavior seems to arise earlier than most children are taught to be polite, suggesting that there is a natural inclination to help embedded within the human spirit. Read the November NY Times article, and
look at Tomasello’s book Why We Cooperate, with Carol Dweck, Joan Silk, Brian Skyrms and Elizabeth Spelke.
Posted by tiltfactor in News, values at play | No Comments »
08 . 26 . 09
Using Playtime Productively!
Tiltfactor director Mary Flanagan was interviewed in, “Labeling Library Archives Is a Game at Dartmouth College” in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the new NEH project called “Metadata Games.” The interview perhaps overplays the “free labour” aspect of the game itself. Using play time in novel, productive ways likely harms no one. If the game is fun, engaging, and playful, it will attract players, and players will like to play regardless if the hours are “productive” or “wasteful.”
![players collaborate with [giantJoystick]](http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/wow/0aagiantjoyst4.jpg)
At Tiltfactor, we have a philosophy that play is not a useless activity. Players are constantly learning and growing through game play. Play promotes collaboration and experimentation. If it does even more than that? We say, YAY! – IF it contributes to the Commons and to access to knowledge for the public.
Posted by tiltfactor in Games for Social Change/Activism, News, Uncategorized, values at play | 1 Comment »
07 . 18 . 09
privacy, security, and what is on your machine, anyway?
The ironic debacle this week – Amazon.com confiscating the mistakenly sold electronic books by none other than George Orwell from user’s Kindle machines across the country — stokes the already hot debate about technological devices and the rights of privacy, ownership, security, and autonomy of a user to his or her own devices.
Yesterday’s New York Times article describes how Amazon became aware they mistakenly sold the works 1984 and Animal Farm without the proper rights, then remotely deleted them on user’s kindles without warning with the same technology used to synchronize separate electronic devices. “I never imagined that Amazon actually had the right, the authority or even the ability to delete something that I had already purchased,” says one of those customers affected.