Lucas Haley

Early gaming memories and asymmetry

The earliest memory I have of playing board games isn't with Monopoly or Chutes and Ladders. It's with Snit's Revenge. I have no idea how we got this game – whether my parents were somehow possessed to get this bizarre game, or one of my older brothers picked it up – but I have distinct memories of it. I mean, how could you not? Look at this board:

The photo is terrible (and for that I apologize), but just the look of it is enticing. Prolobostinator. Labotum. Mutorney. Fleotis. Does this thing have two buttholes? What is going on? As a possible 7-year-old (I don't remember exactly when I got it), this thing was amazing. I played it with my older brothers, and I remember the gameplay being hectic and fun. I just bought a used version, and look forward to trying it as an adult.

But one of the interesting things about this game – from a design standpoint – is how the game is asymmetric. And it still works. Which for a quick game, is pretty cool. Assymmetric game design is when the gameplay is different for each player. So chess, for example, is symmetric – both players play in the same way. Examples of classic asymmetric board games include Scotland Yard and Betrayal at House on the Hill.

The different goals of the game really caught my imagination. But in doing some research into the game, I'm very happy to find out more about the guy behind it. Check this guy out.

Tom Wham's Website OOKland

#Kudos

I've posted before about my high school History of Art teacher, Robert Orme. The other incredibly formative teacher I had at high school was a gentleman named Stuart Dorrian.

He started at the school after me. I remember when he first strode into the room, dropping his leather satchel on the desk and confidently calling out “Alrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrright lads” in his dense scottish brogue. I had never seen anything like him. And knowing what I know now about joining a new class of kids, his entrance was pure gold.

He taught English. He did it very well. He wasn't afraid of any topic, and challenged us all to be fair, open-minded people. His readings of texts were dense and insightful – I still have vivid memories of working through Graham Swift's Waterland. He was the first person I knew who made talking about homosexuality not a big deal, which for a sheltered 14 year-old, was a big deal in and of itself. He was funny as hell, in a very wry way.

He was also the one teacher to made the transition from grade school teacher to young adult teacher effortless. Even though I stopped having him as a teacher, I would seek him out to say hi when I could. I remember one day – the last of classes for the year – when I went to go wish him a happy summer break. The kids in his class were rambunctiously out of control as they packed up to leave for the year. I asked if he was okay, and without a word he gently opened his leather satchel to reveal a small bottle of whiskey. “Oh, I'll be fine,” he said with a wink.

As far as I can tell, he's now the head of one of the departments at school. He would be awesome at it.

So hat's off to Stuart Dorrian. I would be lucky to be the teacher he is.

Thoughts on sheepherding

#Original Games #Games #Sheep

I am currently working at Massey University in New Zealand. The university has three campuses — Auckland, Manawatū, and Wellington. Wellington has the College of Creative Arts, which is where I'm working.

The Manawatū campus is the premiere veterinary university in New Zealand. A lot of Massey's identity comes from it's agri — vet, food science, farm engineering, etc. And while CoCA is the oldest (and arguably best, not only because I'm there) art school in NZ, there is still a patina of agri across all of Massey.

So I'm learning about sheep dog herding.

It's very fascinating.

Bear with me here. I read a random scientific article a couple of weeks ago about sheep and sheep dog behaviour, and how using drones some scientists have started to research how the whole thing works. And while the article didn't get very far, it did introduce to me the basic sheep dog commands: come by, away, lie down, walk on, etc. And the seed was planted.

By the way, one of the best websites I've found for sheep dog stuff is this one.

Here's the thing that interests me: with sheep dog herding, you basically have a bunch of autonomous agents (the sheep), with their own behaviour. There is also a single autonomous agent (the dog), that has it's own behaviour – but will respond to the owner's verbal and whistled commands. If the dog is trained well enough. The natural progression is to make this into a game.

I've made some headway – the sheep behaviour is pretty rudimentary right now, but workable. They wander looking for food, and get nervous and scared based upon the presence of the dog.

The dog's behaviour is a little trickier, but I've made some progress there too. It successfully corrals the sheep.

Most recently I've added the IBM Watson speech-to-text functionality, allowing the player to use voice commands. I'm in the process of iterating the dog's behaviour to react.

After that, it'll be refining the behaviours to allow for sheep and dog personalities, and lastly making a VR version. Just because.

{% include youtube.html id=“mquZPv50nd0” %}

A divination deck.

#Games

The Dark Exact, otherwise known as Coleman Stevenson, is a one-person divination powerhouse from Portland, Oregon. Her work spans original tarot decks, ritual kits, and divination guides; all with a striking black and white minimalist aesthetic.

Her latest work is a compelling evolution – The Personal Oracle. Breaking from the traditions of tarot, this deck is near-blank slate for users to investigate and develop. Presented are 39 cards, each with an image and title; the symbols are varied, ranging from “The Boot” to “The Sun”, with a fine selection in between. The symbols are untraditional but non-arbitrary, selected with unspoken intention – they are open potential. Unlike the tradition tarot with its fixed symbolism and centuries of interpretation, this deck is meant to be interpreted anew by each owner. The accompanying book is mostly blank, so that each owner can fill in their own guide as they use the deck.

My first reading

It's a very clever idea, and one with a lot of merit. I've always loved the traditional tarot, but have often struggled with the internal symbolism at work. This deck makes no bones about being a pre-picked selection of symbols – each having a meaning for the original author – but are generic and non-judgemental enough for any owner to take them in their own directions. The thing I admire most about the deck is that it acknowledges that “fortune telling” is not about magically telling the future, but about a process of investigating one's own intuition through symbols – and in this case, the deck abandons the traditional tarot for a tabla rosa, allowing for that investigation to happen without historical baggage. I'm excited to explore this deck, and begin to develop my own symbolism. Some initial thoughts:

• the artwork is clean and crisp. Beautiful stuff

• the deck is small – smaller than tarot or poker decks – but I find that a nice portable size

• the deck is pretty lightweight – for an object that is meant to grow with the owner, the cardstock is thin

• This requires a lot of work from the owner, as you need to create meaning and interpretation from scratch. But that's its strength too

• I've been struggling with there being 39 cards. I feel like that number should have meaning, but haven't gleaned it yet. WHY 39

• I really, really want to make a game out of this deck

The Personal Oracle from Etsy

When sounds make the game.

#Link #Audio #Game Design

For a group show opening in December I am creating an audio experiential game world. The idea is that there are no visuals for the game — the player needs to navigate a world using only 3d positional audio. I will attempt to create a narrative from the movement and interaction of the player in this world.

In researching my concept, I came across this article on Audio as Gameplay by Aaron Oldenburg. Good stuff.

Note: this project can be seen here.

Big nerds.

#Books #Programming

Related to the prior post, I've also just got my grubby hands on the Big Nerd Ranch iOS Programming Guide. I can't wait to see how Hillegass and Conway convey the info. As an instructor myself, I've always had great respect for their ways. I still have their first Cocoa book. Ahhh, good times.

Suddenly teaching board game design

#Instruction #Board Games

So I just wrapped up spring quarter at the Art Institute of Portland. A week before the quarter started, I was suddenly assigned to teach “Game Design and Play”, the board game design class. I had never taught the class before, and although there were some existing syllabuses, there really wasn't anything to go on. And not enough time to get anything going.

Now I'm not the most structured of teachers – I prefer leaving the class open to go where it needs to go, as the students explore the material. But this class was well beyond that. I was upfront with the students, and together we explored the material. It was fun.

Hopefully it was enlightening.

Part of my approach was to bring the idea of a game to all parts of the class. For their final, I challenged them to come up with a complete game in the two hours allotted. The main requirement was to have, as the central game mechanic, something involving the following (which I provided):

• 3 standard four-sided dice; red, green, and blue
• 1 blank white four-sided die

They were also allowed to use the small plastic case the dice came in.

Beyond that, the students could include anything they could come up with. I had some construction paper, colored and white cards, and the like.

Now, I hope the students were sufficiently challenged, and had fun with it. But the things that really struck me about their process were:

• how much the students wanted to team up. There were two teams of five (five!) people, and some individuals. I couldn't tell if it was safety in numbers or a genuine desire for collaboration. It was just surprising. If that were me, if I were to team up, it would be with one other person. Maybe. Not that I dislike teams, but that in those initial brainstorming minutes, I would want direction and focus, not consensus.
• how much video games influenced their designs. It's a video game world out there now, and the majority of the games they came up with were video games on paper. Again, I'm not making a judgement call here. But I do think that video games and board games are different, and each design process should be different.

I'll be teaching the class again in the fall, which I am looking forward to. I'll hopefully have time to develop more lectures about game theory, combinatorics, emergent behaviour, metaphors and mechanics.

And I'll have to come up with a new final exam challenge.

Just some old life drawings. I love drawing from life.

Teaching history and philosophy through art.

#Art #Teacher

Robert Orme was my Art History teacher in high school. I was the only person in my year who wanted to take the subject, but he was willing to tutor me one-on-one.

He was brutal.

He was the teacher who held me to a higher standard than I thought was possible, and introduced me to dedicated research and critical thought. He made me read extensively, questioned me at every statement, and demanded rigor at all times. For the UK A-level exam, we were expected to sit the exam and write essays. Long-form essays, by hand. With illustrations. And correct dates. He had me memorising the dates of every major piece of art from Giotto to Hopper, and he didn't let up until after the exam. He had me writing 25-page essays, alone in his office, every week. When it came time for the exam, I churned out over 50 pages of handwriting in one day.

I was always interested in a history of ideas -  I thought that paintings were the best way of communicating the ideas or beliefs of people in the past. So as soon as I was teaching history, I automatically did it from images from art, from slides in those days, and used the slides as the thing that would mean that you would instantly get a reaction from a group of kids who would want to interpret the image, would want to ask questions about it, then… a debate could begin.

Looking back on it now, after oh 25 years, it was really quite remarkable what he asked me to do. I am tremendously thankful for the experience I had with him. He is the man.

Update

I just found this tribute video.

Does this mean I have an ENnie?

#RPG

The Southlands guide book has been awarded the Silver for “Best Setting” at the 2016 ENnie awards.