One of the reasons it’s been a particularly game-centric semester for me is that I’ve been preparing for Bard’s second annual Tech/Action conference, which this year was themed “Games, Simulation, Conflict.” The conference lasted two days, with activities on the first day and lectures and presentations on the second.

The “big deal” of the conference was the inclusion of Buckminster Fuller’s The World Game, a large-scale simulation of global economy originally designed for the 1967 World’s Fair in Montreal. Now referred to as the “O.S. Earth Global Simulation Workshop,” the game has become a educational/team-building tool brought to schools and corporate retreats across the United States. There’s a lot I could say about The World Game, but I’ll summarize by calling it a weak game, and an underwhelming simulation. The data used was ten years old, and the game’s odd bartering mechanic, and emphasis on wealth, made it unclear what differentiated an impoverished country from a human interest organization.

On the second day of the conference, a number of speakers talked on topics relating to simulation, games, and conflict. Bard’s own Gautham Sethi talked about Game Theory (which I still don’t entirely understand). Kathleen Ruiz spoke on the role of empathy in games, with examples from her own work (including the beautiful, quest-oriented “Stunt Dummies”). McKenzie Wark discussed his book Gamer Theory (which I recently reviewed).

Eddo Stern introduced us to Darkgame, an in-development title based on sensory deprivation. Bonnie Ruberg asked “Are Conflicts Sexy?” and presented her argument with numerous examples. Ed Halter spoke briefly on various Muslim games, and their relationship to American war games. Finally, Alex Galloway gave an interesting talk on Guy Debord’s Kriegspiel, and his own work to restore the strategy game and develop a fully playable, digital iteration.

I also presented at the conference, doing a short, ten-minute presentation about the role of conflict in game design. A slightly modified version of the slides is available here in PDF format for anyone interested. All in all, the conference was an interesting experience, and a great opportunity to meet a lot of people who are seriously thinking about games.

Also, I’m graduating next week. More on that later.

Proper noun, mind you. I’m talking about game designer James Ernest and his Seattle-based crew of non-digital developers. I fell in love with Kill Doctor Lucky last year, and I’m just now starting to review more Cheapass Games for Off the Grid starting with three of the company’s Hip Pocket Games, which are lovingly distributed in ziploc bags like so many drugs. It’s a valid comparison.

I’m a big fan of Ernest’s approach to game design. Zimmerman and Salen commissioned him to design a game for Rules of Play, and he came up with a playing-card game about magicians called Caribbean Star. Here’s what he had to say about his process:

Whereas some game designers prefer to create a game mechanic first and then adapt that mechanic to an appropriate theme, I prefer to start with a theme whenever possible. This gives me more creative ideas when trying to invent game mechanics, and it makes for a game whose mechanics seem better suited to the theme. When a storyline gets added after the game is designed, you can really tell, especially when a play that seems reasonable in the storyline is not allowed in the game.

How awesome is that? What’s more awesome is that the inverse is also true: design a game whose storyline supports the mechanics, and you can create definite “aha!” moments for players, as well as assist in the understanding of the rules. Ernest’s games have been very influential for me, as have his instructions for those games. It goes without saying that I would love to work at a place like Cheapass. If I was planning on being in Seattle for the summer, you’d better believe I’d be knocking on his door (in a friendly way, not in a stalker-y way).

More Cheapass games are enroute to me now. I’m looking forward to playing them.

At least, this is the conclusion I reach in my review of McKenzie Wark’s Gamer Theory, published as part of my Off the Grid column on Joystiq. Wark developed the hypertext version of Gamer Theory first, later including the first round’s comments and criticisms into a print-based version published by Harvard University Press. In tandem with the dead-tree issuing, he also introduced Gamer Theory Version 2.0, which re-opens the commenting system for the digital text.

The result of this dual-publication is the inevitable comparison between the two mediums. In my opinion, hypertext clearly comes out on top. The text is made stronger by its original format, and the accompanying commentary serves the text better when offered simultaneously, rather than being pushed to an endnotes section.

Arguably, however, the hypertext version is stronger because the content was originally conceived as hypertext. And Wark has already commented on my review, stating that “are supposed to be different reading experiences. The former stresses the role of the comments more while the later ‘hides’ them a bit to produce a more linear reading feel.”

Still, I do wish that Wark experimented more with the print medium, rather than intentionally working within convention. His decision though. Wark’s (hopefully) coming to Bard toward the end of the month for a small conference on games and conflict. I look forward to meeting him.

Also, the senior project is done. I plan on posting some of the material on my site in due time. I’ve already looked into installing MediaWiki, and my host doesn’t support it (yet).