Deciding on a focus

I'm now several weeks into my MA and have covered a lot of ground, working my way through many of the fundamental theories of game studies.  At this stage I still have a number of potential topics for research, so I thought it was worth listing them to help me identify the direction I'm looking to take.

• Which elements are important in creating an effective casual gaming experience?
• Something involving game mechanics (giving a main hook to hang the the game on), intrinsic narrative (added by the player), and charm (part of the hook and tying in with the mechanic).
• Can nostalgia be exploited reliably in order to add charm to a game?
• Is it possible to define a set of 'filters' which can be used to refine a game during the prototyping process?
• Is there a role for 3D printing in video games?
• Development of immersive play games & virtual play areas, based on and controlled by real-world artefacts.
• Does an understanding of object-oriented techniques assist the game designer in developing effective game mechanics?

After discussing these different topics with MA Games tutor Josh, I managed to write a couple off.  Josh felt that the object-oriented one was a dead end, because it would cause designers to pay too much attention to irrelevant technical details -- I agree with his reasoning there.  The casual gaming thing has potential but I've been finding myself moving further away from it as time moves on.

That left the charm & nostalgia ones (which overlap significantly) and the 3D printing & "real world meets virtual world" options (opposite but related).

Bringing the game into the real world with 3D printing

Josh gave me a tour of the School's state-of-the-art rapid prototyping 3D printing facilities and I was blown away by the quality of the rendered models on show.  Different plastics, wax, foam and resin printers are available.  Some of these printers can inkjet-print a coloured texture onto the surface of the model.  Quite amazing!

A powder-based ZPrinter like the one at UCLan

I suspect that, just like home printing & photocopying, we will see cheap devices in the home within 5 years, and high-quality systems (like the ZPrinter above) in the local high street (similar to the rise of companies like Prontaprint, which sprang up to offer photocopying services) very soon.

After seeing these facilities it became clear that not only is this a glimpse of the future, but also that any advances that I would be able to make in this area would be quickly swallowed by the pace of consumer adoption.  For this reason I feel it would be best focusing my time on the charm / nostalgia issue instead.

Charm / Nostalgia

One of the running themes in this blog has been the idea of charm, and how it can make an object or a game much more emotionally enjoyable.  Nostalgia can play a large role in this too, and brings with it a ready-made affection for a product.  If that product can capture the spirit of the original (not just the look & feel), then it will have already won the heart of the player.

Objects with charm often have their own built-in mechanics (or associated rules) and aesthetics.  This is especially true of toys.  They also come with a period environment, which can be used to reinforce the nostalgic feel.

A perfect example of this environment is the BBC's 2006 TV series Life on Mars, which was not just content with recreating the look & feel of a 1970s TV copshow, but also included bonus items such as old-style Lucozade bottles (with plastic cellophane wrap) and mock-up clips of childrens' TV shows of the time (such as Trumpton).  These smaller touches in some cases generated more excitement in viewers than the rest of the episode.

At this stage I have not yet formed a rough question to answer in this arena, but expect to have something nailed down within 7 days.  I also intend to create a very rough game idea based on a nostalgic item, in order to establish the notion within a games context.  This is now starting to find a clear direction.