GameCamp! by ModLab Josef Nguyen and Amanda Phillips, facilitators Procedural Thinking About ModLab Interdisciplinary Digital Humanities and Game Studies Research Laboratory ~30 faculty, graduate, and undergraduate researchers from across campus IFHA Cluster in Gamification and the Digital Humanities, Mellon Research Initiative in Digital Cultures, IMMERSe Video Games Research Network, Davis Humanities Institute About GameCamp! Year-long workshop series culminating in a month-long game jam in May. Open to everyone bring your non-programmer, non-gamer friends! General game design principles + tech skills Josef Nguyen: Ph.D. Candidate in English. Website:Amanda Phillips: IMMERSe Postdoctoral Fellow in ModLab. Twitter: Website:About Your Facilitators Friday 5 pm, Kemper Hall 1127 https://www.facebook.com/groups/davisgamedev/ Game Dev at Davis International Game Developers Association New Sponsorship! Safe Community Building Procedural Thinking: You Want Me To Do What Where?? Solitaire AnalogDigital Thinking Like a Computer Walk Around Enter an Encounter Take a StepEnter an Encounter Encounter? No Monster? Yes Small Big Small Monster Big Monster Randomness Candy Crush Saga Sugar Slaughter Story A process for running an analog version of the digital game Candy Crush Saga Materials: A 5x5 grid A six-sided die (d6) A die decoding sheet A set of 2 flowcharts A preset level guide Lots of candy Setting up the Game As a group, work together to follow the preset level flowchart instructions carefully Do not take short cuts Computers typically follow one instruction at a time; you should too After you have done that, clear the grid and follow the random level instructions carefully Discussing the difference Playing the Game A set of gameplay flowcharts Designate someone as the player. Everyone else will operate the game as the computer This doesnt replicate Candy Crush exactly there is no score, no specials, no end game condition. This is just to illustrate some of the procedures that produce gameplay. Wrapping Up Sugar Slaughter: which tasks were easier/faster as a human? Which would be easier/faster as a computer? Programming is not necessarily about complexity, but about thinking through problems procedurally. Different gamemaking platforms will have different limitations/affordances for programming problems