playing with the past: an informal presentation
TRANSCRIPT
Playing with
the Past
Don’t hate
the player…• @gamingarchaeo
• Compsci, games, design, archaeo
Method Man• Designing + developing too many
case-studies + an engine.
• Running game jams
• Interviewing collaborators &
creators & participants.
• Recording myself doing everything
• Made an encoding system app for
this
Why’d you have
to go and make
things so
complicated?
“2D plans are at the core of
how we do and think about archaeology”
- James, Tuesday pm
“The medium is the
message”- Mcluhan, not Tuesday pm
The mediation cycle of
archaeology…- ME, just now
What's in a game?- Shakespeare, remixed
Procedural rhetoric…- Ian Bogost, cow clicker Genius
Narrative structures and
archaeological theory…
I got the power
Art, science, craft…
design?…
It aint what you do it’s the way
that you [critically] do it…
“I was thinking in such a
different way… things
which I took for granted
were suddenly in focus…”
Danger, danger,
high voltage!
• Digital literacy is a privilege. (but designing isn't)
• Game design skills is yet another thing to tack on to a full kit of stuff to do…(but its kinda cool)
• Making in the field is super hard… (this I don’t have an answer to)
That’s what iGo to [grad] school for
• Games as a different way of
thinking bout’ archaeology…
– Different code, art, sim style etc =
different results / experiences
• “Design” in archaeology alongside
art, science and craft.
• Deconstructive & conceptual sim
In the end…I TRIED SO HARD… BUT…
Does it even matter?
• Media affords how we think about,
document and do archaeology
• Design is a powerful tool
• Video-games are a super cool
media
• Working with other programmers
/ artists etc is important.
