[-empyre-] Experimental game sketching

[Westecott, Emma (Academic)]

One of my interests in experimental games is in the processes of experimentation on display in the ways that games are made. Hence my connection of game prototyping to sketching practices evident in more traditional art forms. Whilst the technical constraints of pencil and paper sketching include choices about both mark making (i.e. what type of pencil) and display form (e.g. what type of paper) there remains expressive freedom in content. Functionally, sketching allows us to develop ideas, to fix and build towards a future outcome. As mark making sketching builds skill and expressive range. For me, this process of experimentation is less interested in proving anything than it is about exploring expressive voice. I teach my students iterative development, a fairly standard approach, moving from concept to engagement with tools to feedback in the form of critique. One of the challenges is how to foster experimentation with tools without being restricted by their formal structure. It is true that there are more tools more available than has ever been the case, however game tools tend to enforce a particular way of working that impacts the types of games likely to be made. Whilst constraints are essential to finishing anything I feel it is important to be explicit about the histories and restrictions of digital game making tools in order to generate a flexibility that might push beyond them.

I feel that the uptake of game making outside market-driven spaces is finally seeding a loosening in both the content and structure of game culture more generally. For me, this connects to the trend for self-expression via game making. The uptake of these 'personal' games by game culture signals an interesting fracture as games move from a relatively mainstream form to one in which marginalized voices can be heard. Now there remain many questions about maintaining this dilation, in ensuring these makers make a decent living (as discussed in Alison's post), in avoiding exclusionary cliques and in building an ecosystem that can build virtuous circles to sustain experimentation practices across communities, but that is beyond my word count here.

Looking forward to the discussion!

Emma

"The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." -- Audre Lorde
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Emma Westecott
Assistant Professor, Game Design
Digital Futures
Director, game:play Lab (@gameplaylab)

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