[arg_discuss] Topic of the Week July 27: Education

[Naomi Alderman]

Thinking more about making games, and playing games. I think it's rather
like the advice you get as a writer. If you want to be a writer: read a lot
and write a lot. The reading will influence the writing, of course, but the
writing will also influence the reading, and that's where the feedback loop
becomes golden.

When you start writing, you will find that the way you read changes. For
example, if you're working on a scene and having trouble getting your
characters out of the room (a surprisingly common problem!) you'll suddenly
start looking through the books you're reading, searching for ways other
writers have solved this problem. You start to read not just for the story
or language but looking at the structure, at the problem-solving, seeing how
the pieces are bolted together.

So I guess, make games and also play games. The making will change the way
you play. Also, where possible re-play (I realise this is often difficult
with ARGs). But if you can, take a game you loved and play it through again;
you'll start to see how you were gently nudged into particular decisions, or
notice where the logic didn't quite make sense but you were distracted by a
particularly seductive piece of handwaving.

Re-playing, re-watching, re-reading have been a particularly good school for
me. I once had an almost zenlike experience of truly grokking narrative
structure after I watched a great episode of Buffy several times in a row.

- Naomi




On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 8:42 PM, Brooke Thompson <brooke at giantmice.com>wrote:


> For better or worse, those already exist.

>

> The thing is, I got a heck of a lot more out of my very much unfocused (or

> so I thought at the time) undergraduate wanderings than I did my actual

> focused work in grad school - which is kinda why I left school and went back

> to the actual making of things. It was insanely stupid to be paying

> thousands of dollars to not get actual experience when what is the most

> helpful in this field is actual experience. (though I can now use big words

> and sound smart if I want to - which is a fun skill to have)

>

> I mean we can throw down the seminal (and not so seminal) texts in game

> design, film, theater, production, computer science, sociology, art,

> history, etc etc. But that's a reading list. And it's theory - not an

> education or training.

>

> (though that's just my rather unacademic opinion)

>

>

>

>

>

>

> On Jul 27, 2009, at 3:28 PM, Andrea Phillips wrote:

>

>  See, this is more what I expected. ;)

>>

>> C'mon, aren't any of you tempted to write a nice meaty post we can

>> promote up to ARGology laying out a curriculum for the liberal arts

>> education for making ARGs and ARG-related experiences? ^_^

>>

>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Tassos

>> Stevens<tassos_stevens at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>>

>>> Read Improvisation for Storytellers by Keith Johnstone.

>>> Make a street game.

>>> Make something, anything.

>>> Fail better.

>>>

>>>

>>>

>>>

>>>

>>>

>>> _______________________________________________

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>>>

>>>

>>

>>

>> --

>> Andrea Phillips

>> http://www.aaphillips.com

>> AIM: Andrh1a * Skype: Andrhia

>> Words * Culture * Interaction

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>

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