Category Archives: gamedesign

Unusability: You don’t want to play it again!

Posted on 03.05.2011 by Wey-Han Tan

“Unusable games” sound like a contradiction: Who would want to play a game that doesn’t work? And why are there designers – educators, of all the people with already a reputation for bad game design – that create these unusable … Continue reading →

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Seminar in Köln (SoSe 2011): Ludic/Lucid Design – das Spiel als Medium

Posted on 01.05.2011 by Wey-Han Tan

Was liesse sich aus Marshal McLuhans Perspektive über Lernspiele sagen, deren Spielmechanismus aus ‘Würfeln – zufällig auf ein Fragefeld kommen – Frage richtig beantworten – weiterziehen – irgendwann hoffentlich als erster im Ziel sein’ besteht? Ist das, was hier gelernt … Continue reading →

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Neue Medien (er)spielen!

Posted on 27.03.2011 by Wey-Han Tan

“Der sinnliche Trieb will bestimmt werden, er will sein Objekt empfangen; der Formtrieb will selbst bestimmen, er will sein Objekt hervorbringen; der Spieltrieb wird also bestrebt sein, so zu empfangen, wie er selbst hervorgebracht hätte, und so hervorzubringen, wie der … Continue reading →

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What are Alternate Reality Games (ARG)?

Posted on 22.03.2011 by Wey-Han Tan

An Alternate Reality Game – or ARG – can be seen as a webbased offspring of Webquests, Roleplaying Games, collaborative writing, massive multiplayer online games (MMOGs) and the german concept of “Planspiel”. The ARG’s form is predominantly a forum-like website, … Continue reading →

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Spielprinzipien

Posted on 09.02.2011 by Wey-Han Tan

Hier ist ein Versuch, einige wichtige Spielprinzipien zusammen zu stellen. Nicht zu verwechseln mit Spielmechaniken, die die Spielprinzipien zu einem Raum eindeutig beschreibbarer ‘Spielzüge’ formen, oder narrativen Elementen, die die Spielprinzipien erklären und im Kontext des Spiels rechtfertigen.  

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About the virtuality of media

Posted on 15.03.2010 by Wey-Han Tan

One of mankinds greatest achievements is also one of its greatest obstacles in furthering the means to represent and thus reflect and understand ‘reality’. Languages provides us with a seemingly simple way of assigning words to concepts to reality: Language, … Continue reading →

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Causality in history: Chrononauts

Posted on 11.02.2010 by Wey-Han Tan

“Chrononauts is a fascinating, whimsical exploration of time travel, causality, and possibility covering many fascinating and significant events of the last century or so.” – Andrew Looney “Chrononauts” by Anrew Looney (2000) is a card-based game where the players play … Continue reading →

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Visual analysis of gamebooks

Posted on 11.12.2009 by Wey-Han Tan

Gamebooks were, during the 80ies and before the rise of PCs and the internet, a staple of interactive fiction. Back then, the next best thing to sitting together with some friends and playing a face-to-face roleplaying game was reading these … Continue reading →

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Games and the “best way” to tell stories

Posted on 05.05.2009 by Wey-Han Tan

Torsten Meyer (thanks!) just sent me a link to a recent interview with game designer Peter Molyneux, published in the “Tageszeitung”, the title translates as “Fable-Gamedesigner Peter Molyneux: A visionary and charlatan” Molyneux is quite enthusiastic about interactive-adaptive stories as … Continue reading →

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Serious game “Tiebranimes” to download

Posted on 05.02.2009 by Wey-Han Tan

Nearly ten years ago I attended a seminar about “Kinderspiel – Kinderspiele: Theorie – Empirie” (“Children’s Play and Games: Theoretical and Empirical Views”), where one possible task was to create a learning game. I was flabbergasted that the three other … Continue reading →

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