Social Versioning System (SVS)

Project by Simon Yuill developed during his fellowship with the Media Design Research program.

Originally published at: http://pzwart2.wdka.hro.nl/~syuill/svs/

Social Versioning System (SVS) is a framework for supporting collaborative projects that combine coding with other media, and allows programmers and non-programmers to work together. As well as facilitating collaborative production, SVS provides ways of reflecting on that process, revealing aspects of how the interaction between those who create the content and code, or play with it, relates to the social dynamic that emerges from such practice.

SVS is being built as the main framework for spring_alpha. spring_alpha is a multiplayer simulation-game that uses the idea of game design as a vehicle for social enquiry. The game itself exposes the mechanisms of game creation in the way it is played: game content can be publicly edited through web-based level editors, and during gameplay the code that runs the game can be accessed and recoded.

The initial release of SVS (version 0.2) features a small-scale 'livecoding' multiplayer game system, supporting games that can be played by being hacked and re-programmed, thereby collapsing gameplay and coding into one. This is combined with an analysis tool that visualizes the code change and coder-player dynamics.