User:Giulla/Graduation Proposal GdG
What do you want to make?
For my graduation project I’m working on designing a game that questions the value of law domination and explore practices of active-collaboration within a playground setup. My research and practice got very inspired by the discovery of “Nomic, a Game of Self Amendment”, and I used it as reference for the concept of the game I will build. This game, invented by Peter Suber, is based on the axiom that changing the rule of the game is a move in the game itself. The gameplay involves propositions of amendments to the set of existing regulations and a random points system as score to ratify the amendments. As in Nomic, I’m interested in creating a game as system that allows improvisations within their regulations and predefined roles. Showing how fragile systems (as the law for examples) are when confronted with a group of individuals, a community, that acts and behave within this system. To push my game in a different direction from Nomic, I want to add an extra layer of roles: as in RPG games (role player games) the players are characterized by individual features and skills. These characteristic will influence the movements and strategies of the players during the game: the players under specific power constraints will act and try to bend the regulations of the game by their own will or the collective will. The game will act act as playground for the creation of a fictional macro-society: a group of individuals that forms a community and behave under constitutional constraints while experience particular privileges or oppressions.
'“Public institutions such as the law or commerce, which proceed in and by agreements among their participants, public and private institutions such as governments, clubs, corporations, and universities, are all characterized by the way their participants and stakeholders make and remake the rules of play, and sometimes challenge or avoid them.” [1]
How do you plan to make it?
Here a small description of the characteristic of the game and how I’m planning to build it:
What's the concept of the game?
The game is designed to play and explore group social dynamics. It is staged to challenge how individuals are able to collaborate with each other and commit to certain goals. It looks at how individual self-interests can or cannot be combined together in order to achieve goals. I like the idea of thinking about the game as a game of changing/re-writing/choreographing the rules of the game itself. A game of lawmaking. The players though have to stick to certain roles. The roles are some sort of “hegemonic” fixed set of behaviors and characteristics that represent some standard figures that can appear in social formations. The mechanic of the game is set to allow changments of the rules it self by the players. The players have to combine their skills and characteristic in order to modify / temporarily suspended / preserve / the rules of the game. A judge (which is also called the mediator) will decide through a voting system if the modifications of the laws performed by the collective of players will be voted in. Every player receive a card with a goal. The game ends when someone scores 100 points (the value system still needs to be defined better…). The points will look at the specificities of the players, their I.D. cards and will based the score onto them.
What's the goal of the game?
I think there' still a lot of work to be done on defining the main goal of the game, but until now I'm imagining that, as in Nomic games, the main rule is to change the rules itself and be able to defend your proposition of changement. I want to focus the game on questioning the transcendence of law while allowing certain degrees of freedom and constraints. The game wants to show how individuals reacts under certain conditions of "political" freedom (through the distribute power of law-making) and social constraints (through the "imposed" roles).
What's the audience?
The audience of the game can be a multiple variety of adults with passion for discussion and interest in the questions I'm arising with the game. My plan is to simplify as much as possible the form and narrative of the game, revealing complexities through metaphors and fictions. I hope then to become able to involve as many people as possible, with different interests and personalities. As the game wants to show and play with the regulations of being together, I think the only necessary requisite would be to be open to possible situations of conflict and discussion.
Which devices am I going to use?
- I.D. cards / role cards for the characters: random generated cards with a set of skills and moves.
- The Constitution: series of cards with regulations.
- Selected spaces (on a board or in the physical space of a room) where certain rights and/or political systems will cease to have effect (areas of exceptions, like dictatorships)
- Value system of points for the rule changement (still needs to be defined...)