{"id":120,"date":"2012-08-09T17:19:47","date_gmt":"2012-08-09T17:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/?p=120"},"modified":"2012-10-29T02:44:31","modified_gmt":"2012-10-29T02:44:31","slug":"a-computerless-videogame-modding-workshop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/a-computerless-videogame-modding-workshop\/","title":{"rendered":"A COMPUTERLESS VIDEOGAME MODDING WORKSHOP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is a recipe for a rrradical game design & literacy workshop I had the chance to organize together with Una Lee<\/a>, Toronto-based activist, designer and all-around awesome person. It was presented at the Allied Media Conference<\/a> in Detroit in June 2012 but you can try it at home, with your own class, club, organization or anywhere, really.<\/p>\n

In short, it involved remixing gameplays and cardboard sprites from classic arcade games in response to a pressing social issue or a real world scenario.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
“Radical turtles try to convince moderate Goombas to join the fight against the imperialist Mario and Princess Peach…”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Context<\/h2>\n

Every year, hundreds of media producers, hackers and geeks working in LGBTQ, social and environmental justice movements converge to Detroit to share stories and skills, to create meaningful connections and have a lot fun. As the organizers put it:<\/p>\n

At the Allied Media Conference, media creation is not only about personal expression, but about transformation \u2013 of ourselves and the structures of power around us. We create media that exposes, investigates, resists, heals, builds confidence and radical hope, incites dialogue and debate. We demystify technology, not only learning how to use it, but how to take it apart, fix it and build our own.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Starting from this year the AMC included a section about games called “Imagining better futures through play” coordinated by Una and Cayden Mak<\/a>, brilliant SUNY-Buffalo game scholar. Our workshop, awkwardly titled “Designing revolutionary games with verbs” was part of it.<\/p>\n

\"<\/a>
The beautiful people of the AMC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Workshop<\/h2>\n

The big challenge was to propose an exercise that could be executed in an hour and a half, by any number of people, of all ages, of any level of game and computer literacy, assuming no equipment at all. <\/p>\n

The main inspirations for the workshop were Grow-A-Game<\/a>, a card deck by Tiltfactor and the research Videogames of the Oppressed projects<\/a> by Gonzalo Frasca. We basically adapted these projects for a more socially-conscious and (potentially) less game-literate crowd.<\/p>\n

We opted for a quick paper prototyping activity, to take the technological aspects out of the equation and to provide a fun, physical tool to brainstorm in small groups. <\/p>\n

The Games<\/h2>\n

Modifying (or modding) pre-existing games prevented participants from spending too much time thinking about the “kind” of game they deemed more appropriate. It also pushed them to deconstruct the rhetoric and the ideological biases that inform commercial games. Before the modding phase we asked them to break down the game mechanics into “verbs” and think about the implicit or explicit “messages” that these formal systems may entail. We selected a handful of games to analyze and remix:<\/p>\n

Bomberman
\nFrogger
\nLemmings
\nPacman
\nSpace invaders
\nSuper Mario Bros.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Needless to say, the choice was not motivated by 8-bit nostalgia. Classic arcade games in this context have several advantages:<\/p>\n