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Tag: games

GDC: The Inter-Species Game Design Challenge 2008

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/420/The-Game-Design-Challenge-The  In 2008, at the Game Development Conference, Eric Zimmerman presented the game design challenge ‘The Inter-Species Game Design Challenge’. Each year, the challenge pits famous designers against each other on a themed challenge to spur creative response and reflect on new types of game play. The challenge sits on the design track of the conference and has become a staple attraction of the track. The challenge in 2008 saw Brenda Brathwaite (Wizardry), Steve Meretzky (Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy) and Alexey Pajitnov (Tetris) compete to design 3 potential games which promoted interspecies play. Alexey Pajitnov’s designed Dolphin Ride, Steve Meretzky’s designed TrayStation and Brenda…

ACE2015 CFP – Animal Computer Interaction as Speculative and Critical Design Practice

As part of ongoing research i have been sifting through a large volume of Animal Computer Interaction projects, i will be attempting to write something for the extended Call For Papers for ACE2015 the conference for the Advancement of Computer Entertainment which critiques the focus on utility in a large proportion of ACI. This paper reframes ACI as a form of Speculative or Critical Design Practice which can be used to propose arguments about anthropocentrism. This paper will compare a range of digital games designed for cats designed for phone and tablet devices to analyse what these games, as instances of…

Friskies Games For Cats

The Friskies “Games for Cats” project is one of the most famous commercial examples of interspecies game design and on release attracted global media attention. The project which consisted of a sponsored game jam and subsequent release of a number of titles including Cat Fishing and Jitterbug, produced games using the Corona SDK. The games are largely ipad based and use the devices touch sensitive screen as an intuitive interface. The website Games For Cats boasts over 2 million downloads for the titles. These and other examples will be investigated in a journal article that i am currently writing for TRACE journal…

Playing With Pigs

Pig Chase (2013) is a project prototype from a research collaboration between Utrecht School of the Arts, Wageningen University, and Wageningen UR Livestock Research which is designed to investigate inter-species play and how digitally mediated play could open a space for inter-species communication. The project focuses on animal welfare and using games as a means to entertain the livestock and reduce undesired behaviours (such as biting) between the animals as they suffer from boredom while in their pens. The Danish government introduced an amendment to the law governing livestock which required the introduction of a toy (usually a ball on a…