1/12 Hello! This is a paper for the #MAMG21 medieval #gamestudies conference! To start off: my research is in games’ relationship with the arts and older forms of media. I'm interested in how to use games as a means to explore and dissect a work, and allow players to do the same. ImageImageImageImage
2/12 This of course has led me to explore intersections of games and literature. Among the most popular books in the high medieval and early modern periods in Europe were chivalric romances – stories of knights errant performing great feats and pining for their lady loves #MAMG21 Image
3/12 As literature is a mirror that recontextualizes art, history, or even our world, so are games. To explore this parallel, I decided to create a game based on a famous (and personal favorite) piece of literature, Miguel de Cervantes’ seminal novel, Don Quixote. #MAMG21 Image
4/12 Published in 1605 (with a second edition in 1615), Cervantes’ Don Quixote juxtaposes the tropes of chivalric novels with the setting of Inquisition-era Spain, providing such a mirror to both the books and the era #MAMG21 Image
5/12 While many know Don Quixote from his “madness” at reading too many books of chivalry (“tilting at windmills”), a central conceit is that Quixote is applying his vision of the bygone medieval era (as one built on chivalric ideals) to a later era that was anything but. #MAMG21 Image
6/12 The book itself offers a mirror to the time in which it was written, but has offered similar reflections over its 400+ year life as society evolved. This made me wonder what could happen in a game where players could become their own Don and Doña Quixotes #MAMG21 Image
7/12 I designed La Mancha, a storytelling card game where players encounter scenes from Don Quixote and create their own outcomes by playing cards with text from chivalric romances and building stories around them. You can find it at pfbstudios.com/games/la-manch… #MAMG21 Image
8/12 Rather than having players match their stories to the novel, the game invites players to write their own version of Don Quixote. Emergent outcomes of play sessions have found play groups forming shared stories or adding delightful anachronisms #MAMG21
9/12 Through playful remixing of chivalric text (through the eyes of a mad knight or a player’s whimsy) the game preserves the book’s exploration of evergreen themes like the evolution of personal and social identities or the moral absolutes of historical narratives. #MAMG21 Image
10/12 The game becomes a space for players to tell their own emergent quixotic narratives (Jenkins 2004) and a way to engage chivalric texts through play. In the full spirit of the novel, we’ve even had players use the game as a means to share autobiographical stories. #MAMG21
11/12 Metatextuality appears in the game as it did in Cervantes’ novel. As the novel would make frequent references to itself as a book (through a fictional “historian” narrator), the game lets players change rules or resist the chivalric theme (albeit momentarily). #MAMG21 ImageImageImageImage
12/12 The game became a powerful paratextual tool for exploring not only The Quijote itself, but also its history, context, and interpretations. It made the novel approachable by new audiences, showing promise for games as tools to introducing and preserving seminal texts #MAMG21
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More from @Totter87

Jul 14, 2019
I have to make a teaching tool that is a satirical list of bad game design habits that should be avoided titled “how to be a 10x game designer” now, don’t I?
1) A 10x game designer doesn’t know any modern game engines or development tools but you know that the 10x game designer got here somehow. The 10x game designer is too busy making those sweet sweet ideaz.
2) The 10x game designer know that difficulty = fun. If the player gets frustrated, that just means your game is more awesome.

Please notify the intergalactic game design council if a controller is broken. You will be provided an IGF trophy as compensation.
Read 28 tweets
Jul 1, 2019
So I'm seeing a lot of #MarioMaker2 fans asking for advice on #LevelDesign and I thought I could help! Here's a thread on level design tips in Mario Maker, from a guy who wrote a book on level design.

Keep in mind that some of these tips work in both 2D and 3D!
1. Give your level a "core mechanic" - Don't just make your level about any and every mechanic, but select a central one to be your level's gameplay theme.
In this level, I wanted to make a level about the jump-through rainbow blocks. I tried to think of other kinds of gameplay worked well with them. I ended up with a level that had vertical exploration and auto-scroll. Start with a core and add new ideas that support or improve it.
Read 28 tweets

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