Game Design

When? 8. und 9. November 2019
Where? Viaduktraum, Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, Toni–Areal
Website: gamezandrulez.ch

Narrative mechanics have «many faces», displays and interfaces. They occur as texts, recipes, stories, dramas in three acts, movies, videos, tweets, journeys of heroes, but also as rewarding stories in games and as narratives in society (such as a career from rags to riches, the concept of modernity or market economy) are increasingly used in politics. Below their surface, however, narrative mechanics are a special kind of motivational design or more precise: a special kind of game mechanics. As with classic game mechanics, they are rules and rule sets for control cycles that contain challenges, provide options, make decisions possible, and then reward or punish, thereby creating a magic circle. As in all game mechanics, everything that is possible in the system may be used. Most narrative mechanics, however, use a narrative structure (ruleset mechanics), narrative rewards and punishments. Often, rules with linear connections are used for this purpose. Narrative mechanics are not limited to language or text, they can also be visually narrative (with developing and recurring forms and patterns) and they can be auditory or tactile ...

Like games, narrative mechanics can also adapt to their rules, be it the behaviour of the reader or player or the environment of the reader or game. Even in texts adaptive mechanics are possible. A text consists in the first moment of a string of rules respectively sentences for a human interpreter.

Selection of speakers:
Anna Anthropy, Molle Industria, Frans Mäyrä and many more

Initiators:
René Bauer, Beat Suter & Mela Kocher
ZHdK GameLab