Comments for Thinking about museums

Comment on A quick question for you by Jenn

Jenn — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:02:29 +0000

Interesting, Scrabble rules in our house were edited to be more collaborative and make the best words possible even if it didn’t help the score. We play so that you can put one letter outside the traditional board grid and not get the points for it, if the word is good. We also created a paper “wall” to be used once per game, where you have a great word but there is one place it touches something else and doesn’t work. You just pop your wall into place and carry on. Then again we also created a 6 sided parcheesi board so more people can play. It takes *forever* but with beverages and cousins, the fun was in being together. Not related to Museums, but both social and collaborative in their own way.

Comment on A quick question for you by Ed Rodley

Ed Rodley — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:27:57 +0000

I learned a long time ago that Scrabble is a blood sport played with a dictionary. I think your point about feedback is an aspect that both SNM and 20,000 Leagues did well, either with actors who are reading the room and deciding who to interact with, or with show controllers that alter the pacing of the experience and feed you more clues if you’re taking a long time to get through a challenge. Keeping the fun hard enough to engage people *and* raising the bar as players improve is a huge challenge.

Comment on A quick question for you by Suse Cairns

Suse Cairns — Tue, 07 May 2013 03:28:24 +0000

I play a lot of sudoku and scrabble. One is a game of logic and deductive reasoning, often played alone; the other, a game of strategy (don’t let anyone fool you into thinking scrabble is about words). Both are ultimately about problem solving. Common to each is that I get better with practice, but the challenge remains high. As time and effort towards mastery goes up, so does the ability to play the game and the sophistication with which it can be tackled. The ability to improve and to have the game itself improve alongside is important, and builds on Koven’s point that a feedback system is important and maybe not just in the gaming environment, but also for the player him or herself.

Comment on A quick question for you by Ed Rodley

Ed Rodley — Mon, 06 May 2013 23:41:09 +0000

Thanks for the insights, Koven. Spot on, too, methinks! I’m a huge fan of Catan precisely because of the way it combines a really limited universe of pieces in a way that make the game unique every time you play it. That difference between having no ability alter the landscape and being more atomic, is a useful one to bear in mind. It conjures for me a connection between the making urges, too. That ability to feel that you’ve made something that matters is common to both the German-style games and maker activities.

Comment on A quick question for you by Padraic Fisher

Padraic Fisher — Mon, 06 May 2013 22:51:35 +0000

I will certainly keep you (interested members of the museum world) updated about the exhibition game progress.

Yes, the examples I pointed-out are building games (you’re forgiven for that ‘making activities’ digression). And that is very deliberate. Not being one to come up with what I think is a good idea and force it upon our visitors I actually took the time to stop and ask (mostly) youth (8-18) what they want to see at the museum. Not so much a surprise almost all of them said no computer games – nothing digital interactive. The preponderance of comments: “if I want to play a comupter game, I can do that at home.” “I dont need/want digital interactive at a museum – I can do that anywhere.” Interesting responses, yes? SO what did they want? Interactive games and activities where they can build something together or add to something being built – a way to make things and contribute to a collective creative effort. I reiterate what I said before: it is all about the social face-to-face interactions and being a place to come together to create, share and (hopefully) learn.

Comment on A quick question for you by Koven J. Smith (@5easypieces)

Koven J. Smith (@5easypieces) — Mon, 06 May 2013 21:14:58 +0000

This is a great way to frame the question, Ed. Your post makes me think about the difference between so-called "American style" (board) games and "European style" (predominantly German) games. I feel like museum-based gaming experiences tend to follow (in spirit, if not always in form) the American model, in which there's typically a single objective that is largely unchanged throughout the course of play, whereas the European games I tend to like the most (Cataan, Carcassonne, etc.) often keep the atomic elements of the game in play throughout. Obviously, I have a preference for the latter. Just discovered this great post at Games & Prejudice about this difference, and there's a discussion there about feedback mechanisms in games in general. The money quote is "A feedback system is any system that can influence itself." When I think about games I've seen/played in museums, this is a big thing that we're missing. I always feel that little about the game play itself fundamentally alters the environment (inclusive of the social environment and/or the physical environment) in which the game is being played. Which makes the experience often feel tacked-on to me, no matter how interesting the game itself might be.

Comment on A quick question for you by Ed Rodley

Ed Rodley — Mon, 06 May 2013 19:24:02 +0000

I haven’t dug much into it yet. I’ve got two more sites to follow. Thanks, Michelle!

Comment on A quick question for you by michellenmoon

michellenmoon — Mon, 06 May 2013 17:31:32 +0000

Ed, have you read much about the concept of pervasive games? I love this because it builds on all the game theory and design that was developed before the advent of the text adventure, online gaming, and video/graphical gaming. It focuses on real-world interactions and overlays the game onto reality. In my past life as a field educator I ran a lot of IRL simulation games with learning outcomes, many of them involving roleplaying, quests, or limited parameters, and found them extremely compelling experiences that I’m surprised are not better known and have not made much of a transition to online/mobile platforms. In some ways, they don’t need it, but I think they are getting lost in the leap toward gadget-based game solutions. I’ve been trying for some time to find an opportunity to build and/or experiment with a pervasive game in the museum. Ludocity is a forum and exchange for hundreds of pervasive game models, and I’ll add one more link too.

http://ludocity.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://pervasivegames.wordpress.com/

Comment on A quick question for you by Ed Rodley

Ed Rodley — Mon, 06 May 2013 12:36:21 +0000

Mm, giving people a reason to explore he whole of a museum and not just one dedicated space is very appealling to me. Very ARG too, like PHEON or Ghosts of a Chance. And there’s enough narrative underpinning that its not a scavenger hunt.

Comment on A quick question for you by Ed Rodley

Ed Rodley — Mon, 06 May 2013 12:34:07 +0000

An immersive Portal exhibition where you get to solve the puzzles? Wow! The teleportation aspect will be hard, but…