1 June 2009
thirion’s game mod workshop
Although logic dictates I should be writing about the launch of Lynch’s Interview Project today, I’m not. Instead I’m going to write about an old Game Mod workshop created by Steph Thirion (the guy behind the stylish, abstract and addictive Eliss) for the Elisava Design School in Barcelona that consumed 2 hours of my time (a good 2 hours) last night
For the workshop Thirion provided design creatives (with little to no coding/ game dev experience) a basic game code and asked them to tweak, play and break it into something new. In the video above you can see the diverse outcomes from the workshop. In a way this reminded me a bit of Layer Tennis, having a defined starting point but then firing this between people and watching it evolve. Which got me wondering as to whether there was anywhere online like layer tennis yet based on bending game code?
Although I’m only a casual gamer I’ve been trying to learn the basics of game developement as a creative outlet. Whilst in my initial forays I’ve been focussing on standard goal orientated games this workshop really helped open my head up by forcing me to work backwards. Whilst tweaking the code I was given the freedom to stop thinking about the rules/ motivation of a game in terms of an end user, and instead explore the design and interaction as a designer, something I hope I’ll remember to carry into future game developments.
If you’re interested in playing around with the Game Mod workshop then Thirion’s site provides the required gamesource code and a link to download the Processing platform and a few helpful tips to get you started.
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Tigers Hungry » processing chain game says:
10 Interesting links. | IndieFlux.com says:
[...] Non-coding design students make games in Thirion’s workshop, video via tigershungry. [...]
[...] cooing over Steph Thirion’s games mod workshop and layer tennis over the past few weeks got me thinking about a project I’m looking into [...]