Ai Xia

Another powerful session with my mentor Greg!

Talking to him made me realize that the goal of my prototype game was an obstacle to the connection of the two players. So for my next prototype, the goal of the game needs to not be an obstacle.

He suggested some ways to do this. If I go the “giving” route, it would be easier to have someone give something they no longer needed to avoid this sort of collectivist mindset when we play games (since usually they have a purpose).

Also wondering if I can turn this into some sort of “infinite game”, within a shorter timeframe. We talked about how this can by easier to do with asynchronous gameplay but I have a technical limitation of using synchronous gameplay only. However, there might be a way to create the emotions of an infinite game within a short period time? Basically it becomes more about the gameplay and having fun than winning it.

I was thinking that a balance is that ultimately, you can play the game by yourself but it’s way more fun with someone else, and perhaps easier and more rewarding. My design strategy right now is almost to do as little as I think is possible to achieve this “Altruistic” behavior, then add more if it doesn’t work.

Can’t believe show a thing is over! (Mostly at least) I met with 4 people, the 5th is scheduled for later next week. Had different takeaways from each person but adding some notes here:

Creating empathy in games WITHIN the context of the game? Research on this

– like a natural disaster happening to everyone
– noticed that in my playtest players will more skill were able to avoid “disasters”

Need to clearly explain why I made each design decision and where it came from

– ie why start players in the same place? have this gem collection stuff? open world inspiration?

A story will be more compelling, especially for non- gamers

– maybe tie it to an altruistic act that I’ve experienced?

I might need to make some sort of “complimentary design”

– how far until it becomes necessary cooperation vs just non-competitive design?

Looking at team building exercises and how doing something first will build a relationship

Thinking about cost-benefit analysis in terms of the player

– is doing this nice thing at any cost to me?
– the higher the cost, the lower likelihood of it happening (unless there is an existing relationship)

Met with Nun, Dora, and Nichole today. It was great talking to them, catching up on their projects and going over our show a thing presentation. Main insight is to narrow down what we want to get out of show a thing, and to keep talking to people/ attending the peer meetings because they’re super helpful!

Had my first meeting with my mentor Greg. It was really helpful to get the perspective of someone who does game design full time and runs a company that designs game. He was able to share a bit of his process and it was very insightful.

I was getting a bit into the rabbit hole of what altruism is/means to different people, and realized it’s actually like a big philosophical debate. In fact, just looking up the definition of altruism I saw different “requirements” as to what altruism actually means, like on a scale. And I talked about this a bit with Sarah and Mimi, where depending what the definition is, it’s not very clear what is considered “selflessness”.

Talking with Greg made me realize (even more) how important it is for me to narrow scope and determine what I actually want to make. I was feeling like I had to “figure out” altruism before I decided my final game, but he encouraged me to figure out what kind of game I wanted to make, and then find ways to create altruism (generosity,kindness,etc) within that. And then even more narrowly, figure out one key mechanic (ie in Mario the main one is jumping). I think the reason I was feeling overwhelmed prototyping is because I hadn’t nailed down the framework of the game, or any mechanics. Therefore there were too many variables on how it would go. Feeling a lot more excited to prototype now.

He also said FOLLOW THE FUN which I love!

It was great hearing updates on Lane, Ian and Anney’s projects, and the processes they were going through.

Lane brought up something I really loved – the idea of “easing someones burden”, or easing a burden on their mind.

Brian also brought up the idea of a community or shared space, like Kat’s bouquet project where you make and share something for the sake of doing it.

Today I talked with Mimi Yin, who teaches collective play at ITP. A lot of insights from our conversation:

1. The idea that altruism is in a negative space, and you almost define it by saying by what is NOT altruistic.
2. The kind of person who gets joy from making other people happy is different than the kind of person who does something to be better than everything else. We talked about how social media provides a social reward, but because of the way individual profiles exist it becomes more like a flex/competition, ie I’ll like your stuff if you like mine. Maybe a collective profile or shared space?
3. Figure out what kind of game “reward” you get that is in line with altruism, but has this sense of “oh it isn’t just for me” or “it isn’t always for me”.
4. How to create this feeling: getting joy out of other people getting something
5. Creating a catalogue for where I can find altruistic acts in real life, try to group them and see what they have in common.

Hey friends,

Made some great progress on my technical prototype last week. I feel like for an entire month, I was really overthinking how to make my UE framework (since multiplayer is complicated and there are a lot of different ways to do it). I finally just made something that will work for prototyping, and that has helped me a lot not only in terms of progress but also the emotional feeling of accomplishment.

Basically now I have the multiplayer framework setup, using a listen server model and an Steam online subsystem plugin. I actually tested with a friend but totally forgot to take documentation of it. Now, people can download my game if I send it to them and if they have Steam. I eventually want to put the game on Steam so having this integration was important to me.

Now that’s finally done, I can move on to the fun stuff – designing the level!

I have a video link in my technical documentation under “making a multiplayer game from scratch” (sorry this page is kind of a mess right now so please use the table of contents)
https://aimixia.notion.site/Technical-Documentation-d8d18fd8f34641fba4c3eecba76c9d8f

Best,
Ai

Had my 4th meeting with Sarah today!

One of the questions I had is how do I consolidate my research? Should I make a formalized research website/page?
This may depend on my end goal – do I want to be more in the academic space, or is my goal to have a published game? I think ultimately I care more about a published game, but it could be nice to work on consolidating the thought/research behind it over summer and have it live on Notion or something.

She also recommended looking for some indie game dev meetups in the bay area since there’s a real community and space for the work that I’m doing, and I think it’s a great idea.

I asked Margaret for help on research on altruism in online gaming. She gave me some helpful tips:

1. Searching on google scholar
– How to add “Getit@NYU” links next to your Google Scholar results: [http://guides.nyu.edu/google/scholar](http://guides.nyu.edu/google/scholar)
– it can be hiding under double carrot
– look under related articles and “cited by”

2. ACM digital library – it’s much smaller, tends to surface stuff you want faster
– right now the database is broken – so you can search but not read/DL some articles
– fun computer people famous for tech conferences
– you can expand your search to other publishers

3. Google Books
– lets you search inside of the book
– if you have something really specific, it could just be an essay within a book
– she did recommended I use the first two first since I found some great articles in there

Also as a side note, using quotation marks around phrases ie [altruism AND “online gaming”]

This week I got the chance to attend Nun’s and Sarah’s thesis group meetings. Here are some of my synthesized notes from each:

Nun – 3/7/23
What is the self sacrifice aspect in altruism? Is that something I want to emphasize or explore? For example, looking at animals there is no evolutionary benefit with altruistic acts.
– altruism is a big part of survival
– emotional feeling of im willing to my needs aside for the needs of the group
– essential emotion for the needs of the community
– At which point is giving not sacrificial anymore?
– Self indulgent sacrifice vs other sorts of sacrifice
– when you don’t have that much, and you give a lot
– do something and you don’t get credit

Buddhism
– Karma cycles
– if you translate it to the game
– if you die you level up

We also talked a bit about trust and things like Milgram’s experiment and the Prisoners dilemma.
– 2 prisoners cooperate
– if one turns on the other
– both turn, both get punished for the longest time
– [https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/prisoners-dilemma.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/prisoners-dilemma.asp)

Sarah – 3/7/23
奶 – helping others play
Jaye – had an experience of random people helping her in WOW, even with an ugly character
Yinyi – likes the idea of the dice and how the randomness can be engaging. Also looking at classic games for simple mechanics.

can a game be good without being bad?
– community and who plays the games – loopholes
– the more things we put in place, the smarter the kids get to how to circumvent
– people will get really creative to get around that
– innovative around that
– how altruism may contribute to an addictive, always on community
– What does someone get from being altruistic? Is that countering the altruism itself? What gets someone hooked onto the game?

In terms of my final project/ prototype:
Do what your hands feel like doing?
If the video game is a prototype that illuminates the dice game
Programmers guide to creating an altruistic game
– what are the instructions that id give based on all my research?
– putting a lot of pressure on this amazing altruistic game
– fool-proof ingredient list
– here are things you have to be careful of