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Food for Thoughtful Brainstorming

A topic by Kodedile created Mar 11, 2017 Views: 681 Replies: 8
Viewing posts 1 to 5
Submitted

Hi! I thought I'd share some concepts I gleaned from the linked Wikipedia article on slow culture. Maybe some of these will resonate with fellow slow jammers?

The first time I speed-read through the article and didn't really get it, but after reading an abstract on slow tech (in the article's references) I got a better understanding. How fitting!

Some concepts and questions to ponder:

Less is More: What's so attractive about catching 'em all? Can we fulfill this desire in a different, more minimalist way?

Quality > Quantity: Can we make the bare minimum features/content satisfying in its own right?

Critical Design: How should we challenge the current meanings behind prevailing gameplay features?

Free Choice: How do we get a player to explore the game world at their own pace? Can we offer quests without guilting the player into a grocery list of chores? Could we design quests around context clues, without dialogue?

Adaptive Learning: How should we let the player lead the flow of the game? How should the game adapt to player decisions?

Journey > Destination: How do we lure the player away from rushing to complete the game? Can a game exist without an explicitly defined end, and still be considered a game?

Reflection > Efficiency: How can we make the game slow, but not tiresome? What kinds of interactions or experiences is the player willing to devote extra time to doing? Which interactions do players usually take for granted, without considering the meaning behind their actions?

Mental Rest: How can we design in-game moments of inactivity while keeping the player engaged with the game world? What can we change about gameplay to give players a chance to reflect on their actions?

Pacing: How can we build up to the punchline / climax / "Aha!" moment for maximum effect?

Haha, I did exactly the same thing - skimmed through the wikipedia article and related bits and then went to that same paper. Its a really enjoyable read. Thanks for this post! I will be referring back to this for inspiration no doubt.

Very happy about this game jam. I am reminded of 'The Witness' very much when reading this.

Submitted
Deleted 4 years ago

As a farmer, and thus having a fair awareness of the original Slow Food movement (arising from an incident in 1986) and Slow Money (which kicked off around 2009?) the whole concept seems kind of weird: isn't having a jam for Slow Games almost a contradiction? Slow Food and Slow Money are about taking time to create things with much care and thought for the future. At least, I'd think it would be more like Chris Hecker's Depth Jam. Or maybe like a 30-day approach to making a 48- or 72-hour game, where you would spend lots of time planning and doing research on your setting and the social/cultural implications and generally putting lots of effort and detail and care into a tiny game.

OK, enough ranting. To stay a little bit on topic, here are a few links I think are particularly relevant:

Jam Host(+2)

Yep sure, but this isn't about making a big game and crunching, hopefully we will get that across. It's about trying to promote what we think could be a big genre in games that doesn't really exist. Most of us decided to do it after a conversation in the pub and we just thought we would invite more people. The physical part is 2 days just to hang out but the Jam itself lasts a week and we will be asking people to simply submit whatever they come up with in that time :)

A longer amount of time is quite often a big burden on peoples work and lives. We'll see how it goes and maybe do something different in future.

Thanks for the great links, we (the organisers), have been discussing slow food and slow TV a lot!

Submitted

Thanks for the links!

I suppose in one dimension, the Slow Game Jam could be considered a paradox, but I chose to think of it more as a guide for design decisions than as a practice of slow movement itself. That said, I'll still try to avoid being in crunch mode all week long.

One of the nice things about this jam, as waferthinninja pointed out, is that we have time to really think about the design of our game before we're allowed to start creating anything. Hopefully this increase in thinking time will lead to a less hectic development time, as well as more thoughtful design?

Submitted(+1)

I think one thing that has already set it apart is the fact the theme has been announced so far in advance. So compared to a typical jam where you will have to come up with an idea on the spot, here we will have had a chance to think things through. That is unless I have misinterpreted things and there will be an extra theme announced on the actual day layered on top of the slow game thing?

I've taken it as bad form to actually start working on anything in advance, but still having this time to let ideas percolate is qualitatively different to the way things are usually arranged.

Submitted

Agreed! Knowing the general theme of Slow Games in advance gives us a lot of time to let ideas develop and to assess feasible scope before things get out of control.

(pretty sure there's no secret additional theme, anyway)

Host

There is no secret additional theme at all. :)

You're absolutely on point about giving everyone time to think about their design and I'm interested to see what effect that will have on the games you make. Hopefully it will make for a much more thoughtful and relaxed game jam.

Ah, now I see where you're coming from.