Blog

TAG Symposium: Andrei Zanescu Talk

Jun 13, 2019

Posted by Gina at 10:12 am • June 4, 2019

If you want to know what the connection is between The Witcher and Māori culture come by TAG on June 13th at 5pm! Our upcoming symposium will be featuring TAG & mLAB PhD student Andrei Zanescu.
Digital Heterotopias: From the Balkans to Aotearoa as Commodified Game Worlds
What are game worlds? At a general level, they can be replicas of the lived world’s geographic spaces. At a deeper level, they can be irreverent and transgressive critiques of …

From simplicity to complexity and back again: The design and development of Rogess

Posted by Pippin at 12:03 pm • June 3, 2019

Rogess (by Jonathan Lessard and Pippin Barr) can be thought of as a kind of “sequel” to Chogue. It’s more accurate to say, though, that it is a game occupying the same design space as Chogue, representing a second data-point in our exploration of hybrid game design. In brief, with hybrid game design we’re exploring the idea of taking two separate games and combining them by using “design decisions” selectively taken from one or the other game, then seeing what the …

Design trajectories in Let’s Play: Ancient Greek Punishment: Chess Edition

Posted by Pippin at 10:05 am • May 24, 2019

(Note: throughout this text, I’ll be linking to process materials generated as part of the project in its code repository. The links are both to the specific moments I added relevant code to the project and wrote notes about it – signified by the mysterious strings of letters and numbers known as “commit hashes” – and also to the process journal I wrote throughout design and development. This approach to process documentation is part of the Games …

“Two Birds with One Symposium” – A TAG 5a7

May 30, 2019

Posted by Gina at 12:19 pm • May 23, 2019

If you want to know what it takes to have a good conversation with a digital character or to design game making tools come by TAG on May 30th at 5pm! Our upcoming 5a7 will be featuring TAG PhD student Enric Llagostera and McGill PhD student Ben Kybartas.
There will be two amazing presentations, lots of snacks, some gameplay and infinite good conversation!

TAG 5a7s are free events happening on Thursdays in the lab from 5 to …

What Would Mavis Beacon Do? Punish you.

Posted by Pippin at 6:37 pm • May 16, 2019

Let’s Play: Ancient Greek Punishment: Teaches Typing is the seventh game in my Ancient Greek Punishment series and the third “edition” this year (along with the Inversion Edition and the UI Edition). While I used to create versions of the game every now and then, this year I’ve developed a real interest in only making variations on this core theme for a while. As with past projects like PONGS and SNAKISMS, I find a great deal of value in these sorts of exercises in style. In particular, …

TAG | Microtalks (MAY)

May 22, 2019

Posted by Gina at 11:52 am • May 8, 2019

On May 22nd TAG will be hosting another session of MICROTALKS where TAG students will be sharing their work in the shape of super fast pecha-kucha style presentations. Join us and get up to date on the research TAG members have been conducting this year. The eight speakers featured in this first session will talk about a wide variety of topics including, but not exclusive to: Pokémon GO, controllers, escape rooms, otome games and of …