Technoculture, Art and Games (TAG) is an interdisciplinary centre for research/ creation in game studies and design, digital culture and interactive art

Tags: game design
(12 results)

Reactile: A Research Creation Escape Game

Posted by scottbdejong

With the support of TAG, I was able to create and play test the first iteration of my analog escape game, Reactile. The major component of my Masters research creation project, the game explored three central themes; intergenerational space, serious games, and media literacy. As I enter into the writing portion of my Masters, I am reflecting on how these three themes expressed themselves through the creative process. 
A primary challenge for the project was defining, …

TAG Podcasts – Arcade 11 Interview with narF

Posted by mi

Arcade 11 presents games and playful media made by members of the Technoculture, Art, and Games (TAG) Research Centre at Concordia University. As part of the 2019 event, Mariko MacDonald and Michael Iantorno hosted interviews with various game developers, makers, and playtesters.
Relive the colorful joy of learning how to ride a bike…. pushed to the extreme! Our conversation with seasoned game jam veteran narF focused mainly upon Baby Chaos, a game made in three days …

TAG Podcasts – Arcade 11 Interview with Squinky

Posted by mi

Arcade 11 presents games and playful media made by members of the Technoculture, Art, and Games (TAG) Research Centre at Concordia University. As part of the 2019 event, Mariko MacDonald and Michael Iantorno hosted interviews with various game developers, makers, and playtesters.
Squinky is a writer, programmer, musician, and visual artist who creates games and playable experiences about gender identity, social awkwardness, and miscellaneous silliness. We had the opportunity playtest Squinky’s game, Robot Slow Dance, a …

TAG Podcasts – Arcade 11 Interview with Jess Marcotte

Posted by mi

Arcade 11 presents games and playful media made by members of the Technoculture, Art, and Games (TAG) Research Centre at Concordia University. As part of the 2019 event, Mariko MacDonald and Michael Iantorno hosted interviews with various game developers, makers, and playtesters.
Jess Marcotte is a queer nonbinary game designer, writer, intersectional feminist, and PhD student at Concordia University who has worked on games such as In Tune: a game about navigating consent, rustle your leaves …

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

Posted by Pippin

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

(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 …

What Would Mavis Beacon Do? Punish you.

Posted by Pippin

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, …

Q&A Session with Jamey Stegmaier (Stonemaier Games)

Posted by mi

Hello TAGsters! I’m happy to announce that Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier Games has offered to participate in a question-and-answer session for TAG!
Jamey runs the day-to-day operations of Stonemaier Games and designed the board games Scythe, Viticulture, Charterstone, and Euphoria. His eight crowdfunding campaigns have raised over $3.2 million, and he shares his insights, mistakes, and lessons learned on his blog. Jamey’s passion for crowdfunding led him to author A Crowdfunder’s Strategy Guide, a book …

Promises: Tales From the Making

Posted by idatoft

This summer, my game Promises was one of the works included in Hexagram’s campus exhibition at Ars Electronica in Linz. Promises is part of my doctoral research in which I explore what kinds of games become possible when featuring vibration as the primary expression instead of for instance screen and sound. Promises is a computationally simple game. It accommodates up to 16 players and is organized around 16 game objects that each have a unique …

TAG Spotlight: Paloma Dawkins, artist in residence (Part 2 of 2)

Posted by nicwatson

This is the continuation of our post from last week, in which we interviewed Paloma Dawkins: game designer, animator, and TAG’s superstar artist in residence.
In Part 2, Paloma talks about going to GDC (Game Developer’s Conference), writing graphic novels, and what she has planned for the future
GDC badge, artistically modified and photographed by Paloma. Borrowed from her Twitter: pic.twitter.com/KBjilbZMF6
Q. What did you see at GDC that was the one really amazing thing?
Every year I go …

TAG Spotlight: Paloma Dawkins, artist in residence (Part 1 of 2)

Posted by nicwatson

We sat down for a chat with TAG’s superstar artist in residence, Paloma Dawkins. Paloma is a game designer, animator, and author of multiple graphic novels. She has done work for the likes of the National Film Board, Epic Meal-Time, and Deadmau5. This year, she’s been working on a new creation, Museum of Symmetry. Here’s what she had to say.

Q. What are you working on?
I’m working on a game right now called The Museum of …

Research Symposium- Privacy Game brainstorming session

Posted by Adam

Last Wednesday’s Research Symposium was a great success as Shanly Dixon lead a brainstorming session:
“Working on the presumption that people learn through doing, the game design component of the curriculum is intended to provide students with an opportunity to explore definitions and understandings of the concept of privacy through play. Using the Grow-a-Game workshop (created by Tiltfactor as part of Values @ Play) as a model, student will create and pitch game concepts that explore …