[...] of trust, cooperation, and politics, which in turn spur meditation on those issues.(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) nadreck 2006-06-02 07:02 pm UTC (link) Raph is an interesting fellow. You may havealready found it, but he maintains a fairly popular and regularly updated blog at http://www.raphkoster.com/. He just announced the sequel to A Theory of Fun, which in theory should be done in the fall and is called A Grammar of Gameplay (Outline here: http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/05/19/the-new-book-a-grammar-of-gameplay/). Unless I’m off my game and misunderstanding, it sounds to me from the outline provided that it will be addressing a lot of the issues and thoughts the book sparked in you, so it might be worth checking out when it comes out.As far as overly mechanising a theme or moral question, I think you’re right, there is a definite and large risk that by doing so, you end up curtailing further thought or growth. This doesn’t mean it can’t be done to great effect in some cases, though, and ultimately it is the task of the designer to try and balance the editorial and exploratory/meditative elements.(Reply to this) (Parent) [...]

[...] This, however, only brings on the next challenge.   What would be the ideal game-oriented virtual world programming DSL look like?  Perhaps it will involve something likek Raph Koster’s ambition of a Grammar of Gameplay (see [1.] , [2.] ).  [...]

[...] quote:Originally posted by AshtonWindsor There appears to be a bizarre belief that inventing a name for something – descriptive or not – confers something valuable. Furthermore, the less useful a name is the more favored it seems to be. Gee, I wonder why. Let me guess: every word you write, speak, and otherwise use was invented at one point or another to identify and/or describe a concept. Raph Koster is currently writing a new book, A Grammar of Gameplay: How Games Work. And Raph’s preceding GDC 2005 presentation. Also at Lost Garden, Creating a System of Gameplay Notation. quote:What benefit do we receive from this celebration of game design theory that makes up for its alienation of the “uneducated”?Pity. I almost shed a tear. Almost. [...]

[...] Koster’s current book project is A Grammar of Gameplay, an ambitious attempt to symbolically describe the component “atoms” of games. He presented an early example at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, CA, March 2005. The grammar would be a tool to reverse-engineer and notate individual game ingredients, such as topology (“the operational space for a given asset”), core mechanics (“ludemes”), depth of recursion, cost of failure and many other abstractions. Using the grammar, a designer could quantifiably assess a game’s difficulty, range of challenges and required feedback mechanisms. [...]

[...] The new book: A Grammar of Gameplay, and I still haven’t started actually writing the damn thing… [...]

[...] Editorials: Raph’s writing a new book, not The Practical Application of FunFeedback forum || Email Editor@Warcry.comFiled 05/22/2006 by JR “Razor” SutichWhich is a shame, because his former employer could have really benefitted from reading it. His new book will be titled “A Grammar of Gameplay: How Games Work”. Parts of it sound interesting, like “Games that are not games” under a “The shape of things to come” heading. I’m going to say that this is where Raph talks about more virtual worlds with gameplay (or lack of it) like Second Life, and Entropia Universe. Maybe even that Naughty America porn game. Raph, if you’re reading, books are cool and all, but some of us are lost in the MMO sauce. Could you make us a new game please? [...]

Re. metaphor. There’s a ton of research on metaphors as models outside of gaming. Are you keeping these areas separate? I can wait to find out:) It’s a great topic. Thanks.

I like to think the universe is an MMOG under development and capitalism is just the crunch mode.

[...] Raph Koster,the veteran game designer and former SOE chief creative officer,has announced(according to gamasutra.com) via his weblog that he is working on a follow-up "A Grammar of Gameplay: How Things Work" book(originally as A Theory of Fun for Game Design).This book was created by "Using the latest thinking from game stuies as well as years of experience". The book is broken into a few broad sections,including A brief recap of A Theory of Fun, to provide context for the rest of the book. An overall structure for looking at games: separating game mechanics from content, the game metaphor from the mechanics, and the narrative from the metaphor. A breakdown of the “grammar” of games: how the mechanics fit together naturally to form a sort of “atomic theory of game design.” The borrowed media: games today are a multimedia experience. The mechanics alone are not the only part of the experience. Using research and knowledge from a variety of fields, we explore the best practices and the cognitive impacts of things like camera choice, art style, and music.Plus,it is also revealed that this new book was supposed to be done by the fall,but not production date was confirmed.For more details on this book,you can head here. [...]