[games_access] Thinking about GDC 08's competition

[AudioGames.net]

Hi,

I agree with all of the competitors advice. I would also like to add "no 
game show theme next time"? A theme is good, but something cool, not corny? 
Michelle, I like all of your suggestions so far. I would prefer to have a 
good, 3rd party host and Raph seems like a good person for that. And I guess 
fitting in his own entry is cool?

But, ok, what still seems missing is:

1) theme / title of the design challenge. Can we still use "design 
challenge" in the title?
2) basically along with the theme, the target impaired audience? Our options 
are:

- game for one specific game handicap
- game for a game handicap of choice
- game for one out of a selection of game handicaps (the list we make)

But maybe we can try something completely different/less obvious instead. As 
I read Eelke's (excellent) Gamasutra article today, I was thinking about 
handicaps caused by impairments and the same handicaps not caused by 
impairments. Example: deaf gamers encounter the same problems as gamers in a 
loud environment (LAN party/mother vacuming/arcade/on the train) as gamers 
that play a mobile game and intentionally turn the sound off. Another one 
is: gamers with parkinson encounter the same problem as gamers on a plane 
with turbulence. Another one is: gamers trying to play with a DS or a PSP in 
a sunny environment (as I tried in the Dominican Republic for 2 weeks) 
encounter the same problem as visually impaired gamers. etc. etc. For more 
examples, see Eelke's article.

Maybe we could make sort of a game-handicap list, where each problem is 
linked to both a bodily impairment *and* a likely situation that a 
non-impaired gamer can also encounter. So the parkinson/airplane disability 
(although there's probably also the gamer with parkinson on a plane with 
turbulence-disability). This is also where we could can some fun in, for 
instance:

disability: game speed is to fast
people who encounter this issue: gamers with a physical impairment that does 
not allow for fast reactions, hippies

disability: cannot hear game audio
people who encounter this issue: deaf gamers, grannies, gamers who visited 
Ozzfest 2007

Err... ?

And I guess I still want Hugh Heffner to showcase his Playboy Mansion game 
to see how well he handles the controls at his age. And I like celebrity 
handicapped people: Michael J Fox showing how he plays with the DS having 
Parkinson?

Just some random thought. Next please!

Ries


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "d. michelle hinn" <hinn at uiuc.edu>
To: "IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List" <games_access at igda.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 11:11 PM
Subject: [games_access] Thinking about GDC 08's competition


> Hey guys,
>
> So I'm working on next year's design challenge for GDC and I'm taking the 
> advise of the competitors from 07 into consideration:
>
> * Keep it to one hour
> * No judges at all -- if judges have questions about why they felt that 
> way...I'll email you off-list
> * Include accessibility "extra info" between the contestants or do it all 
> up front
> * NO VIDEOS unless they are realllllllllly good and reallllllllllly short 
> (we left people in the dark with our video as fun as it was to make it 
> wasn't nearly as hilarious in real life) :)
> * Keep things more serious without being boring
> * Ax the "reality show" idea
> * Cut down the number of contestants to 3
>
> So right now I'm talking to people who might be involved -- Raph Koster 
> (wrote "theory of fun") is interested in either being a contestant or 
> being "mini" presenter on the challenges of accessibility and fun (those 
> of you at GDC 07 probably remember that we were up against him so maybe if 
> we get everyone famous somehow involved...hehe) and then Will Wright, Dave 
> Perry and Keita Takahashi who said they were interested for 08 -- I'm 
> imagining all will not say "yes." Raph is really interested in being 
> involved in some manner. I'd like for them to be involved during even the 
> early stages so that we can present a coherent show. So I'd to have the 
> spirit of being a publisher with many competing design studios and only 
> one will get the "go" in a "go/no go" audience vote (this was Noah's 
> suggestion). So the contestants would have "checking in" meetings with us 
> as they go (to prevent "non-game presentations...we had a few") and such. 
> And I'm imagining that all contestants would have "accessibility mentors" 
> assigned to them from the SIG to make things even more challenging and fun 
> for all of us and get us all involved.
>
> So this isn't THE proposal...I'm just still riffing on some ideas. So YOUR 
> opinion counts so please do give it! None of last year's contestants said 
> that we should drop the whole idea -- but instead change it and do it in a 
> way that seems much more put together.
>
> So let's go! Let's think about our cool street cred session that might get 
> people in the door for an hour and then get them to come to the expo for 
> more! Let's think about how we can have the coolest, yet non-hospital 
> inducing sessions to raise the roof!!!!
>
> Michelle
> _______________________________________________
> games_access mailing list
> games_access at igda.org
> http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access