Play Lab (Autumn 2018)

Abstract

This course teaches how to explore technologies for their potential in regards to play.

Description

Play Lab both explores the knowledge required to create new concepts for cutting-edge commercial technologies, and proposes new methods and paradigms for developing content for those platforms.

PlayLab is a course that allows students to think while making, and make while thinking, exclusively focused in the challenges of new and emerging commercial digital technologies.

This course is designed to prepare students to conceptualize and develop innovative forms of interaction with new and emerging commercial technologies.

Students should notice that this is not a game design course.

PlayLab is a studio-based course focused on exploring the design space of emerging technologies from the perspective of play. By combining theory from game design, interaction design, philosophy of technology, and media theory, PlayLab both explores the knowledge required to create new concepts for cutting-edge commercial technologies, and proposes new methods and paradigms for developing content for those platforms.

In 2018, these technologies will be AR and VR, Bluetooth Beacons, and AI-powered Voice Assistants. We will be using ARKit and/or ARCore, iBeacons and/or Eddystone, and the Google Assistant SDK and/or Mycroft as platforms (students might select other platforms in certain cases, to be discussed with the course manager).

PlayLab introduces students to the method of Critical Technical Practice (Agre, 1997). The course introduces students to relevant theory for the exploration of play design as a method for creating interactive experiences with new and emerging technologies. At the same time, PlayLab is a practical course in which students develop four prototypes that explore both the theory and the material properties of the selected technologies

Formal prerequisites

PlayLab is not a course about game design. Therefore, students are not required to have passed any course on game design. In general, the course have no prerequisites. It is an advantage if students are familiar with design methods and theories. Technical skills are not a requirement, but since this is a studio-based course, development skills are welcome.

Intended learning outcomes

After the course, the student should be able to:

• Analyze the design space of new and emerging technologies, as well as their technological possibilities and limits.
• Describe the different perspectives that play provides as a design perspective.
• Explore the playful possibilities of new and emerging commercial technologies
• Design and develop new play experiences and concepts tailored for new and emerging commercial technologies.

Ordinary exam

Exam type:
C: Written report, external (7-trinsskala)
Exam description:
For the exam, students submit a portfolio with the 4 prototypes developed in groups during the course. A group consists of 2-4 students. Together with the prototypes, students hand in an individual reflection on each prototype. That reflection is a text no longer than 3000 words in total, in which students analyze their own work using the course contents.