Future Directions and Credits
This thesis captures a snapshot of game design from a particular time in the history of the MIT Assassins’ Guild. Snapshots attempt to capture and fix the state of a changing environment from a single point of view. With the knowledge that a creative environment changes rapidly, a single snapshot is a poor roadmap for future paths. On their own, snapshots do not have any predictive or even prescriptive use. Of course, the analysis of a series of snapshots or multiple snapshots of the same environment might be useful for a variety of generalized analyses. It is my hope that this thesis might eventually prove useful for someone else’s broad analysis of game design. It is also my wish that other writers, well versed in other forms of gaming, may produce snapshots of their respective fields of expertise.
The practices and examples included in this thesis are specific to the MIT Assassins’ Guild. However, those working in the design of live-action simulation or gaming for recreational or educational purposes may find some applicability for these ideas. Circumstances will always be different with other implementations. This opens up the potential of new solutions for many of the same questions faced by the Guild. The tensions described in this thesis should be seen as opportunities, rather than roadblocks, for the purposes of producing even more compelling, innovative and varied interactive experiences.
For instance, a number of different groups have been working on using Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) to facilitate “augmented reality� simulations, which can be understood as live-action roleplaying with the addition of portable computers. Computers can hide, exchange and reveal information without the explicit interaction or knowledge of players and can also be multipurpose, detailed threshold objects. PDA-mediated mechanics can also cause very little disruption to non-players. Indeed, bystanders may not even notice a PDA-facilitated game in progress. Networked computers can reflect global state variables that players can manipulate from multiple locations. MIT is currently developing a toolkit for non-programmers to implement this sort of functionality on PDAs, although not many groups can afford to supply all participants with compatible handheld computers. All these have significant implications for the tensions of information, verisimilitude, dissociation, competition and feasibility respectively, and I hope to explore these possibilities in the near future.
I would like to express my thanks to Edward Barrett, Kurt Squire and Henry Jenkins, who have provided invaluable support and information for this thesis. I would also like to thank my family and Jennifer Clay for their support and my classmates at MIT for their feedback. Of course, the MIT Assassins’ Guild has been extremely helpful with their discussion and their willingness to try out new ideas; I have special thanks (and apologies) to players and fellow GMs of games that I have worked on. Finally, thanks to God, without whom none of this would have been possible.
