Posts Tagged ‘VGDb’

Project / Research at the Re:Game lab

I am thrilled to announce that the Re:Game Lab at UC-San Diego is fully functional with nearly thirty consoles, stretching from the Odyssey² to the the PS3.  The lab is available for researchers of all disciplines to engage with the games and consoles as they were designed to be experienced.  Every system is configured to be recorded for gameplay analysis.

Jeremy playing Yar's Revenge in the Re:Game Lab

Jeremy playing Yar's Revenge in the Re:Game Lab

As a core mission of Re:Game, we’re holding weekly events for gameplay showcases and critical discussion.  We’re kicking these shindigs off with an evening devoted to the topic of Rhythm games (Guitar Hero, Rez, DDR, et al).  If you’re in Southern California—or even passing through—please join us!  More details are available via the Re:Game discussion group.

If you’re interested in installing a lab at your own institution, we are very enthusiastic about sharing our process with you and spreading this concept to game studies programs everywhere.  In the coming months, we’ll be providing tutorials on setting up your own lab and configuring a VGSU (Video Game Sampling Unit).

Posted on May 1 2009 /
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Process / VGDb and time studies

As part of the Re:Game initiative at CRCA (UC San Diego), Jeremy Douglass and I are constructing the Video Gameplay Database (VGDb).

A significant component of the VGDb is representations of gameplay.  Jeremy has developed several methods to study time as it relates to gameplay sessions.  Together, we along with other interested researchers are beginning to explore the possibility of these representations.

For some, there’s an attraction to the ability to see a montage of gameplay situations, for others it’s the crop a particular section of screen geometry (such as the chords in Guitar Hero) and dissect the game design.  And of course, the combination of these will serve to provide an understanding of large-scale patterns in the canon of game design.

For my own sake, I am most compelled to explore two representations: Averages and Maximums.  Averages produce a long-exposure type impression from the video while Maximums overlay every frame into one image and provide an all-at-once impression.  In the next few months, I will be recording and analyzing a great deal of gameplay using the “Video Game Sampling Unit” that we’ve devised at Re:Game.  While all of the results will end up in the VGDb, I also intend to post the highlights of my explorations here—the truly revelatory discoveries and the wowzers.

In the meantime, here are two recent prototypes of the VGDb interface:

VGDb Prototype: Gameplay Sessions

VGDb Prototype: Gameplay Sessions

VGDb: Gameplay Representations

VGDb: Gameplay Representations

Posted on Mar 3 2009 /
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