코드 레이스는 팀 단위 실시간 프로그래밍 경진 대회입니다.
온라인게임이나 바둑, 혹은 스포츠 중계를 컴퓨터 프로그래밍에 적용하면 어떨까요?
코드 레이스는 10여팀이 동시에 같은 문제를 두고 프로그래밍을 하고,이 모습이 실시간으로 벽에 투영되며,해설자들은 관중과 교감해가며 그들이 두는 코드 한 수 한 수를 해설하는 독특한 행사입니다.자신의 프로그래밍 실력을 뽐내고 싶거나 혹은 뛰어난 프로그래머들의 모든 것을 현장에서 직접 느끼고 싶은 분들을 환영합니다.
프로그래밍도 하나의 엔터테인먼트가 될 수 있다는 것을 체감하실 수 있을 겁니다.

주최 : 정보통신부
주관 : 한국소프트웨어진흥원

시간/장소:
* 일시 : 2005년 11월 26일
* 장소 : 한국소프트웨어진흥원

자세한 정보

translation

코드레이스(Coderace) is a real-time competition for competing ability of programming.
Imagine the situation that several team of programmers compete their programming ability in real-time, a likely to that of sports, soccer, baseball or basketball game.
In Coderace, 10 program team will be got the same question, and they have to solve in real time. The process will be projected real screen. The commentator will give the audience the explanation for the written codes.

This competition is hosted by the ministry of information and communication, South Korea.

Someday, programming ability will be common for the every person. It’s inventory play or game, like any other sports game.
similar event; livecoda 2006, Real-Time Programming Competition in Melbourne, Australia.

Graeme Kirkpatrick, Between Art and Gameness: Critical Theory and Computer Game Aesthetics, 2007
Jesper Juul, The Game, the player, the world; Looking for a heart of gameness, 2003
Jan Simons, Narrative, Games, and Theory, 2007
Progress Quest

Progress Quest is a next generation computer role-playing game. Gamers who have played modern online role-playing games, or almost any computer role-playing game, or who have at any time installed or upgraded their operating system, will find themselves incredibly comfortable with Progress Quest’s very familiar gameplay. Progress Quest follows reverently in the footsteps of recent smash hit online worlds, but is careful to streamline the more tedious aspects of those offerings. Players will still have the satisfaction of building their character from a ninety-pound level 1 teenager, to an incredibly puissant, magically imbued warrior, well able to snuff out the lives of a barnload of bugbears without need of so much as a lunch break. Yet, gone are the tedious micromanagement and other frustrations common to that older generation of RPG’s.

Summary

According to the notion of Tomasello, human species has own distinction with the primates. It’s the joint attentional scenes. Through the joint attentional scenes, human kind accomplished the ability to understand one another as an intentional agents and the object of communication. During this process, joint attentional scene diversed into two different types. One is the mimetic games and the other is the narrative thinking. And also the games work as the cultural ratchets throughout the human history. In this way games, narrative and media coevolved.
As a second condition for her argument, Murray borrows Donald’s concept of the coevolution of cognition and culture. According to Donald, the process of cultural development can be categorized into four different steps.

Episodic culture; discrete episodic structure and recall
Mimetic culture; the understanding of one another as intentional, conscious agents & symbolical communication
Mythic culture; communicate through symbolic forms of representation & understanding the world in narrative form.
Theoretical culture; abstract formalism and is based on massive externally stored memory systems such as print and computers.

In Murray’s view, we are in theoretical culture. As a result of this coevolution, “we can think about the history cognition as based on a succession of symbolic media patterns.” And “we can think of the superset of all media as a single language, a paradigm of symbolic communication, and a union catalog of expressive symbols of every kind.” Through this we can handle the computation-based media as expressive symbols.

In this article, the origin of games can be dated back when human nature accomplishs her own prominence. If this is true, we can imagine games not the isolated medium but the multi-layered multiplicity which combines manifold medium in itself.

Toward a Cultural Theory of Gaming: Digital Games and the Co-Evolution of Media, Mind, and Culture

Janet H. Murray
Georgia Institute of Technology

POPULAR COMMUNICATION, 4(3), 185–202
Copyright © 2006, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Abstract
Digital games are an expanding popular cultural form and the focus of a new field of scholarship that has been concerned with defining games and establishing boundaries between games and other phenomena. Studies of the coevolution of human cognition and culture can throw light on this discussion by putting gaming into a longer human perspective. Although 2 chief theorists of this field, Michael Tomasello and Merlin Donald, have not explicitly focused on games, their work has suggested that games could have played an important role in shaping the human mind and human culture, by expanding and preserving adaptive cultural patterns, furthering symbolic thinking, and expanding and preserving the expressiveness of symbolic media. Digital games can be understood as carrying on the same functions, using the new affordances of the computer.

Quotation

p.185
… “what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it.”

p.186
The shape of videogames is, therefore, tied to older cultural forms and the pleasures of videogames seem to be rooted in our age-old attraction to games in general.

p.187.
Games have not been treated as an expressive genre, such as theater, poetry, or folk songs.

Recent attempts to provide a definition of games as the basis for serious study of digital games have produced struggles with a few key outlier cases that make it difficult to see the boundaries between games and non-games.

However, such a solution runs into the even more contested category of play (Sutton-Smith, 1997).

The boundary between videogames and other forms of digital media is also becoming confusing.

p. 188
Michael Tomasello (2000) explained this compressed time scheme as the result of a single change in human cognition: the ability to understand cospecifics (other members of our species) as intentional agents like oneself. This foundational change underpins symbolic communication and allows us to engage in cultural learning. Culture is the key element here, because the human advantage over other species lies in our ability to share and transmit knowledge and patterns of behavior across historical time and in the raising of children.

[directiveness; not only in a current time-space but also in other time-space, indexical.]

• Point or gesture to outside objects for others.
• Hold objects up to show them to others.
• Bring others to locations so they can observe things there.
• Actively offer objects to other individuals by holding them out.
• Intentionally teach other individuals new behaviors.

p.189
Tomasello further believes that the ability to follow on the attention of the adult leads to the child recognizing when he or she is his- or herself the focus of the adult’s attention and
gaze, and this begins to lay the framework for an understanding of the self as an actor in the social world. This cognitive leap, which happened for the species in relatively recent evolutionary time (the last 250,000 years or so) and for the individual at 9 to 15 months old, forms the basis for the communicative cultural tasks that make up the bulk of human achievement. It is the basis of sharing, negotiating, learning, and symbolic communication.
The framework in which the cognitive achievement of understanding intentionality leads to the acquisition of culturally transmitted knowledge is called a joint attentional scene.

What are they fun? What is the primary motivation to engage in them?

What is it about a game activity that is intrinsically enjoyable to those who choose to engage in it? What do games offer in return for limiting the exploratory delights of play?

p.190
Indeed, the three defining characteristics of a joint attentional scene are similar to the social situation necessary for gaming:

• Shared limited focus on external objects or behaviors (or both)
• Mutually witnessed intentionality among participants within the shared
context
• Symbolic communication between participants
[object, share, communication]

The ability to form this joint attentional scene makes it possible to engage in the activities characteristic of games: to treat abstract representations consistently, behave according to negotiated rules, and limit one’s actions and attention to the game pieces and game actions to what “counts” in the game by screening out other stimuli and actions.

Joint attention organizes two fo the core activities of games: turn taking and synchronizing behaviors.

• An understanding of the self both as an agent and an object within a community of other intentional agent–objects
• The ability to shift perspective from one’s own point of view to the point of view of others, to imagine what someone else is thinking, and to see oneself from the point of view of the other
• The ability to intentionally teach and learn, which is the foundation of all human cultural development

p. 191
She interpreted their mirroring interaction as a kind of dialog without language.

It says no by saying yes.

Finally they describe their actions as they do them: “I jump” or “big jump!” while jumping off the box.

The pleasure of the game lies as much in the communication as in the actions, and it lies particularly in the matching of language to action, and in the choreographing of both into a patterned social interaction. The pleasure of games reinforces the adaptive behavior of symbolic communication around patterned social behaviors.

p.192
Perhaps in these imitative interactions they are experiencing both their similarity to others and their separateness. Perhaps they are learning that we each are intentional agents of action and that playing together is a very pleasant thing (Malcom, 2000).

These early games are based on mutually elaborated patterns that serve the same purpose as written rules. They are intrinsically social and can, in fact, be understood as a celebration of the social—of the very presence of other intentional beings. The pleasure derived from sharing attention and witnessing and enacting intentional acts forms the framework for mastering complex physical and social skills. Spectatorship is as much a part of the experience as active performance, and in early games it is an alternating spectatorship: You do, I do; you do, I do. The elaboration of joint attentional scenes into ever more elaborate games sets up opportunities for performance, for presenting the self as a performer in a socially constructed arena, and for incorporating multiple individuals into flexible but predictable group structures.

… we can think of Ring Round Rosy as the paradigmatic game.

It synchronizes the behavior of the group, which is one of the key requirements for survival in a culture of hunting.

p.193 THE COEVOLUTION OF GAMES, NARRATIVE, AND MEDIA

If we accept these theories of early cognition then we can think of games and stories as driving and coevolving with the development of language, leading to the development of more complex social patterns, more complex causal thinking, and more elaborate symbolic culture.

• The understanding of one’s fellow creatures as intentional beings, leading to the exploration of joint attention, which can be understood as the birth of mimetic games
[intentional beings]
• The understanding of overt events as the result of invisible causes, which leads to abstract thinking about causal patterns, which can be understood as the birth of narrative thinking
[mimetic games]

p.194
… the elaboration of symbolic communication, starting with gesture and vocalization and developing into spoken language, which can be understood as the birth of media.

[
episodic culture; discrete episodic structure and recall
mimetic culture; the understanding of one another as intentional, conscious agents & symbolical communication.
mythic culture; communicate through symbolic forms of representation & understanding the world in narrative form.
theoretical culture; abstract formalism and is based on massive externally stored memory systems such as print and computers.
]

p.196
Human children play rule-governed games by imitation, often without any formalized instruction.

Yet the more on thinks about the elements of cultural cognition the more game-like they seem.

The process of cumulative cultural evolution requires not only creative inbention byt also, and just as importantly, faithful social transmission that can work as a ratchet to prevent slippage backward.

Games seem to be well-suited to role of cultural ratchet, preserving patterns of behavior from one generation to the next through the intrinsic pleasure of shared attention and imitation.

Many patterns that are rigidly enforced in games are also the basis of general social organization, such as turn taking, following the leader, exchanging property, team formation, conflict containment, and collective focusing on common goals. The win-lose pattern of games seems also to be adaptive in motivating repeated practice and competitive effort.

p. 197
As Donald (1991) pointed out, human cognitive advancement is closely linked to the development of media of communication.

Games have been, and continue to be, useful in directing our attention to all of these media, allowing for exploration of new means of expression and preserving outdated media forms for later reuse. Games can be seen as a means of coevolving our minds and our media, of assimilating new technologies of inscription through exploration of their capacity for symbolic representation, and of preserving and expanding symbolic expression by making symbolic systems the explicit focus of activity.

p.200
… the history of human cognition as based on a succession of symbolic media patterns:…

… we can think of the superset of all media as a single language, …

The computer is the most capacious pattern-making medium we have ever had.

Note & Summary

Collaboration for what? At this point, we should re-think about the purpose of the game. In the view-point of Murray, which is inspired by Tomasello’s, it is presumable that every individual and group activity is directly connected with the survival in the very early stage of the evloution of primate. That is to say, the collaboration between the individuals is strongly led to the competition between the groups in the higher level. In the intantiated game, Lord of the Rings, there is also the non-player character, Sauron who is the clear enemy of this game. In this way, the collaboration becomes the sub-goal for the competition. Even the situation when the visible enemy cannot be found, in game such as Tetris, the rule that interfere the player’s will became the competitor which should be overcame.

Collaborative games: Lessons learned from board games

José P. Zagal, Jochen Rick
Georgia Institute of Technology

Idris Hsi
Microsoft Corporation

Abstract

Collaborative mechanisms are starting to become prominent in computer games, like massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs); however, by their nature, these games are difficult to investigate. Game play is often complex and the underlying mechanisms are frequently opaque. In contrast, board games are simple. Their game play is fairly constrained and their core mechanisms are transparent enough to analyze. In this article, the authors seek to understand collaborative games. Because of their simplicity, they focus on board games. The authors present an analysis of collaborative games. In particular, they focus on Reiner Knizia’s LORDOFTHERINGS, considered by many to be the quintessential collaborative board game. Our analysis yields seven observations, four lessons, and three pitfalls, that game designers might consider useful for designing collaborative games. They reflect on the particular opportunities that computers have for the design of collaborative games as well as how some of the issues discussed apply to the case of computer games.

KEYWORDS: board games; collaboration; collaborative games; cooperation; computer games; decisions; game design; individuals; lessons; multiplayer games; LORD OF THE RINGS; payoffs; pitfalls; teams; utility

Quotation

J. P. Zagal, J. Rick, I. Hsi. (2007) ” Collaborative games: Lessons learned from board games.” Simulation & Gaming 37:1, 24-40

Summary

25
How can electronic games be designed so that collaboration is a worthwhile, interesting, and attractive option?

27
Players in RPGs frequently seek to create a satisfying storyline for their character, rather than successfully complete the adventure (Fine, 1983). From a game-theory perspective, these players are not playing a game; instead, they are creating a narrative. Consequently, RPGs are often understood in terms of narrative theory, rather than game theory (Heliö, 2004)

29

figure 1. Lord of the Rings gamel Moria Scenario Board

32
If such a moment of self-sacrifice is interesting as a story, it is even more engaging when you are the one to make the decision (in the game).

33
Communication among the players about the available resources for a particular task becomes more efficient than a single player trying to marshal all the resources at one time.

Pitfall 2: For a game to be engaging, players need to care about the outcome and that outcome should have a satisfying result.

This pitfall applies to all games; however, we feel it is particularly important for collaborative games. If players do not care about the outcome, then they are not motivated enough to help each other or improve on their performance.

A good game can be a good story.

34
Unlike completely deterministic games, like Chess, LORD OF THE RINGS cannot be played exactly the same way twice.

So, unlike competitive games, like Chess, collaborative games need to adapt to the players’ abilities to maintain replayability.

35. Implication for computer games
communication flexbility

Many basic cues of identity, personality, and social roles are absent in the online world (Donath, 1998), making it harder for players to understand each other and agree on plans of action.

37
To conclude, we maintain that games have a unique potential to engage people in collaborative activities. On the other hand, collaborative games are rare and extraordinarily difficult to design. This article has hopefully illustrated some of the particular difficulties inherent to the design of these games as well as showing that simply having cooperative elements is generally insufficient for collaborative play. We have noted how many computer games do apply some of the lessons we have identified, though most tend to fail when it comes applying them all.We believe that computer games not only have the potential for addressing many of the issues discussed but also many affordances to solve them.We are hopeful to have provided insight that game designers might be able to use to create more and better collaborative games.

• Lesson 1:To highlight problems of competitiveness, a collaborative game should introduce a tension between perceived individual utility and team utility.
• Lesson 2: To further highlight problems of competitiveness, individual players should be allowed to make decisions and take actions without the consent of the team.
• Lesson 3: Players must be able to trace payoffs back to their decisions.
• Lesson 4: To encourage team members to make selfless decisions, a collaborative game should bestow different abilities or responsibilities upon the players.

Challenge in designing collaborative games

• Pitfall 1: To avoid the game degenerating into one player making the decisions for the team, collaborative games have to provide a sufficient rationale for collaboration.
• Pitfall 2: For a game to be engaging, players need to care about the outcome and that outcome should have a satisfying result.
• Pitfall 3: For a collaborative game to be enjoyable multiple times, the experience needs to be different each time and the presented challenge needs to evolve.

More information

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlers_of_Catan
http://catanonline.com/default.htm?MSID=f12bf66534774191adb1953ecd48504d&c00=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reiner_Knizia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Rings_%28board_game%29
Lord of the Rings Images / BoardGameGeek

Hello
Basically, I am interested in the information behavior which is occured in the game by player. And, for that point of view, I think that the new method for the game study will be more helpful for that approach. In the newly announed articles, we can find some attempt to set space as a main element in game. With this point of view, I believe that the combination of the information behavior and cognition of space can be a powerful method. So I start to find related articles. And the results are as below.

In the zipped file, I put two pdf files that I used for the presentations in 1st & 2nd week. Flynn’s article might be closer to my subject matter. Champion’s paper can be regarded as a good trial and start point for the study of importance of space or spatial cognition in the game. So he suggests an experiment with the monkey’s brain. But there are no experimental data to prove this assertion.
And I also guess that Kampmann’s paper – the space in new media conception will be the good paper for my subject matter though I couldn’t read it.

Thank you

기본적으로 제 관심사는 게임 안에서 이루어지는 information behavior 입니다. 이를 위해서는 기존의 게임이론보다 다른 방법이 더 유용하다고 생각합니다. 그 가운에 하나가 게임 속의 공간에 무게를 두는 관점입니다. 해당하는 논문은 아래와 같습니다.

Erik Champion 의 논문은 cognitive mapping을 통해 인간의 뇌가 공간을 다르게 인식한다는 주장을 펴려는 논문입니다. 인간실험이 어려우므로 원숭이의 뇌를 가지고 하자라는 제안이며 실제의 실험 데이터는 없습니다. 처음에 발표한 논문입니다만 제 의견으로는 Flynn의 논문이 제가 하려는 것과 직접적으로 더 이어져있다고 생각합니다.
이 논문이 첫번째 발표한 논문입니다.

Flynn의 논문은 두번째로 발표한 논문입니다.
게임에 있어 공간이라는 요소, 특히 플레이어에 의해 수행되는 walking in the game space 측면이 게임성을 만들어낸다고 주장합니다.
narratology, 혹은 lodology와는 또 다른 제3의 입장이라는 내용입니다. 구분점을 분명히하려는 의도가 많이 드러나는데 글 자체의 논리적설득력은 약간 부족하다는 것에 제 생각입니다.

마지막 글(Kampmann Walther; Space in New Media Conception – With Continual Reference to Computer Games and Game Graphics)은 아직 읽지 않았지만 꼭 읽보아야할 것 같아 함께 올립니다.

감사합니다.

zipped file include 2 article;
Flynn, Language of navigation
Erik Champion; Place Space and Monkey Brains; cognitive mapping in games and other media

space in new media conception(pdf file) by Bo Kampmann Walther