Jesse Schell

Understanding entertainment: story and gameplay are one

Stories and games, which historically have been considered radically different experiences with different principles of construction, actually have many underlying commonalities. Although we view stories as passive and linear, and games as active and nonlinear, during both types of experience, a participant (or guest) is mentally active, and having a linear experience. The way to gauge the quality of the guests experience is through a system of interest curves, which measure interest over time, and interest is shown to be made of three components: inherent interest, poetry of presentation, and psychological proximity. Finally, this paper introduces the idea of indirect control, which is a method of secretly controlling the desires of a guest, allowing a designer to imbue a non-linear interactive experience with structures typically used in traditional storytelling.

Shaping an entertaining future at Carnegie Mellon

Carnegie Mellon established the Entertainment Technology Center. The ETC uses interdisciplinary cooperation to advance the boundaries of digital technology. The ETC strives to prepare students for careers involving digital media in the entertainment industry. The idea is to prepare students for real-world time constraints and deadlines. The ETCs interactive animatronics initiative seeks to create conversationally interactive, emotionally compelling animatronic figures. The ETCs project-oriented approach to teaching innovation has been well received by entertainment companies.

Health Games Come of Age: An Expert Panel Discussion

Bill Ferguson: I am the Editor-in-Chief of the new Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.’s Games for Health Journal: Research, Development, and Clinical Applications, and I’m pleased to have assembled a very impressive group of health game experts for a roundtable discussion with the theme of ‘‘Why a games for health journal now?’’ What has gone on in the field in the past and is currently going on that demonstrates games for health do in fact have a positive impact on the well-being of people and have broad enough applications that there would be demand and interest in a journal? Are there a large number of people who are curious about health games and see them as a resource? The first question I have for the group has to do with the efficacy of games: Have videogames been shown to affect change in health-related behaviors? If your answer is in the positive, please give us an example.

Stories in Games for Health: More Pros or Cons?

There has been a debate about whether entertainment videogames should incorporate story or narrative. A concern has been whether story cut scenes break game immersion, and thereby minimize the fun of gameplay. Alternatively, games for health (G4H) have an agenda that goes beyond just having fun. The possible role of story in G4H has not been thoroughly addressed. We have assembled a group of experts who have worked with stories in G4H, and asked some pointed questions.

Building Virtual Worlds Carrying on the Legacy of Randy Pausch's "Head Fake"

The Carnegie Mellon Building Virtual Worlds course fosters interdisciplinary collaboration and invention. It helps provide students with a solid foundation by challenging them to create innovative, future-oriented experiences through a series of critiqued rapid prototypes. This process, combined with carefully designed peer evaluation, has led to a system that hundreds of alumni credit with setting them on the road to inventing the future of entertainment technology.