Creative Cohorts 24 May 2:28 PM (4 months ago)
Calais Maine isn’t the sort of town one would expect to produce writers, artists or thinkers. Most folks worked at the papermill in the next town over. And everyone else achieved the enforced equality that comes from borderline poverty. For teenagers, entertainment was limited. In summer, there was drinking in the woods. In winter, when the ice turns porcelain, folks would hunker in their trucks in the empty parking lot of Gays Shop ‘n Save, roll down the windows and chat. Our black and desolate moonscape after 4pm.
What is a Social Systems Designer? 22 Mar 11:27 AM (7 months ago)
A brief definition of the emerging game design discipline of Social Systems Designer. With references for further exploration.
Kind Games: The GDC Talk 27 Jun 2024 4:25 PM (last year)
I presented the Kind Games paper at GDC 2024! I found out afterwards that it ended up being a completely full session with (checks analytics) 140 people in the audience and 94% of respondent rating it Excellent. 6% rated it only Good. Well, at least there’s still room for improvement. I really wanted this talk […]
What is a Daniel Cook Game? 8 Jul 2023 12:00 PM (2 years ago)
A teammate asked me the damning question, “What is a Daniel Cook game?” I didn’t have a good answer. He was looking for some understanding of the influences behind the things we make. In his mind, there’s clearly a vein I’m mining when I lead a project (though I don’t lead all our projects) and […]
Kind Games: Designing for Prosocial Multiplayer 8 Jul 2023 11:12 AM (2 years ago)
This paper was originally published here as part of the Polaris Game Design Retreat 2022 papers. Posted here to ensure to help defend against far future link rot. WORKGROUP MEMBERS INTRODUCTION What if we proactively design our games to facilitate positive human relationships? We propose that games built on a foundation of kind aesthetics can […]
Appliance Gaming 2020 18 May 2023 9:22 AM (2 years ago)
(Note: This was written for the Games of 2020 content put on by Game Developer magazine. I won a free ticket to GDC 2009.) The massive success of WiiFit was a wakeup call, not for the game industry, but for Maytag and Whirlpool. With a dash of simple game design, a simple bathroom scale outsold […]
A design practice for social systems 7 Apr 2023 3:03 PM (2 years ago)
The following essay was originally posted in ACM Journal Games: Research and Practice (https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3583184) Reposted here to provide a more accessible copy with better formatting. On grim winter days it is easy to feel that we live in a predatory digital ecology intentionally designed to foster negative emotions. We prime players with mechanisms that actively […]
The Letter Circle 25 Feb 2023 10:53 PM (2 years ago)
A thought that has been stewing for a while is “What is a form of social media I’d be willing to use?” So here is one app design that attempts to answer the question. It helps folks create and manage small social groups focused on thoughtful writings and conversation. The joy of letter writing At […]
Closed social affordances / Open social affordances in social systems design 31 Dec 2022 6:06 PM (2 years ago)
Introduction In social systems design, we often need to control how different players interact with one another. We want to heavily mediate griefing and toxicity between strangers. And we want to open up more intimate channels of communication between trusted friends so they can offer nuanced sympathy and support. “Closed” and “open” affordances are useful […]
Kindness 12 Nov 2022 2:49 PM (2 years ago)
So much mentoring I do is asking folks to treat themselves with kindness. Overwork, anxiety, external and internal pressure can put us into a dark hole. We find ourselves lacking mental resources to be playful. – Danc (This was originally a Tweet: https://twitter.com/danctheduck/status/1346832733402632193)