Month: May 2009

Announcing a hybrid game opera for Monster

I never thought I would make an opera. But now I have.

A bit of Monster

In a few weeks time the above market square in the town of Monster will be transformed into an arena where fighters duel each other using their pet monsters. If this sounds familiar, it is no coincidence.

Mega Monster Battle Arena is one of 11 operas produced by Dario Fo to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Westland municipality. Dario Fo specialize in creating music theatre in close collaboration with the local community. They asked composer Daniël Hamburger to create the opera for Monster. The brief was to do ‘something’ with the town’s curious name, and to make it a production that would appeal to youth by referencing games culture.1

Daniël in turn approached me, since he had little affinity for games, and wanted the piece to not only be about games, but to be a game itself. So that’s what I helped do. By turning the game design principle of embedded narrative inside-out, we’ve managed to create a structure in which we can both tell a story using a script, and have performers improvise using game rules. Those rules I designed as a proper game. I could give you those rules and you would be able to play it yourself.

So there will be fights, and they’ll not be scripted. You won’t know beforehand who will win, and neither will we. There will also be a story, about a heroine facing off with a bad guy, in the best game and martial arts film tradition. Sieger M.G. was our third man, the piece’s writer. A rapper turned poet with a life-long games addiction, there could be no better fit.

What’s probably most exciting to me is that on top of the improvisational choreography of the duels, a live band will use a rule set of their own, composed by Daniël, that takes the game as it unfolds as its input to improvise. How’s that for adaptive music?2

It might all go horribly wrong, or it might become a wonderful spectacle. If you are like me and would like to find out which it will be, head to Monster for one of the shows. They’re scheduled for:

  • Thursday 18 June 20:30 (tryout)
  • Friday 19 June 20:30
  • Saturday 20 June 20:30

Tickets are 15 Euro and can be bought at the venue. Once the show is over, I’ll post some more detailed stuff about the actual work I did. Stay tuned.

Mega Moster Battle Arena flyer

  1. There would be tons of kids from local high schools to work with. They also wanted to use the local firemen choir. Oh, and aerial work platforms too… [↩]
  2. One of the sources of inspiration for Daniël was John Zorn. [↩]

“Stay hungry, stay foolish”

I graduated from the Utrecht School of the Arts in 2002. Now, less than seven years later, I am mentoring a group of five students who will be doing the same come September this year. I took a photo of them today, here it is:

Bright young bunch

From left to right, here’s who they are and what they’re up to:

  • Christiaan is tech lead on Hollandia, an action adventure game inspired by Dutch folklore. His research looks at ways to close the gap between creatives and technologists in small teams, using agile techniques.
  • Kjell is designing a series of experimental games using voice as their only input. He’s researching what game mechanics work best with voice control.
  • Maxine is game designer on the aforementioned Hollandia game. Her research looks at the translation of the play experience of physical toys to digital games. (In of Hollandia, you’ll be using a Wiimote to control the spinning top used by the heroine.)
  • Paul is building a physics-based platform puzzle game for two players. His research looks at the design of meaningful collaborative play.
  • Eva is making a space simulation game with realistic physics and complex controls. She’s researching what kinds of fun are elicited by such games.

Practically speaking, mentoring these guys means that I see them once a week for a 15-minute session. In this we discuss the past week’s progress and their plans for the next. They’ve set their own briefs, and are expected to be highly self-reliant. My task consists of making sure they stay on track and their work is relevant, both from an educational and a professional perspective. It’s challenging work, but a lot of fun. It forces me to make explicit the stuff I’ve picked up professionally. It’s also a lot about developing a sense for where each student individually can improve and encouraging them to challenge themselves in those areas.

I’m looking forward to seeing what they’ll deliver come September, when it’s their turn to graduate, and go out to conquer the world.

links for 2009-05-27

  • The Case for Working With Your Hands – NYTimes.com
    The author expounds on the virtues of manual labour, and the perversities of much knowledge work. Interesting to read w.r.t. the making versus thinking debate happening in design circles currently: “The gap between theory and practice stretches out in front of you, and this is where it gets interesting. What you need now is the kind of judgment that arises only from experience; hunches rather than rules. For me, at least, there is more real thinking going on in the bike shop than there was in the think tank.”
    (tags: education skills knowledgework work manual making thinking)

links for 2009-05-25

links for 2009-05-20

links for 2009-05-15