Say it with systems: expanding Kodu's expressive power through gender-inclusive mechanics

Authors:
Teale Fristoe;Jill Denner;Matt MacLaurin;Michael Mateas;Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Affiliations:
University of California, Santa Cruz;ETR Associates;Microsoft FUSE Labs;University of California, Santa Cruz;University of California, Santa Cruz
Venue:
Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games
Year:
2011

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Abstract

While game mechanics are a primary focus in game design and game studies, they have been little discussed in the context of introductory game creation and programming environments. But game mechanics are central here as well, with different tools supporting the elements needed for some game mechanics (and genres) but not others. Research suggests many children, especially girls, want to create games based on dynamic relationships, social interactions, and storytelling. But game creation tools aimed at beginners offer no support for game mechanics that would enable such games. This inspires our work on Kodu AI Lab, a set of extensions to Kodu Game Lab, which we are iteratively developing and evaluating with middle school girls. This paper describes our first extensions (attitudes, learning, and fuzzy logic), the principles guiding them (simplicity, understandability, and expressiveness) and the results of our first evaluation. We conclude with our next planned development: extending the "say" command into a game mechanic.