Game Design Challenge: The Emily Dickinson License
Posted 3/15/2005 3:17:00 PM by Sande Chen
Game Design Challenge: The Emily Dickinson License
Clint Hocking, Peter Molyneux, Will Wright, Eric Zimmerman
(see related photos in Session Photos)
The Game Design Challenge is interesting because well-known game designers are willing to show their thought processes in going about a game design problem. It's always fun for the audience to see these off-the-wall suggestions. Will Wright won last year in the Love Story challenge with his "First Person Kisser" about lovers stuck in a military MMOG and trying to reach each other and keep safe in a war zone. Clint Hocking and Peter Molyneux "competed" against Wright by trying to come up with the best game idea with an Emily Dickinson license. Eric Zimmerman, the moderator, started the session by asking a volunteer to read the poetry of Emily Dickinson.
Clint Hocking started by thinking about a Emily Dickinson Poetry Slam. Perhaps it would be like a fighting game with special poet moves.
For example, Robert 'The Iceman' Frost could bore you to sleep (it's an allusion to a famous poem). But then he started thinking about the process of writing and wanted to do something with the stylus on the Nintendo DS.
Clint Hocking's proposal was not to play Emily, but to play her inspiration. Hence, the title Muse. In the game, Emily goes about her daily life and as the muse, you need to steer her to the places where inspiration lie. This could be a Willow Tree with symbols standing in for concepts like Strength or Courage. This symbolic language, categorized by Spring, Autumn, Winter, Summer and Fancy, is a visual representation of concepts from her 1800 + poems. If Emily gets all the inspirations on her poem recipe list, then the player is treated to a visual montage of the poem. Special symbols, like Anguish, would be unlocked as the player progresses. Collecting the symbols fatigues Emily; therefore, the player must steer Emily in the most economical path to collect all her inspirations.
Peter Molyneux showed off a demo called "The Room," which was supposed to represent Emily Dickinson's living quarters. The player is invited to enter the world of Emily Dickinson's whimsy through a portal to make visual representations of the poems with Digital Clay. The Digital Clay automatically guesses what the player is trying to make, so a chair-like shape will turn into a wooden chair. Portals are also available in this world. One can make a portal within a portal within a portal... ad infinitum, like the image of a mirror in a mirror.
Next, Will Wright took us through his musings on what to do with the Emily Dickinson license. Wright's proposal, "USB Emily," was inspired by the many letters she wrote to friends and acquaintances. He described "USB Emily" as a cross between Tamagotchi, the annoying Microsoft paperclip guy, and the character Seaman. Emily, as a personality, would be installed on a USB Flash Drive. Depending on your interactions with her, her response could range from adoration to depression to downright creepy. She would pop up unannounced to ask what the user was doing, offer to read a poem (which was accompanied by random Google'd images), or send e-mail to the player.
Applause from the audience chose the winner, and once again, Will Wright was pronounced triumphant. He received a book of Emily Dickinson's writings.
Southwest Gaming Expo
