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Peering Into the Blackbox the Role of Digital Game

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Peering Into the Blackbox the Role of Digital Game PEERING INTO THE BLACKBOX THE ROLE OF DIGITAL GAME DEVELOPMENT IN GAME STUDIES by Luke Skye Bernfeld APPROVED BY SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: ___________________________________________ Monica Evans, Chair ___________________________________________ Timothy Christopher ___________________________________________ Kim Knight ___________________________________________ Roger Malina Copyright 2020 Luke Skye Bernfeld All Rights Reserved PEERING INTO THE BLACKBOX THE ROLE OF DIGITAL GAME DEVELOPMENT IN GAME STUDIES by LUKE SKYE BERNFELD, BS, MA DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The University of Texas at Dallas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ARTS, TECHNOLOGY, AND EMERGING COMMUNICATIONS THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS December 2020 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to acknowledge and express my gratitude to the many individuals who assisted me in this journey. Thanks to Dr. Monica Evans for being a mentor through my graduate program and for guiding me through the dissertation process. Thanks to Dr. Tim Christopher for helping me to learn how to develop digital games and helping to fine-tune my digital game for this dissertation. Thanks to Dr. Kim Knight for helping me see things from a different perspective and broadening my outlook on digital games. Thanks to Dr. Roger Malina for giving me great ideas to examine and for helping me to think about the side effects of my ideas. Thanks to Dr. Oliva Banner and Dr. Josef Nguyen for helping me to find my focus. Thanks to Dr. Deb Thornton, Professor of English at Utah Valley University, who helped me learn how to listen to myself and write it down. I must acknowledge my wife, Liz Bernfeld, without whom I would not be here. Her faith and love kept me going when it was most difficult. Thanks to Eric Shad Miller and Stephen Mallory for all the time they devoted to editing this work. Thanks to Eva Wamsley for being a great mother and mentor in my academic pursuits. Thanks to Roger Shirley, Becky Ryser, and Katie Apker for being editors and helpers in this process. September 2020 iv PEERING INTO THE BLACKBOX THE ROLE OF DIGITAL GAME DEVELOPMENT IN GAME STUDIES Luke Bernfeld, PhD The University of Texas at Dallas, 2020 ABSTRACT Supervising Professor: Monica Evans Digital game development is a critical tool in game studies due to its ability to communicate and its academic value as a mode of understanding the medium. Understanding digital game development and gaining some appreciation of the complexities of development, whether by direct development experience or indirect observation of the process, must be a goal for game studies scholars. Blackboxing, according to Bruno Latour, is when a machine or process runs so efficiently that no one bothers to examine it (Latour, Pandora's Hope: Essays on The Reality of Science Studies, 1986). While this is the goal of any good developer, game studies scholars should seek to look within the black box and understand development. Digital game scholars should understand the fundamentals of digital game development. In my work, I have reviewed the existing literature produced by game studies scholars related to the process of development to explore the ways that scholars have discussed and utilized development. I also examined ways that developers write about and approach digital game development exploring how these related to game scholarship. I studied a strong example of digital game development in scholarship by approaching the text Metagaming, which utilizes v development at the end of each chapter. I examined the game Doki Doki Literature Club to further explore how development and development tools are used in the process of play, considering the ways that development itself can become a tool. I then explore The Art of Failure to examine the game developed in collaboration with Jesper Juul to see the benefits of collaborative development. I look at the games Super Meat Boy and Stardew Valley as examples of small team and solo development to better understand how scholars can utilize these development methodologies. I then used the methods of solo development and made a game. I documented the process of developing Game Lab Sim extensively to explore further scholarly development. This work contributes to the growing body of literature approaching digital games as scholarly artifacts. It is the intent of this work to call to game studies scholars to open the black box and engage with the act of digital game development. This work does not intend to engage with other fields or act as a tool of gatekeeping; instead, it is the intention of this work to interact with game studies scholars and development scholars. This work recommends that scholars actively engage with and study the development process. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS…………………………………………………………….………….iv ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………….….…..v LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………….……….……..ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................1 1.1 Summary ..................................................................................................................7 CHAPTER 2 SCHOLARS DISCUSSING DEVELOPMENT....................................................14 2.1 State of the Field ....................................................................................................16 2.2 Scholars Discussing Development .........................................................................27 2.3 Conclusion .............................................................................................................34 CHAPTER 3 DEVELOPERS DISCUSSING DEVELOPMENT ...............................................40 3.1 State of the Art .......................................................................................................41 3.2 Game Engines and Gamified Engines ...................................................................48 3.3 Conclusion .............................................................................................................59 CHAPTER 4 SCHOLARLY DEVELOPMENT IN METAGAMING .......................................64 4.1 Memento Mortem Mortis .......................................................................................68 4.2 Triforce ..................................................................................................................70 4.3 99 Exercises in Play ...............................................................................................73 4.4 Significance to the Field ........................................................................................75 4.5 Conclusion .............................................................................................................78 CHAPTER 5 PLAYING WITH DEVELOPMENT TOOLS IN DOKI DOKI LITERATURE CLUB AND DREAMS..................................................................................................................82 5.1 Doki Doki Literature Club .....................................................................................82 5.2 Dreams ...................................................................................................................90 5.3 Conclusion .............................................................................................................93 CHAPTER 6 COLLABORATIVE DEVELOPMENT IN THE ART OF FAILURE ................99 6.1 The Art of Failure ..................................................................................................99 vii 6.2 The Suicide Game ................................................................................................103 6.3 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................107 CHAPTER 7 METHODS AND PRACTICES FROM SOLO AND SMALL TEAM DEVELOPMENT ........................................................................................................................112 7.1 Stardew Valley/ Solo Development .....................................................................112 7.2 Super Meat Boy/ Small Team Development .......................................................121 7.3 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................123 CHAPTER 8 DOCUMENTING SCHOLARLY GAME DEVELOPMENT ...........................125 8.1 Pre-Production .....................................................................................................126 8.2 Production ............................................................................................................134 8.3 Analysis of Development Practice .......................................................................143 8.4 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................144 CHAPTER 9 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................147 APPENDIX A GAME DESIGN DOCUMENT ..........................................................................154 APPENDIX B CODE REFERENCE ..........................................................................................172 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………184 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................................192 CURRICULUM VITAE ..............................................................................................................193
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