Making Games: Designing for Play

Dan Klein, Making Games: Designing for Play. Play is a fundamental, innate human activity. We use play not just to unwind, but to learn, grow, explore, and connect with each other. Roger Caillois describes human play as falling between two ends of a spectrum: On one side is ludens, or structured, rule-based games, and on the other side is paidia, or spontaneous, unguided playfulness.  In this session, we will look at simple models of human play, and then apply Design Thinking to Game Design in order to make up games for each other.

Dan Klein is an improviser. As a Stanford Lecturer in the Graduate School of Business, the Department of Theater and Performance Studies, and the d.school, Dan teaches the principles of improvisation (creativity, high performance communication, storytelling, design thinking, leadership and connection) through games and immersive simulations. Outside of Stanford, he has taught workshops for dozens of organizations all over the world, including: Google, Visa, Cisco, Lucasfilm, Autodesk, Nike, Uber and the Kahn Academy.

Interactive media and games increasingly pervade and shape our society. In addition to their dominant roles in entertainment, videogames play growing roles in education, arts, science and health. This seminar series brings together a diverse set of experts to provide interdisciplinary perspectives on these media regarding their history, technologies, scholarly research, industry, artistic value and potential future. As the speakers and title suggest, the series also provides a topical lens for the diverse aspects of our lives.