About Harrison Baker

Harrison Baker works as an aquarist at Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center. His academic background is in animal husbandry, journalism and editing. He is currently pursuing an MS in Free-Choice Learning Science Education. His board game, Deme, is currently under development as a component of his MS project on games and adult learning.

Deme
A game of strategy and survival
(Version 1.1)

Copyright (C) 2013 Harrison Baker.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3
or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
with the Invariant Section being the Creator’s Note.
A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU
Free Documentation License”.

***

Contents
1. Creator’s Note
2. Before You Start
3. The Basics
4. Combat/Predation
5. Seasons and Reproduction
6. Genetics
7. Ending the Game
8. GNU Free Documentation License

***

1. Creator’s Note

Y’all,

I’d like to take a moment to explain what Deme is and why I made it. More
importantly, I would like to let you know where I would like us—you and me
and everyone else who might be interested—to take it. Please read the
following paragraphs.

What Deme is:
Deme is a tactical board game of ecology and survival. Players control
animal species on a small island as they compete, feed, breed and evolve.
The primary goal of each species is to survive and reproduce, but other
goals present themselves along the way. Competitors can be eliminated. New
traits can evolve. New species can be born.

What Deme is not:
Deme is not an ecosystem model. Deme plays with broad concepts such as
random mutation, energy flow, interspecific competition and trophic cascades.
It does not, however, represent these things exactly as they happen in a real
ecosystem.

Deme is meant to raise questions and encourage experimentation. If you
would like a thorough, scientifically accurate ecosystem modeling system
rather than a game, you might want to try one of these:
http://atlss.org/
http://www.ecopath.org/

The rule system is intended as a toolbox, not a cage. Feel free to modify,
add and subtract rules in the future to meet your needs and make Deme as
realistic or fantastic as you like. I trust my players to find and explore
the differences between real-world dynamics and fictional ones, applying
and sharing their own prior knowledge to create fun, meaningful table
sessions.

Thank you and enjoy!

Harrison

***

2. Before You Start

What you will need:
-Multi-colored tokens, beads or figurines to represent each species (as many as you can get)
-Several six-sided dice (a pack of 10 should be good)
-One 20-sided die
-A hex grid board with hexes large enough to accommodate your poker chips
-Some rocks or other obstructions to serve as terrain
-A set of poker chips (at least one)

The role of the Ecosystem Master:
One person (not a player) will serve as Ecosystem Master (EM). This person is responsible for
overseeing the environment, laying out the narrative, arbitrating player disputes and handling
some random and semi-random events.

Think of the EM like the Dungeon Master in a game of Dungeons & Dragons, or the referee in
a sporting event. The EM has a responsibility to be fair and impartial, and to keep things
interesting. The EM is basically a storyteller, so this role can be a lot of fun.

Terrain:
Rocks, sticks, etc., when placed on the board, represent impassable obstructions. The EM lays
these out as he or she sees fit before the game begins.

Token and Plant Placement:
The EM places each player’s tokens around the board as he or she sees fit. Keep in mind what’s
fair, challenging and makes sense in the ecosystem.

Species:
Each player controls a species (set of tokens of a single color). Each species has its own
distinct set of three stats:
-Attack strength (ATT)
-Defense (DEF)
-Speed (SPD)
Each of these stats is determined prior to play for each species by the EM and/or player(s).
To start, you may wish to limit individual SPD values based on board size, and individual ATT and
DEF values to the number of six-sided dice you have on hand.

***

3. The Basics

Each player’s turn looks like this:
1) Move a token (representing an animal or small population, as the scenario dictates) any
number of hexes up to its SPD value. Each token can move in any direction, but cannot move
through rocks. You can forgo movement if you want.

2) Attack or feed using the token you just moved, if you want to. Place the token on its side so
you remember you moved it.

3) Repeat until all tokens have acted. Play then passes to the next player.

Herbivores move first, then their predators, then those predators’ predators, etc. Within each
trophic level, you may roll for initiative or simply pass from right to left around the table. The
EM (ecosystem master) keeps track of the progression of seasons, the narrative, replacing plant
mass, etc. Play is divided into seasons and years. Each year begins with Spring. When all players have
moved, a new season begins. When four seasons have passed (all players have moved four
times), a new year begins. We’ll get to what this means later.

Movement:
Each species has a “SPD” value, which represents speed. You can move any number of hexes
(or none at all) up to this value. You cannot move through rocks or share or pass through a
space with another animal. You can share a space with plants (green chips). If you enter a space
occupied by an animal of a different species, you must stop by default.

Feeding:
Feeding is at the core of Deme. When an herbivore ends its turn on a plant (green poker chip),
it carries the chip around with it. If a carnivore kills an adjacent prey animal, the carnivore
gains a green poker chip. Each animal can only gain one green chip per food item, and can only
carry two green poker chips at maximum.
At the end of Summer and Winter, each animal loses one green poker chip and leaves behind a black chip
in its place (see “Feces” below). Animals with no chips to drop die.

Feces:
Black poker chips serve as “feces” markers. These replace green chips lost by animals at
the end of Summer and Winter. They may also be placed by the EM or by players themselves as
the scenario and species abilities dictate.

Water:
Non-aquatic animals that start a turn adjacent to a water hex gain a +1 bonus to their SPD for
that turn. Animals that end Summer and Winter adjacent to water do not lose a green chip.

***

4. Combat/Predation

Attacking:
After moving a token, the attacker rolls the number of dice shown by the “ATT” value to attack
an animal in an adjacent hex. For example, if the attacking animal has an ATT of 3, roll three
dice. If a die scores 4 or higher, it’s a “hit.” If it scores 3 or lower, it’s a “miss.” The number of
“hits” for the attacker must be higher than the number of “hits” for the defender.
If an attacking animal has used all of its moves before attacking, it is exhausted and suffers a -1
penalty to its “ATT” value.

Defending:
When attacked, the defending player rolls a number of dice shown by the “DEF” value for the
defending animal. If the number of “hits” (i.e., rolls of 4 or more) matches or exceeds the
number of “hits” the attacker rolled, the attack is repelled.
Optionally, red poker chips may be used as health indicators, each absorbing one attack.
If the attack is successful, remove one red poker chip (if there are any) from the defending
animal. If the defending animal has no red poker chips, the animal dies.

Resolving Combat:
The attacking animal may not attack the same animal twice if the attack was repelled. However,
it may attack other adjacent animals. If the attack is successful, the attacker may continue
attacking until the defending animal is defeated, or it may attack other adjacent animals. If the
attacker is a carnivore or omnivore that feeds on the defender, it gains one green chip from the kill.

***

5. Seasons and Reproduction

Seasons:
Each season plays the same except for Winter (each player’s last turn of the year). During
Winter, each player’s SPD score is reduced by 1 unless modified by a mutation (see “Genetics”
on next page).

Every Spring, the EM replaces the plant mass lost during the last year. All green poker chips
are restored to the board, with each animal that died at the end of Winter replaced by a green
poker chip.

Plants are placed adjacent to existing plants, and/or are used to replace any black “feces” chips
dropped by players (or the EM) in the path of herbivores over the course of the last year.

Long Game:
For a more in-depth experience, each season lasts four turns for each player instead of one.

Reproduction:
Before the start of every Spring, every animal with two green poker chips gets to reproduce.
Each animal produces one offspring (unless modified by mutation). For every offspring, roll for
mutation. See “Genetics” on next page.

***

6. Genetics
When a new offspring is generated (prior to the Spring redistribution of green chips), it inherits
its parent’s stats (DEF, SPD and ATT) by default. However, each offspring rolls for random
mutations. These mutations become permanent parts of its genome, and may be inherited by all
of its offspring.

Here’s how it works:

Roll the 20-sided die to determine mutation
1 = Fatal (no offspring)
2-13 = No mutation (same as parent)
14 = +1 SPD
15 = +1 DEF
16 = +1 ATT
17 = -1 SPD
18 = -1 DEF
19 = -1 ATT
20 = WILDCARD

If the offspring rolls a rare WILDCARD mutation, roll a six-sided die to determine if the effect
is positive (4-6) or negative (1-3). You may also flip a coin, if you have one.

Roll the six-sided die again to determine the trait to be modified*
1 = Cold resistance (modify effect of Winter by +-1 SPD)
2 = Fecundity (+-1 offspring)
3 = Flight (animal passes over obstacles)
4 = Empathy (animal can pass food to adjacent conspecifics at the end of movement)
5 = Diet (animal gains or loses herbivory or carnivory—whichever it didn’t start with)**
6 = Resilience (red poker chip)

*If an animal loses a trait it doesn’t have, the mutation has no effect.
**If animal is losing a food item, flip a coin or use a six-sided die to determine which food type it loses.

***

7. Ending the Game

Before play begins, the EM should lay out the scenario and a time frame (in real time or game
years) for the game. In addition, each player has the option of announcing his or her own goals
for the game. These may include the elimination of a competing species at the same trophic
level, bearing a certain number of offspring, selecting for a specific trait, etc.
The game ends when the given scenario ends, not (necessarily) when players achieve their own
goals. Remember that this is your game, so everything is negotiable if players and EM agree to
it at the outset.

Once the scenario ends, players can save the stats of their “best” tokens to serve as starter
species for future games. In this way, they can develop their species through “natural” and
artificial selection, much as they might build characters in role-playing games. In this way, a
table (EM + players) can create longer “campaigns” with the same species to see how the
ecosystem changes over time.

Food for thought:

What happens to predators and their prey over time as they evolve to overcome each other’s
weapons and defenses?

What happens to mutualistic relationships (a relationship between two organisms that
benefits both) over time? Why?

Can two organisms at the same trophic level co-exist? How?

***

8. GNU Free Documentation License

GNU Free Documentation License
Version 1.3, 3 November 2008
Copyright (C) 2000, 2001, 2002, 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
<http://fsf.org/>
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

0. PREAMBLE

The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other
functional and useful document “free” in the sense of freedom: to
assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it,
with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially.
Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way
to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible
for modifications made by others.

This License is a kind of “copyleft”, which means that derivative
works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It
complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft
license designed for free software.

We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free
software, because free software needs free documentation: a free
program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the
software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals;
it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or
whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License
principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference.
1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS

This License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that
contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be
distributed under the terms of this License. Such a notice grants a
world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration, to use that
work under the conditions stated herein. The “Document”, below,
refers to any such manual or work. Any member of the public is a
licensee, and is addressed as “you”. You accept the license if you
copy, modify or distribute the work in a way requiring permission
under copyright law.

A “Modified Version” of the Document means any work containing the
Document or a portion of it, either copied verbatim, or with
modifications and/or translated into another language.

A “Secondary Section” is a named appendix or a front-matter section of
the Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of the
publishers or authors of the Document to the Document’s overall
subject (or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall
directly within that overall subject. (Thus, if the Document is in
part a textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain
any mathematics.) The relationship could be a matter of historical
connection with the subject or with related matters, or of legal,
commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position regarding
them.

The “Invariant Sections” are certain Secondary Sections whose titles
are designated, as being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice
that says that the Document is released under this License. If a
section does not fit the above definition of Secondary then it is not
allowed to be designated as Invariant. The Document may contain zero
Invariant Sections. If the Document does not identify any Invariant
Sections then there are none.

The “Cover Texts” are certain short passages of text that are listed,
as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the notice that says that
the Document is released under this License. A Front-Cover Text may
be at most 5 words, and a Back-Cover Text may be at most 25 words.

A “Transparent” copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy,
represented in a format whose specification is available to the
general public, that is suitable for revising the document
straightforwardly with generic text editors or (for images composed of
pixels) generic paint programs or (for drawings) some widely available
drawing editor, and that is suitable for input to text formatters or
for automatic translation to a variety of formats suitable for input
to text formatters. A copy made in an otherwise Transparent file
format whose markup, or absence of markup, has been arranged to thwart
or discourage subsequent modification by readers is not Transparent.
An image format is not Transparent if used for any substantial amount
of text. A copy that is not “Transparent” is called “Opaque”.

Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain
ASCII without markup, Texinfo input format, LaTeX input format, SGML
or XML using a publicly available DTD, and standard-conforming simple
HTML, PostScript or PDF designed for human modification. Examples of
transparent image formats include PNG, XCF and JPG. Opaque formats
include proprietary formats that can be read and edited only by
proprietary word processors, SGML or XML for which the DTD and/or
processing tools are not generally available, and the
machine-generated HTML, PostScript or PDF produced by some word
processors for output purposes only.

The “Title Page” means, for a printed book, the title page itself,
plus such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material
this License requires to appear in the title page. For works in
formats which do not have any title page as such, “Title Page” means
the text near the most prominent appearance of the work’s title,
preceding the beginning of the body of the text.

The “publisher” means any person or entity that distributes copies of
the Document to the public.

A section “Entitled XYZ” means a named subunit of the Document whose
title either is precisely XYZ or contains XYZ in parentheses following
text that translates XYZ in another language. (Here XYZ stands for a
specific section name mentioned below, such as “Acknowledgements”,
“Dedications”, “Endorsements”, or “History”.) To “Preserve the Title”
of such a section when you modify the Document means that it remains a
section “Entitled XYZ” according to this definition.

The Document may include Warranty Disclaimers next to the notice which
states that this License applies to the Document. These Warranty
Disclaimers are considered to be included by reference in this
License, but only as regards disclaiming warranties: any other
implication that these Warranty Disclaimers may have is void and has
no effect on the meaning of this License.

2. VERBATIM COPYING

You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either
commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the
copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies
to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no
other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use
technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further
copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept
compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough
number of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3.

You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and
you may publicly display copies.
3. COPYING IN QUANTITY

If you publish printed copies (or copies in media that commonly have
printed covers) of the Document, numbering more than 100, and the
Document’s license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose the
copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover
Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on
the back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify
you as the publisher of these copies. The front cover must present
the full title with all words of the title equally prominent and
visible. You may add other material on the covers in addition.
Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve
the title of the Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treated
as verbatim copying in other respects.

If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit
legibly, you should put the first ones listed (as many as fit
reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent
pages.

If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering
more than 100, you must either include a machine-readable Transparent
copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque copy
a computer-network location from which the general network-using
public has access to download using public-standard network protocols
a complete Transparent copy of the Document, free of added material.
If you use the latter option, you must take reasonably prudent steps,
when you begin distribution of Opaque copies in quantity, to ensure
that this Transparent copy will remain thus accessible at the stated
location until at least one year after the last time you distribute an
Opaque copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of that
edition to the public.

It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the
Document well before redistributing any large number of copies, to
give them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the
Document.
4. MODIFICATIONS

You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under
the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release
the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified
Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution
and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy
of it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:

A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct
from that of the Document, and from those of previous versions
(which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section
of the Document). You may use the same title as a previous version
if the original publisher of that version gives permission.
B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities
responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified
Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the
Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five),
unless they release you from this requirement.
C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the
Modified Version, as the publisher.
D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.
E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications
adjacent to the other copyright notices.
F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice
giving the public permission to use the Modified Version under the
terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.
G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections
and required Cover Texts given in the Document’s license notice.
H. Include an unaltered copy of this License.
I. Preserve the section Entitled “History”, Preserve its Title, and add
to it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and
publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If
there is no section Entitled “History” in the Document, create one
stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as
given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified
Version as stated in the previous sentence.
J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for
public access to a Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise
the network locations given in the Document for previous versions
it was based on. These may be placed in the “History” section.
You may omit a network location for a work that was published at
least four years before the Document itself, or if the original
publisher of the version it refers to gives permission.
K. For any section Entitled “Acknowledgements” or “Dedications”,
Preserve the Title of the section, and preserve in the section all
the substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgements
and/or dedications given therein.
L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document,
unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section numbers
or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.
M. Delete any section Entitled “Endorsements”. Such a section
may not be included in the Modified Version.
N. Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled “Endorsements”
or to conflict in title with any Invariant Section.
O. Preserve any Warranty Disclaimers.

If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or
appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material
copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all
of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the
list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version’s license notice.
These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.

You may add a section Entitled “Endorsements”, provided it contains
nothing but endorsements of your Modified Version by various
parties–for example, statements of peer review or that the text has
been approved by an organization as the authoritative definition of a
standard.

You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a
passage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list
of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of
Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or
through arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document already
includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or
by arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of,
you may not add another; but you may replace the old one, on explicit
permission from the previous publisher that added the old one.

The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License
give permission to use their names for publicity for or to assert or
imply endorsement of any Modified Version.
5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS

You may combine the Document with other documents released under this
License, under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified
versions, provided that you include in the combination all of the
Invariant Sections of all of the original documents, unmodified, and
list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its
license notice, and that you preserve all their Warranty Disclaimers.

The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and
multiple identical Invariant Sections may be replaced with a single
copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name but
different contents, make the title of each such section unique by
adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the original
author or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number.
Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of
Invariant Sections in the license notice of the combined work.

In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled “History”
in the various original documents, forming one section Entitled
“History”; likewise combine any sections Entitled “Acknowledgements”,
and any sections Entitled “Dedications”. You must delete all sections
Entitled “Endorsements”.
6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS

You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other
documents released under this License, and replace the individual
copies of this License in the various documents with a single copy
that is included in the collection, provided that you follow the rules
of this License for verbatim copying of each of the documents in all
other respects.

You may extract a single document from such a collection, and
distribute it individually under this License, provided you insert a
copy of this License into the extracted document, and follow this
License in all other respects regarding verbatim copying of that
document.
7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS

A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate
and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or
distribution medium, is called an “aggregate” if the copyright
resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rights
of the compilation’s users beyond what the individual works permit.
When the Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not
apply to the other works in the aggregate which are not themselves
derivative works of the Document.

If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these
copies of the Document, then if the Document is less than one half of
the entire aggregate, the Document’s Cover Texts may be placed on
covers that bracket the Document within the aggregate, or the
electronic equivalent of covers if the Document is in electronic form.
Otherwise they must appear on printed covers that bracket the whole
aggregate.
8. TRANSLATION

Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may
distribute translations of the Document under the terms of section 4.
Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special
permission from their copyright holders, but you may include
translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the
original versions of these Invariant Sections. You may include a
translation of this License, and all the license notices in the
Document, and any Warranty Disclaimers, provided that you also include
the original English version of this License and the original versions
of those notices and disclaimers. In case of a disagreement between
the translation and the original version of this License or a notice
or disclaimer, the original version will prevail.

If a section in the Document is Entitled “Acknowledgements”,
“Dedications”, or “History”, the requirement (section 4) to Preserve
its Title (section 1) will typically require changing the actual
title.
9. TERMINATION

You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document
except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute it is void, and
will automatically terminate your rights under this License.

However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license
from a particular copyright holder is reinstated (a) provisionally,
unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally
terminates your license, and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder
fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior to
60 days after the cessation.

Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is
reinstated permanently if the copyright holder notifies you of the
violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have
received notice of violation of this License (for any work) from that
copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after
your receipt of the notice.

Termination of your rights under this section does not terminate the
licenses of parties who have received copies or rights from you under
this License. If your rights have been terminated and not permanently
reinstated, receipt of a copy of some or all of the same material does
not give you any rights to use it.
10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE

The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the
GNU Free Documentation License from time to time. Such new versions
will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in
detail to address new problems or concerns. See
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.

Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number.
If the Document specifies that a particular numbered version of this
License “or any later version” applies to it, you have the option of
following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or
of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the
Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version
number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not
as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document
specifies that a proxy can decide which future versions of this
License can be used, that proxy’s public statement of acceptance of a
version permanently authorizes you to choose that version for the
Document.

11. RELICENSING

“Massive Multiauthor Collaboration Site” (or “MMC Site”) means any
World Wide Web server that publishes copyrightable works and also
provides prominent facilities for anybody to edit those works. A
public wiki that anybody can edit is an example of such a server. A
“Massive Multiauthor Collaboration” (or “MMC”) contained in the site
means any set of copyrightable works thus published on the MMC site.

“CC-BY-SA” means the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
license published by Creative Commons Corporation, a not-for-profit
corporation with a principal place of business in San Francisco,
California, as well as future copyleft versions of that license
published by that same organization.

“Incorporate” means to publish or republish a Document, in whole or in
part, as part of another Document.

An MMC is “eligible for relicensing” if it is licensed under this
License, and if all works that were first published under this License
somewhere other than this MMC, and subsequently incorporated in whole or
in part into the MMC, (1) had no cover texts or invariant sections, and
(2) were thus incorporated prior to November 1, 2008.

The operator of an MMC Site may republish an MMC contained in the site
under CC-BY-SA on the same site at any time before August 1, 2009,
provided the MMC is eligible for relicensing.
ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents

To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of
the License in the document and put the following copyright and
license notices just after the title page:

Copyright (c) YEAR YOUR NAME.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3
or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU
Free Documentation License”.

If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts,
replace the “with…Texts.” line with this:

with the Invariant Sections being LIST THEIR TITLES, with the
Front-Cover Texts being LIST, and with the Back-Cover Texts being LIST.

If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other
combination of the three, merge those two alternatives to suit the
situation.

If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we
recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of
free software license, such as the GNU General Public License,
to permit their use in free software.

 

 

 

Today I passed my finals. I now have my M.S. in Free-Choice Learning Science Education.

I want to thank everyone who made this possible—my friends, my colleagues, my family, my research participants and you. Yes, you! Frankly, I’m still processing this. I have much to do yet.

First off, I’m releasing Deme v. 1.1, as of today under the GNU Free Documentation License. You can share, modify and expand the rule system freely, as long as you retain my Creator’s Note regarding its intent. It’s not done—it may never be “done” in the traditional sense. I want you to take it, break it, fix it, shrink it, expand it, apply it, learn with it, teach with it and—most importantly—share what you do with others.

This is, I like to think, the start of the story. Let’s write it together. To get started, I’ll provide the current iteration of the rule system here as a new post in a few minutes.

Have fun.

I’m fast approaching the end of my project. This will mean the end of many other things as well. As a student employee, my job ends the day I leave school. I’ve been at HMSC for four years. I’ve been a student, aquarist, lab aide and researcher. I met most of my close friends here. I’ve trained new aquarists and watched them leave when their own contracts ended. Soon, I’ll be training my replacement. I’ve done that before, but this time I won’t be coming back. That’s weird.

I’m searching for a new job, and facing the usual frustrations and bizarre requirement paradoxes that entails. The leads I have found are very exciting. I’m ready to move on, I think, even though I can’t quite imagine another workplace at this point. I’ve been through a lot with my coworkers here, and I feel that they understand me. I hope to find that again, but that’s not something anyone can expect. Expectations can be dangerous anyway—I didn’t expect to find myself here, and I wouldn’t want to have spent the last four years anywhere else.

On the Deme front, the final stretch is frantic but productive. I’m making revisions to my final paper, and I’m including a new version of the manual. This includes a pre-fab species set with a loose scenario. One of these species is a playable body-snatching parasite with—I think—a fun/evil mechanic. Once the parasite has infected another player’s animal, he or she can choose to take over control of that animal at any time. Once the parasite takes control, the animal gets only one turn—with modified abilities—before it dies. The idea is that infected players will end up negotiating with the parasite to use infected animals for their own ends. There should be plenty of opportunities for mutualism, reciprocity, betrayal and outright jerkery.

Super Mario moves like a machine.

He almost never turns around unless he must. He runs rightward. He jumps rightward. He crouches and slides under bricks without slowing. He acquires coins. He kills with fire and boot-heel. Still he runs. Rightward—ever rightward.

Finally, a difficult jump briefly halts his progress. Super Mario dies. For now.

My wife puts down the controller. It’s my turn, and Luigi’s. I went from the Atari 2600 straight to the Super Nintendo in my youth. The NES, while much-loved and present in my childhood memories, was not a major factor in my early development as a gamer.

Luigi looks terrified, and far from Super. He hesitates. He backtracks. He pauses. He approaches his first Goomba anxiously, and his jump is ragged and imprecise. The original Super Mario Bros. has somewhat drifty controls compared to its successors, and it always takes me some time to re-adjust. Too long.

Death comes quickly to Luigi. My wife finishes the game a few lives later, with Mario’s triumphant campaign only infrequently punctuated by Luigi’s fitful progress and inevitable tragedies.

Non-verbal communication among players is a big part of tabletop gaming, and I’ll be looking at that as I analyze interactios around my game Deme. However, as in the anecdote above, games—electronic or otherwise—come with their own non-verbal cues and even a body language of sorts. This can be more noticeable when players aren’t able to physically observe or interact with each other.

An arrangement of chess pieces could be interpreted as aggressive or defensive. A player’s confidence and skill can show in online games through movement and action. In these cases, with in-game actions—and sometimes movement—being limited and uniform, interactions come at least partially pre-coded for the researcher.

It’s an interesting phenomenon, and you can see it just about everywhere. I’m a big fan of playing games together with friends and family in the same room, but I’ve often been amazed by how much meaningful information I’ve exchanged online with fellow players I’ve never seen, and with whom I’ve never exhanged a typed or spoken word. Feints, counter-feints, acknowledgements, threats, camaraderie, humor—humans will find ways to communicate with any tools available. In online games, these tools may be anything from complex role-playing avatars to playing cards or two-dimensional spaceships.

Would anyone else like to share an anecdote or two about nonverbal communication within games? The novel ways people find to convey a message can often be just as interesting as the message itself.

I’ve been working a little on the multi-touch table project with Mark and Jenny. The mechanical details are still being worked out, but the game will basically model the discourse around climate change—values, attitudes and beliefs amid the social factors that influence them. The current iteration would have players dropping colored dots onto a map of the US. These dots would have a localized social effect, rippling out to influence other dots.

The game could really be about anything, as high-quality general models exist to represent social decision-making in a large population. Mark showed me one they were thinking of using, and I can’t say I understood it. It’s spooky to think that humans are that predictable, but it’s not really surprising. The social sciences are sciences, folks.

But what could these arbitrary dots say about our beliefs? Does the model represent the reasons for our behavior? That’s something the social space of the touch table, along with the game project itself, will address. I’m looking forward to eavesdropping.

We’re all odd concretions of disparate identities. There are no molds cranking out factory-perfect “hippies” and “rednecks.” In my experience, these and other designations often fall apart quickly with even idle conversation. The human—or, I think, any—mind is more complex than its verbal and gestural expressions. These are the things that continually bring us to the table—multi-touch or otherwise.

Consider the following scenario.

You go to your gym, where membership is free. You start lifting, and you gradually work your way up to 100 pounds.

Then, one day, you come in to find that the next available weight increment is 300 pounds. You can’t work up to it from where you are, BUT—for a mere $5—you can actually have 10 pounds temporarily removed from your usual 100. In return, the chalkboard on the wall will announce that you, [Your Name Here], have lifted 300 pounds. Insert another $5 to repeat the process and mark yourself down for 350 pounds, etc. What will this do to your muscle tone and progress as a lifter?

This is sort of how popular “free-to-play” games work, and virtual economist Ramin Shokrizade outlines their tactics in a Machiavelli-style indictment-as-instruction-guide here.

In traditional non-monetary games, we put skill in to get more skill out. When we gamble, we put money in and hope to get more money out (Pro Tip: We usually don’t). In a free-to-play game, we generally don’t ever expect to get money out, and money is used as an input in place of skill—or to “supplement” skill. Less skill in means less skill out—less learning. And these games are extremely popular and profitable.

So here’s my question: What are players getting out of these games? Discuss.