{"id":743,"date":"2016-09-05T12:52:42","date_gmt":"2016-09-05T12:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/?p=743"},"modified":"2016-09-05T12:53:19","modified_gmt":"2016-09-05T12:53:19","slug":"interview-with-greg-trefry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/2016\/09\/05\/interview-with-greg-trefry\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Greg Trefry"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of our research project<\/a> for the King\u2019s College London Arts and Humanities Festival<\/a>, we\u2019ve been interviewing different curators, designers, artists and architects about playful work for public space. This interview is with Greg Trefry,\u00a0a game designer who co-founded the games festival<\/em>\u00a0Come Out &\u00a0Play<\/a> (and is director of the New York branch); also co-founded Gigantic Mechanic<\/a>, which makes games with real-world physical elements;\u00a0<\/em>and teaches at NYU.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is an extract from a longer interview, which will be included in full in a report at the end of our research project. The picture above is from Come Out & Play 2015, taken by Josh Lee<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

US:<\/b>\u00a0We\u2019ve talked before about people being able to drop in and out of games in public spaces – and not having to install anything, and the difference that makes to persuading people to actually play.<\/span><\/p>\n

GREG: <\/b>It\u2019s a weird design problem. Most games – as opposed to playful things – are delimited by time and space. People can push the boundaries on some of those (\u201coh you can run around anywhere\u201d) but a game still usually starts at a specific time and ends at a specific time, or you\u2019re moving towards a winner and you have to be there at the end of the game to see that. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So how do you make an experience that isn\u2019t ruined if players can drop in and out at any time?<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a question that led us to do away with a lot of the constructed parts of the game and really figure out the playful fun thing at the heart of an idea. Like in Scattershot<\/a>\u00a0[a game where players join in on a big screen through their phones], the fun thing is you shoot people with a spaceship. And as a player you can go \u201cI see the spaceship blasting people, that\u2019s joyful, I did that, that\u2019s cool.\u201d And you can get better at it if you want to – or just play for thirty seconds and move on.<\/span><\/p>\n

US: <\/b>Which connects a little to my next question, actually. With different projects, how do you think about what sort of interactions you\u2019re happy with? Do you think consciously about \u201coh I want people to stop and play for two minutes\u201d, \u201cI want people to stop and smile\u201d, \u201cI want spectacle\u201d?<\/span><\/p>\n

GREG:<\/b> We definitely have intended consequences, things that we want people to feel, or we want the game to play a certain way or explore the theme a certain way. We use Marc and Robin\u2019s MDA framework<\/a>: there\u2019s Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics. We usually think of the aesthetics as something we want people to feel, or to see, or we have a vision of how we want the game to operate. Then we design towards that as much as we can in a purposeful way.<\/span><\/p>\n

When you start off making games you\u2019re more likely to stumble upon mechanics. But over time, as you make different games in different situations, you get a better sense of how you can get a specific outcome.<\/span><\/p>\n

We made three games for Come Out & Play this year and they all had a different aesthetic. For Block Party we wanted to explore a collaborative video game, a game where you\u2019re working together and communicating. It\u2019s like a 15-player collaborative Tetris where everyone\u2019s yelling at each other, and everything we did to develop it was about pushing people to negotiate what they\u2019re doing. \u00a0So people in early version were initially just playing Tetris side by side – which is pretty fun, because Tetris is pretty fun, but it feels like cheating. So we thought about how to make it more collaborative – and added elements like tangrams where you\u2019re building blocks in shapes. All of a sudden you got people yelling at each other \u201cno, don\u2019t break it\u201d \u201cI\u2019m coming in under here\u201d and talking about what they\u2019re doing and planning – and that\u2019s what we wanted.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then with A Game of Foams we wanted people to say \u201cthat looks like a ton of fun, I want to do that right now.\u201d We wanted people to feel like a Jedi knight or like they\u2019re in Game of Thrones for even two minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mechanically, we started off at the point of \u201cwell Ninja works pretty well as a structure, but we\u2019ll give them foam swords, and we\u2019ll put them in teams so they\u2019re working together\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before the game starts we explain the rules to players and they\u2019re like \u201cokay we\u2019re ready to go\u201d – but then we tell them \u201cno, you\u2019re not. Don\u2019t rush in. Take a minute, take a moment, negotiate with your team and plan what you\u2019re going to do\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

So the three teams go into a corner and talk and say things like, \u201cI\u2019m going to do this, you do that\u201d – plotting together. And most of the time it doesn\u2019t make any difference! But they feel like they\u2019re planning as a team, they\u2019ve come up with a strategy. And that was very intentional.<\/span><\/p>\n

And the last game we made was <\/span>Tiki Taka Soca<\/span><\/a>. Last year we made a game called <\/span>Super Skinny Soccer<\/span><\/a>. I\u2019m really proud of this one for how it uses the location. There\u2019s an alleyway in DUMBO that\u2019s a metre and a half wide and a hundred yards long, this super skinny long alley. So we thought: hey, we\u2019ll put soccer in here and structure it like foosball, with goalkeepers at the end and then separate areas inside. We alternated players in defined areas within the alley, someone from team 1, then someone from team 2, then someone from team 1 and so on. Players have to stay in their area, so they\u2019re trying to kick past people or around them by bouncing it off the wall. <\/span><\/p>\n

And it worked really well. The games gives that feeling of mastery that I never get when I play soccer, because I suck at soccer – I get the ball and I\u2019m like \u201cGreat, I got the ball!\u201d and then someone runs up and takes it away. But in Super Skinny Soccer, when you have the ball that doesn\u2019t happen – and it\u2019s really empowering. <\/span><\/p>\n

So this year we thought about how it might work to make a field game where you get that sense of empowerment, a power moment where you feel good and get to choose what to do even if you\u2019re not good at soccer.<\/span><\/p>\n

We broke up the field into quadrants and looked at the idea of \u201c<\/span>tiki-taka football<\/span><\/a>\u201d – and then we broke up the field more into triangles. We told players they couldn\u2019t move between the triangles, they had to pass around. For people who aren\u2019t good at soccer this means you get to have that moment of feeling you have the ball and you can think about what to do next.<\/span><\/p>\n

So that\u2019s how our development process works I guess. When we\u2019re designing, we think about what we want people to feel at the end, how we want them to behave, what moments we want to deliver to players. It\u2019s a tricky thing to do and takes a lot of practice to get there.<\/span><\/p>\n

US:<\/b> I\u2019m also really intrigued by this Times Square project you\u2019ve been doing with NYU students – you worked with them over the course of, what, a few months?<\/span><\/p>\n

GREG: <\/b>So\u00a0<\/span>Play Times Squared<\/span><\/a> was originated by the Times Square Alliance, which is a business improvement district for Times Square. It has an arts wing run by Sherry Dobbins who\u2019s super-sharp, really nice. They\u2019ve been doing a residency program, and she was like \u201cpeople always want to do games, they send proposals in\u201d – but her concern is that in Times Square things just get lost. It\u2019s such an overwhelming space. So she wanted to do a bunch of different things, a festival of games rather than just one game.<\/span><\/p>\n

Luke Dubois (from NYU) who had previously been an artist in their residency program and Frank Lantz (from the NYU\u2019s Game Center) reached out to me and asked if I\u2019d be interested in teaching a class at NYU to develop games for this event. <\/span><\/p>\n

The class was structured specifically around designing games for Times Square. We went to the square a lot, spent a lot of time hanging out there, thinking about what people are doing there, what their behaviour is, how we can interact with them, what can we get away with – what will people be willing to do? What can we ask of them?<\/span><\/p>\n

And we playtested a bunch of games there. The students were awesome, and ended up working like a little design collective – we prototyped a bunch of stuff and shared that and then they all ended up helping out each other and working on other people\u2019s projects. The group ended up making nine different games which was really impressive.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we ran that festival it was very different from Come Out & Play. At CO&P we get a lot of walkups now, sure, but we also get a lot of people who come for CO&P. And it <\/span>takes over<\/span><\/i> wherever it is, fills the space.<\/span><\/p>\n

But because Times Square is – well there are very few public spaces like it. It\u2019s like drinking from a firehose of people. It\u2019s like being in the middle of a river all the time. We had to think: how are we going to design for this? We won\u2019t get the sort of critical mass we get for CO&P where we can be like \u201clet\u2019s all play this 15-minute game, sit down and I\u2019ll explain it\u201d. This had to be much more porous and forgiving.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the games we modified on the fly during the three days that Play Times Squared ran, because even after all the thinking we\u2019d done they were still just a bit too gated.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

US:<\/b>\u00a0With things like the Symphonic Picnic it sounds like there\u2019s these objects that you interact with as a player in a very unstructured way. Did you even have to have facilitators for that or did people just get drawn towards it?<\/span><\/p>\n

GREG:<\/b>\u00a0That one was surprising to me! The designers wanted to make an ambient experience, very meditative. And I was a bit dubious. Times Square is actually a meditative place already. Everyone has this notion that in Times Square everyone\u2019s really busy all the time and honking horns constantly and yelling at each other, but if you look around there\u2019s a whole lot of people just doing nothing. They\u2019re on a lunch break or sitting and thinking or sitting and not thinking.<\/span><\/p>\n

What the designers did very smartly was to go \u201cokay, we\u2019ll put it on the ground, we\u2019ll give people a different perspective, we\u2019ll invite them to lie down\u201d. And they didn\u2019t facilitate it. They put out the astroturf, made these delightful little mushrooms with headphones hanging out, and there\u2019s an ambient track playing on the headphones or you can push buttons on the mushrooms to make other noises. <\/span><\/p>\n

Then they invited people to lie down. It works better once someone else is there – once someone else is doing it you can see what to do, you know what behaviour is okay. So they didn\u2019t facilitate it, so much as illustrate what to do. And then people would hang out for long periods of time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes people would poke for a minute or two, sometimes people would lie there or sleep for an hour or two. My favourite moment was these two teenagers who\u2019d been there listening for a while – looking at Facebook, listening to the sounds, occasionally pressing the buttons. And eventually they stopped and one was like \u201coh, I was so out of it, I feel like I was floating out of my body up into the sky\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n

So you\u2019re lying on the ground looking at the sky on a hot day in Times Square and that leads you into sort of a meditative experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

US:<\/b> Anything else from that project that surprised you?<\/span><\/p>\n

GREG:<\/strong> There were a couple. <\/span><\/p>\n

There was a game called High Five Zone where the designers put out a lot of mats that you could move between – it was like hopscotch but you can only advance by high-fiving people. You could high five other players, or you could high five friends or passers by. <\/span><\/p>\n

When that worked it was beautiful – you\u2019d get people high-fiving passers-by and strangers. The design intention was to give you a feeling like at a sporting event when you run down a hall and you\u2019re slapping people hands.<\/span><\/p>\n

The really hard thing with that one is it was so <\/span>short<\/span><\/i>. It\u2019s such a delightful playful thing, and once it was going it was great – but because it was so short it would go away. The mats were on the ground but without someone playing a game to let you understand what to do they just sat there. So it would come up and ebb away, and they\u2019d have to illustrate it again. <\/span><\/p>\n

Once it got going it was great but it\u2019s an interesting problem with very short playful experiences. That game was super-tight and did exactly what it set out to do. But places like Times Square have no memory – everyone who sees something is gone in thirty seconds and the new people are like \u201cwhat is this shit on the ground\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As part of our research project for the King\u2019s College London Arts and Humanities Festival, we\u2019ve been interviewing different curators, designers, artists and architects about playful work for public space. This interview is with Greg Trefry,\u00a0a game designer who co-founded the games festival\u00a0Come Out &\u00a0Play (and is director of the New York branch); also co-founded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,9,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=743"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":746,"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743\/revisions\/746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}