APRIL 29 2021/29 APRILE 2021
17:00 - 18:00
Online event
Università IULM, Via Carlo Bo, 1, 20143 Milan
LUDIC UNRELIABILITY AND DECEPTIVE DESIGN
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
Drawing from narratology and design studies, Stefano Gualeni will introduce the ideas of the “implied designer” and “ludic unreliability”. Those two fundamental notions will then be leveraged to present the idea of “deceptive game design”, a subset of the wider category of transgressive game design. In this talk, Gualeni will discuss deceptive design not only understood as an intentionally manipulative practice, but also as one that aims to provoke specific experiential and emotional responses that are in the interest of players. Several examples and strategies for deceptive design will be examined during the talk, which will conclude with the proposition of a taxonomy for deceptive design decisions on the basis of their shared qualities (overt, covert, ludic, and paraludic).
Stefano Gualeni (Ph.D.) is a philosopher who designs digital games and a game designer who is passionate about philosophy. He is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Digital Games (University of Malta), and a Visiting Professor at the Laguna College of Art and Design (LCAD) in Laguna Beach, California. Among his most relevant publications are the two books Virtual Worlds as Philosophical Tools (Palgrave, 2015), and Virtual Existentialism: Meaning and Subjectivity in Virtual Worlds (Palgrave Pivot, 2020, with Daniel Vella).