Some of you might be interested in this, the course description for my Spring 2010 graduate seminar/studio course, LCC 8823 Special Topics in Game Design and Analysis:
In this intensive seminar, we will explore every aspect of the Atari VCS (2600), the most important early home videogame console. Based on a critical-technical practice Nick Montfort and I call platform studies, we will investigate the way the Atari VCS influenced games and game design through a thorough analysis of its technical properties. In addition to learning about its history and its games, students will learn about the hardware design of this very weird computer, including the 6502/6507 processor and TIA graphics and sound chip.
In tandem, we will investigate two key artistic practices that relate to early console systems: hacks and demakes.
Hacks are works produced by making modifications to existing games by disassembling binaries, analyzing the meaning and purpose of the resulting source code, identifying desirable changes (whether slight or significant) and implementing those changes.
Demakes are retro-inspired reimaginings of modern games, as if they had been created on earlier hardware. Demakes are not necessarily created to run on older machines, but their design and behavior are constrained by the real or perceived constraints of vintage systems.
Both practices offer provocative examples of video game art, as well as interesting frameworks for learning to critique and program a machine like the Atari VCS. We will explore numerous examples of hacks and demakes, on and off the Atari platform.
As a part of this process, students will learn to program games on the original Atari VCS hardware, using 6502 Assembly. Students will create hacks of classic Atari games, demakes of more recent games, as well as original works entirely of their own devising.
Previous programming experience is required, but no previous knowledge of assembly or the Atari VCS hardware is necessary. In addition to students in Digital Media, students in Computer Science, HCI, and Electrical and Computer Engineering are welcome. Select Computational Media undergraduate students will be given permission to enroll; contact the instructor for details.
Comments
Mark N.
The Spring 2007 version of this class was excellent, and I’d definitely recommend it to computer scientists interested in a media perspective on computing that has the technical and media aspects strongly intertwined.
As I recall, hacks were part of that version of the class, but demakes featured only implicitly, in that some of the student projects could be seen as demakes (e.g. an attempt to bring a rhythm game to the VCS). Is there anything particularly good written on that subject, for those of us not in a position to take the class?
Ian Bogost
Mark, as far as I know there’s no formal writing about demakes, but I too would like to know if I’m wrong. There have been a couple of indie “contests” and this Escapist article about them, but it’s slim pickings. The lack of good material is one of the inspirations to cover demakes in the class, along with the student projects you mentioned (there was also a two-player competitive Tetris).
mist.
I can’t wait to check out your syllabus for this class!