Gillian Smith

Gillian Smith

@codingcrafter.bsky.social

Director of IMGD at WPI. Game design, generative AI, computational craft, generative design, feminist tech, mom stories. she/they

882 followers359 following163 posts

Gillian Smith reposted

Alexei Pepers
@apepers.bsky.social

The @roguelike.club social space is rad because we can run into issues like “ah you’ve accidentally slipped into a past world, rooms that exist and yet do not. We don’t know how to follow you there. We’re not sure what happens when you leave. Please click the obelisk and hard refresh your browser.”

Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

Today marked my first day as a full professor. This professor-ing thing has been a wild ride and it's been pretty great, thanks to all the people I get to work with! I celebrated by not working, and instead hiking through a coastal forest to a beach in Olympic National Park. Can strongly recommend.

Gillian Smith reposted

Golan Levin
@golan.bsky.social

I'm delighted to announce the forensic recovery of the original single-stroke font data from Vib-Ribbon (1999) — exhumed from Playstation ROMs — and now part of my archive of procedural skeleton fonts for #p5js: github.com/golanlevin/p... #mediaArchaeology #typography #plotterArt #creativeCoding

Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

Advice from my Serious and Applied Games class this term. I asked them to make a manifesto based on what they've learned and done, and then to adapt it for different audiences. Then, we rewrote it to be a call to action for ourselves. (First one is mine, the rest is from the students.)

Gillian Smith reposted

Sonja Drimmer
@sonjadrimmer.bsky.social

Faculty in CA in the 1990s successfully protested mandatory online components of their classes largely on the grounds of IP and labor intensification. We don’t have to accept this. We can start with abandoning the LMS.

Chris Hanlon@chrishanlon.bsky.social

Meet “ASU Atomic,” a subscription platform that claims to offer customized learning modules for fee-paying users. None of the ASU faculty whose course materials were harvested for the module I generated were aware that their image, lectures, lessons, or other teaching materials are being used.

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Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

And, last but certainly not least, Myndspell! This is a turn-based RPG with dialog and mini-games and characters that change based on player emotional model that updates with choices. Their paper takes inspiration from old game handbooks and manuals, AND they made merch as a form of data collection!

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Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

Last session, and it’s all large interdisciplinary production projects! First up is “Disillusion”, a narrative puzzle game dealing with themes of grief and guilt. The player repairs a space ship that they crashed, causing the death of the crew. The player is asked: whose legacy should be passed on?

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Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

Trey Bowen also did his MQP in Japan, and joined an existing research project on creating a “sleep tamagotchi”: a serious game to encourage healthy sleep habits. He refactored the game, set up sustainable dev pipelines, and the co-facilitated a workshop to understand user experience with it.

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Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

Now entering session three, which focuses on technical research in games. Up first, we have a team who compared methods for improving quality of experience in streamed games. They made a little demo fishing game and experimented with different buffering and latency conditions.

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Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

Sofia Napierata has a very different kind of MQP this year: her project was to be a simulated “independent contractor” for audio across multiple other MQPs. Really great to hear her reflect on getting this kind of professional experience!

Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

Crow Zubrick’s project focus is on ritual, witchcraft, antifascism, and transformative play to enact better futures. ❤️ Compassion Cards bring play into life to make the world a better place, one tiny step at a time.

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Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

We’re temporarily back with SPI-Glass, which was also an MQP in the studio this year! The team is reflecting on their experience iterating on an existing design and moving into full production on the first version of the game.

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Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

First up is Leaves of Fate, a zany puzzle platformer. This team had a tight focus on managing an iterative design process on a short timeline. They targeted a middle school (and older) audience with a core message about positive self worth. They are sharing some great advice for future projects.

Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

Unstrung is an alternate controller game where you create shadow puppets that form level geometry in an auto-runner platformer. Nice reflection on the technical challenges and design challenges in creating an alt.ctrl.MQP!

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Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

Our first group of four presentations is from IMGD's new Single Term MQP studio. Four teams, with five students per team, spent 8 weeks working full time on their projects. This was an incredible experience for the students and for the advisors, and we are super excited about the future of this.

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Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

The Pixel Scriptorium is a new learning lab, directed by Prof. Karen Stewart, in which students work together on a long-form dark academia visual novel. This year’s team is exploring how to launch an academic game studio that supports student learning, while also building a creative foundation.

Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

Closing out graduate project presentations is Mohit Patel and Ryan Stebe, who created an Endless Runner toolkit for supporting procedurally generated levels. It is currently in the review stage for publishing on the Unity Asset Store!

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Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

Thomas Jolicoeur is sharing his narrative work on SPI-Glass, but moreso is sharing the challenges of the creative process. Extremely open and relatable to all creators who go through the “this is crap, I am crap” experience and made it to the other side with work they can be proud of!

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Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

First up, Minyun Pan is presenting about creating seamless interaction design mechanisms for AR ghost hunting. How do you make the phone feel like the actual tool you are using as a player? Also some very cool ritual mechanics in the game!

Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

Thomas Branchaud was the tech lead for SPI-Glass this year and has been working to build the baseline tech to support future years of work: defining a tech stack, and creating modular UI and dialogue systems. Designing from day one for future use, rather than messy prototyping (which he inherited).

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Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

Hunter Simone made two games to explore notions of unpredictability and mechanisms to preserve agency in systems design. Hazy Bones is a War-like card game with deck building. Broken Motion is a roguelike/deck-building FPS.

Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

The previous three presentations were part of the AI Futures Lab, co-directed by myself and Prof. Yunus Telliel. Now we enter presentations from the SPI-Glass lab, directed by Prof. Ben Schneider. SPI-Glass lab is creating an AR ghost hunting game.

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Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

A comment from the audience notes that this is a game that makes us question why we even do anything at all. And, really, this feels like the core of critical AI literacy to me in so many ways. Lovely to see how making, playing, and understanding his game can prompt these kinds of questions.

Gillian Smith
@codingcrafter.bsky.social

My 10yo got a letter from the library notifying him of an overdue book fine. He is convinced that because our library uses a computer for checkout and the letter is not hand-written, it must be AI-generated. Which means it can’t possibly be real. Parenting through this moment is just really weird.

Gillian Smith reposted

Mike Cook
@mtrc.bsky.social

I've written a book! Next Level: Making Games That Make Themselves is the story of procedural generation - the tech behind games like Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress. It's about how it works, the games that use it, and the art and magic behind it. Out May 7th, in bookshops: linktr.ee/next_level 🎲🔮

Gillian Smith reposted

Stacey Mason
@stcymsn.bsky.social

I think the people positioned to fund games are really sleeping on how many people are struggling to make friends IRL after COVID. A year ago if you’d asked me where to put money, it would have been IRL connector games (something like Pokémon go but smaller/with less infrastructure)

Gillian Smith reposted

Everest Pipkin
@everest.bsky.social

I've just published a new userscript that remembers the path of your cursor over the linked pages of Wikipedia, averaging and wearing them into the page, showing your browsing history over time Install at greasyfork.org/en/scripts/5... or read more about it everest-pipkin.com#projects/des...

greasyfork.orgDesire Paths for WikipediaAn extension that remembers the path of a cursor over the linked pages of Wikipedia, “wearing” them into the page.

Gillian Smith reposted

Karen Hao
@karenhao.bsky.social

Quilicura, Chile, one of the communities I wrote about in EMPIRE OF AI, has launched a brilliant initiative to inspire more responsible AI prompting. Today, don't use AI; ask the townspeople instead: quili.ai. So heartened to see this creative act of resistance.

Gillian Smith reposted

Colin Spacetwinks
@spacetwinks.bsky.social

Replying to @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social

whenever people would go "well it's not popular enough yet" i think not only of all the popular things they ignore anyway, but how apparently the expectation is for everybody else to the job of politics for politicians so they don't have to