Push Button: Examining the Culture, Platforms, and Design of the Arcade

Cross-posted at gamelab.mit.edu/pushbutton.

A 1-week lecture and workshop series kicks off a month-long game development challenge to create games for arcade cabinets installed at the MIT Museum and in the faculty offices of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies | Writing department.

Lecture series is open to the greater MIT Community. The Game Development Challenge is limited to college students in the New England area. Students are recommended to attend the weekend Game Jam on January 11 in order to form teams and participate in the Challenge.

Lecture Series, January 6-10

This lecture series will examine the culture of the Arcade, the relationship between software and hardware design and the creative work produced for arcade machines, and how to design short, moment-based gameplay. A workshop follows each lecture to put these ideas into practice.

Each lecture starts at 1pm at the MIT Game Lab in 26-142 and is followed by a workshop from 2:30pm until 5pm.

Monday: “What’s so special about the arcade?”, presented by Todd Harper, MIT Game Lab researcher

Tuesday: A platform studies look at ports of arcade games to other platforms, presented by Prof. Nick Montfort, MIT Trope Tank Director

Wednesday: From Crazy Otto to Ms Pac-Man, presented by Steve Golson, developer of Ms Pac-Man

Friday: Aesthetics of the Arcade, presented by Philip Tan, MIT Game Lab Creative Director