Exploring Interdisciplinary World Building in Games Design

This project explores the development of a method for the creation of dances and dance events for fictional futuristic digital societies within an MMO gaming community. Establishing it as the new field of Ludochoreology the investigators explore the movement and dances created for, and found within, online digital games.
Applying a practice-as–research and artistic research the team collaborate in the production of Ludochoreography which explores aspects related to physical and digital dance and movement creation and interaction for fictional dance cultures, kinaesthetic empathy, and choreographic representation.
In this interdisciplinary collaboration dance artist and choreographer Dr Heike Salzer (University of Roehampton, UK), dance anthropologist Dr Deborah Williams (University of Malta, MT) in partnership with Chief Creative Officer Ingi Jensson and Composer Zakarías Gunnarsson from NARC computer game studio (MT), explore how the iterative dialogue of “making” informs, transforms and directs each of their creative processes (Ingold, 2013). They illustrate how the considerations of the world building design process such as the concept art, music/sound, movement, environment, cultures and society etc. all share the visceral awareness of the body, as an impetus of the development.
Outcomes include the development of a range of dance activities such as “traditional” rituals, social dance activities, and performative events, that will take place in both the digital and physical worlds. These physical products will materialise the concept art and musical compositions, allowing for the kinaesthetic experience to feed back into the “world building” process, where the tacit knowledge is informing the ‘details and nuance in(to) the fictional world’ (Hergenrader 2011:104). The project therefore will be a symbiosis of both practice and product that will influence the future of physical representation and interactions within game design.