The tweets from THATCamp Epic Play have been collected together on Storify: storify.com/edmondchang/thatcamp-epic-play-2013-2014

Thanks to all of the live-tweeters!

10-11:30 PM Breakout Sessions I
Room 202: Cheating/Countergaming
Room 226: Analog Games
Room 120: Online Communities

11:30 AM- 1 PM Lunch Break (Room 202 & 204)

1-2:30 PM Breakout Sessions II
Room 202: Math Games
Room 226: Player/NPC Relationships
Room 120: Food in Games/Embodiment

2:45-4:15 PM Breakout Sessions III
Room 202: Game Environments, Worlds, Cities
Room 226: (State of) AAA/Big Budget Games
Room 120: Games & Learning

We’re using the hashtags:

#thatcamp #epicplay

THATCamp Epic Play 2013 shared Google Docs for brainstorming, notes, bibliography, and more:

drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-hctW82Tr0dUkUwODEtdXRvQjA&usp=sharing

Participants are welcome to contribute to the existing documents or start documents of your own (these will eventually be archived by THATCamp).

Relationships with persistent, non-player characters (PNPCs) live somewhere between parasocial relationships (one-way relationships, e.g., characters from TV, movies, or novels) and real relationships.  Unlike parasocial relationships, you can generally interact with and sometimes affect PNPCs, but unlike real relationships, the breadth and depth of what you can do to affect them is severely restricted.

The opportunity for interaction with a PNPC holds within it the possibility for a (relatively) non-superficial relationship to develop with him/her.  However, much of the dialogue interaction leaves a lot to be desired and many actions outside of dialogue don’t even seem to phase many PNPCs.

How might we improve upon this system?  Do you see more “realistic” characters as desirable, or does the nature of video games (e.g., “I didn’t mean to press that button!”) mean that characters (like the game) should be more forgetting and forgiving?  Do you have any PNPCs in the past that made you laugh or cry?  Did you miss them when the game was over?  Have you ever left a game unfinished so that you didn’t have to end the story and leave your PNPC buddies? (I’m guilty as charged on multiple accounts)

I’d like to lead a discussion about the nature of these relationships, how you process them, how “real” they are to you, where you see them going, and how we can get there.

THATCamp Epic Play is a week away!

Day One (Friday, May 24, 3-5 PM) is Workshops Day!  We have three excellent, engaging, and informative workshops lined up.  Welcome and Registration is from 3-3:30 PM.  Workshops run from 3:30-5 PM.

Day Two (Saturday, May 25, 8-5 PM) is a full day of breakout sessions inspired, organized, and facilitated by you, our participants!  Welcome and Registration, including a light breakfast, is from 8-9 AM.  Session generation, where we aggregate and select the day’s topics, is from 9-9:45 AM.  Then there will be three Breakout Sessions over the course the day, including a catered lunch (featuring lightning talks).

To get the ball rolling, we ask participants to begin brainstorming topic ideas for sessions, lines of inquiry, general questions, and games of interest.  Please respond to this brainstorming thread or start a proposal thread of your own.  We will take these initial suggestions to seed the Session generation forum on Saturday morning!  For example, how might we think about and talk about (though not limited to):

• THATCamp theme and keyword “Epic” 
• Studying, researching, games and academia
• Teaching (with) games, games and students
• Making, developing, designing, modding, marketing games
• Playing games
• Game paratexts, game communities, fandom
• Analog v. digital games, live-action and alternate/augmented reality games

For more information about session proposing (below the location information): epicplay2013.thatcamp.org/schedule/