Experimental Game Mechanics
Thomas Wagensommerer
Institute of Arts and Society, Experimental Game Cultures
2025W, scientific seminar (SEW), 4.0 ECTS, 2.0 semester hours, course number S30456
Description
Conventional game mechanics can be described as “rule-based methods for agency in the gameworld, designed for overcoming challenges in non-trivial ways.” (Sicart, M. A. (2016a). Mechanics. In H. Lowood & R. Guins (Eds.), Debugging Game History: A Critical Lexicon. (pp. 297–304). MIT Press)
This course aims to reflects on strategies to approach, research, evaluate, create and define experimental game mechanics to overcome the present state of game mechanics in a playful way.
Throughout the course, we use and misuse modes of digital production to perforate the surface of representation to expose its new flesh. (cf. Videodrome - David Cronenberg 1983)
This course explicitly understands game (or rather: play) as a matter of artistic creation.
This seminar will be split into a theoretical and a practical (workshop-like) part.
Examination Modalities
Attendance
Participation
Exercises / Conception of prototypes
Individual research and presentation
Key Words
game art, game mechanics, game engine, unity, artificial intelligence, sound, surrealism, programming, shader, sound sculpture, video, conceptual, computer animation, computer graphics, software, digital imaging, process art, music, electronic music, media art, text
Dates
14 October 2025, 10:00–11:00, "GCP (former: PSK) Georg Coch Platz 2, 1st floor (studio 151/152/156) 1010 Wien" (preliminary discussion)
21 October 2025, 10:00–13:00, "GCP (former: PSK) Georg Coch Platz 2, 1st floor (studio 151/152/156) 1010 Wien"
28 October 2025, 10:00–13:00, "GCP (former: PSK) Georg Coch Platz 2, 1st floor (studio 151/152/156) 1010 Wien"
04 November 2025, 10:00–13:00, "GCP (former: PSK) Georg Coch Platz 2, 1st floor (studio 151/152/156) 1010 Wien"
11 November 2025, 10:00–13:00, "GCP (former: PSK) Georg Coch Platz 2, 1st floor (studio 151/152/156) 1010 Wien"
18 November 2025, 10:00–13:00, "GCP (former: PSK) Georg Coch Platz 2, 1st floor (studio 151/152/156) 1010 Wien"
25 November 2025, 10:00–13:00, "GCP (former: PSK) Georg Coch Platz 2, 1st floor (studio 151/152/156) 1010 Wien"
02 December 2025, 10:00–13:00, "GCP (former: PSK) Georg Coch Platz 2, 1st floor (studio 151/152/156) 1010 Wien"
09 December 2025, 10:00–13:00, "GCP (former: PSK) Georg Coch Platz 2, 1st floor (studio 151/152/156) 1010 Wien"
16 December 2025, 10:00–13:00, "GCP (former: PSK) Georg Coch Platz 2, 1st floor (studio 151/152/156) 1010 Wien"
13 January 2026, 10:00–13:00, "GCP (former: PSK) Georg Coch Platz 2, 1st floor (studio 151/152/156) 1010 Wien"
20 January 2026, 10:00–13:00, "GCP (former: PSK) Georg Coch Platz 2, 1st floor (studio 151/152/156) 1010 Wien"
Course Enrolment
From 01 September 2025, 09:00
Via online registration
Curriculum Allocation
Experimental Game Cultures (Master): Game Development and Reflection: Game Development and Reflection I-III 536/001.01
Co-registration: not possible
Attending individual courses: not possible