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interesting ways. Designers of interactive media are part of the equation,
typically working as teams that include many specializations. Their “tools”
can be described as representation, computation, and research. Tools for
representation include those used for creating graphics, animation, au-
dio, layouts, and interface affordances. Computational tools include the
programming of the interactive application itself as well as the code that
powers authoring tools for the design team. Another sort of tools, often
overlooked, are the methods of design research—studying the intended au-
dience, looking at comparable products, and creating and testing mock-ups
and prototypes. Beta testing without the benefi t of other design research
methods is inadequate. Remarkable resistance to human-centered research
persists in many areas—especially in the game industry, with “serious
games” as a notable exception.
Interactors typically share in authorship to a lesser degree than design-
ers in that they create under varying kinds and levels of constraints as pro-
vided by designers. Affordances for interaction are the most intimate level
of collaboration between designers and interactors in the sense that they cir-
cumscribe the means, manner, and scope of the interactor's creative contri-
butions and provide the tools whereby interactors can infl uence the action.
We have said that material causality refl ects the infl uence of materials
upon how they may be formulated at any level in the hierarchy of dramatic
elements. The palette of multisensory materials offered up by the designer
constrains the sort of patterns or rhythms into which they can be formu-
lated, and those patterns or rhythms constrain how the semiotics or “lan-
guage” of a piece can be formulated. Thought as expressed or available by
inference constrains the formulation of characters, and so on.
Recall that formal causality works in the other “direction,” where the
most formal element—plot—constrains the sorts of characters, thoughts,
etc. that are appropriate to the action. These two causal forces are at work
simultaneously, rather like taking inductive and deductive approaches si-
multaneously in problem-solving. Game designers often iterate on the basis
of observations of or interviews with play-testers and players. Their privi-
leged position allows for intervening and tweaking a game over time. Will
Wright famously strolled about
The Sims
in various forms to observe game
play and provide new materials and functionality as he observed emerging
play styles (Laurel 2004).
I refer again to the additional causal chains suggested by Michael
Mateas (2004). He posits that the player's intention creates a new chain of
formal causality. Mateas' formulation points to some key differences be-
