Category Archives: games

Player Character Bios in Participatory Media

Posted on February 7, 2019 by dustinfreeman

Originally published in Escape Character’s Newsletter. Question: What’s the best way to hack someone who’s never LARP’d[1] before to get into character? Our goal here is to have the player buy into the stakes of the show before they cross … Continue reading →

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Telepresence Immersive Theatre with Mice instead of Voice

Posted on January 16, 2019 by dustinfreeman

This past year at Escape Character has been quiet, but very busy. Me + several collaborators have been iterating on telepresence interactive theatre. We have written and debuted three scenarios and are in the middle of writing our fourth. We’ve … Continue reading →

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Wonderful Projects I Did With Microsoft’s Kinect

Posted on October 25, 2017 by dustinfreeman

RIP the Kinect. Literally changed the direction of my research/career/life/art. Gave it more DEPTH. — Dustin Freeman🚁LAX (@dustinfreeman) October 25, 2017 Microsoft has ceased manufacturing the Kinect. Here’s some projects, art and research, academic and industrial, that I could only … Continue reading →

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Game Mechanic Compression Ratio

Posted on September 19, 2016 by dustinfreeman

After attending a conference on roguelikes over the weekend, I was talking with friend Randy Lubin about how players move from learning rules to playing a game. We discovered/invented this really cool concept: Game Mechanics Compression Ratio: the ratio between … Continue reading →

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Game: SimZilla

Posted on December 17, 2015 by dustinfreeman

Players: 2-3 pilots At least 1 Zilla. Though the Zilla should get tired quickly, so having a lineup of 3-4 Zillas works well. Setup: This game works best in an atrium – it requires a raised platform 3+ meters above … Continue reading →

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Studying Narratives in Small Spaces, Part 2: Boats

Posted on April 29, 2015 by dustinfreeman

At the Augmented & Virtual Reality roundtables at GDC 2015, there was consensus that moving a player through space made them uneasy. While in the future, I’m sure we’ll discover interesting tricks to ease the transition, what if we aren’t … Continue reading →

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Studying Narratives in Small Spaces, Part 1: Mysteries

Posted on March 30, 2015 by dustinfreeman

At the Augmented & Virtual Reality roundtables at GDC 2015, there was consensus that moving a player through space made them uneasy. While in the future, I’m sure we’ll discover interesting tricks to ease the transition, what if we aren’t … Continue reading →

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Real Escape Game: Review

Posted on May 5, 2014 by dustinfreeman

This Saturday, myself and 9 friends participated in the Real Escape Game TO. Its structure would be familiar to any avid video gamer or puzzle solver: you are in a locked room, and need to follow a series of (not … Continue reading →

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Players are Jerks to NPCs in Real Life, Too

Posted on August 25, 2013 by dustinfreeman

A non-player character (NPC) is anyone you encounter in a game who is not a player themselves. They are controlled by the game, whether a human game/dungeon master or a computer simulation. Player characters (PCs), the in-game characters controlled by … Continue reading →

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First Dungeonmastering Experience

Posted on May 10, 2013 by dustinfreeman

After wanting to do it for many years, and meticulously re-reading DM of the Rings, I DMed a tabletop RPG session for the first time last week, in a setting of my own invention. I had all kinds of concerns … Continue reading →

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