Training New Designers for Interaction: Gina, a Game Design Workshop for Improving Sensitivity toward Interactive Dynamics and Synaesthetic Perception

In this paper we present GINA, a game design workshop at the Industrial Design Faculty of the Politecnico di Milano, performed during the last two academic years with the students of the first year of the master course (Laurea Magistrale). GINA stands for Gioco (game) – Interazione (interaction) Narrazione (storytelling) – Animazione (animation). In these workshops Game Design is not seen as a fixed procedure such as standard methods from the field of software developing, but as a strategy to practice designing for unusual contexts, considering narrative, aesthetic and technical issues, as well a means to introduce several aspects of interactive multimedia product design. During the workshop we have imposed some formal constraints to the game development, in order to sustain a creative approach to Game Design and to lead students toward a conversation between the operative image creation and the design situation understanding. The constraints referred to the narrative environment (chosen from the classical roman literature and the popular wisdom), to the design of visual virtual contexts (that were inspired to specific arts movements), and to the game and interactive schemes (taken from the world of the digital interactive art). This approach describes how gameplay design could evolve beyond “classical” interactive schemas that are currently available. Finally the game design activity is discussed as learning process where specifications, information visualizations and interactive art can be used to consolidate industrial design methods and techniques.