Abstract:

Creativity is a key ability in high demand today for thriving in different economic, social, and cultural settings. I argue that chances to be successful can be enhanced by cultivating Creative Literacy – the individuals’ ability to augment their creativity. Play is an activity that allows us to learn, to relate to the world, and with each other, an activity that triggers creative states of mind in players while providing conditions and stimulating behaviours that favour creative practices. Games, one of many vehicles for play, are therefore a good medium for augmenting creativity as they provide the space and conditions for creative acts to occur. Researching these kinds of games determined our methodological strategy, consisting of a combination of state-of-the-art research and laboratory work carried out by adopting the roles of player, developer, observer, researcher, facilitator, and communicator. This paper thus presents a theoretical framework aimed at helping to design and analyse games for augmenting creativity in their players.

This framework consists of three main dimensions identified by state-of-the-art research and laboratory work: game mechanics for creativity:
(a) that underly game actions for creativity
(b) whose articulations reveal dimensions for creative literacy
(c) for augmenting creativity.

In terms of game analysis, this framework allows one to visualize areas of influence of its components in games to interpret how these can augment creativity. This analysis is demonstrated with a tabletop game prototype aimed at challenging typographical development conventions for opening the creation of original letter types. In terms of game design, the framework’s components can be articulated in a variety of ways to design games that augment players’ creativity in specific circumstances or areas of interest. This design potential is unpacked with another tabletop game prototype targeted at bullying prevention and awareness, which offers a space for players to enact the roles of victims and aggressors and explore ways to mitigate this phenomenon. The work on this framework is far from revealing all its potential and limitations, in its current state it is just a proposition for games to be regarded as artefacts with the potential to enhance the generation of creative solutions, to edify creative synergies between players and to broaden creative game design vocabularies.

Keywords:

Creativity, Creative Literacy, Design, Framework, Games.