I have something really fun (for me) to announce! I have finished a master's thesis, that has received a pass. In it I am processing the development of the upcoming game Oceania 2084, and the ideas behind creating a rule set around the aesthetic experience found in the book Nineteen Eighty-Four written by George Orwell. The title of the thesis is "Recreating the aesthetic experience of Orwell’s book nineteen eighty-four as a Tabletop roleplaying rule set: A systemic perspective on Rules as the aesthetic space in Oceania 2084". The main finding is a suggested 5 step process, referred to as delome design,  that means to help designers focus on an intended aesthetic experience throughout a creation process. It also provides a lot of reflections on the game that will be published later this year. 

The paper is publicly available and can be downloaded here: https://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1772834&dswid=-8846

Abstract: By examining the results of an iterative design process, specifically a tabletop roleplaying game, Oceania 2084, this thesis aims to formulate a generalizable design process applicable when translating a work of fiction into a ruleset. The object that was translated into a ruleset was the book Nineteen Eighty-Four written by George Orwell in 1949. The iterative game development process spanned over 2.5 years and the author provides documents from 2 phases of playtesting and discusses how the playtest results influenced design choices. In addition to the analysis of the effects of playtest results, the author also explores various game design decisions by means of auto-ethnographic analysis, and semiotic analysis.

If you read it and find it interesting please reach out! We can discuss things and nerd out about stuff!