Comments from HNRS 353

I think companies are also starting to realize that games can be good advertisement.

Particularly movies - if you go to a movie website, you will often see a game of some sort. I actually thought that this game might come up in our discussion of Columbine, because the killers were Matrix fans and almost definitely played this game, which was available on the movie’s official website (and still is). In the game, you are Neo or Trinity, you choose a gun, and you play the scene where they shoot up everybody to get to the elevator. There is Marilyn Manson (I think? or someone similar) playing in the background.

But that tangent aside, nowadays I think games are becoming a useful tool for advertising in their own right, not just as a part of an ad. Look at America’s Army, which we discussed, which is basically a giant ad for the Army. Then there is Virtual Magic Kingdom, which I’ve mentioned in class, which has no subscription fee but is a giant advertisement for the Disney parks and is one more tool to get kids to bug their parents to take them.

I definitely get what you say about the Warioware aspect of the flash ads (which I don’t tend to see as much since I have adblock and flashblock on in firefox). Some of the ads, even though they are blatant ads for something I would never get, I have played the little flash game for (and so clicked on) because it looked fun or funny. What better way to advertise a mortgage loan than offering to let you punch George W. Bush in the head with a boxing glove?

May 5, 11:32 AM — [ ] — Games, Games everywhere

I fully agree that all games have narrative qualities. I’ve had games move me emotionally more than films or books.

I was sort of thinking of the written quality in my post. For example, if The Baron, with pretty much the same descriptions and wordings, were made into a short story, it could probably be published. But it isn’t a short story, it is a game, and so it is dismissed. In a way it reminds me of how in 1993, Neil Gaiman won the World Fantasy Award for short story with a comic. The rules were changed shortly after to say that other forms were not valid. What if someone had submitted an IF like the Baron to the awards? Would it have been taken seriously enough to be considered?

When playing IF, I have seen writers who were bad and writers who were good. The good writers were better at description, narrative, pacing, and characterization than Dan Brown could ever dream of being, and yet he is taken seriously as an author and they are seen as game writers.

Apr 27, 10:38 AM — [ ] — A Fusion of Media Forms

Blogging Threefer

April 25th, 2008 asgoodwin

I think that my posts I wrote and half posts I saved during the semester were more insightful into the readings and games. I was closer to them, so I wrote better on them. I wish I had been more diligent about posting in the blog, because I’ve noticed in this and past classes that what I post at the beginning is really interesting, and I don’t necessarily remember it in the detail I wrote.I think that blogging is a good tool in a class like this. I definitely played The Baron more closely than the other classes we played before class but didn’t blog or write an inquiry about because I knew I had to write on it. Particularly in the last unit, more “assigned” blogs (for example, telling us to blog on a game, or on a reading, or just “before class”) would have been a good assignment, because there is a lot to take in and analyze in that section which is controversial in a way that the first parts of the semester weren’t. Sometimes just writing down your reactions is a great help in digging deeper and understanding your reactions to things. I didn’t think to sit and blog after we talked about the Prison game in class, which I had such a gut reaction of dislike against.

I think it also shows me the ideas I kept coming back to over and over again. For me, a lot of what we discussed in the beginning of the semester about games, how they are constructed and how they tell stories, related in my mind to Disneyland. Part of this is because I’m just a Disney nut and it’s on my mind a lot, but also I think it is an interesting parallel to draw. I also liked the Combat in Context essay, because I felt like I understood it in a more real way because I’ve looked at those levels in my past programming assignments.

I’m not sure that my post style has changed over the semester, because so many of my posts came right at the end (as in today). In other classes where I’ve had to blog, I do usually see a more in depth understanding, and I definitely go back and refer to them even now after the semester is over to remind myself of what I’ve learned.

I did notice occasionally in class I would hold back from saying something I’d thought about the readings (usually it was fairly tangential) because I thought I would put it in a blog instead, and I’m not sure that was helpful in the end because the discussion in class would have contributed to the idea more than me rambling in a post. Still, despite that, I think that blogging is a very good tool for keeping track of what I’ve learned during a semester, my thoughts on it, and looking deeper into the readings than I would have otherwise.

Interactive Fiction as Literature

April 25th, 2008 asgoodwin

One idea we discussed in my class last semester, Textual Media, was whether Interactive Fiction can be seen as literature. In my mind they can.

I’ve played many games, both in high school and again last semester, and the quality of writing and plotting really does make a difference in the story. The author is incredibly important to the game, particularly in their ability to describe the scenery and drop hints towards the overarching story without being able to make the character do something in the room.

Looking at The Baron, there are metaphors and symbolism in many items. Part of the strength of the story is that there can be hints in places that the author isn’t necessarily sure you will reach. In the story, there was a prison underneath a grate in one corner of the Baron’s castle. In class, I was the only one who had found it. In it, there was a “father” doll tied up, and a “mother” and “daughter” doll inside a cell, starving, and he couldn’t reach them. On the other hand, I missed the part of looking into the dollhouse and at the drawings in the daughter’s room both before and after I was in the dream world. Still, I felt like I got a well written and shocking story even with what I had seen and what I hadn’t.

Of course, Interactive Fiction could never replace literature. However, I think more writers should consider experimenting with it as another form of storytelling. It is like a first person story made more intimate, as we discussed in class, because you are making the reader choose what they are doing. I think a large part of what made The Baron shocking in the end is that the main character – you – are doing that horrible thing to your daughter, and as the protagonist player you feel even closer to the character than just reading a first person story.

Entry Filed under: Game Log

3 Comments

• 1. Dennis Price | April 29th, 2008 at 11:36 am

  I definitely agree that Interactive Fiction is literature. It could obviously never replace literature, but it certain deserves to be considered a tpe of it. I think the most interesting thing about Interactive Fiction, aside from the stories, is when it is set up like a game like Baron was. Not only does this allow the narrative to be "choose your own adventure", but it makes the player feel like they are a part of the story. In The Baron, the player is able to identify more with the character since he has direct control over him. Normally in literature, the reader is going to hate a child molester. That still happens in this game, however, the player is able to identify more with the internal struggles of the Baron. The player is forced to make decisions as if he his self were a child molester. He is forced to think about what he would do and how he would feel if he were in that position in real life.
  While traditional literature can also allow the reader to enter the minds of the characters, the Interactive Fiction takes it to another level by allowing the reader to make decisions. The fact that it is set up as a game also makes it interesting. In a game, especially text based games, a player can and usually expects to do whatever he wants. However, in The Baron, the player realizes he is trapped and is forced to confront his daughter. This sends a strong message, in my opinion, that some problems in life are impossible to avoid. This is an extremely important message and it would be difficult to illustrate it so well without using a text based adventure format.

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• 2. scify_rd | May 2nd, 2008 at 11:21 pm

  I think that the largest issue that stands in the way of Interactive Fiction becoming both a serious genre of literature and really at all practical for writers to create is the sheer number of options that are inherent to gamers in game. There is, of course, always the convention of "You can’t do that" or "You don’t feel like doing that right now" type responses, but those are usually very frustrating to come across, unless they are for particularly outlandish actions that the character, as described, would never try, and often take much of the realism out of the story (after all, in real life we do not come across little flying banners or voices in our heads that say "No. You may not do this." when we think of something we would like to try).

  However, as a collaborative effort, at least, Interactive Fiction could be a very interesting genre of play/narrative experience, and one deserving of exploration by serious writers. The biggest issue would be the time investment, really, as the sheer range of actions that… let us call them, interactors, might come up with in the context of the story being told.

  An interesting note on this point is the fact there is a genre of storytelling where each chapter ends at junction of possible choices and the readers are given the opportunity to pen both possible results. While the average person does not have the coding skills necessary to do the same with an interactive fiction game, it could be interesting if there were eventually some similar form of story crafting for games.

  One final note: there was, in fact, a guide on how to achieve the various endings for Facade. It cost $10, I believe, but…

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• 3. mstarkey | May 5th, 2008 at 5:50 pm

  Interactive fiction as literature is an interesting concept. I totally agree that Interactive Fiction is truly a form of literature. In many ways Interactive Fiction engrosses the reader more then typically literature, forcing the reader to be actively thinking about the story, where its going, what clues have already been given, and alternative meanings. Being in high school literature classes, it is easy for the uninterested reader to skim over passages and take them at simple face value, missing important clues and points the author tries to have the reader uncover for themselves. Many missed the true meaning of the story that the writer intended. The nature of Interactive Fiction prohibits that, requiring attention to the story to progress in the game. There is no last chapter that one can flip to to find the conclusion, or answers, instead there are multiple endings and variations that make the story unique to the reader. Yet the playing aspect keeps the reader interested and involved, allowing them to contemplate the relatedness and importance of every scene or character. The decisions that the player makes during the game are the decisions that the main character of literature would be making. Instead of reading the decision the character chooses, Interactive Fiction allows the player to decide what actions the character makes. With literature the reader is either left questioning the outcome of other possible decisions the character could have made, or just takes the decision made as the only one, leaving out questioning and in-depth thinking on the readers’ part, which is crucial for literary analysis. Interactive Fiction allows the player to experience alternative decisions, furthering the depth and meaning in the story. The ability for the character to choose the path it takes in the game furthers the story provides additional background information to both plot and character development. These developments within the story are presented as decisions to the player; help keep attention and involvement on the players’ behalf. Alternative endings and alternative paths through which the story unfolds does not detract from the meaning of the game which the creator intended, it just allows people to create their own story to extract the meaning the creator intended. The player’s active role in unfolding the story beyond page turning is what really attracts me to the literary value of Interactive Fiction.

Disney and Progressive vs. Emergent Play

April 25th, 2008 asgoodwin

Yet another from me…

In an essay by the blog Re-Imagineering, they discuss the difference between Story and Plot in themed rides. I don’t entirely agree with all their points (I generally don’t), but I thought it was an interesting thing to look at in the context of Emergent and Progressive play. Emergent play has story – an interesting environment, and an interesting world, but not necessarily an A to B plot. For example in It’s a Small World, where there’s no actual plot, just the story of a world where all the children of the world realize they are alike and come together to sing. There is no beginning, middle, and end. There is no protagonist or antagonist.

On the other hand, there are a lot of rides with progressive plots, like Splash Mountain, where Brer Rabbit decides to leave home, is caught by Brer Fox and Brer Bear, tricks them into throwing him into the Briar Patch, and finally realizes home is where he is meant to be.

Many of the rides fall somewhere in between. The plot isn’t explicitly mentioned, but it is there. In Big Thunder Mountain, you’re on a mine car, in an abandoned mine town, which has gone out of control. In the Matterhorn Bobsleds, you are sledding through the mountains and have a run-in with the Yeti, barely escaping.

One story which has shifted from story to plot is Pirates of the Caribbean. The old version of Pirates of the Caribbean, with pirates ransacking a town, looking for treasure, and generally acting piratey, is a similar world. There are mini stories throughout, like the “wench” auction, or the pirates in jail trying to tempt the dog holding the key, but nothing holds it together. In (2005?) Disney Imagineering reworked the story to have a plot in it, of Jack Sparrow. The opening scene with the pirates attacking the town, they are looking for Jack. In the town, the man dunked in the well is being asked where Jack is. The drunk with the map is trying to hide it from Jack, who is peering over his shoulder instead of a random other pirate, and finally we leave seeing Jack in the treasure den. A lot of people strongly objected to the addition of these scenes, because it took away from the emergent story and added a linear storyline. They felt this took away from a primary joy of the story.

Ultimately most people concede that it makes the ride more familiar to younger riders, and it makes the ride “make sense” to more people. Both forms have strengths, and there are people who really prefer one over the other.

Looking at these examples really made the issue of the two types of play make more sense to me, so I thought I would share it with all of you.

Entry Filed under: Game Log

1 Comment

1. Professor Sample | May 14th, 2008 at 9:59 pm

This is really interesting to hear the Disney people’s distinction between plot and story, because the two words have a different meaning in literary studies. The Russian Formalists most famously argued for the distinction between the two, in which story is the chronological series of events of any happening (what Boris Tomashevsky calls "the action itself), while plot is the order in which the reader (or viewer) learns about each event. Flashbacks, for example, jumble the story by presenting it "out of order." What’s intriguing is that there is a tension between how events occur and how the reader is told about these events, and the greater the discrepancy between plot and story, the greater the tension in the narrative work. I wonder how this version of "plot" and "story" applies to videogames…

Further Thoughts on Combat in Context

April 25th, 2008 asgoodwin

In the rubric in Combat in Context, Nick Monfort describes the platform as driving all the other parts of the game development, as step one of analyzing a game. We discussed this some in class about how the increase of memory and graphic capability has made games more realistic and complex. I was thinking about this, and I think a great case study to look at is the Nintendo DS and the Nintendo Wii.

Games for all the systems before these two came out were mostly the same, because for the most part the systems had the same types of controllers – the XBox, Playstation, and GameCube, and even before that Nintendo 64 have similar controllers with buttons and joystick motion controllers to allow you to go in more directions. The Nintendo, Super NES, and Sega Genesis all had the four arrows and buttons set up, which also was present on the Gameboys and Sega Game Gear, though those had less memory than the full fledged games.

The Nintendo Wii has been selling hugely, and part of that is the innovative games present on it, nearly all of which are a result of the new game platform and controllers, like the WiiMote, so you can bowl and play baseball and other things that are not as “realistically” done, at least motion wise, with the old fashion game controllers.

The DS, with its touch screen technology and dual screens, has lead to new games and new types of play that wouldn’t have been possible on older systems. Everything from controlling your character by dragging a line in front of it, to having puzzles you must solve by writing, to having maps you can make notes on like in Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass.

Part of the reason the games are exciting people because they seem so different is because the programmers are challenged by the lower level hardware presented to them, and in order to make a great game for the system they must actively use those capabilities in a way that is interesting and necessary to the game, or people will be tempted to move on to other games that use the hardware better.

Disney Parks and Environmental Storytelling

April 25th, 2008 asgoodwin

In our last reading, Game Design as Narrative Architecture (First Person pp. 118-130), the author Henry Jenkins quotes Don Carson, a Show Designer for Walt Disney Imagineering. The section was about Spatial Stories and Environmental Storytelling. I was having trouble classifying the difference between the two types of storytelling, because I didn’t have too much experience with Half-Life or Halo, which are the two stories most often used as examples, but this made me think about what I know about the Disney Parks and how they treat both storytelling types.

Disney Parks have a lot of great examples of environmental storytelling. In a way, the park can be seen as a game where you are the main character - many of the designers talk about how it is designed to be like a giant movie that you can actually walk into. Take Disneyland (DLR) in California or the Magic Kingdom (MK) in Florida, for example. There are seven major areas - Main Street USA, Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, Tomorrowland, Toontown, and Liberty Square in MK and New Orleans Square in DLR.

In none of the “lands” are there progressive, linear story lines. Sometimes they show up in rides, but the land is all about “environmental storytelling.” The entire land conforms to the idea. There are details that you might not consciously notice but contribute. Walt Disney was very strict about having the worlds always stick to the story they were telling, and nothing should be out of place. There is a story about how he once saw a cast member in Tomorrowland clothes walking through Adventureland. He stopped the man and asked him what he thought he was doing? The man said he had to walk through Adventureland to get to his car. Promptly after that, Disney had a road built around the outside of Disneyland for cast members to use to get around, and when he built the Magic Kingdom, he built it over a first floor called the “utilidor” which cast members can use to get around the park out of sight.

There are bits of progression in the lands of Disneyland, but they aren’t obvious. For example, at the start of Main Street USA there are gas burning street lamps. By the end, they are electric. Other details add into the “story” of Main Street, the innovation of technology that came about from the turn of the century to the more ‘modern’ day. There are many challenges to this environmental storytelling you might not have in a game, where you can cut from one scene to another. In Adventureland, there is a statue of asian water buffalo which were chosen, because if they were seen from Frontierland on the other side of the building, they would look close enough to longhorn cattle to not stand out. Also, all of the music in Disneyland is on the same tempo, so that it can unobtrusively blend from the music of one land to another as you walk under a bridge from Frontierland to Fantasyland, or Main Street to Adventureland.

On the other hand, many of the rides are Spatial Storytelling. Like how games scroll along, the rides tell as story in what you see as you travel through the ride. Like a movie or a game like Mario or a Chinese painting on a scroll (as the author uses as an example), as we are taken through the space we see the story unfold past us in a more linear way.

It is neat to see these details that we so associate with games in an actual real life example.

First experiences with videogames

April 25th, 2008 asgoodwin

I remember when I was younger, we always had video games. This isn’t literally true, but as far back as I can remember we did. Here’s a picture of me at about three playing with a computer (wasn’t I cute?). We used to have Lemmings and Wordtres, both of which were on 5 1/4” floppies.

After that, my older sister got a Nintendo (original) and I remember watching her and my dad play Dr. Mario before going up to bed. She and my dad also made their way through Super Mario 3, and I remember there were days when we couldn’t use the downstairs TV because they’d left the game on paused, since of course you couldn’t save. We also used to play the Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers game together. She was always Chip, and I was always Dale. Even now when I go to Disney and they have Chip & Dale out and about, I’m more excited to see Dale because he was my character.

Then we got Super NES. That lead to games like Nintendo Tennis, which we played without end against each other (my younger sister sometimes joined in, but not as often). We played F-Zero a lot too, which made me greatly excited when it came out for the Gameboy Advanced (my sister was very excited to play it too). We also got our first Mario Kart for that, and in that game we were the most competitive and vindictive. Hitting each other with red turtle shells could cause a fight that would last for days.

Our next system was Sega Genesis, and again we went back to cooperative games, and I would take the second fiddle. I was always Tails when we played Sonic the Hedgehog together – not that I minded, because Tails was cuter and could fly, and I was Donald when we played The World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. World of Illusion was the first game I remember beating. There was this connected excitement between us as we worked together and finally beat it. This was during a time when we’d fight at the drop of a pin, and it was the one thing we really connected between.

Later we got Nintendo 64, which was our last shared system, but we didn’t really play much together. A few years later I got a Playstation 2, which stayed in my room, and my younger sister got a Gamecube, which stayed in the family room but was still primarily “hers.”

I look back fondly on those times we played video games together. It was probably the closest my older sister and I ever were - at least, it was the most time we spent together just playing.