Imagination In Games 94
In a recent article for Offworld, Jim Rossignol writes about how the experiences offered by games are broadening as they become more familiar and more popular among researchers and educators. He mentions Korsakovia, a Half-Life 2 mod which is an interpretation of Korsakoff's syndrome, a brain disorder characterized by confusion and severe memory problems, and makes the point that games (and game engines) can provide interesting and evocative experiences without the constraint of being "fun," much as books and movies can be appreciated without "fun" being an appropriate description. Quoting:
"Is this collective imagining of games one of the reasons why they tend to focus on a narrow band of imagination? Do critics decry games because games need, more than any other media, to be something a group of people can all agree on? Isn't that why diversions from the standard templates are always met with such excitement or surprise? Getting a large number of creative people to head out into the same imaginative realm is a monumental task, and it's a reason why game directors like to riff off familiar films or activities you can see on TV to define their projects. A familiar movie gets everyone on the same page with great immediacy. 'Want to know what this game is going to be like? Go watch Aliens, you'll soon catch up.' We are pushed into familiar, well-explored areas of imagination. However, there are also teams who are both exploring strange annexes and also creating games that are very much about imaginative exploration. These idiosyncratic few do seem like Alan Moore's 'exporters,' giving us something genuinely new to investigate and explore. Once the team has figured out how to drag the thing back from their imaginations, so we get to examine its exotic experiences — like the kind we can't get at home."
like Oddworld or Psychonauts (Score:3, Insightful)
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But the computer games industry as a whole ISN'T thriving in the same way as every other entertainment industry, YET.
The reason is simple - the industry isn't yet mature enough to cater to the entire market as a whole with a basic quality product. (Some of the products released today, I wouldn't even count as 'basic'). At the minute, it's basically catering to some large areas of the market, and trying it's best to find ways of targeting some others, but since it's still trying to work things out for what
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At least FPSes have went the opposite direction. I enjoyed Quake2 far more than I enjoyed even the demo of Far Cry. I fear to even try some of the newer FPSes than that. The last one I saw and played that really intrigued me was Half Life 2. I see the video game industry as a dying, struggling child trying to fight its way to the heart of a player. Maybe I'm just a nostalgic geek who can't judge what common man wants, still, the neat looking graphics seem to be a "requisite" for success ... yet it doesn't m
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I think players want realistic games to be realistic and stylistic games to be stylistic.
Katamari damacy and Okami have very distinctive presentations that aren't realistic at all. Beyond Good and Evil had fantastic art design but used acartoon style.
Like the OP was saying about immersion, the game should suck the player in. Perhaps the problem for many games is that they're all trying to be realistic, but the bar for realism has already been set absurdly high by all the expensive AAA titles. Katamari's blo
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HL2 is really good. I'd like to suggest Left4Dead as well (but play it with a buddy all the way through.. so much fun!)
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I would say that if you're wondering about RPGs, you're wasting your time -- the genre is a kitchen sink, with three different traditions (Diablo, Morrowind, and the Final Fantasies, to name their best-known examples) competing for the same name...
More to the article's point, I think that it's a bad thing that "genre" in gaming means "style of play mechanics," not "type of story, atmosphere, etc. produced;" the result is a naive association of play mechanics and type of story, although with the latter, "typ
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More to the article's point, I think that it's a bad thing that "genre" in gaming means "style of play mechanics,"
Video games are GAMES. They are not movies, or stories, or paintings. They are meant to be picked up and played by real people for fun. As such, it is entirely appropriate that their market distinction is not "type of story", but rather "type of game."
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Do you have clear examples of people either calling something a computer game when it isn't, or people denying that something that is a computer game?
As it is, you claim to have knowledge that other people do not (a clear definition of what a computer game is), but then decide not to share it with us.
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I'll have to dig out the link - (assuming I can find it - I've swapped computers since then) - but I was posting on rpgforumsonline.com when it all started... (Had an argument with quite a few people).
As to the actual definition of what is and is not a game/computer game/cRPG etc. - well I'm in teh middle of writing a paper explaining it - (since a lot of what I've read has suggested that a paper like this is actually necessary, and may help a great deal).
In fact my paper wasn't originally supposed to be a
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You still didn't directly say anything, you only talked about how you have this special knowledge.
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Oh, but I did...
In fact, I only left out one word in that title - an important word, yes, but if people understand games, then it shouldn't be too hard to figure out...
Games are fundamentally about two things, which naturally fit together and complement each other, one of which is in the title of my paper - (hint - it's not about role playing :p ).
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Assume I am extremely obtuse. Try stating the core thesis of your paper in a sentence or two, without being coy about your thinking.
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(Doh - first of all I realised I made a mistake - (I was in a hurry and wasn't thinking properly :p) - I meant to say TWO words in addition that that - oops).
Well, lets see... It really all depends on how well you understand the term 'story writing', as to how much I really need to explain, though - (I've had to do that on slashdot before, since some people didn't get it).
Tell you what - I'll just explain it from scratch then - (again ;) ).
A lot of forms of entertainment, especially those involving media,
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The comparison between chess and writing a story is rather awkward. It's even worse for games that involve a deck of cards (a game like cribbage has a huge solution space, similar to chess, but much of the activity that takes place is entirely a result of how each shuffle comes out).
The notion of a written plot especially faces trouble in games that involve plenty of chance (so cards, dice, etc.). And personally, I don't see 'the kitchen table' as an element of story when I am playing card games, so I'm not
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No. You're not quite seeing it, (but it's not entirely unexpected ;) ).
Actually - I would have thought chess would be pretty obvious for this - (which is why I chose it as an example). This, for instance is a story of a short chess match:
1. e4 e5
2. Qh5?! Nc6
3. Bc4 Nf6??
4. Qxf7# 1-0
1. e4 e5
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That list of moves is a narrative, but I'm not ready to call it a story (hence my use of the word awkward).
Also, I'm not saying that random chance is not a viable way to ensure that a story is written, I'm saying that when 60% of what happens falls to random chance, it is specious to talk about those happenings as having been written.
Your last paragraph is just mud slinging, it isn't an argument. To wit: Just because you do 'see' it as a setting - does not mean it is there.
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Narrative is either a) a type of story, (or at least part of a story), when used as a noun, or b) a way to describe the ACT of TELLING a story, when used as an adjective.
In other words, if narrative is used as a noun, it's automatically a story, since that is was it is describing, or relating to the telling of such a story if used an adjective.
The reason WHY so many people have trouble with the word STORY, is simply because people don't understand just how basic, simple, and fundamental it's meaning really
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doh - forgot an 'and', before the BECAUSE in the last paragraph :p ("Generic grumble about slashdot not allowing people to edit posts once submitted").
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doh - missed another:
'For instance, if I watch Match of the Day, on the BBC, they will tell me a story of a football match that happened earlier in the DAY'
(I'm sorry - but I really, REALLY, HATE typo's! :p - (especially when they're mine!)).
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I'll be fair here: I saw how long this was and did not read it.
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Yes, but I don't give a flying fsck because I want to play a game and not watch an interactive movie or read a book.
The only two games that are allowed to do this are Metal Gear Solid and Half-Life2, but especially Half-Life2.
The rest is all filmschool-gimmick shit. Now get the hell of my lawn and make some real games again? Yes? OK thanks!
Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe combine Grand Theft Auto and education by making the player add up fines or the value of the drugs he just stole...
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I agree, there is definitely a big opportunity with that because there will be people out there that want to play these types of games. If nothing else going in this direction is a nice change of pace and could lead to some new more creative ideas being incorporated into more mainstream games. For example some of these elements could replace the tendency of those repetitive puzzles that are used so often as a crutch in rpgs.
Education and Games (Score:2)
According to this research [acm.org], ads in video games are more memorable when the game includes a violent component. This makes evolutionary sense, there are good reasons to pay attention during violent incidents. If you survive violence, you should remember what happened so you'll be able to survive next time.
This ability to learn quickly in relationship with violence might be useful in Instructional Design, especially when teaching facts that are inherently boring. For example, imagine a version of Quake which r
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Maybe combine Grand Theft Auto and education by making the player add up fines or the value of the drugs he just stole...
Anyone remembers bartering in Fallout games? You had to use caps or dollars to make up for the price difference between your stuff and the NPC's stuff. I always found that mentally doing the maths was kind of fun; that being said, I don't think the developers had educational purposes in mind when conceiving this aspect of the game.
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In a way, you can argue that the Grand Theft Auto games are already educational games. The physics are unreal, but real enough to give young people a pretty good idea of what is a completely stupid idea when driving. When you drive fast in the rain, your ability to handle the vehicle is diminished to a huge extent. This makes you drive more cautiously. If you're driving a heavier vehicle, it won't turn as sharply and will have difficulty cornering. Tall vehicles are not suitable for sharp turns unless
Re:Umm... (Score:4, Insightful)
An 11-year old girl knew to pull her parents from their car when it had rolled by climbing out of a broken window because she knew from GTA that cars can catch fire when they roll upside down.
Unfortunately, that's almost exactly the wrong thing to do. Cars rarely catch fire. Rolling over isn't particularly likely to cause a fire, particularly compared to other forms of crash. If there are signs of fire, by all means, get the injured out immediately. But rollovers can cause very serious neck and spine injuries that can be exacerbated by some well meaning individual trying to move you. Leave that to the paramedics.
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An 11-year old girl knew to pull her parents from their car when it had rolled by climbing out of a broken window because she knew from GTA that cars can catch fire when they roll upside down.
Unfortunately, that's almost exactly the wrong thing to do. Cars rarely catch fire.
Almost never in fact (apart from the odd model with a design flaw which is increasingly rare). Movies and games are a very poor source to learn from in this regard (everything just *has* to explode in a film).
Unless they are conscious and moving, it's indeed safer not to move injured victims.
The only exception I can think of would be when there is a risk that more vehicles may add to a pile up, frequently hurting people who managed to stop in time in the process.
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This is most likely attributed to increased reaction times and removal of the instinct to over-correct in these situations. The physics of GTA are intentionally dumbed-down in order to make the game more fun. For example, pulling the hand brake while going through a curve rarely has the same effect as in GTA.
Too much faith in driving abilities from GTA could do more harm than good. A driving simulator (iRacing, Forza, Gran Turismo) would give better instruction, but only in specific circumstances (using
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GTA's physics are pretty good. They are particularly instructive when it comes to collisions between large and small vehicles (e.g. truck vs SUV, or SUV vs compact car, or car vs motorbike). Safety ratings don't mean anything when the difference in mass means you get punted like a soccer ball in a collision. If you drive a small car or motorbike, you need to drive defensively if you value your life at all.
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While playing GTA, you learn quickly how to recover from a skid, how to turn an uncontrolled spin into a powerslide, how to avoid rolling your vehicle, how to safely control a skid to avoid a collision and what sort of collisions are least damaging if you cannot avoid a collision. These skills do translate to real life - although I'd never before regained control of an actual vehicle which loses traction on ice or gravel, I've spared myself a severe accident on three occasions (once at a 100 foot long patch of black ice, once on a long stretch of frozen ice which looked like snow-covered pavement, and once when run off a mountain road by a logging truck driver who passed illegally) thanks in part to the combat driving skills learned in games like GTA and Interstate '76.
At best, what playing GTA did was help decrease your reaction time (actually skills at pre-emption, reaction times are uniform across most individuals) and handling fight-or-flight responses better in a stressful situation.
How you regain control of the car differs too; I guess by "power slide" you mean drift, as you can't powerslide a front wheel drive car. You can try and match the acceleration of the rear with the front, but it's not the same method of control at all. You rely on being just past the lim
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Maybe combine Grand Theft Auto and education by making the player add up fines or the value of the drugs he just stole...
The easiest way is to not pay the fines on principle and to take all the drugs as quickly as possible
Done that. (Score:5, Funny)
I've played a few games recently that did not worry about the "constraint" of being "fun".
Funny thing is, they still cost sixty bucks.
Thank god I tried the TPB "demos" before shelling out for them.
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I've played a few games recently that did not worry about the "constraint" of being "fun".
Funny thing is, they still cost sixty bucks.
Presumably that's the "evocative experience bit". /. and evoke all the things you could have done with $60 or with those wasted hours.
After playing them you can log on to
No mystery (Score:5, Insightful)
It's no mystery that people don't need games to be fun in order to appreciate them - people play games because they satisfy a need. What that need is depends on the person. When I was working graveyard shift and all of my friends and roommates were on the day shift, I'd play MMORPGs on my days off just to have somebody to talk to in the hours I was awake. I wasn't necessarily enjoying playing the game so much as I was just happy that there was somebody awake who was worth talking to.
Some people play games not to enjoy but to fulfill a need for competition. They may get a thrill out of it, but it's in all likelihood more scratching an itch than it is relaxing and having play time. Casual games have been taking off in popularity because they are part of a subset of games which actually do have to be fun and relaxing.
I'd argue that most AAA game titles that have come out in the last decade have not just been simple fun, in that they were not designed to promote relaxed and enjoyable play, but to drive competition, to require significant effort to improve your skills, to require constant learning and adaptation (even in the most primitive shooters) and to (for most action games) attempt to engage the player in a fiction.
The parallels being drawn between movies, books and games are definitely not baseless; video games serve the same purposes as the classes of fiction in which are rooted. They seek to inspire wonder, fear, excitement, anger and righteous indignation... Ultimately, they serve much of the same purpose as the heroic epics of ancient times; to get people excited about the idea of things that people other than them get to do, while at the same time showing them the sort of awful crap happens to those heroes. The significant difference between video games and epic tales of heroes is that in video games, the hero seldom dies at the end (with a few spectacularly successful exceptions). This remains rewarding to the audience because of their increased level of participation in the myth.
Also, video games serve a very real purpose by allowing a player, albeit fleetingly, to be a hero and make meaningful changes in their environment with a laissez-faire which is not to be found anywhere in the civilized world. A man stuck in a dead-end job in some rural region, so long as he can afford a computer and internet access, can for a brief time every night become an epic hero in a world full of his peers. A child who finds himself alone and bored in the inner city, so long as his parents can afford $15 at a garage sale can be a young boy with a sword who saves a princess and an entire world.
It certainly can't be generalized to the experience of most people playing most games that they're being engaged on an artistic level and are having some deep-seated psychological or emotional need fulfilled by their video gaming experience, but it can certainly be established that not every game is played for fun, and not every game is designed to be fun.
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Movies also follow this formula. Rarely does the main protagonist die, it's only the bit players that don the red shirt.
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"Rarely does the main protagonist die, it's only the bit players that don the red shirt."
That was one of the great tricks of the original Alien movie. Fool you into thinking one character is the protagonist... then mid-story, wham! A few other thrillers have done that too. When it works, it's very effective.
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"The significant difference between video games and epic tales of heroes is that in video games, the hero seldom dies at the end"
Although in video games, the hero dies countless times in the middle, then reverses time until they 'get it right' and complete the level.
This is a very interesting feature of interactive narrative, IMO - the 'do-over' or 'repeat until optimised' effect. Classical epics have a shape, a structure, which is fated. Games have rulesets which define what actions can be taken and what t
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Ultimately, they serve much of the same purpose as the heroic epics of ancient times; to get people excited about the idea of things that people other than them get to do, while at the same time showing them the sort of awful crap happens to those heroes.
Hearken, children, and I shall tell you the tale of John-117, a a man called demon by his enemies and a savior by his people.
Fun is part of the definition (Score:2)
Games are fun. If they aren't, they aren't games.
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I guess Chess isn't a game then. Oh wait, you'll just say that's fun too. Which means you can say that about anything.
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The problem with that kind of thinking is that it's completely inadequate for study. There are no metrics that objectively measure the amount of "fun" in a game, because it is inherently a subjective term. Not measurable == not testable == not scientific.
We can argue forever whether games SHOULD be fun (take "serious games" or "persuasive games", for example... they're intentionally purposed for things other than "fun"). Any academic study quickly finds that "fun" is not at all useful for defining whethe
Finally (Score:1)
My mom will appreciate games rather than just decrying their "destructive" and "pointless" nature. Took long enough.
Games have long been in the realm of explaining everything from economics to interesting visualizations of mathematical patterns (such as The Game of Life). However, outside of those who generally work in such spaces, and those who learn about them in connection with Computer Science/Mathematics/Economics degrees, very few people in the general public have ever fully appreciated games.
That h
You haven't played Halo much, have you? (Score:2)
SPOILERS: In Halo your health is depleted rapidly when your shield runs out, and if your health runs out, you die - it's not significantly harder to get killed than in any other FPS. Crysis is even more generous, with both shields and health infinitely recha
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If Halo's so damn easy you should breeze right through it with no trouble whatsoever and no skills or tactics required.
This was, in fact, my experience with Halo and Crysis. Parent must suck at games.
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Game ideas that would be highly not fun (Score:2)
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Simulators are almost never fun. On the other hand, you could quite easily make a game about attempting to avoid insanity while being in solitary confinement wherein gameplay happens only in your dreams. Or a game about attempting to escape solitary confinement where the prison itself is completely physically simulated and an unknown person visits you after lights-out.
Being a whale trapped under ice for six months would definitely suck as a game premise, but you could make quite a challenging game that wou
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On the other hand, you could quite easily make a game about attempting to avoid insanity while being in solitary confinement wherein gameplay happens only in your dreams. Or a game about attempting to escape solitary confinement where the prison itself is completely physically simulated and an unknown person visits you after lights-out.
Sounds a bit like Ubik to me. Game was almost as funky as the book :P
Re:Game ideas that would be highly not fun (Score:4, Funny)
How about a real-time road trip simulator where you drive a bus from Tucson, AZ to Las Vegas, NV?
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Yeah, I had a terrible idea for a game, an italian plumber who breaks bricks with his head. Oooh, or some type of space royalty that has to roll up things to make a star.
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Yeah, I had a terrible idea for a game, an italian plumber who breaks bricks with his head. Oooh, or some type of space royalty that has to roll up things to make a star.
Better keep your day job and leave making games to professionals. Not everyone can come up with Daikatana.
Irony (Score:2)
> //These idiosyncratic few do seem like Alan Moore's 'exporters,' giving us something genuinely new to investigate and explore.//
Questioning pop media analogies by using a pop media analogy. Brilliant!
Pffft... (Score:2)
Most peoples great ideas for games suck, it takes a lot of trial and error to find something that will appeal to people. And often times mediocrity is what appeals to the masses.
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Of course mediocrity appeals to the masses... The masses are by definition mediocre.
Conservative creative efforts will be fiscally rewarded disproportionately with the more risky efforts. If you design two games, one with an ingenious core mechanic that people will either "get" or "not get" (like Portal) and one with all other aspects being equal (art, humor, charm, challenge, time commitment) except that the second game is based on platform-jumping (a familiar and easy-to-learn mechanic), then the more fam
Pathologic, not fun; depressing (Score:5, Interesting)
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Thanks for the reference, I'll check it out (if I can find a place to get it!)
It's surprising that that this game is so long. Typically indie games don't have the resources to develop a game's depth through content, and are forced to generate it through gameplay mechanics.
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Yeah. I am not willing to play that game. But, based on the review, I wish I was.
Korsakovia (Score:2)
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Being 'deep' and 'thought provoking' isn't enough. This is a mistake that a lot of amateur writers make. The end result needs to be accessible as well, or the audience discovers nothing.
Want to know what this game is going to be like? (Score:1)
Two minuses make a plus (Score:2)
Wouldn't it be interesting to get someone with Korsakoff's syndrome to play Korsakovia? Maybe the two would cancel each other out and everything would make sense.
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Wouldn't it be interesting to get someone with Korsakoff's syndrome to play Korsakovia? Maybe the two would cancel each other out and everything would make sense.
Some one with Korsakoff's wouldn't remember having played it
This game will make you wish you had Korsakoff's.
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And maybe a game about retards would make you a genius.
I've got an idea for alzheimer GTA (Score:2)
Half done quests appear out of nowhere. Missions you started just disappear.
NPCs look different every time you talk to them.
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You mean it's not supposed to be like that? Man, I should really stop throwing my Playstation 2 against the wall when I fail missions and stop using my game disks as coasters for ceramic mugs.
Obvious? (Score:1)
Do critics decry games because games need, more than any other media, to be something a group of people can all agree on?
Not so much that it needs to be something people can agree on more than any other media, just that it's a much more difficult task. While most people can agree that a Disney movie about a fish trying to make his way home is cute and fun for the whole family, not everyone enjoys blowing the heads off aliens with 300 different types of explosive weapons. Now try making a video game about the same fish and his travels and let me know how it turns out. Either way, I prefer RPG's because believe it or not it is
All The Epileptic Seizure Without The Fun! (Score:1)
Need more game with Disorder! (Score:1)
glassran (Score:1)