Games: October 2003 Archive Page

It begins to creep in, almost unnoticed. The levels are further apart. You begin to notice that newly acquired skills are carbon copies of the old ones, with a different coloured icon and a two percent damage increase.... You try out all the little distractions the developers have put in the game to make things 'deep', only to find they're broken, bugged or plain pointless. But you're a trooper. You stiffen that upper lip and press on, certain that if you can only hang in there the good times will arrive and the game will be FUN again. | It is at precisely this point, that me and others like me will part ways with our more determined MMORPG brethren. I, you see, am a quitter. --The Trouble with MMORPGs (Ferrago)

I was approved to be part of the "There.com" beta-test, but when the actual invitation came, I was too busy to follow through. Oh, well.

..the most evocative and atmospheric experiences were conveyed entirely through text. Text adventures, with their terse locations, thrived on the role of objects, which were there to be discovered, smashed, used, examined and combined: you find the lamp, but now you need the oil to fill it and the match to light it. Only then will the dark room become illuminated. --In the early days of computer gaming... (Things Magazine)

I really enjoy this author's writing style. The paragraphs are a bit long as far as Internet conventions go, but numerous inline links break up the paragraphs, so that the author can cover a wide range of territory in just a few condensed sentences.

Update, 25 Oct: Torill picks up on this blog entry and offers far more thoughtful comments than I did.

Feeling Cheated by Rule Changes in Final Level of 'Neverwinter Nights'Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

Grrr. I've spent several hours trying to get past the final stage of Neverwinter Nights. On every level of the game besides what I presume to be the final level, the game features a way to teleport from wherever you are fighting, back to a central area where you can rest, buy new supplies, and rearrange your equipment in safety. Then you can teleport right back into the thick of the battle.

I don't mind a difficult battle, since an easy game is no fun. But on the final level, the teleportation stone doesn't work. Likewise, on every other level, you can rest to restore your hit points and spells -- but not on the final level. The designers made no attempt to provide an in-game explanation for the change in the game rules.

It wouldn't have been hard at all to provide that in-game explanation. The game had already established that the chief villain is a lizard queen who can speak to people, and eventually possess them, through their dreams. So, if, when I tried to sleep on the final level, a cut scene played in which the lizard queen comes and possesses me, then I'd blame the queen, not the game designers. And if some event within the game disabled the stone, I would easily accept it if the game made me feel like I sacrificed that ability for a higher good. For example, if I traded the stone for a key that would get me into the final battle.

I have been a good citizen of this virtual world -- I've painstakingly learned the rules, willingly suspended my disbelief. Again, I don't expect the final battle to be easy, but I don't expect the difficulty of that final battle to arise from a change in the rules at this late stage in the game. Yes, the designers are in charge of their world and ought to be able to do whatever they want. And yes, I suppose I could go online and look for cheat codes and hacks, but that wouldn't help my desire to suspend my disbelief and enter into a story.

I personally like a fast-moving endgame that wraps up a lot of plot threads, showing you the consequences of your earlier actions. But Neverwinter Nights is a monster-bashing role-playing game -- the story is grafted onto the basic "move around, kill things and find stuff" scenario. Of course, it's a very good monster-bashing role-playing game -- but since its strength was the RPG part, the final change in gameplay pretty much kills my desire to finish.

Knowing that the story is pretty much over at this point means I know I won't be rewarded with more context as the battle continues to rage. Oh, well. Having a family and a demanding job (I always bring work home with me, whether it is grading, reading, or planning for next term) means that my game-playing time is limited. I got my money's worth out of this game, but bleah -- I feel that after investing so much time to learn the intricacies of this game world and its interface, I shouldn't be expected to finish the game in a completely different environment.

Now that I think about it, there are a few doors that I passed on the way to the lizard queen's lair, and someone gave me an artifact that I haven't yet figured out how to use (I think I have to advance another level yet). But quite frankly the change in rules, without even the slightest attempt to use the storyline to explain the change, has really sapped my interest in seeing this story to its resolution.

Would today's tykes tolerate the classic games you grew up with? Kids do say the darndest things... --Kids Play (EGM)

The premise: force a bunch of tweens to play the games my generation grew up with. Just how badly do yesterday's games suck... and how badly to today's kids suck while playing them?

The article is annoyingly laid out without a table of contents, so you have to click blindly through chaining "next" links... so...

• Pong
• Donkey Kong, Football, Tetris
• Super Mario Bros, E.T., Space Invaders

Found on MetaFilter.

I'll be going to an academic setting in order to become a game programmer. What's interesting is that just as there are film degrees (one of which I currently own) that combine the fields of literature and art with a variety of other disciplines, including physics among others, there are degrees in game creation. Places that do not seek to be known as giving out "degrees in playing games" as my aunt and uncle sometimes derisively refer to it call their degrees things like "Human-Computer Interaction" which, to be fair, can cover more than just games. Things like biofeedback for medical purposes are also examined. While gaming in education has yet to pan out, these people are doing some amazing things. As a part of the curricula, students also examine the historical place that gaming holds. In addition, they also examine how to integrate filmic and literary concepts into interactive computing. --Dade --Gaming in Education (Switchbox)

Without getting into the politics (other than to say I find Sept 12 to be a useful, thought-provoking piece, and exciting new genre for games), I'm not sure why Greg and some of his commenters are so vitriolically opposed to calling Sept 12 a simulation. --Simulation Aggravation (GrandTextAuto)

"Sept 12" is an interactive political cartoon -- a very short game in which you, as the player, target a city that contains some terrorists and many civillians. The weapons you fire cause a great deal of collateral damage, so that you inevitably kill some civillians, causing more civillians to become terrorists. It's a simple message -- too simple, really, since it's easy to convince yourself that the problem is that you don't have the right kind of weapon. Wouldn't a sniper rifle make more sense? But that's not the question the makers of the game intend to raise. And the fact that there are already terrorists in the game before you fire the first shot raises a chicken-or-egg question that the game isn't equpped to answer.

At any rate, I enjoy reading (and sometimes participating in) the meaty debates that go on in the comments on GrandTextAuto -- it's like making a short, free visit to a really good academic conference, where you don't have to sit through pompous 40-minute presentations, but can instead get right to the Q & A with intelligent, articulate, and opinionated people.

Barriers are being destoyed at the same time as bridges are being built within the literary community just as in almost every other field affected by the almighty computer. Arguments fly on all sides especially as to what constitutes art. Progress constantly changes the determination--even when it may be that it is a subjective view, after all. Time and experimentation move things beyond the established (to date) criteria and may improve, but certainly expand the categories. Homo's red handprint on the cave wall can not remain the standard forever. --Susan --Interactive FictionSpinning)

One of Steve Ersinghouse's students tackles the 1999 text adventure game "Photopia" and reflects in broader terms on digital literature.

Noticed that you had written about our site, The World Rock Paper Scissors Society (www.worldrps.com) on your blog before and thought you may be interested in the upcoming 2003 Rock Paper Scissors International World Championships taking place on October 25th.

Couple notes about the Championships:

- We have built a new Championship specific site at www.rpschamps.com
- We expect to have about 1000 of the World's best players competing
this year and have athletes registered from the UK, 6 US States and Canada.
- Winner will receive $5000.00 (CDN) and more importantly will be able to claim the title of RPS Champion of the World (2nd place $1500.00, 3rd $500)
- We have some various video clips in Quicktime format that can be Viewed here: http://www.rpschamps.com/videos.html

Graham Walker
World RPS Society
gwalker@worldrps.com --Rock Paper Scissors ChampionshipsE-Mail)

Literature is defamiliarizing the ordinary, making us see even the most quotidian things in a new way. And games? We might describe them in several ways, but they are certainly ritual spaces in which rules that are not the ordinary social and cultural ones apply. So perhaps the concept of the literary game -- a seemingly curious concept -- is not truly oxymoronic. It may be that certain literary games, including works of interactive fiction, derive their power from the play between their literary aspects and their nature as games... Nick Montfort --Literary Games (Poems That Go)

For the last nine years, the readers of the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.int-fiction have held a yearly interactive fiction competition. For fans of the old Infocom games as well as for newcomers to the genre, the competition is a chance to enjoy some of the best short adventure games available anywhere. --9th Annual Interactive Fiction CompetitionIFcomp.org)

Among the prizes are two $500 cash awards!

You can download the games for free and vote. What's that you say -- what is interactive fiction? Should you feel the need, I'd be happy to provide a much drier and stuffier version of that information.

Curse my job for consuming so many of my waking hours! Curse the light fixture that fell and smashed in my daughter's room a few hours ago, curse the toilet for plugging, curse the little knob in my wife's car that came off, curse all the little chores and errands and stuff I have to do, like shaving, and taking out the trash, and mowing the lawn (not that I've done that lately, I confess). Curse my body for requiring sleep! Curse the germs that made me sick this weekend!

Uh... sorry about that. I think what got me started on that rant was the feeling that I know I won't have time to play as many of these games as I'd like. The judging period runs until Nov 15, after which the newsgroup rec.arts.int-fiction will be bursting with reviews, commentary, bug reports, and all that good stuff. In the meanwhile, everyone is supposed to keep their opinions about individual games to themselves, to keep the playing field level.