Games: August 2007 Archive Page

Couldn't sleep. Thought I'd do some more work on the Wikipedia entry for Colossal Cave Adventure.

Some acted selflessly, rushing to the aid of other characters even though that meant they risked infection themselves. Others fled infected cities in an attempt to save themselves. And some who were sick made it their mission to deliberately infect others. --BBC

Wikipedia has a good collection of background resources on "corrupted blood," the virtual disease which afflicted avatars in World of Warcraft in 2005.

A large majority of video games sold in the UK receive a rating under the voluntary Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) system, but some games, about 6-7% of the total, are referred to the BBFC. In determining what classification to give, the BBFC employs much the same approach as it does to films and DVDs. However, as a medium, video games of course differ from films in a number of ways, and especially in being interactive.

There has been little recent or credible research into the ways video games are distinctive as a medium or into how games may generate different reactions in players than films and DVDs do in viewers.

Many video games involve violent action and some people fear they may desensitise players to violence. Media interest in this subject has been growing. Some research in the US appears to support the hypothesis that playing video games can make people more aggressive. There is some pressure on both sides of the Atlantic for games to be more tightly regulated.

Meanwhile, the technology continues to advance, enhancing interactivity and delivering ever more realistic graphics. The newest developments may complicate the task of classifying games and increase anxiety amongst those who worry about the medium. --BBFC

In order to study people's concerns about video games, the study breaks parents up into current gamers, former gamers, and never-been-gamers.  The study emphasizes marketing, rather than topics that interest me more (such as rhetoric, design, or psychology), but there is some good discussion about playing habits among the different age groups.

Because so little primary historical work has been done on the classic text computer game "Colossal Cave Adventure", academic and popular references to it frequently perpetuate inaccuracies. "Adventure" was the first in a series of text-based games ("interactive fiction") that emphasize exploring, puzzles, and story, typically in a fantasy setting; these games had a significant cultural impact in the late 1970s and a significant commercial presence in the early 1980s. Will Crowther based his program on a real cave in Kentucky; Don Woods expanded this version significantly. The expanded work has been examined as an occasion for narrative encounters (Buckles 1985) and as an aesthetic masterpiece of logic and utility (Knuth 1998); however, previous attempts to assess the significance of "Adventure" remain incomplete without access to Crowther's original source code and Crowther's original source cave. Accordingly, this paper analyzes previously unpublished files recovered from a backup of Woods's student account at Stanford, and documents an excursion to the real Colossal Cave in Kentucky in 2005. In addition, new interviews with Crowther, Woods, and their associates (particularly members of Crowther's family) provide new insights on the precise nature of Woods's significant contributions. Real locations in the cave and several artifacts (such as an iron rod and an axe head) correspond to their representation in Crowther's version; however, by May of 1977, Woods had expanded the game to include numerous locations that he invented, along with significant technical innovations (such as scorekeeping and a player inventory). Sources that incorrectly date Crowther's original to 1972 or 1974, or that identify it as a cartographic data file with no game or fantasy elements, are sourced thinly if at all. The new evidence establishes that Crowther wrote the game during the 1975-76 academic year and probably abandoned it in early 1976. The original game employed magic, humor, simple combat, and basic puzzles, all of which Woods greatly expanded. While Crowther remained largely faithful to the geography of the real cave, his original did introduce subtle changes to the environment in order to improve the gameplay. --Dennis G. Jerz --Somewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave: Examining Will Crowther's Original ''Adventure'' in Code and in Kentucky (Digital Humanities Quarterly)

One of the journal's editors, Matt Kirschenbaum, writes:

Just a post to draw attention to a major new piece in the current issue of Digital Humanities Quarterly (a venue which you all should be keeping tabs on anyway) on Will Crowther's original ADVENTURE (aka Colossal Cave).

In his "Somewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave: Examining Will Crowther's Original 'Adventure' in Code and in Kentucky," Dennis Jerz offers an archeology of the work's source code alongside of an exploration (photo-documented!) of the actual Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.

Scholars routinely mis-cite information as fundamental as ADVENTURE's date of composition, the kind of carelessness that reinforces the view that electronic objects exist outside of material histories and are impossible to take seriously as cultural artifacts. Jerz sets the record straight with rigorous textual scholarship based (in part) on the work's original magnetic back-up tapes, which is personally responsible for recovering.

Absolutely essential reading.

Update, Aug 11: Some reactions have started to appear on rec.arts.int-fiction.
Update, Aug 12: Matthew Russoto has posted compilable versions of Crowther's original source code. That was fast!
Update, Aug 13: David Kinder has posted a Windows executable based on Crowther's original source code. (The URL points to a temporary holding spot... I'll update the final URL when I find out what it is.)

MetaFilter and BoingBoing have also posted about the article.
Update, August 14: Slashdot compares the discovery of the code to the finding of the Holy Grail. Also, del.icio.us, reddit, Digg.

There is ultimately no way to "justify" SCMRPG in the minds of those who find it deplorable but I believe even the game's detractors will find that the film fleshes out the controversy to better understand the future of games as a medium. The film is essentially a challenge to game developers to rethink the limits of their medium and a challenge to the general public to expect (demand!) more from games than mere entertainment. --Danny Ledone (interviewed by Keith Stuart) --Danny Ledonne on Super Columbine Massacre RPG (Guardian GamesBlog)

Filing for future reference.

Masahiro Mori's Uncanny Valley hypothesis states that, as artificial beings get closer to resembling real humans, the slightest errors or inaccuracies can shift our responses from empathy to disbelief and even disgust. It's why, in Toy Story, we love Woody and Buzz Lightyear, but are totally unmoved by Andy, their human owner.

This is something both videogame and movie special effects artists are having to grapple with now that processing power is allowing ever more naturalistic representations of human characters. And grappling with it they are. --Artists climb the uncanny valley (Guardian)

A good introduction to the subject.

Vicary and Fraley modeled their study on a 1979 Random House interactive fiction series, "Choose Your Own Adventure," which allowed the reader to select from multiple options at critical points in the story. Each choice directed the reader to a new scenario.

This approach appealed to the researchers because earlier studies of individual behavior in relationships asked participants to make choices based solely on descriptions of isolated events. The sequential nature of the new study was more like an actual relationship, Vicary said, in that it involved ongoing interactions with the same partner. --Simulated Relationships Offer Insight Into Real Ones (Science Daily)

Measuring test subjects' responses to tree fiction, with a branching plotline that reflects how positively or negatively the subjects responded to a simulated partner. Sounds cool.

Lately I've had the urge to play text adventure games, but I'm not sure what to play. I've been googling, but I'm overwhelmed by the variety of games available and can't seem to find a useful review site.

So... what should I play? --Recommend a few good text adventure games! (MetaFilter)

I missed this thread when it appeared... Thanks, Matt, for pointing it out to me.

Many of the games I'd recommend were on this list. I'd add 9:05, Christminster, and Jigsaw, too.

Interactive media are highly complex and at high risk for loss as technologies rapidly become obsolete. The Preserving Virtual Worlds project will explore methods for preserving digital games and interactive fiction. Major activities will include developing basic standards for metadata and content representation and conducting a series of archiving case studies for early video games, electronic literature and Second Life, an interactive multiplayer game. Second Life content participants include Life to the Second Power, Democracy Island and the International Spaceflight Museum. Partners: University of Maryland, Stanford University, Rochester Institute of Technology and Linden Lab. --Digital Preservation Program Makes Awards to Preserve American Creative Works (Library of Congress)

I've been hoping for this announcement for some time.

A while ago Matt Kirschenbaum approached me to ask whether I'd be interested in applying my research in "Colossal Cave Adventure" towards a big digital preservation project. This is it.

The interactive fiction virtual machine is an excellent model for digital preservation. As each new computer system has come out, all one has to do is code up a new interpreter to run the virtual machine. So it's possible to play "Adventure" on numerous platforms, from PDAs to cell phones. However, the recent editions of "Adventure" weren't created with an eye towards historical accuracy, but rather to expose the games to a wider audience. There's nothing wrong with popularizing an important text, but scholars do need access to accurate versions, so that they can accurately trace developments in the genre.

I'm not exactly sure what I'll be asked to do for the project, but at the least I can write up a textual analysis of the various editions of "Adventure" (including an important version that has been considered lost for decades... but I need to wait a little longer before I say any more about that).

One of the components of the proposal was a virtual arcade within Second Life, where visitors could play emulations of classic games.

Rather, Salen and other planners are looking at how games naturally engage players and teach them new skills, and hope to apply those principles to create kids who not only ace their SATs, but are also well suited for the 21st century.

Games offer a context for problem-solving with immediate feedback, and often involve social interaction that can reinforce lessons learned, Salen wrote in a proposal. Combine that process with the skills that modern games encourage -- like computer literacy and navigating through complex information networks -- and you have the basis for a brand new pedagogy, Salen believes.

The planners will devote this year plotting a curriculum, and will test pieces of it in high school classrooms the following school year. Right now, the ideas are vague but intriguing: Alternate reality games could be used to study science, as those players typically seek out and analyze data, and then propose and test their hypotheses. Salen also envisions harnessing the creative urges that kids already express through fan fiction, blogging and the creation of avatars and online identities. --Eliza Strickland --A Win-Win Scenario: 'Game School' Aims to Engage and Educate (Wired)