Games: November 2007 Archive Page

Jeremy Douglass has published a Creative Commons dissertation on interactive fiction. I recently brought a printout into my "Writing about Literature" class in order to help my undergrads (English majors, some of whom want to be professional writers or literature professors) see their homework assignments as points on a scale that includes books and beyond.

I ran the PDF through a text-to-speech program, and have been listening to it during my commute. I'm currently at 7 hrs 49 minutes of a 10-hr document. (I didn't include the index and the bibliography when I converted the file to sound.) 

Douglass does an excellent job acknowledging the debt that IF scholarship owes to the pioneering work of Janet Murray and Espen Aarseth (each of whom have treated IF as part of a larger study on digital narrative), and he also offers a good analysis of the full-length studies of IF by Buckles, Sloane, Montfort, and Maher.  He politely but unflinchingly points out how the limited number of IF works chosen for close readings has led to oversimplifications and assumptions in later scholarship.  Because IF is a rather obscure topic, scholars have to present a lot of formal exposition and generic exposition in order to clear a path to their more advanced insights, but Douglass moves beyond the basics very quickly, so there is much of value to ponder. (I will give it a traditional read-through when I'm finished listening to it...  depending on the audio version for the first read is an experiment that I'm rather enjoying.)

For me, the greatest pleasure in reading this work is the insightful close readings of moments, scenes, puzzles, and specific interactions that illustrate the greater theoretical point. I also felt challenged (in a good way) by his re-thinking of the categories into which the history of IF tends to be placed.  I will very likely assign at least

The Interactive Fiction (IF) genre describes text-based narrative experiences in which a person interacts with a computer simulation by typing text phrases (usually commands in the imperative mood) and reading software-generated text responses (usually statements in the second person present tense). Re-examining historical and contemporary IF illuminates the larger fields of electronic literature and game studies. Intertwined aesthetic and technical developments in IF from 1977 to the present are analyzed in terms of language (person, tense, and mood), narrative theory (Iser's gaps, the fabula / sjuzet distinction), game studies / ludology (player apprehension of rules, evaluation of strategic advancement), and filmic representation (subjective POV, time-loops). Two general methodological concepts for digital humanities analyses are developed in relation to IF: implied code, which facilitates studying the interactor's mental model of an interactive work; and frustration aesthetics, which facilitates analysis of the constraints that structure interactive experiences. IF works interpreted in extended "close interactions" include Plotkin's Shade (1999), Barlow's Aisle (2000), Pontious's Rematch (2000), Foster and Ravipinto's Slouching Towards Bedlam (2003), and others. Experiences of these works are mediated by implications, frustrations, and the limiting figures of their protagonists.

In Game Design Review, Krystian Majewski takes a common creative writing mantra and rips it a new one in a way that I haven't been able to get out of my head for some time.

It seems counter-intuitive but actually, LESS emphasis on some parts of the story create MORE emotional response. This is something which goes well with Rowan Kaiser's recent article in The Escapist. He suggests applying the admonition "Show, don't tell". I would go even further and change it into "Do, don't show" to avoid any misunderstandings. The problem is, as always, that games aren't movies.


Nooo! Look behind you! Turn around! .. Gaaah! Give me that controller, you incompetent idiot!

When we watch a thriller, and we see Janet Leigh take a shower and the killer waiting outside it creates suspense because we foresee what will happen but we have no means to change the course of events. We are doomed to watch the murder happen and thus can do nothing but feel sorry for the victim.
Games are different. In games we CAN do something. The player IS Janet Leigh and the only way she would make the decision to take that shower is if she didn't knew that there is a killer outside. In games the emotional connection does not happen through emphaty but through responsibility. As soon a the player realizes a decision was made by somebody else in advance, he disconnects emotionally: "Oh, ok, it is is not my fault, it was meant to happen".

The phrasing's a little off... "do" is a command for the player, while "don't show" is a warning to the designer.  So to make sense, the catchphrase should be "Don't show, make the player do" or "Don't show me, let me do," but I admit that's not as catchy as "Do, don't show."  

It's times like this that the world needs Latin. I'm a bit rusty, there, but with a little help let's see... "[something] to enact, not [something] to be shown" would probably be "agere, non manifestandum." (See my recent blog which included an aside praising obscure terminology.)

On Gamasutra, John Hopson says academics should not bother trying to get game designers to listen to any research that doesn't translate into more money for game companies.

When a researcher presents a product team with a set of research findings and recommendations, they are asking the team to invest time and money implementing their proposal. In order to convince the audience to spend that time and money, the researcher has to show clearly how that investment is going to pay off. This needs to be something beyond "this will help players identify more strongly with the main character".

The researcher must lay out the entire impact of the idea, from the cost of implementing the proposal to the resulting changes in player experience and the metrics for measuring that impact. Getting players to identify with the main character is great, but researchers have to finish the rest of the sentence: "This will help players identify more strongly with the main character which will result in an improvement in measures of overall player satisfaction and an increase in total playing time."

By the way, if the research doesn't include specific practical recommendations or a measurable impact on the final product, don't bother trying to sell it to the industry. From the average industry professional's perspective, there are only two things of value being said in a research presentation: the recommendations and their predicted effects. Everything else, the background research, the brilliant theoretical breakthrough, the clever development of the ideas, falls on industry ears like the "wah wah" noises made by Charlie Brown's teacher.

This is, of course, very practical. Game developers have to explain to their bosses why they should attend your academic talk on the history and social value of computer games instead of the one across the hall that tests a new formula for pixel shading or introduces a new technique for creating the reflections of flickering torchlight in fountains of blood gushing from an enemy's skin. (Okay, I'm exaggerating -- but not by much.) 

In the humanities, small groups of people (often grad students who are trying to find a footing for themselves) will organize a regional conference on a particular subject, and they will do it for the practical experience of learning how to run such a conference; they will do it in order to make a name for themselves in a small, emerging field; or they will do it to call attention to a subject they themselves are passionate about.  But industry conferences are, like industry itself, about money. I don't mean that in a pejorative way. I learn quite a bit when I attend industry conferences  but I confess when I walk into an interesting session and find only a sales pitch for a product or company, I'm very disappointed. In my line of work, I most value the theory and background and insights, exactly what Hopson dismisses as "Wah wah."

Lost Pig wins Interactive Fiction Competition 2007.

Pig lost! Boss say that it Grunk fault. Say Grunk forget about closing gate. Maybe boss right. Grunk not remember forgetting, but maybe Grunk just forget. Boss say Grunk go find pig, bring it back. Him say, if Grunk not bring back pig, not bring back Grunk either. Grunk like working at pig farm, so now Grunk need find pig.

Second place: An Act of Murder

"Frederic Sheppard." Chief Inspector Duffy pulls at his moustache mournfully and stares up at the house through the windshield. "Theatrical sort, usually has a finger in some play or other. He bought up Gull Point about ten years ago. Never any complaints from the neighbours, never any scandals." He pulls at his moustache again. "He was found dead in the cove at the foot of the cliff behind the house about half an hour ago. Caller said it looked as though he fell from his study window."

Third Place: Lord Bellwater's Secret

As an aspiring groom in Lord Bellwater's household, recklessness has not been one of the qualities for which you, Bert Smith, would wish to be noted. However, desperate times call for desperate measures, and here you are in the early hours of the morning of Saturday 20th June 1863, undertaking the most reckless venture of your life.

BBC:

A Dutch teenager has been arrested for allegedly stealing virtual furniture from "rooms" in Habbo Hotel, a 3D social networking website. The 17-year-old is accused of stealing 4,000 euros (£2,840) worth of virtual furniture, bought with real money.

Author, blogger, and unrepentant geek Wil Wheaton, who played Wesley "The Writers Make Me Save the Ship Every Other Episode" Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, uses an interactive fiction trope for a little comparative media analysis.

LOOK
>A twisty maze of passages, all alike, is behind you. You face a wall with four doors.

EXAMINE DOORS
>There are four old doors: Movies, Television, Books, and Games.

(Misleading title... it's not actually a review of the Infocom game "A Mind Forever Voyaging." Oh, and the ">" should be before what the player types, not before what the computer prints out, but Wheaton does show a nostalgic familiarity with the medium.)

I spent a few minutes enjoying Homestarrunner's Peasant Quest.  The text-and-image hybrid is not something I played as a kid -- I guess I just missed that stage.

Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, spoke at Stanford last June:

Entertainment promises us a predictable pleasure--humor, thrills, emotional titillation, or even the odd delight of being vicariously terrified. It exploits and manipulates who we are rather than challenges us with a vision of who we might become. A child who spends a month mastering Halo or NBA Live on Xbox has not been awakened and transformed the way that child would be spending the time rehearsing a play or learning to draw.

If you don't believe me, you should read the statistical studies that are now coming out about American civic participation. Our country is dividing into two distinct behavioral groups. One group spends most of its free time sitting at home as passive consumers of electronic entertainment. Even family communication is breaking down as members increasingly spend their time alone, staring at their individual screens.

The other group also uses and enjoys the new technology, but these individuals balance it with a broader range of activities. They go out--to exercise, play sports, volunteer and do charity work at about three times the level of the first group. By every measure they are vastly more active and socially engaged than the first group.

Hmm... multiplayer online games do involve social skills, teamwork, leadership, and many other things that I would consider a social activity, rather than passive entertainment.  The culture of gaming is a spectrum, like all cultures.  It includes those who sit slack-jawed before the screen for hours, mesmerized by bits; but it also includes those who trade tips and write reviews online, and those who write fan fiction, remix videos, or teach themselves 3D design so that they can build their own game levels. The child who, inspired by an encounter with a computer game, spends a month learning how to draw with a 3D design tool can be awakened and transformed as much as a child who spends a month drawing with pen and pencil. 

But I do share Gioia's humanistic assumption that technology is best understood and most welcome as one element of a rich and diverse society, rather than a replacement for human interaction.

Thanks, Mike, for the e-mail.

Clive Thompson, from Wired:

I know I'm the underdog; I know I'm probably going to get killed anyway. I am never going to advance up the Halo 3 rankings, because in the political economy of Halo, I'm poor.

Specifically, I'm poor in time. The best players have dozens of free hours a week to hone their talents, and I don't have that luxury. This changes the relative meaning of death for the two of us. For me, dying will not penalize me in the way it penalizes them, because I have almost no chance of improving my state. I might as well take people down with me.

Or to put it another way: The structure of Xbox Live creates a world composed of two classes -- haves and have-nots. And, just as in the real world, some of the disgruntled have-nots are all too willing to toss their lives away -- just for the satisfaction of momentarily halting the progress of the haves. Since the game instantly resurrects me, I have no real dread of death in Halo 3.

I do not mean, of course, to trivialize the ghastly, horrific impact of real-life suicide bombing. Nor do I mean to gloss over the incredible complexity of the real-life personal, geopolitical and spiritual reasons why suicide bombers are willing to kill themselves. These are all impossibly more nuanced and perverse than what's happening inside a trifling, low-stakes videogame.

But the fact remains that something quite interesting happened to me because of Halo. Even though I've read scores of articles, white papers and books on the psychology of terrorists in recent years, and even though I have (I think) a strong intellectual grasp of the roots of suicide terrorism, something about playing the game gave me an "aha" moment that I'd never had before: an ability to feel, in whatever tiny fashion, the strategic logic and emotional calculus behind the act.

On Grand Text Auto, Andrew Stern writes a good post about the distinction between character-driven games and purely linear narrative (which makes for a poor gaming experience).

No one can disagree that games should be "player-driven", another way of saying games with high agency. I take a purist's view on this; I quickly lose interest in games that tell me a linear story, especially in large fixed chunks of exposition, such as cut scenes. I'd rather play a good action game with no storytelling, or if I want a linear story, I'd rather read a good book or watch a good movie.

But Yohalem's suggestions are misguided in not leaving room for games that make incremental innovation toward being both character-driven and player-driven. Surely there are stepping stones, without the glaring imperfections that can frustrate players, that make progress toward procedural characters with narrative intelligence. For example, The Sims 3 looks to be doing this. I'm guessing those characters will go further towards creating high-agency interactive stories than previous versions, while still speaking abstract Simlish, not natural dialog.

Spit & Polish:

When this game was first released in 1880 it was so hugely popular in taverns and inns that the bank of England was forced to mint more threepenny bits to keep up with demand.

Gotta love the mustaches and bowler hats.