Some just quietly make their way…
Big news for the IF community with this article in the New York Times: A Game With a Low Body Count
Congrats to Peter Nepstad and his impressive work of IF 1893: A Worlds Fair Mystery. Created in TADS I might add.
See what hard work and a little persistence can do?
Steve and I always recognized the important relationship between games and new media – maybe better to rephrase that as: games being the best example of what new media has to offer.
The study of gaming in the reactionary world of academia (liberal arts & sciences is really a misnomer) has always been met with skepticism, derision, and downright laughter. I speak from personal experience believe me. New media, initially, would focus upon games (game theory including board games as well as modern video games) but we learned quickly (and occasionally the hard way) not to use that word too often. But in a very short time, this is changing throughout academia. Consider Kurt Squire, an assistant prof at U of Wisconsion at Madison, who is writing his PhD dissertation around Civilization III.
Via slashdot.org, I came across “Games that make leaders: top researchers on the rise of play in business and education” which then led me to a presentation by Dr. James Paul Gee, Dr. Kurt Squire, and Constance Steinkuehler on the subject of “How Games are Reshaping Business & Learning.” A wonderful combination of cognitive research, educational pyschology, and educational technology.
Finally, some concrete stuff that (enlightened) educators can work with to embrace the process of learning in such environments rather than try to compete with it.
Read this over at buzzcut.com and thought this particular passage was rather articulate regarding gameplay.
Ludology drowns out narrative (And dying over and over doing the same stuff is never any fun)
Whatever you make of the H2 story (and I guarantee, whether you like it or hate it, you will have a strong opinion), the tale is more sophisticated than the usual trolls, wenches and treasure that underpins most game scripts.
But as much as I wanted to get into the story, I never did. I was too busy shooting things. Most times, I was too busy with the slaughter of the enemy to catch what I can only assume was important narrative or dialog. I kept the basic idea of the plot in mind. But if ?Halo 2? was striving to reach the mythological complexity of ?Lord of the Rings?, then the equivalent of my summary of what went on would be, ?Short people steal jewelry then fret about it.? That is, the luxurious tale being told was blasted away in a barrage of energy beams. Trying to follow the story of ?Halo 2? amidst all the action is akin to trying to read ?Moby Dick? while sticking your head out of a car driving 75 miles per hour.
And part of the problem is that even if the story starts to flow, you run into a stupid circumstance that requires you to replay the same set of events 10-20 times. Rather than feeling like you are savoring a really rich passage in a John Fowles novel, you feel more like you are in ?Groundhog Day.? Your frustration rises as you try to decode the perfect approach to the rule system to simply get along with the game. At this point, you?ve been reduced to a rule theorist, testing different strategies and weapon combinations in hopes of moving onto the next thing. Whatever grand theme was developing in the narrative is washed away in the redundancy of the interactive trial error that absorbs you.
When the game stops being fun the narrative doesn?t matter.
I’d summarize this point by saying that the concerns of the game?the ludological components?completely overwhelmed the story components?the narrative. I suspect I could write an entire PhD dissertation on this subject. But the nut of it is, in the battle of paying attention to the game or the story, “Halo 2″ tells us that the game wins.
But is this just part of the reality of play with many games or is it just an expression of frustration and/or disappointment?
Talk about your critical thinking and media integration.
This is a wonderful article entitled “Game Development: Harder Than You Think” written by Jonathan Blow. It provides a great summary of the complexity of game development by presenting the tools, concepts, and processes that go into this business.
Highly recommended for those who may be considering a future in this world from the design/programming perspective.
Some interesting terms and suggestions for levels of involvement in gameplay presented over at gamegirladvance.com. This is based on Marc LeBlanc’s levels of what we enjoy: sensation / fantasy / narrative / challenge / fellowship / discovery / expression / submission. Details are further described here.
One of our Tunxis alumni: Christopher Coonce-Ewing has entered into the books by having his work of IF, T.I.M.E., reviewed by the IF community.
I was particularly pleased with all of this. Pleased not because I had a personal interested (having assisted in the beta-testing of T.I.M.E). but that it was completed and submitted by the author. So often we talk about what we want to do but never seem to get around to actually doing it. Chris is presently a history major planning on teaching secondary school. His interests in IF are in the tradition of people such as Brendan Desilets who are actually utilizing technology as part of the educational process.
Kudos to Chris and keep it going….
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