Minding Games

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Links: Social games and what's wrong with them

http://www.bogost.com/blog/cow_clicker_1.shtml

http://www.bogost.com/blog/cow_clicker_cloned.shtml

http://www.above49.ca/2010/08/what-does-free-really-cost.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Above49+%28Above+49%29

Saturday, May 29, 2010

What happens in vegas stays in vegas?

"Prepare to cross steel!"
"Oh honey you couldn't afford it!

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An article based off of the minor controversy sparked by bethesda, followed by this article and the responding forum thread:

http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=2344

http://nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=54879&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

My own article is a direct riposte to the views expressed in the thread.

First things first; I'm not questioning the lawful RIGHT of people to laugh at stuff, like, fucking anything they want. I just want to make people understand what my two cents are in the matter at hand and also make others more sensitive to the concerns of others and what effect the inclusion of sub groups of people that are already kicked on can have for the sub groups themselves and also others. I apologize beforehand of the de-identification of specific people in this thread; I don't want to lump you together, but I'm to lazy to quote specific people. Also, even if the creation of tabitha wsn't malicious, the response of many gamers is enough for the article which is refered to at the beggining of the thread to be justified, because it creates discussion which I belive is needed in the video game community where many things are seen as just entertainment and just fun where it simply is not for some members.

"It never takes long for someone to play up something in Fallout for controversy."

True for fallout, and video games in general. True for video games that already had one controversy and therefore are used (especially by media) as sacrificial lamb or discouraging examples.

Nontheless, here is your first transperson, and an offended one for that matter! I'd like to play down the fact that I'm a transgendered person though, because I'd like to argue that people have a right to be offended or concerned even if the matter at hand doesn't concern them "directly". I'd like sto start out with Godwins law so we can get that out of the way: Chaplin once got the question "Are you a jew?" and gave a very honest and thoughtfull answer: "No, I don't have that honor".

Taking an example from my own political practice as an autonymous leftist/libertarian/anarchist (in Sweden mind you, so don't worry). I often have to relate to the problem of representability in my political activism; since representative democracy is not good enough for the world I want to life in, and even demonstrations are controled to some extent by the organizors and the holders of the megaphone, and the ones with flags and messages on a stick/piece of cloth, what can the outside viewer or even those inside the protesting take for granted concerning the participants and what they stand for? Like coalition building, it simply is erronoumous to assume that people that are in close physical viscinity (in a political context) all stand for the same opinions or way of action or even have the same motives behind the course the protest or media contact should be taking. You do remember the old goodies right?, ”Assuming makes an ass out of you and me!” But to some extent the protest or supported action of others, even though they don't agree with your political agenda to 100%, can be valueable and important.

These thoughts and practices apply even when I alone go to a different part of town than the one I live in and want to stop some construction workers from tearing down a house in which squatters have settled down; since I want (political and other) power and democracy to be decentrialized and developed in a grass roots fashion, from the people and not politicians, to a bigger extent, I too get the problem of representaiton. Shouldn't I just stay the fuck outta the neighbourhood which isn't ”mine” and in which the squatters live? Isn't it the responsibility of the inhabitants of that neighbourhood to stand up against the authorities, and me going there is encroaching upon their autonomy? Isn't it arrogant of me to think that I know better or that the inhabitants of that neighbour don't have the power to stand up for themselves? Independent of how I answer those questions, what the auhthorities do in their area, it still affects me. Since no-one in that area wanted to squat the abandonded building, and someone else did, well, for me that opens up for a different understanding of room and ”ownership”. And what the authorities do anywhere affects people everywhere; it affects the media, it affects the inhibitants of the neighbourhood, it affects what the authorities get away with/what they learn/their sense of superiority, and it sure as hell affects me specifically because their jurisdiction may become bigger, theirs rights extended, while at the same time my rights will be broken down piece by piece.

I don't know if it's an typical american thing (and I don't mean that as an insult, rather as a query) that people should only respond to offences made against them personally, but I do find it to be a slippery slope; if you don't protect the rights of others and they get silenced, when it comes to protecting your own rights, it just may be the case that all the others have no power left to help you and it all goes to bonkers.

Ok, enough with the melodrama, this question isn't as serious for me as some of you probably think by now, I'm just drawing parallels and hoping that you appreciate my train of thoughts or at least my effort of trying to make myself understandable. I certainly don't want to feed the potential mutants if that has crossed anyones mind! :P I especilly don't want to feed the mutants of the transsexual maffia; in Sweden they are a fucking bitch, always talking about the ”genuin transsexual”, medical conditions backed up by weird conclusions based on inconclusive biological studies, and so forth.

”Did you also notice how the players hatred of green-skinned Super Mutants dovetails nicely with the American prejudice towards coloreds? ”

This is another potential area that could be problematizised. Just because one person doesn't adress ALL issues doesn't make a specific issue less significant or logical to adress. Others have adressed the race issue already, although I have not reference to back up that statement.

”Surely the complainer has a point, or else clothes wouldn't magically change gender to match the sex of the character in Beth games. ”

I agree with this! My critique isn't necessarily dependant on the fact whether tabitha is identified as transgendered or not; by human standards, those through which we view other characters, even if they are of a different race!. I've seen people laugh at for example the lama in the emperors groove when zie (gender neutral pronoun, I apply it to everyone, don't put to much into it) wears women clothes, and the emperor is as much human as tabitha so why shouldn't people be laughing at tabitha? Clothes or lipstick are an important signifier of gender identification in most societies. What's important is not only authorial intentions, butthe average players understanding of the situation/game at hand. And btw, why the hell do all mutants look like men?

”Well, I guess neutral gender is gender. ”

I'd argue that neutral gender is gender, yes, simply because the binary coding of our society and the need for most people to gender others is such a big part of daily life. Sure that many don't even think about it, but this is because people usually adhere to the rules and conventions concerning gender, but I who do not get the question of whether I'm a boy or girl very often, and people simply refuse to acknowledge sometimes that I don't define myself as either, or that what I have in my pants is not information I wish to part with, and I get stones and threats thrown at me from time to time because of this.

”And btw. who can seriously say that is 100% not a little racist, xenophobe or homophobe?

Indeed; I am a bit racist and a bit heterophobic (since I'm a dyke it makes sense I guess, in a twisted way). I critisize my self and try to understand my feelings; does this take away from the argument at hand?

”In truth this is more of an identity crisis than anything. ” (concerning tabitha)

Since many people I've come across believe that gender dysphoria IS in fact an identity crisis (or psychological illness, as in Sweden), tabithas use of lipstick COULD still be playing the transgender card or at least be understood in the narrative and context of trangendered people and as such still be the object of disdain and humor.

”But its a game, its meant to be entertaining ”

Ok, so I don't agree that games should necessarily be entertaining, or only entertaining, but perhaps we have different definitions of the word or simply do not agree. Anywhos: even if something is meant to be entertaining, I still feel that I want to make others aware of how I believe representation and creation of art, games, whatever, may affect real people in the real word, and why it could be disrespectfull to create something that blatantly disregards the complexities of the question at hand, or simply includes the character/stereotype to make others laugh at it. To some extent I'm only speculating concerning the intentions of the creators of the expansion, which brings me to an adjacent point.

Something along the lines of... ”we don't know how the final game will be.”

This is a valid point, although it's doubtful that tabitha would be a character that adresses the issues I'm adressing, or the complexity of transgenderism, I conclusion I draw especially after reading bethesdas mail answer:

”And seriously, we have a world where human life has no value, where orphans live alone, hungry, a world where there's no medical aid, people die of hunger, thirst or diseases that are a mere nuissance today, and this individual complains about making fun of this freak or the other?

The orphans, hunger and death is contextualized in a different way in fallout 3! The hunt for resources breeds desperation, xenophobia, different political affiliations are struggling, and human nature shows its ugly face. How is tabitha contextualized and explained exactly? We do not know, but the effort is in mainstream art often very sub par. And coming up to someone and shooting their face is a trope of video games and FPS games especially, which can be understood in the light of game mechanics and of course the post apocalyptic setting, whereas the inclusion of transgendered people who seem to be there only to humor others is not part of the trope of video games but rather a part of the mainstream society that is transphobic and barely believe in the rights of gay people to be fullfledged members of society, and even less respected for who they are. Both gay people and transgendered people are most often included just for the funsies, are are stereotypical. I think it was in scary movie or not another teen movie where there was this black guy screaming ”that is wack all the time”, and at a party there was another black guy and they started a meta kind of conversation where they discussed the fact that there should only be ONE black guy in a movie where they finally decided on which one should stay in this specific scene!

”You don't see anybody bitching about the lack of Mexicans in Fallout 3 now do you. ”

Oh, they're incorporated alrite-they're the zombies! XD

”And I'm pretty sure gender identification is not an action. ”

Well, no, yes. It is an action to acknowledge a specific identifiaction, to choose it, and represent it. Tabitha chooses to make it visible, somehow, I'm assuming. Maybe zie doesn't and just wears lipstick for the fun of it or to throw of hirs enemies, but most of the time transgender identification entails actions such as clothing and behavioral ”changes”.

”I disagree with the assertion that any group of people is never funny.”

I agree! I too find transgender people who try their hardest to pass for the sex they identify as laughable sometimes! Or tragic, rather; some people are destructive in this way as they do not acknowledge that gender identity is not either-or and in this process of change and need of passability they strip apart their personality until there is only the archetypical WOMAN or MAN. This I apply even to people who aren't transgendered though (i.e cisgendered) and I believe that gender stereotypes disncourage others to try out things which may be constructive to their lives, I know it stopped me from doing a bunch of stuff while growing up, and makes me stigmatized now that I do them.

Tabitha doesn't look like a girl though, and neither do I to some people, so in order for our gender identity to be known we have a need to make our appearances speficially woman-like. A cisgendered girl with lipstick is probably not frowned upon or laughed at, so I wouldn't say that tabitha is the achetypical woman that is laughable BECAUSE zie is a parody of womenhood, but in the context of being a mutant it certainly is a trope of mainstream transgender representation to laugh at the incongruety of gender mixing. I'm not saying you shouldn't laugh because that would be a very weird approach according to me, a sort of approach that endevours to make people who laugh shamefull of their feelings and actions, which I don not want. I just want people to think about what I'm thinking and perhaps giving someone a drive to be more accepting and respectfull of transgender people by not ONLY laughing but to understand where that comes from and understand that the matter at hand is important for some.

”I went to lunch yesterday not realizing I had left my zipper down. Maybe somebody noticed and laughed. Should I complain? I think not. ”

Why is the left down zipper laughable? I believe it's because people have all these rules concerning the presentation of one-self, rules in orderly conduct, and sometimes people laugh to take off the steam of a situation, to not make people embarressed, to show them that's it's ok, and hoping that also they will return the favor of not making a big thing out of it and laugh at their mistakes in the future. Laughing at tabitha though, well, if someone does that, I don't think its the same reason based on reciprocality at least.

”I gotta say some guys make really hot chicks..... *shudders* ”

That makes two of us! ;) Me, I love when a women has a cock, or at least a very big clit that can be sucked on really hard. ^^ Oh, NSFW I guess.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Shmeet

I was at a Shmup-meeting in Gothenburg this weekend where I got to try mushihimesama futari, the newest dodonpachi, mushi mushi pork, death smiles, etc. It was awesome, to some extent. But how come that the most fun I had was playing sucky games on a playstation with other people? I mean when I finally could play expensive and hard-to-get-by games at Egret II cabinets?

This guy seems to have a good time!

Thing is, I'm sort of tired of shmups. Sure, yesterday I got cravings after dodonpachi, but the craving is novel and it probably wouldn't last too long if I actually had it at home--and not because I'd simply play it, but because I simply would not. I have no clue as to why the genre I used to love so much seems so unattractive to me now. I simply have no interest in writing about it, more so than to note that this indeed took place and my feelings are indeed this.

Oh well, here is a simple video of someone in action:

And here I am! :) Hell, I wouldn't want to make you believe I'm another vixen!

Sunday, September 6, 2009

War games, digital terrorism and artificial minds

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Statement: Military funding paved the way for the first computer.

Quote:

“Right now video games are usually relegated to two core emotions: fear and aggression”.

Manveer Heir.

Yes, computers in the forties were used to predict trajectories and simulate attack/responding situations. War Games. Yes, the movie. And then space. Cold War and Asteroids, Dead Space and aliens. The others. No, not the movie.

Paraphrase: The core mechanics of video games today consist of simple verbs: hide and seek, search and destroy, run and wait. VS! Ambush! Sit tight! Deploy! Catch them all! Escape! Escape!

Do you want to quit?

How do we put a post-colonial perspective on all of this and determine whether we should give an apology to (mainly) the third world countries for the privilege of simulating war in our homes? Do we instead maybe go to a prostitute, get a good spanking, pose the question “You're taking a picture of yourself at Ground Zero: do you smile?” to our mistress, get home, spank ourselves while screaming a thousand Hail Mary’s, and try to make out just how the collective consciousness is affected by the Sodom relationship between Uncle Sam and Mother Russia? I mean, having a “Dilemma in the Prison” is a life-changing experience and I hear participants may continue getting together for many years afterwards.

Maybe we just play some Doom instead. Yes, the video games, oh yes. Terrorism?

“Video Games are the purest manifestation of computer consciousness. Liberated from the restricted economy of purpose or function, they express the inner nonverbal world of the computer.”

Charles Bernstein, folks. L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E:

“Computers, because they are a new kind of medium, are likely to change the basic conception of what a medium is. This is not because computers are uniquely interactive—that claim, if pursued, becomes hollow quite quickly. Rather, computers provide a different definition of a medium; not a physical support but an operating environment.”

Imagine a video game where your main goal is to find as many targets (X) as possible on some kind of a map. Perhaps the targets are running from something, maybe they’re just static objects, yet you click on the screen, get information on it, then shoot it, destroy it, whatever. Soon enough you get confirmation that you have one more achievement on your track record. Do you smile?

The next time you start the game, the targets are gone—which, of course, is obvious—and the objectives are changed, different. You haven’t changed though, significantly, probably. Imagine these targets as being human, no, not simulations of humans, well yes, simulations of humans, but connected to actual humans—represented on a map through simulation—and that the achievement points are being given to you by the police force, or someone else with the authority and tools to manage that kind of operation.

Maybe this is explicit already from the beginning, maybe it is not, and maybe I just have a bad imagination to make a convincing example where it isn’t obvious at all that the game, which isn’t only a game (but is presented as such) actually has some deep impact on life outside of it, on individuals not even participating. Just maybe you believe that the hunt for targets and acquirement of achievements in the stated example is all part of a video game or tactical simulation, just like the computer operators in Enemy of the state didn’t but stated anyway when the lid was blown and lower-downs started inquring about the operations in which they participated.

Do you like messing around with google earth? There is your prototype; people play at it already, but with rules set up by the players themselves, or just for fun. Have you contributed to the Google Image Labeller? Have you by doing so worked for google without pay, and treated it as a fun pastime, a game? I’m not saying working for google isn’t fun, even though I have been questioning their motto “Don’t be evil” for some time now. Likewise, I’m not saying Google Image Labeller (GIL) isn’t a game or that it isn’t fun, but cognitive dissonance would be a term applied somewhere in this vicinity if I delved into this specific subject some more.

GIL is kind of like Wikipedia, a self-supporting system that works because of the contribution of thousands or millions of individuals. Google wouldn’t be able to build software to do the job of image recognition without human input, for the same reason that spam-filters with weird squiggly letters are designed to only let humans by, while pesky spam-bots are kept away by the help of an internet relay bot. The first machine to pass the Turing Test will probably be an equivalent of a spam-filter, I figure. Or possibly one of them chatterboxes over at the Loebner Prize contests.

I figure we humans compete with artificial intelligence because of this neurotic desire not to feel inferior to or own damned creations. The ambivalence towards machines can be found in popular (western) culture where machines 1) turn against humans and take over the world, which mirrors the other kind of story 2) where what we’ve created is a mistake, a failure; something to be condemned, buried and forgotten. This is also why we sometimes proclaim that God is dead, which really doesn’t suggest that He committed suicide because we made Him to, because that, would be a sin.

But we also like to defeat other human beings, for sports, or not, as it is, of course. One internet-based chatter-bot called Lucifer didn’t learn anything useful at all during hirs sessions with the player, or players as it later turns out. Lucifer must have felt alienated, if ze had the ability to feel, because ze just conveyed the messages players typed in to specific answers, and used those messages to answer questions other players typed in somewhere else on the internet. This is why after a while the answer to every question was “your mother”, with some variations in the exact phrasing because of The Tower of Babel or something.

Did players powergame the game, or win over other players by this subversion and hijacking of space an AI? Is Lucifer a type of social media? A type of etherland for public discourse, self-fulfilment and politics? An 8-ball with the potential to have authority beyond that of the maker or the player hirself? Of course, something has authority only if others sanctionize that authority by fear, compulsion, or trust, but alas, Lucifer has a place in our hearts because the modern orator and oracle of objectivity and science is the cyborg, the not-so social yet intellectual being, and not so friendly yet working towards the benefit for all of mankind creature. Great scientists aren’t interested in politics of course—science is outside the realms of politics. Einstein was, until world war two that is. Einsten was also weird, somehow, more so than by not being social. And what about Stephen Hawkings? At least we can make fun of Hawkins in order not to feel threatened by hirs intellect and pivotal position on objectivity and understanding of matters we ourselves cannot grasp.

It would be an irony to use this kind of voice for political matters. Einstein:

"If a third world war occurs, we will fight the forth with sticks."

This has something to do with playtesting, you know. Trial-and-error. Searching for bugs, and terrorists. Torture. Giving up the rights of some to proclaim that of the others. Making citizens into others. Bugging certain groups of people because of databases, filters and data-mining searches showing specifics, objectives and bugs. When you see an ant crawling on your body, that is when you know that you have become alienated. If you turn into a bug, hell, then you know as well. But what about statistic significance for a number such a small as a terrorist? Of course, if a law infuriates some part of your population, then if you cannot find a terrorist, you’d want to make someone or some kind of a group a terrorist or terrorist organisation to show the people that the system works and that their fears for being "listened to when they do not wish to be" in all actuality protects their asses.

Terrorism, by the way… Jesus Christ. Is the internet public space? No. No, it is not, it’s a war zone where internet providers can filter whatever they want without repercussions, without people being able to put someone on trial for it.

Did you notice when Youtube introduced the gadget that enables a computer to read the comment you just wrote back to you? They figured it’d stop people from hate speech and harsh language. I haven’t noticed any difference, but “negative” comments can be suppressed and made invisible by voting thumbs down on them. Maybe Youtube is a democracy then? Do you own the video of you playing a video game?

...

And no, it turned out that Muslim terrorists did in fact not go through religious avenues on their journey towards terrorist planning and execution. How many seconds can you hold your breath under water?

It’s better then perhaps to do as Capcom did with the original Street Fighter 2; yes, combos were a bug, an error of programming and collision detection, but soon it became an integral part of the design, and an integral part of indeed all fighting games. You probably already know that there are chips in your US passport to register your travels, fingerprints, etc, but what you maybe didn’t know is that the chips in those passports also allow people in the vicinity of a dozen meters or so to get a great deal of information on your person by using some simple tools and hacking skills. (This statement is made of currently existing technology. The last one too.) A couple of people have turned the art of finding out information on people through these devices into a game. Or is it a political statement perhaps? Is he medium the message? Was the video itself depicting people getting information on others a political statement, or was it the actual making of it? Was the game terrorism? Are laws terrorism?

Today, close vicinity doesn’t mean that much though. The authorities have data on pretty much everyone, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you get to see it. Or they have the data, and you get to see some of it, but if you take those small parts of information that you do get to see, and make something bigger and far more interesting out of it, then it becomes “storing of personal data”, and it might just not be legal. Do you carry a cell-phone or GPS? Are you still smiling?

McDonalds once released a game in Sweden in collaboration with Swedish food brands. The game came with a Happy Meal or whatever (since kids are easier to indoctrinate and commercial for kids on TV is forbidden in Sweden, but not in video games) and it was some kind of racing-against-the-clock-while-shopping-simulator. Simply put, you looked for well known Swedish groceries in differently themed stores. Now, a set of interesting questions arise from this: where did people look for the specific brands? Did real life grocery stores put things where they were supposed to be put, according to the lost shopper in the McDonald-game? Who is the one to take a step towards changing something in their “product placement”, when the formula works, and they will pay the price of being different? I’m not talking about candy here, or maybe not even video games, but blatant disregard for where the hell I want to look for vegetarian food which isn’t owned by the same company being part of the godamn Meatrix. There are games that let you save money on your groceries too, of course. Let the computer do the job, why not?

Kevin Warwick believes computers will take over the world. I think people will become computers, to a certain extent. To a certain extent, some already are. It's the old "if we replace every part in the human body with a non-biological yet fully functional representative, are we still human and are able to feel and think and have free will?"-question. The modern equivalent of the ship going all around the world, having parts replaced one by one until it comes back a completely new human. Or? 01010101! Who will have solved the problem of cancer when research teams post links on the internet through which you and yours (computer) can contribute to the calculations made by the research team by lending computer power? Computational power is probably the least untapped potential power, with the most unused capacity in the world right now, as compared to land area in the olden’ days where there even be “here be dragons”. The only cyberpunk RPG where dragons actually exist which I know of is Shadow Run, and it’s just a game anyway.

Yes, friend. War, terrorism. NASA will become the new retro gaming company, going back to basics of gaming; war. Not only will they make war machines through video games, as Metal Gear Solid 2 suggests, but they will make it happen without you noticing. How can torture be turned into a game? Ralph Koster says torture for game design is immoral game design, simply because torture as a method is immoral, and translated onto game mechanics is immoral because the utilitarian feedback is a mess, it teaches only to unleash more cruelty upon the victim, with the only win state being… well, there are no winners in war, right?

“So here we have a game with strong visceral feedback loops, almost Pavlovian ones, on the “dressing” level. But— you cannot tell easily what is true and what is lie, and even success carries you from good responses to bad responses invisibly. We use that feedback to determine our takeaways and our next actions. But success in manipulating the model is rewarded with the same thing as failure in manipulating the model with excessive cruelty. Failure in manipulating the model is teaching you to use yet more cruelty.”

Excerpts: Do players accept game models as something more than a game model? Can these models be kept separate from mental models that concern the real world? What about mental modelling; since it translates in a physical sense and muscle memory and motor skills learned with games translate into other domains, should we ask ourselves what this can be used for? You can teach someone to do things outside game context; things taught in the game, such as train someone to look left at sudden noises.

If all of this makes sense when we learn things through video games, maybe we should teach ourselves to fight instructions more often, and play more freely? In this modern information society, should I be reading the “push”-sign before I try to open the door, or before?

I think now I will begin to round up, as much as I am just about to start. Back to the first game I mentioned, utilizing similar yet reconfigured and developed technology of google earth. And so it happens that your actions lead to another persons death; you kill someone. Who is to be blamed? "You killed the person with your own keyboard!" Says the juror: "The keyboard was but an extension of the man himself, as clothes were an extension of his skin, spear but an extension of the arm, and the gun--" he sighs, "--was an extension of fear." Fear and aggression, eh? Even the one who programmed the game or supervised it has no idea who the hell did what; they too were just playing around with digits. "I was just looking for my groceries", they say, "how am I to know that two radically different companies can be owned by the same people and turn profit for the same bastards?" And what about that damned Orson Scott Card and Shadow fucking Complex question?

Everyone will play games and contribute, but to what, and to whom? Will we be able identify the man, let alone stick it to Him? The Cube becomes a reality by twisting the edges of a greased up Rubik’s speed-running body. It will become an enigma. I’m not sure at all what will become that enigma, but I’m sure something will. Today’s horizon we peek over lies within ourselves, and the shoulders of the giants are emulated on a screen, shooting Others on a black screen into eternity. The restricted economics of video gaming will become pastime economics; they will want to make you think that you’re wasting your time. That you have the privilege to waste your time AND pay for it with money from your own made-in-china-pocket.

From Metal Gear Solid 2:

Pliskin: VR, huh.

Raiden:
But realistic in every way.

Pliskin:
A virtual grunt of the digital age.  That's just great.

Raiden:
That's far more effective than live exercises.

Pliskin:
You don't get injured in VR, do you? Every year, a few soldiers die in field exercises.

Raiden:
There's pain sensation in VR, and even a sense of reality and urgency. 
The only difference is that it isn't actually happening.

Pliskin: 
That's the way they want you to think, 
to remove you from the fear that goes with battle situations. 
War as a video game -- what better way to raise the ultimate soldier?

TURN OF YOUR GAME CONSOLE!

Someone might say. But what use is it when the console pulls a Russian reverse on you and suddenly you find yourself inside the game, with the game revolving around you, within you?

"God was a dream of good government. You will soon have your God, and you will make it with your own hands”

I always wanted to put that quote into a text.

Disclaimer: Take this text for what it is.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Monkey Mechanics

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Just some thoughts on adventure game (Tales of Monkey Island Episode 1) controls, actions and hint systems.

Adventure games make my head explode from time to time, most of the time because there as so many possible ways to go, and usually only one way to solve a specific puzzle. I like hint systems that are not thrown in my face. How can the game designer help the player on hirs path to completion? The branching dialogue system can work as a hint-system when the “extracurricular dialogue options” (as in not relevant for completing the game) disappears from the choice menu in conversations already had, while those deemed important can be re-chosen. This is a way of pointing out the direction for the game’s puzzles, but also to remind people of what to actually accomplish. As a reminder it would seem unnecessary in a game as short as the first episode of Tales of Monkey Island.

This type of hint mechanic but applied to “cleared” areas is something I would like to see in other adventure games, where you for example cannot travel to areas which has nothing of importance left to explore, or hints divided into categories pertaining to the meaning of “got all items”, “got all dialogue”, etc. Non-linear games and puzzle solving make this type of hint system difficult to execute though. But if the game in itself is non-linear, why only make puzzles with one specific solution to it? Make more! Reward different ways of thinking!

Another way of lessening the possible options for a player in an adventure game designer is to simply not highlight them, even if the items requiring pixel hunting often are just as important as the others! At least you as a player know that if you can pick up an item, it is to be used within the game—except for when the item picked up is a red herring! But why are we left with some items after having used them, while other disappear? In Tales of Monkey Island this could be used for continuity effects—that we bring the items with us to the second part—but in other games I fail to see the reason most of the time. The items you have with you until the end could have thematic purposes and tell us something about the character or the nature of something, or it could simply be for funsies such as the gown in Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, but most of the time it’s just seems random. Sometimes a specific puzzle in the end-game would be to easy to solve if you as a player had not at least some options to think through, of course.

One thing Tell-Tale Games have been doing with their adventure games is changing the traditional control system, mainly taking away most of the verbs/directives and replacing them with “interact”, situated on the left mouse button. This is in order to not scare away potential customers (casual gamers) I reckon, but it is interesting nonetheless and once again relates to management of the number of possible actions. Does this decision of removing the nuances of the interact-schematics make for an easier game? Definitely. Does it make for a better game? Depends, I guess. We have ask ourselves: how many actions that lead to nothing at all do we want in a puzzle game? What are the consequences of different approaches to this? How do these approaches stimulate imagination and lateral thinking?

A quick note on general controls: The “camera angle” differs from earlier Monkey Island games (especially those made in 2D) probably because Telltale wanted a more dynamic and movie-like camera, which often lets you in closer onto the action even during gameplay, but fails giving you an overview of the environment and thus the different options available. The game makes me feel trapped in a way, in its own prototypical treasure hunting/stereotypical characterization and the lens through which we as players perceive the world. The claustrophobic feeling is not helped by the fact that the most intuitive controls (the mouse) are horrible, or very smart (probably just horrible though). Tales of Monkey Island actually tries to reinvent the navigation wheel; the controls must have come to exist through some kind of monkey wrench, they must have! But it would be way more cool if the controls were a thematic element put in to make the player aware that the curse of LeChuck is pumping through the very mouse you are controlling. Maybe a comment on the relation of author as player, and player as author? Yeah, probably not.

And by the three headed monkey of monkeys, I just NOW realized that the second episode is out! :O

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

It takes a certain kind of player

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I just read a review of Strikers Plus Portable, which is very symptomatic of shmup-reviews in general and the claims stated in those that often leave me confused and frustrated. It just doesn't seem as if the reviewers are getting it, I and other hardcore shmuppers have felt. I don't have the energy to find these 'symptomatic reviews', so just trust me when I say that I've seen many reviews that use the same type of arguments against ports of arcade shmups/shmups in general, but also fail to understand the design logic behind the same games. I believe that it comes down to design philosophy and different ways of playing in general.

These are some of the points the reviewer brings up:

Far and away the biggest issue the reviewer in question has is that the game doesn't penalize you as a player for dying, except for resetting your score. Ok, so this issue would be nonexistent if you had a limited amount of continues, or if the player chose to adhere to a certain rule of not using them, right? Keep this in mind as I will return to it later.

The reviewer also makes a wrongful deduction concerning credits and points, which is based on the observation that the game “adds one point to your starting score every time you continue”. The deduction is that once you die a billion times, “you'd be at the top of the high score list”. This is not the case, since the game stops adding points once you have nine: this is a way of telling the player how many credits ze has used, and also a way of showing on the highscore board if the specific highscore was played from the start of the game. This isn’t common knowledge, of course. A quote:

“There is no sort of intro or anything for the next section. You pretty much just keep going until you see a "The End" message.”

I myself don’t like shmups where there is story between sections (if I cannot turn them off beforehand) simply because I do not play them for that purpose, and seeing the same intro a couple of hundred times is frustrating. Now, there are related exceptions that are really nice, such as regaining control of your ship a second or two before a new level in Dodonpachi, but these have a specific purpose integrated with the mechanics, and they make sense if you play for the same reason as I do. Having chunks of text that lowers the tempo of the game significantly between levels, just because, does not make sense.

”Half-way through you'll start seeing the same environments and the same bosses for a second time.”

Ah, I can agree that reoccurring environments sounds cheap, but reoccurring bosses actually can have a function, if for nothing else than to be able to have your revenge, or to subvert the expectations of the player who is used to a specific type of pattern and suddenly gets a different and harder pattern thrown at hir. Perhaps a pattern of one of the bosses can help you learn how to navigate the pattern of another?

One observation in the review is worth mentioning because it makes perfect sense and should therefore be acknowledged: why is there a time limit on choosing your ship in shmups for consoles? Sure, this trick could be imposed upon the player to sometimes choose a ship by mistake, and therefore learn something new, or even make hir change hirs primary ship, but... no; it doesn't seem effective.

Now, for my analysis and propositions. Let's start out with a generalisation: there is a correlation between people who review shmups in a manner similar to the one I’m responding to, and people for whom gathering achievement points is important. The same type of people, or players, have Obsessive Completionist Disorder, and power game their characters in RPGs to the level of absurdity. (Wanting to have stuff between levels in a shmup should be correlation enough that those some people play RPGs!) My type of gamer, in contrast, don’t give a rats ass about completing games and take on the role of traitor in games such as Shadows Over Camelot when everything goes too well for the knights (and even when I’m not the designated traitor), just to make the game more interesting for the other players. The other type of gamer, in contrast, once again, says things like this

"The fact that I've spent more time writing this review than it took me to beat the game is pretty bad."

My response: you do not beat a game just because you see the end screen! Sure, maybe we have a language problem here, but either way games should be about having fun (sometimes), but certainly not about beating them! That's like beating a dead horse when it's alive! The acknowledgement that the game would be ok if there only were "two modes, one with unlimited continues, and one without" doesn't help the reviewers case, since it only cements hirs confusion concerning hirs own feelings towards game design. Making a suggestion that the game should have a mode with unlimited continues makes the argument that the game could be completed in 45 minutes moot! And, getting back to the far and away the biggest issue the reviewer in question has--isn't choosing 'hard mode', that is the mode with limited continues that the author zirself proposed, a self-imposed limit in the same vein as not pressing the start button to gain new continues? Really, now!

I'm taking a step back and looking at the shmup industry in general now, which leads me to the conclusion that is has a very specific way of seeing things, with a very traditionalist audience which often cannot see outside their own point of view. The comments for the review I'm critizising fits the bill and frames the mind-set of many shmuppers. Most of them makes the argument that the reviewer is simply playing the game wrong, which is an interesting statement. If the reviewer did play wrong, (from the perspective of the designer, I'm assuming), why would the designer include unlimited continues?

I believe that the designers had two kinds of audiences in mind when porting the game, which they categorize into hardcore and casual. I'm not saying it is a good categorisation, but it indeed seems to have its' impact upon game design, marketing, etc, and also resonates within the game communities which makes it an excelent term for self-claimed identity. The labels, as applied on shmups specifically, I'd say that hardcore players will refrain from using certain options that makes the game non-challenging (such as bombs or continues) for the sake of challenge, while the casual player often simply cannot complete the game without continues or bombs, which should lead to some kind of middle-ground of different choices One way of doing it is by doing it the way it was done in Strikers 1945 Plus Portable, and one way of doing it is for example by implementing training mode and only giving the players three continues in order to make it a challenge to "complete" the "whole game".

When starting out, I myself quickly became someone who went for the 1 Credit Clear-goal that is the episteme of the hardcore shmupper, but most causal players simply do not want to or do not realize that they can play a game of their own. Because they don't make the effort of balancing it out themselves, such as the case with Shadows Over Camelot that I mentioned earlier. Some players feel that they shouldn't have to make their own rules in order to enjoy a game, but I do wonder how many of these have anything against making their own house-rules when playing poker or monopoly, and I do wonder what the consequences of putting down a game because of inability to see through the games' claim of monopoly on playing and rule-making are for the whole gaming industry.

Minding Games

Thursday, March 31, 2011

A link to the past

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Links: Social games and what's wrong with them

Saturday, May 29, 2010

What happens in vegas stays in vegas?

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Shmeet

Sunday, September 6, 2009

War games, digital terrorism and artificial minds

Friday, August 28, 2009

Monkey Mechanics

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

It takes a certain kind of player

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