Work achieved
Physical work-not enough done. 2 hours of loose sketches
Some time spent writing plot elements but until I storyboard
it…it’s not really resolved.
Investigative work done- plenty but still left with some necessary
choices unresolved.
This Time I decided I should talk in brief about a few (relatively
recent) games that are interesting pieces from the wealth of 54 years of
creation. But before that would you like to see the 1st?
Here it is.
(tennis for two, reproduction for the 25th anniversary)
Tennis for two
Created by a nuclear physicist named William Higinbotham.
The game Tennis for two was created because “it might liven up the place to have a game
that people could play, and which would convey the message that our scientific
endeavors have relevance for society."-Higinbotham
Tennis for two is the most basic of games from a design
standpoint. Two players attempt to score points against one another using a
simple controller. It’s quite interesting to see and compare this game with the
later and far more famous game pong. I honestly find tennis for two to be far
more interesting. The blue streak of the ball as it obeys gravity vs the single
white dot of pong…
But I mentioned that I was going to talk about more recent
artistic endeavors. Not spend time referring to esteemed creations from video
games birth.
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So let us instead jump to a game that came out this year.
Thirty flights of loving is a short narrative piece (it’s at the most only 20
minutes long) The game leaves much of the story details to the participant to
fill in afterwards. The game railroads you through its narrative but because it’s
set to such a rapid pace you don’t mind it. The game is wacky, colorful and a
good study in the power of good jump cuts. Starting from entering through a
hidden wall in a bar to in the end wandering around an art gallery opening that
is celebrating the car crash that killed you.
(Dear Esther, The Chinese Room, PC)
Moving onto another piece of participatory fiction: Dear Esther
is just like thirty flights is based around you walking through the set pieces
of the story. Set on an island which may or may not really exist. You as an unnamed
party explore and wander over and round streams, crags, caves and the ruins of
several beached ships and abandoned abodes. As you progress in your wanderings,
A narrator reads letters from various perspectives. The entire experience is
centered on exploring: Not only the physical environment but also the events
hidden under the letters contents. This game is to be again internalized by the
participant. This will again appear in the following games.
(Yume Nikki, Kikiyama, PC)
Yume Nikki (translated it means dream diary) was created and
released by independent Japanese game developer Kikiyama in 2005. As a freeware
cult game, Yume nikki garnered a bit of attention for being made in an engine
usually intended to be used in the creation of role playing games. The goal in
yume nikki is to gather every item/power in the game then use them to seal the
doors of the girls dream world. But that
is only if you wish to see the (disproportionally dark) ending. The real goal
is to wander and try to absorb and make sense of what you are seeing. From monstrously
large heads who upon eating you lead you to another area entirely, bizarre
architecture littering otherwise completely black worlds, drawings that a child
would make roaming freely. Meeting fishermen and piano players alike while crashing
onto mars… Then there is the girl herself. Locked? In a room where her only
actions are to play a video game and sleep (leading to the dream world and all
of its creepy-pasta nature. Why won’t she leave? Why does she have to collect
powers such as removing all facial features, meet and become a yuki onna (snow
wraith) that summons snow? I may bring this game up again later when I talk
about the players importance in everything. But that is for another night.
(LSD, OutSide Directors Company, Sony PlayStation)
LSD dream emulator (The L,S,D stand for hundreds of titles
for the game. Such as linking the sapient dream.) The content of the game is
based off of the creators dream journal that he kept for several years. The
goal is to explore 365 dreams that are created by how you play. Slowly as you
progress things continue to get stranger and darker. If you touch an object in
the game it will transport you to a new environment. Seemingly random from
beginning to end, the events in game may have some meaning but it is so obscure
and opaque to be rendered meaningless...But that’s also a conversation for
another week.
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(The Stanley Parable, Davey Wreden, Half life 2 mod, PC)
And finally we have The Stanley Parable. Perhaps the best
short work of interactive meta fiction I know of. The game starts of explaining
how “Stanley” (and perhaps by association the player) enjoys being told to hit
buttons in certain ways. (like most video games seem to) Then the player is
allowed to move. Walking down hallways and hearing the narrator explain what is
going on and which direction Stanley will take when given a choice. And then
the choice itself appears. And then you can ignore what the narrator already
explained would happen… This leads to varied endings and fights with the
narrator. Do you choose to follow his every predetermined step? Ignore everything
the narrator tells you? Obey some and resist others? The piece is a wonderful
work of participatory art. The act of control becoming the key element of
discussion raised within the work. Fully Self-aware, It is undoubtedly my favorite
piece out of this small set of games I have outlined.
Next week I will likely talk about the players’ role in the
game and how I will involve them within my own work. This will of course
require a complete draft of my game sitting/ pinned to my walls. So stay tuned.
(He writes a thousand words on games, including this…)
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