Tag Archives: interactive fiction

Console Video Games as Art

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Posted by maxporter on November 16, 2010 – 12:02 AM
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Thank you, everyone who commented on the post yesterday. I was pleased with the results and I’m excited to see what happens in the coming weeks. If you missed it, comment here.

A few days ago, Ars Technica had an interesting interview with the x-box cofounder, Ed Fries, and produced an article named Why Gaming Should Embrace Impressionism.

The premise is a familiar one: we have all of this new technology to create more lifelike game worlds, but should game developers devote energy to that or to more creative aspects of the game? Frankly, I remember this argument from when Nintendo 64 came out in 1996, so it’s not a fresh argument by any means.

However, Fries makes interesting comparisons when he compares video games to film:

“I don’t think we can ignore art when we talk about games unless we want to just be purely about making money,” he told Ars. “Look at film. There’s certainly very commercial films that you would never call art, but there’s also a really rich community of people who make art films. Why don’t we have more of that in the game business? What can we do to encourage that? I think Hollywood’s connected those two together in a way, so that ideas can bubble out of the art world of their community and into the commercial world. …”

My first reaction was, “What the heck? I play a fair amount artsy/experimental computer games by indie developers, so it’s not like there’s no artistic games out there.” But then I realized that Fries is probably talking about console games. I can’t really speak to that point because I took a long break from console gaming – after ten years of console gaming, I stopped playing in 2005 because of peer pressure and didn’t pick it up once I got into college due to the fact that I didn’t have time and money.1 Therefore, I don’t have a huge amount of knowledge in this area, so I am going to take Fries’s word on that point.

My second reaction was to dissect his film analogy.

Personally, I’d class the modern American film world in three broad categories: experimental art film that very few people are interested in, mainstream film, and studio-financed indies.2

  • Experimental: I’m thinking of films that sometimes bend the rules so far that they sometimes have no clear storyline. The entire point is to break the rules and see if you can still come up with a coherent film. For example, Stan Brakhage comes to mind. His most well-known work is Mothlight, which is a 1963 film that he created by pasting moths to the film strip.
  • Mainstream film: Pretty self-explanatory. I’m thinking of things like Avatar.
  • Studio-financed indies: I’m thinking of things that are published under an independent label of a major studio. Juno, for example, was released under Fox Searchlight, which is the indie division of Fox studios.

Like most categorizations, there are definitely shades of grey between categories. Avatar certainly had experimental elements, even though it’s a mainstream film, and there are independent filmmakers who don’t create experimental films but aren’t financed by major studios either. Still, those are the categories that come to mind.

If I try to apply these three categories to gaming, I can’t envision experimental games as being successful on consoles. One primary obstacle is cost. Console gaming is pretty expensive – the console itself costs a couple hundred dollars, and game disks cost about $50 new. Plus, if you do console gaming, you end up with this piece of hardware that is used for nothing but gaming, which I think is harder for a modern audience to accept than people in 1985 or 1995.3 I have a difficult time envisioning somebody who would be willing to shell out a large amount of money to purchase a game that is pure experimentation in the vein of Mothlight. So, for that reason, I think that computers are a better place for developers who really want to try to break every single rule of gaming.

However, with regards to studio-financed indies – I think that this model would work well in gaming. If a company set up an independent label, that’d let the fanboys know that the games that they purchase from this label are going to experiment with the rules a little bit. And, hopefully, it’d attract a greater number of non-gamers to the gaming world and build up a little bit of artistic cred. Maybe a greater degree of experimentation would then result because there would be more money going around to finance experimental developers.

Like I said, though, console gaming is expensive. When I think of a compelling reason to buy a console rather than play a computer game, the biggest one is that you can more easily play multi-player games with friends who are in the same physical space as you are (as opposed to online). An artistic multi-player game? Now, that’s something that I’d like to see, just to see what people come up with!

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  1. I have now inherited the family wii, but that only happened two weeks ago. [↩]
  2. Before I go any further, let me be clear: I am not making a value judgment on any of these categories of film. They all have their place. [↩]
  3. Companies are starting to offer things like Netflix streaming so that the console can perform more tasks, which I think is a really smart move. [↩]
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Video Games as Art: Part Two

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Posted by maxporter on July 8, 2010 – 12:48 AM
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Recently, Roger Ebert wrote a follow-up post, “Okay, kids, play on my lawn” to his prior blog post that argued that video games are not art. If I may say so, his entry is absurd: “Which do you value more: Huckleberry Finn or a great video game?” Umm… What the hell kind of question is that? I continue to be disappointed in Ebert’s lack of imagination.

One thing that I noticed, though, is that Ebert speaks of games as a time drain; he doesn’t want to spend twenty hours playing a video game. Well, most of the experimental games that pushed me to rethink the meaning of video games as “art” were actually very, very, short video games. I don’t think any of them took me longer than ten minutes to play.

So, without further ado, here is a list of some short games that caused me to re-evaluate the meaning of games. I have included links to download or, if applicable, to play the games online. There are definitely many more games that deeply impacted me, but this is just a starting point for my readers.

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9:05 by Adam Cadre: This game is interactive fiction.
The basic plot is: You wake up in a bed, and the phone rings. When you pick up the phone, a man demands to know where you are: you are late for work! You must leave as soon as possible! There is a counter on the upper righthand corner of the game, constantly reminding you that you are late. The parser is slightly dumb, but not frustratingly so. (Note: in interactive fiction, the parser is the “narrator” that interprets your commands.)
But then there is a twist.
It encourages the player to replay the game and take the less-obvious paths through the story, then sit back and admire how Cadre skillfully manipulates the player into taking certain actions during the first run-through. (I even think he made the parser slightly stubborn on purpose.)
After a bit of googling, I found that this game is available online thanks to some developers who are creating an online Z Machine interpreter using javascript. Give 9:05 a spin; it’s finely suited for beginners and experts alike.

Passage by Jason Rohrer: This game is a metaphor for life, and it’s intended to be a memento mori game. It’s difficult to explain it without ruining the experience, so just download it. The basic idea is that, as you move, you age. You can walk down to find treasures, or you can spend your life with your mate.
I’d encourage you to play the game for yourself and see if you can mine any meaning from it. Then read the supplementary material that Jason Rohrer has provided on his website.
Note: There is a lot of debate as to whether this could be defined as a “game.” I include this because I do think it’s a game: the player can alter the outcome of the storyline.

Brain Damage by Stephen Lavelle: I hesitate to post this game because, honestly, it is so freaking disturbing. If anybody doubts the ability of a game to affect one emotionally, this game certainly will prove him or her wrong – for days or weeks or months afterwards.
This game seems to be based upon Jeffery Dahmer, the famous serial killer. I’m going to hide the review under a cut because… well.
Trigger warning: contains descriptions of violence and murder. (Also contains spoilers)

Click to read more. Includes spoilers.

Well, I hope that this was a good starting point for all of you. Upon writing this entry, I realized that I haven’t been keeping up with the indie game scene nearly enough. If you will excuse me, I am going to play bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk by Stephen Lavelle and Terry Cavanagh now.

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Notes:

-I would recommend bookmarking Play This Thing! if you are interested in more indie/experimental games.

-Many pieces of interactive fiction, including 9:05, use a piece of software known as a Z Machine interpreter. This website has a list of Z Machine interpreters for every imaginable OS out there. If you are interested in interactive fiction, I’d recommend downloading a Z machine interpreter – interactive fiction provides hours and hours of free entertainment. If you enjoyed 9:05, I would recommend playing Photopia next – it is Adam Cadre’s best-known work, and it’s incredibly touching. It also is really interesting narratively because it’s a non-linear narrative.
I should stop here, or I will ramble about interactive fiction forever. There is a database of interactive fiction, and many games are available for download there.

-My previous post, Video Games as Art: Part One can be found here.

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Video Games As Art

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Posted by maxporter on April 25, 2010 – 10:48 PM
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About a week ago, Roger Ebert, who is basically the overlord of the film criticism universe, wrote in his blog that video games are not art.

Ebert’s post is a response to Kellee Santiago’s talk at TEDxUSC that proposes that video games are art. Unfortunately, subtitles are not currently available, so I cannot respond to her video.

A cursory Google search reveals that Ebert has been writing about this subject for several years and that he has not budged in his position.

As a fellow film aficionado, I am rather disappointed in Ebert’s lack of imagination.

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Super Mario World screencap showing the title screen of the game: Mario holds a koopa shell and stands under the words SUPER MARIO WORLD.

I was approximately six years old when I began playing the very first video game that I can remember: Super Mario World.
I was immediately captivated by the visuals: its colors were bright and fun to look at, just like Captain Planet.
Narrative-wise, it was more like reading a book than watching a movie. I was following a definite storyline and could control the pace at which I played. I couldn’t press “pause” on Captain Planet, but I could put down Goosebumps or the Super Nintendo controller to play outside, then resume from where I had left off.
What really captivated me, though, was the fact that it was so interactive. Mario became an extension of my imagination: I had free will. I could choose to drop Yoshi into a pit to save myself or fall into the pit with Yoshi and die.

As a small child, I told my parents that I wanted to “make video games” when I grew up.
What I meant was that I wanted to design the storyline of a video game’s universe: I was fascinated by the fact that the narrative of a video game falls somewhere on the spectrum between “linear” (go rescue Princess Peaches) and “non-linear” (explore the Star World or take the shortcut to Bowser’s castle). Of course, six-year-old me would not have put it in quite those terms, but the underlying sentiment is the same.

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A screenshot of Amnesia, a text-based game from the 1980s.

When I started college, I began playing games that were created before I was born. There were several reasons behind this: I could not afford a wii, I experienced intense nostalgia for the past, and I discovered that “old school” games can be incredibly fun.

This screenshot is from Thomas Disch’s Amnesia, which was released in 1986, before computers could display graphics.

Like Super Mario World, the narrative falls somewhere on the spectrum between “linear” and “non-linear.” You guide a protagonist through the city in a quest to regain lost memory, and there are several different endings. (Since the game is brutally difficult, most of these endings are not happy.)

Eye candy is a definite advantage in many areas: paintings, photography, film, video games.

But in video games, as in film, a narrative structure undergirds the visuals. Here I see a close parallel between video games and film: both are an interplay between the image and the narrative. Some films place more emphasis on the visuals; some video games place more emphasis on the narrative.
Many video games and films experiment with this interplay: there are some wholly visual films such as Stan Brakhage’s Mothlight, and even though modern computers are capable of displaying graphics, some people still create entirely text-based games known as interactive fiction.

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Reading Ebert’s blog, one aspect of his thesis that does not quite make sense to me is the fact that he seems to be saying that, since one “wins” a video game, it is not art.

Frankly, this makes no sense to me, and, even if he had not admitted it, it is obvious that Ebert has never played a video game in its entirety.

I recently watched Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon for the millionth time. (I love it, but sometimes I really do wish that film classes would screen her other work.)
Even though I had seen the film more times than I care to count, I noticed something new. When the protagonist first approaches the house, before the dream sequence begins, a man can be seen walking away. This brought a new level of meaning to the film for me: I interpreted this man as being transmuted into the tall black figure when the protagonist begins dreaming.
When Maya Deren created the film, she purposely placed that man in the frame. It was I that had not seen him the first several viewings. Art ultimately exists in the eye of the beholder.

Likewise, when I finished Ocarina of Time for a second time several months ago, I saw new things that I had missed when I was ten years old. And, if I wanted to, I could have gone back to complete all of the side quests after rescuing Zelda. (I am not that type of gamer, though.)

The beautiful thing about art is that one can constantly revisit it and mine further meaning from it. An artist can place “signposts” that point to a work’s meaning, but the work ultimately exists in the mind of the audience.

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