Academic Games Writing Roundup for May 17-23 2009

[Erik Hanson]

Hope everyone had a pleasant weekend. There's a lot to cover, so let's get to it:

Well Played 1.0 was announced this week. It's a collection of games writing drawing from an all-star cast, and it's gotten a lot of attention (perhaps in part because so many of its authors have prominent blogs):

• http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/wellplayed1.0
• http://www.offworld.com/2009/05/the-book-lovers-well-played-10.html
• http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/GregCostikyan/20090521/1422/Well_Pla...
• http://literatigamereviews.blogspot.com/2009/05/well-played-10-vide...
• http://nickm.com/post/2009/05/well-played
• http://corvus.zakelro.com/2009/05/im-published

Mediums, Relevance & Genre:

Video games may overemphasize the value of elements associated with epic films. Of course, games aren't films, but they may seem increasingly more like literature -- even, perhaps, epic literature. Then again, I don't think I'll hold my breath on that adaptation of Dante's Inferno.

What do games need to attain cultural relevance as a medium? Offworld noted that Jason Rohrer's games are emotionally deep, but could games handle a sensitive topic like Alzheimer's? I can certainly see the disease as a novel and interesting antagonist, but it's likely hard to model.

Perhaps cultural relevance comes in how games and culture interact. Heroine Sheik's feminist view on RapeLay and the ethics of allowing sexual abuse in games makes it fairly clear that games do not exist in a vacuum, regardless of how detached from reality players may feel while in the "flow state" -- and even in a flow state, it seems unlikely that players will ever be able to fully escape themselves. To take a less narrativist (and more ludological) view, there's always the argument that the aesthetic elements of a game are merely the plating and garnish of the meal that are game mechanics and dynamics. Most metaphors I can think of to express the notion of ludological prominence seem to be about food, but I can say that corrupt narrative and aesthetics are much more likely to make me ill than decrepit mechanics.

But games don't only interact with individuals. In the way games like Dragon Quests build and incorporate cultures and dialects (also at GameSetWatch), they also begin a conversation about real human cultures. This will also be true in the dialog of designers and player-creators that yields user-generated content.

Terminal diseases are problematic in stories, as they drastically limit the player's agency and can render choices illusory at best. Bioshock 2, on the other hand, may present meatier choices, though there's always the danger that the game's mechanics may render the choices from freely-chosen options into problems with mechanically preferred (or even objectively "correct") answers. Beyond that, there may be added frustration because of the "readability" problem in which design and interface complexity turns tricky and hard-to-perform achievements into convoluted and hard-to-understand puzzles. It's troubling to imagine a game in which Parkinson's is cured through expertly-timed jumps between platforms.

Critical Distance went on something of a genre bender last week. I may sneer at a number of schools of literary analysis, but Genre Theory will always have a piece of my heart. While I'm not much of a fan of personal accounts of gameplay experiences inasmuch as some consider them academically worthwhile, I do believe that there is real meaning in the ways that a work interacts with audience expectations by following or avoiding certain genre conventions. I've said before that trying to shove games (or any other human creation) into specific categories is a fool's errand, but I find the ways that works do and don't fit boxes to be fascinating.

I'm a fan of the way board games such as Puerto Rico and Agricola seem more able to step away from violent premises and instead focus on non-violent competition. This past weekend I got a chance to try Pandemic, a charming board game that not only moves away from violence, but also is cooperative instead of competitive.

Individual games:

• Gutter, a lo-fi response to Tale of Tales' The Graveyard
• Braid:
  • Hit Self-Destruct
  • Game Culture
  • The House Nextdoor
• Critical Distance compilation: Flower
• Rachael Webster (PixelVixen707) on Today I Die (Please note that Rachael's moved her games writing to a Suicide Girls column, so some links on that page may be unsafe for work environments or otherwise objectionable.) Corvus also posted his thoughts on the interactive vignette.
• Thrill of Combat and its free demo version Party Boat
• The importance of Dom's wife Maria in Gears of War 2
• Dear Esther at Gamers With Jobs -- GWJ might not always speak within an academic register, but the discussions of individual games (especially less mainstream titles) are often worth reading.
• Emily Short on Kate's Fix-It-Up Adventure -- Emily Short has an intimidating grasp on Interactive Fiction and is working to bring that knowledge to bear on other game formats.
• Ian Bogost on his Guru Meditation game.
• Ethnic stereotypes in Punch Out!
• Fantastic lectures on Pikmin and other titles

Calendar & News:

• IGDA Flash SIG holding elections. (PDF)
• State of Play Conference at the New York Law School, June 19-20 (via TerraNova)
• GDC Austin to include Indy Games Summit -- Sept 15-16
• Language company Rosetta Stone is looking to host a game jam.
• New Tumblr log of text and title design in games

As always, feel free to contact me (here via note or comment, or @erik_a_hanson on Twitter) if you would like to point out something you think I missed, or if you'd like me to check out a site to add to my weekly review.

[Roger Travis]

The more you do this, Erik, the more in control of the whole discourse I feel. Themes emerge, and those themes make the whole world make sense. Thanks--especially for doing this in a week when you had a great deal else going on, and much of it more enjoyable than combing the links!

[Erik Hanson]

Part of my fun weekend could count as research. After playing Pandemic with my fiancee, it's shot straight to the top of our wedding registry. :)

[Wai Yen Tang]

What does Lachlan's study in my blog post has anything to do with flow state or escapism?

[Roger Travis]

Welcome, Wai Yen! I don't read Erik as making those connections--I think he just thought that your post fit well into a summary of discourse last week about content-related issues in games.

[Wai Yen Tang]

Okay-dokey.

[Erik Hanson]

To more directly address your question, Wai Yen, the ideas of "flow state" and escapism are both tributaries of the same river -- namely the notion that players seek to "lose themselves in the game." Lachlan's study indicates that players can't fully lose themselves, as games aren't able to fully supersede some of the traits and nuances that make each gamer unique.

I have the sort of mind that's always seeing connections in things, so I apologize if I don't make all those connections clear. However, I think that thoughtful and intelligent writing on games often is done without realization of the broader context of the conversation. Hopefully, we can work to fix that.

[Wai Yen Tang]

That's nice, how did you found my blog?

[Erik Hanson]

I've been following your blog in my RSS reader for a while. I think someone linked one of your posts on Twitter a few months back.

I'm something of an RSS feed collector when it comes to academic-level games writing. I've got about 160 right now, bringing in about as many posts per day.

[Nick LaLone]

Ah, a psychology game blog. It will be fun to see things from a psychological perspective. It will be fun to see how my sociological perspective will clash.

[Simon Ferrari]

Nick, I weep for both you and Wai Yen Tang if you two start arguing sociology versus psychology :)