Context Clues for August 30-September 5

[Erik Hanson]

It was a busy week, hopefully capped, for many of us, by a relaxing and long weekend. Now, let's get down to mechanics, dynamics and both games and events involving adults wearing costumes.

Gamasutra features a post by Expert Blogger David Rosen in which David creates topographical maps of potential solutions to game problems. The post shows how games can respond to incorrect solutions in ways that incline the player toward or away from the solution.

Mike Darga created a hierarchy of AI in order to address how each level assists the player in suspending disbelief. Bart Stewart (Gamasutra Blogs Featured Post) gives background on "aggro" dynamics used in some games to determine targets for enemies and NPCs, especially in games that lack collision detection and other dynamics that would otherwise allow players to protect weaker characters. Bart then goes on to propose that, given that technology has moved beyond the restrictions that originally lead to the need for aggro dynamics, it may be time to update or abandon aggro. In particular, Bart offers that standard aggro dynamics could evolve to take into account narrative- and character-based motives for target selection.

Frank Lantz (Game Design Advance) lists some problematic connotations of viewing video games as media, rather than acknowledging that video games are both media and games.

At Game Design Aspect Of The Month, Nels Anderson states, "Players should be able to stop playing a game at any point without fear of losing significant progress." Given that saving is tied in with other game issues, like difficulty, Nels proposes games divorce game-saving from quitting, and have game-states stored separately as "bookmarks."

Daniel Johnson (Daniel Primed) summarizes game and level design in Nintendo franchises, giving specific attention to Mario Galaxy boss fights.

Michael Abbott (Brainy gamer) released three separate podcasts last week, all under the umbrella of "Episode 25." While the first two are interesting in their discussion of the greater society of games, developers, marketers, and the culture in which these all operate and interact, the third segment features Sande Chen (Game Design Aspect Of The Month), Justin Keverne (Groping the Elephant) and Roger Travis (Living Epic and the Video Games and Human Values Initiative), all discussing game mechanics and dynamics, with some meta-discussion of games criticism thrown in.

G. Christopher Williams (PopMatters' "Moving Pixels") imagines how a game could model subjective winning conditions in fashion-design games. Nick Dinicola (PopMatters' "Moving Pixels") gets to the heart of controversial games: It's only OK to have social commentary if the games' marketing pretends it's "just a game." Sometimes reality is just a bit tragic that way. That said, I eagerly await a fashion game that incorporates a bit of subversive commentary, perhaps cleverly hidden among the dynamics.

Kieron Gillen (Rock, Paper Shotgun) explained and gave a brief reaction to a Singapore-MIT Game Lab experiment in which two mechanically identical games are created, though one (Named Woosh) remained purely abstract and the other (Waker) was given narrative and aesthetic elements. Mike Darga is disappointed in the post-hoc addition of Waker's narrative, namely the narrative elements' failure to engage the mechanics. Beyond simple engagement, Matthew Kaplan (Game In Mind) looks at whether and how game mechanics can subvert their narratives.

Ryan Wiancko (IndustryBroadcast) highlights two strong works. After completing a previous venture of reading about the Shadowcaster Project (which aims specifically to bridge narrative and mechanical aspects in a game), Ryan narrates Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen's overview of edutainment research. While, as seems so often the case, the research on educational games is less than perfect, there are indications that well informed simulation games may provide a context in which students can further interact with their subjects. Wai Yen Tang (VG Researcher—Psychology) reviews recent research on a possible connection between gamers' motivations and their school performance. It seems that, perhaps, the mindset that enjoys games as challenges to be overcome is also a mindset that does well in classes. I hold out hope that such a view towards education does not ultimately yield a deeper understanding.

Also looking at a certain taxonomy of players, Tom Allins (Game Ranting and Gamasutra Featured Post) breaks down player types by motivation in order to look at better ways to extend play and add replayability for each type.

Alex Raymond has continues the conversation on gender in BioShock, with particular focus on the complicated figure of Dr. Bridgette Tenenbaum. The conversation stays at a high level through the comments. I wonder how narrow a player taxonomy would have to get in order to properly box those of us who would replay a game just to test our ideas about a supporting character. I can only assume that such a taxonomy would also note that this is one of the better classifications.

Narrative Innovation

Leigh Alexander (Sexy Video Game Land) gives her take on why game music is less memorable now, which is imminently sensible, if not entirely novel. I'm burying this section's lede, however. Leigh Alexander (Sexy Video Game Land) is bored as Hell, and she's not going to take it anymore. Leigh sees a discouraging paucity of diversity in mainstream games and mainstream gamer tastes, and she brings her questions to mainstream game designers. Speaking of a lack of imagination, Tony "Two Toes" (Tap X Repeatedly) contends that the primary value of games is in imagination, and that we would do well to make imagination the primary focus of our design and play.
But the question remains as to how games can or should innovate. L.B. Jeffries (PopMatters' "Moving Pixels") looks across media and applies Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics to game design. Joe Osborn suggests we look at games as story-making aids, and not as stories themselves. Martin Gaston (Resolution Magazine) looks at personalizing mechanics and crafted emergent narrative in Fight Night: Round 4.

Phill Cameron (GameSetWach's "Alt Space" column) gets intimate with the emotional depth of the abstract in games, particularly WWI Medic.

Craig Getting (Charge Shot!!!) looks at the prevalence of plot twists in good game narratives, but "Eioul" (Whole Lotta Words) goes further and discusses how non-linear progression works, especially with games based on exploration and experimentation.

I remember when I first played Ultima VII, I was floored by the way NPCs lived seemingly real lives, with real schedules determining when they'd wake up, eat and go to work. John Walker (Rock, Paper Shotgun) wants more meaningful consequences for quests and choices in games, and it seems that the key he proposes is more dynamic NPCs. Jay Barnson (Tales Of The Rampant Coyote) might agree, but worries about potentially poor readability or predictability of those long-term consequences.

Daniel Johnson (Daniel Primed) praises Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time's cultural mediation between the Middle-Eastern cultures used as source material and largely Western audience.

Emily Short's Homer In Silicon column at GameSetWatch addresses what's become a classic question in game narrative discussion: Can games effectively handle romance?

C.T. Hutt (Press Pause To Reflect) asserts that environment design is central for great games, and provides examples.

Lest We Forget

Critical Distance looks back on the ARG and games critic that was Rachael Webster, PixelVixen707, in a two part remembrance. Though she was a construct, I enjoyed readings and interacting with Rachael while she was around, and I was saddened when she moved into the (at least for me, unsafe for workplace viewing) Suicide Girls.

Meanwhile, Jim Rossignol (Rock, Paper Shotgun) chronicles his 5 years in EVE.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Games and comics occupy similar social areas, so it's no surprise that the recent Batman game was both anticipated—even if the track record of adaptations of other media into the game format is less than stainless. Regardless of the game's popularity and sources of that popularity, there has been some interesting discussion about the game this past week. Chris Lewis (Expressive Intelligence Studio) revels in how Arkham Asylum models the experience of being Batman, and isn't the only one to give the game praise. But negative criticism is so much more exacting and exciting that I won't bother to link you the scores of love letters. Let's get to some a good, pointed question about the new game.
Justin Keverne (Groping The Elephant) and Travis Megill (The Autumnal City) discuss the implications of Arkham Asylum's central focus: abusing the mentally ill. Mitch Krpata (Insult Swordfighting) offers a brief defense in his weekly link-out post. In short, the wider universe of Batman writing specifically does engage with questions of how Arkham and Batman both can tend toward inciting and cultivating dangerous insanity in Gotham. The real problem is that this new game does not engage with that larger discussion.

Recent Conferences

The Experience Points crew game daily wrap-ups of the panels they listened to at PAX. If you couldn't make it to the convention (as I couldn't) or got distracted from the panels by socializing and shiny new games (as I have in the past), these podcasts are a great way to amend your mistakes.
David Thomas (Crispy Gamer) similarly reports back from DiGRA.

Ian Bogost posts his DiGRA 2009 Keynote on the ontology of games (i.e., What are games? What does it mean for something to be a game?) Ian also posted his position paper on another DiGRA panel that focused on the role of game critics.

I know I mentioned events (plural) involving adults wearing costumes. Last week's "Genre Con" conceit certainly yielded a fair number of humorous responses concerning cosplay possibilities at such an event. However, I shudder at the thought of some cosplay possibilities at DiGRA. Then again, I did once dress up as a high-school English teacher for Halloween, complete with bad hair, (then not yet retro-hip) black jeans, and a few of my characteristic snide and bored expressions. Perhaps I am suited for academic life after all.

News

Simon Ferrari (Georgia Tech's News Games blog) has built a game writing search engine that avoids commercial and otherwise non-independent sites in order to provide leaner and meatier results with less filler articles and the commercial-site grind of news, previews and consumer reviews. It's a young project, but I see this as overflowing with wonderful potential to encourage good games thinking, writing and conversations—with a minimum of reinventing the wheel.
The Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab calls for research proposals for the summer 2010 or 2011 programs.

Space isn't just "the final frontier," it's also the topic of the rekindled Blogs Of The Round Table for September.

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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. And be sure to check the VGHVI events section, both as a reference and to add any events you think are worth including.

[Roger Travis]

So much that I missed, here, as usual--but the Aggro stuff is worth special mention, and special thanks!