Author Archives: glewis7

Interactive Fiction: Game of the Mind

In Nick Montfort’s Toward a Theory of Interactive Fiction,  it struck me that this topic is different from other games in that the interaction is strictly intellectual, rather than physical. Almost all video games involve an interaction with or contribution from a player. This often involves a certain amount of physical skill on the player’s part to do well in the game. If one were to think of these games as the telling a story, a portion of the narrative could be imagined as either the epic strength or skill of the player or conversely the weakness and ineptitude.

Unlike these game forms, there is no physical requirement necessary for the player/interactor (other than to be able to type the interaction text). The player’s physical capabilities (i.e. agility, aim, etc.) do not contribute to the story. The player’s contribution is purely intellectual. The “story” told by these games revolves not around the epic abilities of the player, but the pure narrative of what the player is doing and why. Even skills of observation are virtually irrelevant, as there is no time constraint on actions and all available information is presented through the text in response to the player’s interaction.

Indeed, one might even question if these are truly games. As Montfort says, “…a work of IF is not necessarily a game. A work can present a world which is pleasant to explore, but which has no quest or intrigue.” But do not some graphic video games behave in this way? Games such as Minecraft and others focus heavily on the open-ended exploration aspect of virtual worlds and are no less games for it. Perhaps what we’ve really cared about video games has been the intellectual interaction all along. Perhaps Montfort has hit upon something in the reason we play video games–something that interactive fiction is a clear reminder of: that we want a world, a story to tell, and that we play any video game first in our heads before our fingers even move on the controller.

Gamers and Interruptability

 

Interruptability has so far been considered, as in Juul’s book and mcovingt’s post as an indicator of a whether a given game or gamer is casual or hardcore, but this may not be entirely accurate. While I agree with mcovingt’s distinction between casual vs. hardcore gamers as opposed to games, there’s another aspect of interruptability that comes into play–namely, the level of interest of the player in the game.

 

Normally, one would assume that if there was a high level of interruptability in the game (less consequences if you stop in the middle), it would probably be more casual, and vice versa. Mcovingt takes this a step further, arguing the depth of investment of the players defines if the play or player is casual or hardcore.

 

But what if the player simply doesn’t care about a given game at all? Consequences for losing or quitting in the game are always subjectively experienced and valued, and if the player doesn’t value the game experience high enough, the game virtually has infinite interruptability. For example, suppose a player playing League of Legends suddenly decides that he/she no longer values the game experience and quits in the middle of the game with huge in-game consequences to him/herself and the team. The game, through no act of its own, just became the most interruptible game possible, even though it could be considered as falling into the hardcore category due to it’s lack of built-in interruptability and the player considered hardcore due to previously blocking out other distractions. Thus low interruptability is usually an indicator of the players’ level of interest in the game, but interruptability can be infinite at any moment if the values of the player change.

Music as a Game-Changer (better late than never)

Music in video games can not only enhance and a game’s experience and the player’s level of involvement, they can also change it entirely. In the recent 3rd person adventure/combat game Dark Souls, music is used mostly in the traditional lets-be-epic-as-we-kill-stuff manner with choirs, orchestras, etc. See the below video for an example:

(Spoiler Alert) But there is an unexpected twist in the final combat sequence. The mood of the music is completely different–a solitary piano carrying an almost wistful theme throughout the combat. In the game’s story, this final boss is one who’s once good (I think) power has become corrupted, necessitating his defeat and perhaps even the re-ordering of the world (player’s choice). The music seems to denote sadness over the magic that is being lost in the death of this boss–almost as if it were saying “we wish we could have saved it…” See the clip here:

Back to Narratives: From the Beginning

Contrary to the perspectives of Aarseth and Eskelinen, Kline shows (whether purposefully or no) that video games have always carried narratives in some form. The Spacewar game/simulation was drawn from ideas surrounding the space race and the then new fear of nuclear war with Soviet Russia. The later game Space Invaders was drawn from a similar idea of fighting in space–though this time focused on an extra-terrestrial invasion of our civilization. Game designer Chris Crawford commented on the need to develop the theory of computer games with ideas like “rewards”, “proving oneself”, and “sculpting the ‘play value'” into games. But these ideas do not fundamentally alter why you make and play video games, they simply help you make video games better. The real reason we play games has to do with something far deeper and far more subtle — namely the narrative associated with them.

Video games, through their narratives, are an expression of our lives and experiences and we experience aspects of life through them. They express our fears and vision for the future as in Spacewar, but also our fantasies as in the many games that grant super-human abilities to the player. In a similar manner to cockfights being symbolic for larger issues in the culture, video games are a picture of our lives in the world. As Crawford saw, the need to design games with player interactions reflective of reality are “the central art of the game designer”. It is interesting to note that given the user-oriented feedback loops in game development  and increases in computer technology, the overall direction of successful video games has been towards a story-telling style, and not a simply high-tech tetris or pac-man (though, of course, those games are not necessarily devoid of narrative). This trend illustrates the reason we as a society are really interested in video games: their ability to express our lives in ways we couldn’t before.