Author Archives: kthorson

World Building in Video Games

I went to the “Dramatic Storytelling In Games” by Seamus Sullivan. I believe what stood out to me the most was his first point about world building. The first point was “Make the environment say something about the characters, and vice versa.” For this point, he talked about the game Myst. As you play through the game, you find some seriously creepy things about the two characters that you are trying to “free” from a book they are trapped in. He mentioned that you find things such as furniture made out of bones. The world you are in eventually reveals to you that these two men are seriously shady characters and probably would do you great harm if you freed them from their captivity.

For the “vice versa” of this tip, he talked about how Portal 2 uses the character Wheatley to show things about the world in which you are placed. As Wheatley first comes in to where you, the character, have been “hibernating,” it is obvious alone from his tone of voice and strange way of saying things that something is drastically wrong in the world of Aperture Laboratories. It is also obvious, by the mere fact that a robot is running the place, that a huge amount of time has passed and there are absolutely no other human beings around to keep things under control. The world has fallen into disarray. The player gets all of this just from a few minutes of game play at the beginning, interacting with one character alone.

I could say so much more about this conference, but this will have to suffice. I thoroughly enjoyed everything Seamus Sullivan had to say about storytelling in games.

The Purpose of Kitsch Games

In chapter twelve, “Kitsch,” of How to Do Things with Videogames, Bogost compares the paintings of Thomas Kinkade to these games of kitsch – “art urging overt sentimentality, focused on the overt application of convention, without particular originality” (Bogost 83).  Bogost seems to suggest that the only purpose for these games is to acquire tens of millions of players as Kinkade’s pieces sell tens of millions of copies.

I wonder if, though, we could perhaps find another purpose for these games. Perhaps the creators of these kitsch games did truly have something else in mind when they created the games. Perhaps these games could be used for some sort of anti-depressant for younger children. The games are simple, bright, and cheery. This positive message could be used for children who tend towards depression and suicidal thoughts.

I wonder if these games could be used for art as well. Bogost explains that many of these games can be truly beautiful and focus on the music in the game quite a lot. The players could look at these games as pieces of art and/or pieces of music.

I guess my main question for this chapter would be questioning the purpose of kitsch games. Do they truly have a purpose? Are they just games to attract tens of millions of players? Is it all for money? Or did the creators of these games have an underlying purpose for their games such as the two listed above? Are there any other purposes for these games? Or are they stupid casual games that no one should truly care about?

No Category

After reading the blog posts for this week’s reading by Jesper Juul, it is obvious to me that the idea of casual/hardcore games and gamers is really up to everyone’s own interpretation. Nobody agrees on all of the aspects and criteria for the so-called “hardcore” or “casual” games and gamers. Neither do they agree upon what is considered fun or not fun in each of these categories of games. In one of the posts, “Keeping it Casual,” the writer wrote that he/she believed that playing a “hardcore” game caused just as much stress as writing a paper or studying for a big test for a class. I personally cannot even comprehend that concept. It is one of my favorite things to sit down and play a “hardcore” video game for hours straight.

 

So, perhaps the debate here is not what categorizes “hardcore”/”casual” video games and gamers, but how people themselves view these games and what they look for in a video game versus what they dislike. Each player is a unique video gamer, a mixture of both the “casual” and “hardcore” stereotypes. I grew up playing Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 with my older brothers and their friends. I was always trying to be as good as them. This longing of wanting to fit in and wanting to keep up with my brothers and their friends pushed me toward being a better gamer. I learned the controls and learned to love all the different aspects of video games.

 

So I turned into a “hardcore” video gamer, but did I? I still play Words With Friends like the rest of the “casual” gamers. I don’t really think that labels are necessary in this aspect of video games. Every player is different with what kind of games they like. I may fit into the category of a “hardcore” gamer, but it doesn’t mean that I like all “hardcore” games. It is really just an area of opinion and preference. Nobody fits into just one category.

The Sounds of Road Runner

I grew up playing Road Runner, created in 1992, for the Super Nintendo. The game immediately popped into my head as we were discussing music and sounds in class on Tuesday. The music and sounds of Road Runner will forever be ingrained in my head. They are extremely annoying and yet, they fit perfectly with the game (which I guess suggests that the game itself is annoying – and it is most definitely one of the most annoying games I have ever played.) The main reason I am posting this link of a part of the game is to show how important the music/sounds are to a game. Imagine this game without these sounds. It would be so dull. Video games wouldn’t be the same without sound effects and the background soundtrack that almost always accompanies them.

 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqpkzln-4jc&w=420&h=315]

The Origin of “Play”

As we have been discussing “play” and what it means for something to actually be classified as “play,” I found it very interesting that video games, according to Stephen Kline, essentially started out from military research. As these “hackers” began to experiment with video games, they turned something that in no way could be considered “play” (wars, fighting, military research, etc…) into the very essence of “play.” There seems to be nothing as serious as fighting a war, and yet, this is how “play” came to be. What if the origin of video games had come from something different entirely? So many of the first video games were “war” themed (shooter games). Would these games have developed differently if the creators of some of the first board games had learned to create video games instead?

Also – as video games really began to develop, I found it interesting how the creation of these games became so competitive so quickly. It was as if the creators knew that video games were not going to die out. Kline mentions that many people thought that the video game fad would not last, but the creators seemed to know they would grow more and more popular. As the video game creators switched companies, made their own companies, re-made games, this “fad” grew more and more until it has become what it is today. My question is, why? Why did people latch onto this craze so quickly and so readily? Why have video games held the interest of people for this long? Perhaps it really is just because we all want to play. But somehow I don’t think the answer could be that simple. Perhaps it has become imbedded in our culture, but I guess I want to know how it came to be imbedded.