Author Archives: skrause2

Predicting With Sound and A Homogeneous Platform

After reading Chapter 4 from “Game Sound” by Karen Collins, I only now realize the importance of music in video games and how it really affects the game-play experience. You know that the music is there in the background, but it is usually not always your primary focus while you play the game. If the music were to be taken away, playing the games would definitely not be the same and quite frankly boring. In the game Doom, I found it interesting where Collins describes how there are different sounds for each demon and the different volume levels depending on how far or close you are to the demons. This made me think of when I watch scary movies. When the creepy, eery music starts to play at a low volume and slowly starts to get louder, you know something is going to pop out and try to make you jump. This can be applied to video games, which lets the player predict when something is about to occur, and to know when you need to defend yourself or attack when an enemy is nearby.

Near the very end of Collins’ reading, I found the quote from Denis Dyack to be interesting. He states that the video game developers would rather focus on creating new games to produce rather than worry about the hardware and all the different platforms available. I think this poses an interesting topic of discussion: Do you agree with Dyack, to have just one hardware console out there so there can be more games produced? Or is it better the way things are now, with multiple different platforms and consoles for a well-rounded variety of gaming-experiences?

Video Games With No Narrative

I was interested in the class discussion topic about narratives in video games. It is usually obvious when a game has a narrative to it, but for the ones that don’t, why don’t they? For example, when I play the game Bejeweled, I know that there is no story to it. My goal in playing the game is just to mindlessly line up rows of similar gems to get to the next level. I play the game to pass time when I’m really, really bored. So for those that don’t have a narrative, is that done on purpose to make the player create their own scenario? When I play, I honestly don’t think up of a narrative for why I must line up those shiny gems, and I’m not sure who would. That seems like a whole other activity/game in itself, however you want to look at it. Maybe those with no narratives are just because they were made that way so the players can just escape from reality without going into another story from another world. A narrative appeals to more players because they get to live out some sort of fantasy in an alternate world. So maybe for those with no narrative, the players just want an activity to deal with when they need to pass time without getting themselves too involved in a story-based video game.

Using your eyes to control your avatar

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/this-could-be-big-abc-news/eyes-instead-mouse-151319314.html

When reading another seeker’s post about the HUD contact lenses, it reminded me of a video I saw a little while ago about being able to use your eyes to control something on the computer screen instead of using a mouse or controller. The brief part of the video I focus on is the use of this technology for video games of course. This type of control system in the video game realm is described as a diegetic operator act. The operator’s gaze makes his/her avatar move in whatever direction you look, and basically takes away the need for you to use your thumbs to move in whatever direction you want. What would be interesting to me is how they would be able to incorporate more actions through just your eye movements, such as firing weapons, selecting, jumping, etc. I know that some of these actions can be seen through a few gaming consoles, such as the XBox Kinect or Wii. But, just using your eyes brings it to a whole other level of gaming, and hopefully this idea will expand into a lot more.