Yesterday, in class we had a discussion about the relevancy of kitsch art to videogames and what would be considered the high art version of videogames. While it is easy to see why games like Farmville and Diner Dash are considered kitsch, I think these videogames can also be considered a fine art video game if they are perfected. What I mean is that it is more important how the player plays the game because one can make it Diner Dash into a challenging game. When someone plays a game like Diner Dash, it is easy to finish all the levels with the minimum amount of effort. But others reach for medals or trophies only given to the most elite of waiters. To these players, the game is no longer the normal mass appeal videogame. They have their own forums for discussing upgrades and cheats that make a simple game like Diner Dash into a modern art painting, full of hidden messages and metaphors that the normal patron would not notice. There are moments when you see someone master a normal thing and then even that normal thing becomes a work of art. These people spend many hours to master these skills and that is what makes it appealing rather than the medium that they use.
Author Archives: sprakash
The Treachery of Sanctuary- Art
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2kZdl8hs_s
This video is of an exhibit in Creators Project San Fransisco. This work of art uses kinect motion sensors to match viewers movement. It makes art interactive (although all art is interactive in its own way) and puts the audience in control similar to a videogame. Also, similar to videogames, the viewer can only control the movement of his or her shadow and not what happens around it. There is still a limited boundary of movement which is easily visualized in this piece. The interesting part of this peice is that in the first “painting” the birds attack your shadow. And in the last painting, you, the viewer, are a bird with wings. By doing this it presents the work from different prespectives. Also, the viewer is placed into the body of the creature that attacked them in the first painting.
Psychology of Sound
Sound is an essential diegetic and non-diegetic aspect of video games that receives very little attention. Every game has a unique soundtrack that characterizes the game. Nothing can make a person remember their favorite childhood game like listening to its sound track. Many aspects of video games are borrowed from movies, but after reading the article by Whalen, it seems like sound originates from research in psychology more than film studies. For example, the reason players can automatically interpret the hero and villain of the game is the sound they make while moving. In another example, players understand the right move from the wrong move due to positive and negative reinforcements. Sound helps with positive reinforcement because designers in built happy (pentatonich) music when a character levels up or finishes a stage. Through a subconscious awareness of the music, players know when they have made the right moves.
In earlier games such as Doom, Thief, and Sims that Karen Collins described, the sound once again plays a narrative role. In Doom the locations of the Demons are understood based on a change in music. The player doesn’t have to think that there has been a change in music so there must be a zombie. The brain automatically registers this change and tells our mind to become be careful. In the Sims, the creators knew that the game was all about user control, so they gave the users choice of what music they wanted. It would be interesting to learn why our brains automatically associate certain sound with good or bad. Another curious aspect is what Whalen would think of games such as Tetris which have no sound or narrative but still appeal to a large audience.
User Input in Comics and Videogames
http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?viewpage=new
MS Paint Adventures is a unique comic in that the plot is determined by the audience rather than a single author. Andrew, the creator of the blog, makes some starting frames for a comic and then the rest story is continued based on comments by other bloggers. I thought this was interesting for two reasons. First, the comics are all related to some genre of gaming, such as RPGs and fighting games. The second reason this comic is interesting is the view it presents on the debate of narrative use in videogames. When reading this comic it is obvious that once user input determines a story, the story can take many unpredictable turns. According to Aarseth, videogames should also have unpredictable storylines in which user input is rewarded. In the end, I believe that videogames with good storylines are better, but more user input will make the game more engaging for me and also allow me to play the game more than once with a different experiences every time.