Blog Exercise 10

In her paper "The Puppet Master Problem: Design for Real-World, Mission Based Gaming", Jane McGonigal suggests that "the success of the puppet master challenges our assumptions about the kinds of action and interaction that qualify as gameplay, reveal dramatic interpretation to be a viable game mechanic, and demonstrate the value of a dramaturgical perspective for pervasive game design." Discuss how these ideas could be applied to designing elements of narrative and gameplay in interactive media systems.

Firstly, I think designers can consider integrating more real aspects of the physical world into gamespace into interactive media system. This confers a greater sense of real-world participation for the players, and also more immersive roles as “gamers”.

I came across this ‘Wearable Environmental Media Project’ by Japan’s Keio University, which I found quite applicable to gameplay here. These wireless sensing devices serve as potential complementary roles to stationary media systems, adding mobility and real physical-space-out-there for the user. This adds to the pervasive factor. Also, the integration of a real-time, real-space (physical) environment makes the spacial interaction in a game more real.

To make it less virtual and more real, designers can leverage on history, geography, or ancient folklores as back-stories to the game, then let the players take on investigative or live role-playing character persona. ‘The Songs of North’ is an interesting example.

Secondly, designers can consider making social use of space. A game where social interaction is vibrant gives an extra layer of meaning and depth- for the game function as not just a game but a social arena to promote real life interactivity. An interaction across cultural borders can also add depth to gameplay, like The Amazing Race!

I guess games can be such that the instructions or goals are first made explicable to players, like in the Puppet poweplay- "Gather in x location, at y time", then design the game such that a lot of communication between social groups is needed. Or structure it such that a mob mentality is needed, such as a game outcome influenced by popular votes. Or even, such that the game cannot be completed without different skills/knowledge from different cultures, where people from different cultures can willingly come into interaction to play this game.

How about a minimized game interface for the players? Designers can be creative and choose media systems which require little mechanical input from the user (think Internet-abled handphone). This shifts most of the cognitive load of gameplay to the community of players who will then need to work together via communication to decide on the next move.

Thirdly, consider giving a more dramatic, broader game play mechanic, where players are free to interpret the game designers’ action scripts. This way, the sense of "fun" will be brought in by the players. This matters, because the games are played by them, not the designers, who can by no means tell how fun their game is to the players when they design it. Talking about such applications, I think it is already existent in games like the reality TV gameshow, ‘Win, Lose or Draw’. It's interesting to note that even in a simpe game like Pictionary or 'Win, Lose or Draw', the player can choose to intepret how to play out the given word, and his actions may be intepreted differently by the guessers too.

To sum things up, I think the applications are many but the practicality of actual implementation on interactive media systems sets the limits.

Blog Exercise 9

No, I think Eskelinen made too quick a dismissal of Jenkins’ approach.

In the first place, Jenkins made it rather clear that “not all games tell stories”, although “many games do have narrative aspirations”. He then supplicates that “the experience of playing games can never be simply reduced to the experience of a story”. So basically within the set of all games, there exists a subset of those which tell a story. Jenkins’ point is valid- in fact in my humble opinion, it’s really up to the players’ mind to to ‘find stories everywhere”. Even my sister can derive a story (albeit a simple one) from a game such as Pac Man Trail (a cruel story of a dog-eat-dog world, aka survival of the most hungry) or Hearts, the game which comes with your Microsoft Installation on your newly- bought computer (a story of how 4 kiasu card dealers eagerly shake off as many cards bearing the highest scores as possible). It’s then a question of whether the narrative is a good one- or not.

Further, Jenkins’ approach toward game design as a narrative architecture is not an unwise one. The human mind often finds stories almost everywhere, and that applies to games. After much discussion, an aspect of cognitive psychology suggests that most (English-educated, that is) finds the “ABCD..” song a preliminary must to tell what follows after e.g. the letter “q”. Similarly, in a world where we are told stories from young (think folktales, nursery rhymes, bedtime stories etc), the mind is pre-conditioned to find narratives or think along narrative lines. Moreover, every picture tells a story- even a screenshot from a game like Space Invaders tells one of a battle between alien crafts & a sole survivor. Hence, in the study of games, Jenkins’ approach is a valid one. At least, tell a good story if you want to in a game. This is what he cautioned. Thus, I don’t share Eskelinen’s put-down of Jenkins’ ideas as purely pannarrativism.

In conclusion, I side more with Jenkins on the basis that the study of games does not negate the study of narratives. In fact, they complement each other.

Emergence & Progression

Jesper Juul distinguishes between games of emergence, where a game is specified as a small number of rules that combine and yield a large number of game variations, and games of progression, where a game presents the player with a series of puzzles or challenges which must be accomplished in a certain order. Discuss whether games of
progression, which often attempt to combine a narrative structure with gameplay, are
unique to computer-based game

I think that games of progression are, more often than not, unique to computer-based game.

The nature of such games is that once the player figures out how to win such games, he is unlikely to want to play is again since the uniqueness of these games diminishes with each run. For instance, I derived great fun solving all the intellectual puzzles in the Usborne Puzzle Adventure Series as a kid, a non computer-based game of progression (book). The detective adventure narrative unfolds with every unlocking of a (kernel) puzzle. Yet, upon finishing the game, I found basically no incentive to re-read the book, save the cool illustrations. Hence, the economic value of such non computer-based games of progression is not very high.

I guess you can also say that games of progression as a computer-based game has more re-playable value, because the restrictions on what computers allow are less. There are added functions and hence possibilities, creating more incentives to re-play. Like when I tried The Neverhood, an award-winning claymation adventure game, I found myself constantly re-playing, ‘cos of the wacky clay animations, the silly clay characters (plus the hilariously stupid things it can do) and the quaint accompanying music by Terry Scott Taylor.

If you look at the history of games of progression, it is not very long. In fact, by Juul, they are “historically newer structure that entered the computer game through the adventure game.” But successful transition of these to non computer-based game takes time. Thus most of which which we can pin-point are actually in the form of computer-based ones.

But games of progression are not always unique to computer-based games though. There’s this reality favorite TV gameshow I caught on Mobile TV where family teams pit against each other through many different stations of mazes, roadblocks etc. There was even a part where members of the same family were fired by water guns from another family as they traversed through a shaky bridge. (Sorry- couldn’t find the name of this show!) Also, The Amazing Race reality TV series is a successful example, although it is not a pure game of progression, as some of the roadblocks involved are more rule-based and strategic.

In conclusion, I will say games of progression are largely yet not wholly unique to computer-based games, at the present. Perhaps in time to come, we will see more popular or successful non computer-based ones.



http://www.usbornebooks.memoriesofus.com/adventure.htm

Games and Narrative

Choose a game which you feel attempts to incorporate strong narrative elements.
2. How is time represented in the game? Is there a separation of story and discourse time? How does the game’s use of time allow for interactivity?

The game I’ve chosen is Heroes of Might and Magic III- the Restoration of Erathia.

How is time represented in the game? + How does the game’s use of time allow for interactivity?

The game seemingly lets the player define for himself another dimension of time.
Time* can be viewed as a manipulatable entity in Heroes III. It can be halted, quickened, slowed, stopped and even saved. I’ll only elaborate on 2 of these.

When I choose to (aha! Choice -> interactivity) pause the game- time stops ‘running’. As Heroes III is a turn-based game, my time’s paused when the other player (aka the processor) takes his turn. It’s interesting to note that it’s at this point in time that the game snatches away the player-defined “time”- my user interface is frozen and I can do no less than watch as another ‘day’ pass (indicated by the hour-glass) while the game shows my opponent’s quick moves across the territory. I feel that interactivity comes in even when the player’s control of time is taken back by the game processor. Cos this happens when a certain no. of moves was made by the user (which is in spite of the actual time spent on each move!) and this adheres to Crawford’s definition of interactivity via influential feedback.

Time can be quickened. How? Use cheat codes! For instance, “black sheep wall” enables me to view the map of the whole territory without having to spend er, unnecessary time to explore and hence uncover the whole map. In battles, I can cast a “speed” spell to hasten my creatures’ speed of attack too.

Interactivity, facilitated by the game-defined time, also comes from the choice allowed for the player. How he chooses to interpret what happened at e.g. the castle when he is shown that his opponent entered it but NOT what he did there. How the player chooses to manage his own time in the game. Also, how playful the player is determines how interactive he finds it. For e.g. if I don’t explore how to cheat in the game, I’d never know I can interact with the system in this way.

Is there a separation of story and discourse time?

Well, I think that whereas time flows in a strictly linear way, aka a continuum of irreversible sequence, the discourse time can flow non-linearly, and is reversibly possible.

Reason being, as Neitzel mentioned, “games are not laid out along chronological lines” but rather are “process(es) of expanding the present”. A player may re-visit his steps, or a narrative kernel in the game may take you to a prophecy, a flashback, a “meanwhile…” ongoing, and the like.

Real time is more complex. If it were to be defined as “a dimension in which events occur in sequence”, then it’s clearly different from a discourse time which can be non-chronological. Time is also a “local observed quantity” in that it is relative to the user and the object. It’s precisely the grey areas in ‘time’ that separates it from discourse time, again due to how one mind quantifies the passing of time from another.

*Time here refers to the time as defined by the game, within itself. It is not the time in reality.

It’s interesting how time can ‘fly’, how we can ‘save’ time, ‘steal’ time and even ‘kill’ time. If I can choose to be a quantity I won’t choose to be time!

Games and Play

2. Consider the work you created for project 1. Is this work actually a game? Why/why not?

Let’s recall: My group’s project’s titled “ScaryTales”, an interactive narrative where Sadako the evil existent ‘transcoded’ her hatred into a once-ordinary fairytale world. The user navigates his way sorta linearly through a non-linear narrative. (Actually, I find this rather ironic that while we are trying to make the fiction non-linear, the user can seemingly only go thru the piece in a linear fashion.)

My Take
My take is that “ScaryTales” is in essence a narrative which was tweaked to be as interactive as we could manage, so much so that it became more game-like then we had intended it to be.

Why is it game-like?
Firstly, the element of existence of a goal presented to the user*. I observed that during the implementation, certain groups were sub-consciously vying to reach the part where the potion could be thrown at Sadako to defeat her. Hence the role of agon is brought in, giving it some game-like quality, where users get the notion of “an explicit win-state”.

Secondly, the presence of struggle has fittingly induced the game-like quality. Recall that we laid certain traps, e.g. a rebellious user ignores Puss’s warning, ventures to the mountains, and dies. The use of memory in “ScaryTales” locks areas which have been accessed, which when clicked on again produce “There is no time to lose.” Thus the sense of urgency, hence the illusion** of struggle (against time) which is very much an element of a game.

Why is it still considered an interactive narrative?
With reference to the first point, the notion of a goal is somewhat sub-consciously generated on the user’s part. If we looked at “ScaryTales” as an interactive narrative with a no. of different endings, inevitably some ends would be ‘better’ then others. And by the logic of induction, there would be a ‘best’, the most ‘ideal’ end- and that is what the user sub-consciously sees as the goal. To illustrate my point, take a look at “The Others” piece done by another group. By my yardstick, I do find it an impressive interactive narrative. At the same time, I also observed that during implementation, within each group, people were focused more on unlocking the most areas in the quickest time (or the time interval given for implementation J). As such, we see the sub-conscious identification of a certain goal. But this certainly doesn’t make “The Others” a game.

With reference to the second point, I would like to borrow Costikyan’s quote to fight my stand. He wrote, “- there can be no game without struggle. A game requires players to struggle interactively toward a goal.” It is true that the laying of traps and the throwing of the potion on Sadako makes “ScaryTales” game-like. Yet, back to my take at the very beginning, all these were included for interactivity’s sake. We were keeping to Crawford’s definition of interactivity – the use of feedback to the user whose input influences the feedback from the system.

To conclude, I reinstate my take.

* I used the term “user” instead of a “reader” here not to intend that “ScaryTales” is a game. It’s just because there isn’t too much to read in “ScaryTales” anyway, and if it did, there wouldn’t be much gaps intended for the user to fill in for interactivity’s sake.

** I used the word “illusion” since we didn’t use any timer in “ScaryTales”!

Beyond Hypertext

Montfort argues that interactive fiction is distinctively different from hypertext fiction, stating: “There is… nothing in the nature of the lexia or the link, those fundamental elements of hypertext, that allows the reader to type and contribute text or provides the computer with the means to parse or understand natural language. […] Hypertext fiction also does not maintain an intermediate, programmatic representation of the narrative world, as interactive fiction does.”In terms of understanding how these two forms relate to/differ from narrative, is this distinction significant? Or are they more closely related than Montfort would like to admit? Discuss.

Perhaps the first distinct difference would be the co-authorship in the narrative for interactive fiction but for hypertext, the user is really just a reader.

Another difference is that while the user explores the space and existents in narrative by interacting directly with system in interactive fiction, he does so in hypertext by just “hitting” the texts.

Both offer some extent of illusion of choice offered to the reader as to the sequence of discourse of the narrative, though interactive fiction more than the hypertext. For example, given 2 similar settings, say a castle in the narrative. If I were the user of the hypertext form, I would explore the castle in a rather pre-ordered sequence (though with some permutations) set by the author. Whereas if I were the user of the interactive fiction form, I would feel like I’m given the option of really choosing where to go. To quote from Montford, “..the sense of exploring a new world or space, independent of the events that transpire in that space and are narrated..” Of course there are exceptions, like the author could block you from accessing the tower of the castle first by a “>you cant enter here- yet” response. Which was why I used the words “illusion”.

I think that the medium of discourse is essentially the same- using (limited) texts.

Even more so, it seems to me that both hypertext and interactive fiction are really not much different. Compared with a book, yes. But with each other, the difference is somewhat more in the mind? I mean, all in all the user of both forms are given some choice in the sequence of discourse. But really, it is essentially merely exploring a finite space created by the author. You may feel like you are “really free” to explore the space in an interactive fiction but hey, it is still finite and set by the author, like in a hypertext narrative.

While it is probably true that the narrative in a piece of interactive fiction is co-authored, and hence may be dissimilar, unlike a pre-ordered flow and hence a set discourse in a hypertext narrative. But there lies an intersection btw the 2- users are offered some permutations in choosing where to hit next, and hence different endings. I’m not too good with words, but perhaps an analogy would help: I’m trying to say that in both hypertext and interactive fiction, the user is like a person going through life: he may be in different settings, will meet with different pple or objects, offered different choices, and hence different (or similar maybe) endings. Yeah.

Espen Aarseth defines cybertext as a perspective on textuality, which considers a work as a textual machine, and sees the reader as having to make a non-trivial effort to traverse the text. Discuss whether Scott McCloud’s “Carl” comic strip can be considered a cybertext.

I don’t think “Carl” is really a cybertext. With respect to the structure of the comic strip, only a small part of it seems to fit that of a cybertext. However, since this is a comic strip afterall, there isn’t really much text involved and hence does not fit wholly into the definition of a cybertext.

Looking at the structure of “Carl”, the way it is put together does, according to Aarseth, “centers attention on the consumer, or user, of the text, as a more integrated figure…” The experience of the reader seemingly depends on how he chooses to flow from one frame to the next. Yet, “Carl” is loaded such that it reads more like a webbed chart. In the end, the user gets to experience all of the different possibilites, though sadly the end is still about the same- Carl crashed and died. Only difference is how long he took to die, haha. :P

Furthermore, there isn’t much an ‘inaccessibilty’ issue with “Carl”, I feel. According to Aarseth, the reader “may never know the exact results of your(his) choices; that is, exactly what you missed.” However, in “Carl”, I didn’t miss any inaccessible part of the comic. I don’t think there is any in the first place, nor do I feel like there are “secret paths” for me to explore. It is not what I consider as a tolopological structure of the textual machinery.

Aarseth wrote that “a text must consist of a material medium as well as a collection of words”. It is also hard to talk about the ‘text’ bit of cybertext with reference to “Carl” as there isn’t much text, save those in the speech balloons.

Hmm, and it certainly does not seem like there is some form of feedback loop in “Carl”. Unless one considers the readers sending in their input of what extensions of each scenario could lead to, to the author as one. But this departs from the true context of “Carl” the comic strip. So overall, to cut this short, I won’t consider it a cybertext.

Does a potential narrative such as Paul Fournel’s “The Tree Theatre: A Combinatory Play” satisfy Crawford’s definition of interactivity

I can never escape Crawford, can’t I?

Let’s recap Crawford’s signature “Interaction: a cyclic process in which 2 actors alternately listen, think and speak.”

Hmm, looks like it is fitting to say that “The Tree Theatre” fit the big man’s definition of interactivity.
Why? For the most obvious reasons of course- the actors ‘speak’, the audience thinks, then ‘speaks’ by voting, and the the actors ‘speak back’ by acting out the favoured scenes.

But there are other considerations too.

First, I must say that the thinking process is a bit too minimized here. For instance, the actors don’t really think about the audience’s respond. They simply count the majority of votes, then act out what was pre-planned.

Second, even for the unique audience, the play is not really interactive for that particular audience whose votes always fall on the losing side (oh dear!) since the response by the other party, the actors, don’t correspond to the output of that particular member of the audience.

Could it be considered an example of interactive media? Why/why not?

The interactive part is largely satisfied, going by my understanding of the big man’s definition.

Let me recap what was said about interactive media: “any means of (often technologically mediated) communication which enable mutual influence or exchange of ideas” and “implies a certain amount of choice or control on the part of the user.”

Well, “The Tree Theatre” would have been considered a good instance of interactive media if only it were somehow, I feel, technologically mediated.

…and I finished my work... *whee!* :D

Hypertext and non-linearity

In "Hypertext, Hypermedia and Literary Studies: The State of the Art", Landow and Delany suggest that “hypertext can be expected to have important institutional as well as intellectual effects, for it is at the same time a form of electronic text, a radically new information technology, a mode of publication, and a resource for collaborative work… Hypertext historicizes many of our most commonplace assumptions, forcing them to descend from the ethereality of abstraction and appear as corollary to a particular technology and historical era. We can be sure that a new era of computerized textuality has begun; but what it will be like we are just beginning to imagine."This passage was written in 1991, at a time when hypertext systems were available in somewhat limited forms such as Hypercard and Intermedia, use of the Internet was largely confined to academic institutions, and the term “World Wide Web” had only just been coined. Now, 15 years later, comment and reflect upon the impact hypertext has had on the world.

Hmm, hypertext has played a significant role in shaping the way we access and source information via the world wide web.The good thing is that we get a huge variety of information ready at the click of a ‘search’ button. (… the ‘search’ button itself is a form of hypertext right? =P) We are free to link and trace different bits of information which are sorta related. For instance, Wikipedia provides users with links to relevant articles- I see this as a form of er, ‘encouraging’ greater knowledge inquiry. Thus students like us (or I mean myself, rather, haha!) would rather hit the ‘search’ button rather than the library for extra information.

(Instead of just pulling the Dictionary from the shelf, I just go to http://dictionary.reference.com) :D

I guess I can also say that hypertext had enabled the linkage or grouping of somewhat-related online texts together, creating some form of order in this pool of textual diarrhea on the Internet!

The not-so-good thing is that we seem to be overwhelmed by the hyper hypertexting involved in the internet. As what my classmate had mentioned, the commercial world has weaved a lotta product ads into the hypertexts at seemingly non-related web pages. Even my email messages are sometimes linked to commercial pages! Oh well. Maybe cos of sponsorship...

Mm, I think hypertext in general has generated some order in the knowledge-flooded Internet via the linkage of related texts, but has also made information sourcing at times a “needle-in-a-haystack” hunt. (Especially when precise and vetted information is needed.)

Good nite (click =P).