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The Rhetoric Of Games Explored

Posted by simoniker on from the academia-is-confusing dept.

Thanks to the IGDA for their 'Ivory Tower' academic-related games column discussing how games communicate information to players. The author uses Ico as an example, highlighting the "...gameplay mechanic of enabling players to save their game. Often with consoles, players access this option with the pressing of the Start/Select button... In Ico, you can only save when you find a glowing white couch... clashing with the rest of the design of game world and drawing rhetorical attention to this mechanic that enables you to save your progress." But should developers "work to create gameplay mechanics that are better incorporated within the overall game design, making them less explicitly rhetorical", as The Getaway does by getting rid of HUD information, or does there need to be an explicit and obvious way to save, regain health, check an onscreen map, and so on?

2 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Projection TV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    There's several options for the home theatre enthusiast.

    Regular tubes tend to be quite small when compared to projection.
    Plasma is expensive and actually can burn in worse than regular projection (plus you can afford to wreck upwards of 3-4 projection sets for the cost of a same-sized plasma).

    So, for about $3k-4k I'm more than happy to _possibly_ burn in a game on my 65" high definition screen. Playing games in 16x9/progressive scan for those that support it is a very sweet option.

  2. Re:Interface Design by TheRoachMan · · Score: 2, Informative

    Now that you mentioned that, I feel like bringing this up: Half-Life 2 is going to be a trendsetter in the field of HUD management (apart from everything else they offer like excellent physics and face animation).

    Especially for the MOD makers out there Valve offer the possibility to create your own special HUD, add info, lose info, change size,color,font,but more important: add 3D images, and being able to request player information through an in-game object (e.g. show your total kills/deaths on a giant scoreboard in a multiplayer map). Agreed, some of these features were already in HL1.

    But of course for the regular player this would be difficult to do if Valve hadn't developed a programming environment especially for customizing your HUD. It's mainly targeted at mod makers but I imagine it will be also very interesting for the regular players with a minimum of scripting skills.

    Now I'm sorry if I sound like a total fanboi, I'm just trying to add information to the discussion :)