Slashdot Mirror
Imagination In Games
In a recent article for Offworld, Jim Rossignol writes about how the experiences offered by games are broadening as they become more familiar and more popular among researchers and educators. He mentions Korsakovia, a Half-Life 2 mod which is an interpretation of Korsakoff's syndrome, a brain disorder characterized by confusion and severe memory problems, and makes the point that games (and game engines) can provide interesting and evocative experiences without the constraint of being "fun," much as books and movies can be appreciated without "fun" being an appropriate description. Quoting:
"Is this collective imagining of games one of the reasons why they tend to focus on a narrow band of imagination? Do critics decry games because games need, more than any other media, to be something a group of people can all agree on? Isn't that why diversions from the standard templates are always met with such excitement or surprise? Getting a large number of creative people to head out into the same imaginative realm is a monumental task, and it's a reason why game directors like to riff off familiar films or activities you can see on TV to define their projects. A familiar movie gets everyone on the same page with great immediacy. 'Want to know what this game is going to be like? Go watch Aliens, you'll soon catch up.' We are pushed into familiar, well-explored areas of imagination. However, there are also teams who are both exploring strange annexes and also creating games that are very much about imaginative exploration. These idiosyncratic few do seem like Alan Moore's 'exporters,' giving us something genuinely new to investigate and explore. Once the team has figured out how to drag the thing back from their imaginations, so we get to examine its exotic experiences — like the kind we can't get at home."
I think this just goes to speak to the fact that the video game industry is thriving in much the same way the film industry thrives. Video games can immerse you in a plot or character in a different more interactive way.
Maybe combine Grand Theft Auto and education by making the player add up fines or the value of the drugs he just stole...
--I like turtles...
I've played a few games recently that did not worry about the "constraint" of being "fun".
Funny thing is, they still cost sixty bucks.
Thank god I tried the TPB "demos" before shelling out for them.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's no mystery that people don't need games to be fun in order to appreciate them - people play games because they satisfy a need. What that need is depends on the person. When I was working graveyard shift and all of my friends and roommates were on the day shift, I'd play MMORPGs on my days off just to have somebody to talk to in the hours I was awake. I wasn't necessarily enjoying playing the game so much as I was just happy that there was somebody awake who was worth talking to.
Some people play games not to enjoy but to fulfill a need for competition. They may get a thrill out of it, but it's in all likelihood more scratching an itch than it is relaxing and having play time. Casual games have been taking off in popularity because they are part of a subset of games which actually do have to be fun and relaxing.
I'd argue that most AAA game titles that have come out in the last decade have not just been simple fun, in that they were not designed to promote relaxed and enjoyable play, but to drive competition, to require significant effort to improve your skills, to require constant learning and adaptation (even in the most primitive shooters) and to (for most action games) attempt to engage the player in a fiction.
The parallels being drawn between movies, books and games are definitely not baseless; video games serve the same purposes as the classes of fiction in which are rooted. They seek to inspire wonder, fear, excitement, anger and righteous indignation... Ultimately, they serve much of the same purpose as the heroic epics of ancient times; to get people excited about the idea of things that people other than them get to do, while at the same time showing them the sort of awful crap happens to those heroes. The significant difference between video games and epic tales of heroes is that in video games, the hero seldom dies at the end (with a few spectacularly successful exceptions). This remains rewarding to the audience because of their increased level of participation in the myth.
Also, video games serve a very real purpose by allowing a player, albeit fleetingly, to be a hero and make meaningful changes in their environment with a laissez-faire which is not to be found anywhere in the civilized world. A man stuck in a dead-end job in some rural region, so long as he can afford a computer and internet access, can for a brief time every night become an epic hero in a world full of his peers. A child who finds himself alone and bored in the inner city, so long as his parents can afford $15 at a garage sale can be a young boy with a sword who saves a princess and an entire world.
It certainly can't be generalized to the experience of most people playing most games that they're being engaged on an artistic level and are having some deep-seated psychological or emotional need fulfilled by their video gaming experience, but it can certainly be established that not every game is played for fun, and not every game is designed to be fun.
The land shall stone them with the bread of his son.
game: [bef. 1000; ME gamen, OE gaman; c. OHG gaman glee]
Games are fun. If they aren't, they aren't games.
My mom will appreciate games rather than just decrying their "destructive" and "pointless" nature. Took long enough.
Games have long been in the realm of explaining everything from economics to interesting visualizations of mathematical patterns (such as The Game of Life). However, outside of those who generally work in such spaces, and those who learn about them in connection with Computer Science/Mathematics/Economics degrees, very few people in the general public have ever fully appreciated games.
That has broken down a little with the release of Guitar Hero and other games that draw in the casual gamer with a sense of the familiar, but there are many who still see the vast majority of games (like GTA, Starcraft, and Half Life) as simple killing simulators. Great to see new mods that are pushing games into greater and greater (positive) exposure.
Some things would be so not-fun that I don't see how they could be made into compelling games. For example, how would a simulator of being in solitary confinement draw an audience? What about a simulator of being a beluga whale trapped below a breathing hole in the ice, over 20 miles from food, for six months?
> //These idiosyncratic few do seem like Alan Moore's 'exporters,' giving us something genuinely new to investigate and explore.//
Questioning pop media analogies by using a pop media analogy. Brilliant!
Most peoples great ideas for games suck, it takes a lot of trial and error to find something that will appeal to people. And often times mediocrity is what appeals to the masses.
This russian gem deserves to be mentioned. It's not fun. It's so depressing I could barely stand playing it for long stretches. 10-15 mins was enough, 30mins was horrible. The unique concept results in a game that *is* a depressive nightmare. It's unique in a way; what other game makes you feel like killing yourself - just to end your own suffering? It's absolutely brilliant, and a hell to survive through. Interesting article about it: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/04/10/butchering-pathologic-part-1-the-body/
According to this research, ads in video games are more memorable when the game includes a violent component. This makes evolutionary sense, there are good reasons to pay attention during violent incidents. If you survive violence, you should remember what happened so you'll be able to survive next time.
This ability to learn quickly in relationship with violence might be useful in Instructional Design, especially when teaching facts that are inherently boring. For example, imagine a version of Quake which requires you to shoot one specific molecule type while avoiding shooting any of the others to teach organic chemistry. While you're looking for that one molecule type, you have billboards in the game world that teach you the others, which you'll need at higher levels.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
I played through Korsakovia a few days ago, and it was without doubt the scariest/creepiest game I have ever played. The thing was, it wasn't scary in a visceral way (enemy jumps out from behind corner) most of the time; it was scary in an intellectual way (Christopher's mind is falling apart and he is losing contact with the doctor). I recommend playing it.
http://pinopsida.com
Go watch the Uwe Boll movie of the game. It's everything the movie isn't.
Wouldn't it be interesting to get someone with Korsakoff's syndrome to play Korsakovia? Maybe the two would cancel each other out and everything would make sense.
Slashdot: news for Apple. Stuff that Apple.
Or better yet, try Crysis and tell me how easy that infinitely recharging shield AND infinitely recharging health makes it for you. If Halo's so damn easy you should breeze right through it with no trouble whatsoever and no skills or tactics required.
SPOILERS: In Halo your health is depleted rapidly when your shield runs out, and if your health runs out, you die - it's not significantly harder to get killed than in any other FPS. Crysis is even more generous, with both shields and health infinitely recharging, but is much more difficult. Parent has only played the first level or two of Halo and is talking out of his ass due to a (somewhat understandable) grudge against Halo fanboys.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
City layout changes every time you load save or enter a house.
Half done quests appear out of nowhere. Missions you started just disappear.
NPCs look different every time you talk to them.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Do critics decry games because games need, more than any other media, to be something a group of people can all agree on?
Not so much that it needs to be something people can agree on more than any other media, just that it's a much more difficult task. While most people can agree that a Disney movie about a fish trying to make his way home is cute and fun for the whole family, not everyone enjoys blowing the heads off aliens with 300 different types of explosive weapons. Now try making a video game about the same fish and his travels and let me know how it turns out. Either way, I prefer RPG's because believe it or not it is somewhat mentally engaging.
As for the fun aspect of video games: people are not going to play them unless they are enjoying the gameplay (unless they are like me and use stupid browser games to kill time while at work). If you want to make a game that offers a learning experience, you have to make it fun in some way. Even better, make it fun and don't give it away that they are learning while playing. Sneaky, huh?
After watching the promo, I think they should change the name to Epileptic-Seizuresakovia...
So we can really say that video game give a new experience that you could never had elsewhere!
I think that games that aren't fun are a good market to break into and could fill a void not currently occupied by other media. Just as the movie "Requiem for a Dream" was not meant for everyone and could not be appreciated by everyone I feel this relatively untapped sort of subgenre could be felt by a particular sect and have success for that market. As crazy as pop culture makes you with propagandized messages and viral marketing I think it would refreshing to have something that is already offkilter. I appreciate the creativity and more importantly the honesty of it all.