Michaël Samyn is sick of games.
So Michaël Samyn, if I'm not reading it wrong, thinks interactive entertainment is hamstrung by rules, hamstrung by being games. Rules, of course, are basically what games are. Give me all the rules for Halo 3 and I could play it with pen and paper, assuming I had the patience to do all the calculations myself, draw every frame pixel-by-pixel, and artificially slow down my reaction time so that the game was still challenging when every action took months to complete.
As it turns out I do have the patience for that, but Bungie won't return my calls.
"Let games be fun," says Michaël Samyn. And while we're at it, let's let pictures be porn. Sculpture, too, since the whole art form has its roots in statuettes of portly headless women. Why weigh pictures and sculpture down with all this meaning, all this depth? I declare it purposeless. I am tired of it, I say, tired of the whole debate, and I shall place myself outside of it. Above it, actually, if that's all right.
Some people are trying to give meaning and artistry to the medium of games, Michaël, and if you don't like it then at least explain why.
And, no, you really don't explain why you think games shouldn't be meaningful, or why meaningful things shouldn't be games. You give basically one reason, namely that all people do in games is "obey rules and follow commands." Well, obviously nothing meaningful can come out of an experience in which you-
http://playthisthing.com/train
Oh, sorry. I was just rudely interrupted by that link to a writeup of Train, a game in which you play as a train conductor, jamming people into train cars and ferrying them to their destination- which, when you reach, you discover is Auschwitz. Just following orders, as they say. Or, rules. Commands. But obviously it would be a better, more fun game if your destination was Candyland.
Anyway, the need to follow rules and commands is a restraint that's utterly meaningless in real life. What could we learn about ourselves by examining the rules we follow, the commands we obey? Nothing? Dare I say less than nothing? I'm gonna go with negative infinity on this one, just to be safe. So I-
http://mightyjilloff.dessgeega.com/
Another uninvited link, all up in my biz. That's Mighty Jill Off, where you play a submissive in a sexual relationship, ascending a perilous obstacle course at the whims of your mistress. In Mighty Jill Off, rules and commands are not just restrictions but kinks, a source of perverse pleasure. Since it's a personal statement about a sexual relationship, maybe it shouldn't be a game at all, but a drier, less fun form of interactive entertainment. I can't be all that important to communicate that the sub/dom relationship is not only based on following commands, but fun as well, can it?
It cannot!
So at this point I'm probably done being sarcastic. My two examples are outliers, I admit, but on a more basic level, games have goals, and for those goals to be meaningful, it's often necessary, or at least useful, for the goal to be tied to a story. And if you've got a story, why not make it a GOOD one? Or at least try! Even when games don't squeeze every drop of potential out of the medium they exist in, you can't just ask them to stop trying to be interesting.
I admit the field of interactive entertainment would be broader and more interesting if more people were doing what Tale of Tales was doing. But the dominance of games is not an indictment of their value.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Well Played 1.me
My Masters alma mater, the Entertainment Technology Center, just put out a compilation of video game essays, titled Well Played 1.0. I've taken a look, and there's some thoughtful stuff in there.
But I'd hardly call it complete. Here's a brief essay be me that didn't make the cut for Well Played 1.0. Why not? Oh, lots of reasons. Favoritism. Politics. The fact that I just wrote it today. Anyway, here it is:
Quickly Retrieve Victory from Adversity: Imagination and Transcendence in Problem Sleuth
Problem Sleuth is a web-based faux text adventure with images, drawn and authored by Andrew Hussie and driven by reader suggestions. It begins with a private detective named Problem Sleuth locked in his office, and grows exponentially into an epic cosmic battle. In each update of Problem Sleuth, Andrew Hussie collected suggestions for the actions of the player characters and drew more panels representing the suggestions he chose. Problem Sleuth is in one sense a collaborative story, but also certainly a game.
The world of Problem Sleuth initially delights in denying satisfaction to the user. For dozens of pages, literally nothing the player does through Problem Sleuth succeeds(besides picking up objects). When he tries to use his phone, it is broken. When he tries to punch through the door's glass panel, the "glass" is revealed as a piece of paper taped to the door. When he tries to pick up the gun from his desk, it transforms into a key.
Similar failures mount up, similarly improbable. The game's patience for stymieing the player seems inexhaustible. But then something changes.
One reader, whose name is lost to time, suggests that Problem Sleuth build a fort from his desk (which was recently revealed to be constructed of boards and cinderblocks), and one reader suggests that he uses his imagination to play make-believe. Inside the fort, Problem Sleuth imagines his perfect life: an unlocked office, a working phone, two steak dinners...
Then the phone rings, waking him from his reverie. The call itself is fruitless, but, having dreamed and woken, Problem Sleuth immediately begins discovering new avenues of exploration. His office's window is revealed as a portable portal to another place, he finds a way to see into the adjacent office, and he discovers a key to a secret room. Seemingly, his imagination is what makes these things possible; he's now able to stay one step ahead of a world of nonsensical rules and unfair obstacles.
This kind of transcendence is the same thing we see in many well-designed game experiences. Not all of them, certainly; the player can get one step ahead of Tetris, but Tetris will catch up and win every time. But in single player games with "campaign modes," which is to say any mode of play wherein the player moves from a beginning to an end, a good game slowly feeds knowledge of its rules to the player, letting the human player's single advantage over the game - imagination - compile that knowledge into mastery. Through imagination, testing, and learning, the player comes to know the game world, inside and out.
Think of the experience of playing Super Mario Bros. for the first time. Unlike the opening of Problem Sleuth, it's not designed to frustrate, but the rules are still strange. Why can Mario jump so high? Why can I only attack enemies from above? Why don't my fireballs work on beetles?
Then imagine watching a skilled speedrun of Super Mario Bros. Or performing one, if that's your thing. The player has transcended the boundaries of the game and composed its rules into a perfect, victorious symphony. The rules of the game are no longer restrictions, but tools. The game's destiny, its life cycle, is to begin as the master and, by degrees, hand mastery over to the player.
This same kind of victory is exaggerated gloriously in the culmination of Problem Sleuth, when the final frustration is overcome. With the help of his allies, Problem Sleuth takes down the final boss, Demonhead Mobster Kingpin. DMK, in a panic, conjures hundreds of new life meters for himself (after Problem Sleuth expended considerable effort to drain two such meters). This final affront to fairness is met not only with righteous fury, but with more imagination: rather than deal more damage to DMK, Problem Sleuth smashes the life meters themselves, tearing through them in seconds. Finally, after all this time, there is no trick the world can pull that Problem Sleuth, and the readership that guides him, cannot overcome.
That experience of transcendence is what games create, at their best. And they teach by example, asking the player to believe in a world where nothing is hopeless, and the rules can be learned and mastered.
But I'd hardly call it complete. Here's a brief essay be me that didn't make the cut for Well Played 1.0. Why not? Oh, lots of reasons. Favoritism. Politics. The fact that I just wrote it today. Anyway, here it is:
Quickly Retrieve Victory from Adversity: Imagination and Transcendence in Problem Sleuth
Problem Sleuth is a web-based faux text adventure with images, drawn and authored by Andrew Hussie and driven by reader suggestions. It begins with a private detective named Problem Sleuth locked in his office, and grows exponentially into an epic cosmic battle. In each update of Problem Sleuth, Andrew Hussie collected suggestions for the actions of the player characters and drew more panels representing the suggestions he chose. Problem Sleuth is in one sense a collaborative story, but also certainly a game.
The world of Problem Sleuth initially delights in denying satisfaction to the user. For dozens of pages, literally nothing the player does through Problem Sleuth succeeds(besides picking up objects). When he tries to use his phone, it is broken. When he tries to punch through the door's glass panel, the "glass" is revealed as a piece of paper taped to the door. When he tries to pick up the gun from his desk, it transforms into a key.
Similar failures mount up, similarly improbable. The game's patience for stymieing the player seems inexhaustible. But then something changes.
One reader, whose name is lost to time, suggests that Problem Sleuth build a fort from his desk (which was recently revealed to be constructed of boards and cinderblocks), and one reader suggests that he uses his imagination to play make-believe. Inside the fort, Problem Sleuth imagines his perfect life: an unlocked office, a working phone, two steak dinners...
Then the phone rings, waking him from his reverie. The call itself is fruitless, but, having dreamed and woken, Problem Sleuth immediately begins discovering new avenues of exploration. His office's window is revealed as a portable portal to another place, he finds a way to see into the adjacent office, and he discovers a key to a secret room. Seemingly, his imagination is what makes these things possible; he's now able to stay one step ahead of a world of nonsensical rules and unfair obstacles.
This kind of transcendence is the same thing we see in many well-designed game experiences. Not all of them, certainly; the player can get one step ahead of Tetris, but Tetris will catch up and win every time. But in single player games with "campaign modes," which is to say any mode of play wherein the player moves from a beginning to an end, a good game slowly feeds knowledge of its rules to the player, letting the human player's single advantage over the game - imagination - compile that knowledge into mastery. Through imagination, testing, and learning, the player comes to know the game world, inside and out.
Think of the experience of playing Super Mario Bros. for the first time. Unlike the opening of Problem Sleuth, it's not designed to frustrate, but the rules are still strange. Why can Mario jump so high? Why can I only attack enemies from above? Why don't my fireballs work on beetles?
Then imagine watching a skilled speedrun of Super Mario Bros. Or performing one, if that's your thing. The player has transcended the boundaries of the game and composed its rules into a perfect, victorious symphony. The rules of the game are no longer restrictions, but tools. The game's destiny, its life cycle, is to begin as the master and, by degrees, hand mastery over to the player.
This same kind of victory is exaggerated gloriously in the culmination of Problem Sleuth, when the final frustration is overcome. With the help of his allies, Problem Sleuth takes down the final boss, Demonhead Mobster Kingpin. DMK, in a panic, conjures hundreds of new life meters for himself (after Problem Sleuth expended considerable effort to drain two such meters). This final affront to fairness is met not only with righteous fury, but with more imagination: rather than deal more damage to DMK, Problem Sleuth smashes the life meters themselves, tearing through them in seconds. Finally, after all this time, there is no trick the world can pull that Problem Sleuth, and the readership that guides him, cannot overcome.
That experience of transcendence is what games create, at their best. And they teach by example, asking the player to believe in a world where nothing is hopeless, and the rules can be learned and mastered.
Monday, May 4, 2009
A Magic Trick for You
You may have heard about Penn and Teller's gravestone at Forest Lawn. There's a trick you can do with it, where you "card force" the three of clubs into someone's hand in the guise of a normal card trick, then have them hold onto it until they reach Penn and Teller's grave marker, which asks if the three of clubs is your card. Your friend looks at the three of clubs and is amazed.
That's a good trick, but here's a better one:
You do everything the same way as the last trick, except you card force any card besides the three of clubs. Come on, P&T, you went to all the trouble of getting a gravestone at Forest Lawn prior to your actual deaths, and you don't realize that getting the card wrong is a lot funnier? For shame.
That's a good trick, but here's a better one:
You do everything the same way as the last trick, except you card force any card besides the three of clubs. Come on, P&T, you went to all the trouble of getting a gravestone at Forest Lawn prior to your actual deaths, and you don't realize that getting the card wrong is a lot funnier? For shame.
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