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SCAN | Journal of Media Arts Culture
Scan Journal vol 7 number 1 april 2010 Fable 2 as Simulation, Game and Narrative: A Contest Adam Ruch The study of a videogame is a complicated undertaking. One must address many features of the artefact, ranging from story and narrative, visual aesthetic, and musical score, to gameplay mechanics and interface. Peter Molyneux's Fable 2 (2008) here will provide a case study for many of these features, as its mechanics design push its narrative to the edge of coherence. The position this game occupies between algorithmic and expository makes it a fertile area for examining new ways of "story-telling", including the use of narrative architectures, database narrative, or interactive narrative. Whatever term we apply, we must continue to apply stringent critical awareness to the material itself, as is the aim here. As this article will assume prior knowledge of Fable 2, it is highly recommended that the reader at least be familiar with the material here1 before proceeding. Better yet, play the game! Fable 2 is a classic example of the tendency of Peter Molyneux's games to err on the side of over-ambition. Molyneux is well-known for his bombastic press releases and zealous language when describing the mechanics of his games. Words like "completely" riddle his speeches, as well as "revolutionary" or "totally new". (Molyneux, Peter Molyneux Interview 2008) (Molyneux 2009) (Kikizo 2004) (Wilcox 2008) Molyneux's games tend to focus on "revolutionary" mechanics to create gameplay experiences (Black & White, Fable and Fable 2 all support increasingly dynamic AI features, for example). Fable 2 relies on its mechanics to create interesting gameplay, rather than on an original narrative. -
DESIGN-DRIVEN APPROACHES TOWARD MORE EXPRESSIVE STORYGAMES a Dissertation Submitted in Partial Satisfaction of the Requirements for the Degree Of
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ CHANGEFUL TALES: DESIGN-DRIVEN APPROACHES TOWARD MORE EXPRESSIVE STORYGAMES A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in COMPUTER SCIENCE by Aaron A. Reed June 2017 The Dissertation of Aaron A. Reed is approved: Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Chair Michael Mateas Michael Chemers Dean Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright c by Aaron A. Reed 2017 Table of Contents List of Figures viii List of Tables xii Abstract xiii Acknowledgments xv Introduction 1 1 Framework 15 1.1 Vocabulary . 15 1.1.1 Foundational terms . 15 1.1.2 Storygames . 18 1.1.2.1 Adventure as prototypical storygame . 19 1.1.2.2 What Isn't a Storygame? . 21 1.1.3 Expressive Input . 24 1.1.4 Why Fiction? . 27 1.2 A Framework for Storygame Discussion . 30 1.2.1 The Slipperiness of Genre . 30 1.2.2 Inputs, Events, and Actions . 31 1.2.3 Mechanics and Dynamics . 32 1.2.4 Operational Logics . 33 1.2.5 Narrative Mechanics . 34 1.2.6 Narrative Logics . 36 1.2.7 The Choice Graph: A Standard Narrative Logic . 38 2 The Adventure Game: An Existing Storygame Mode 44 2.1 Definition . 46 2.2 Eureka Stories . 56 2.3 The Adventure Triangle and its Flaws . 60 2.3.1 Instability . 65 iii 2.4 Blue Lacuna ................................. 66 2.5 Three Design Solutions . 69 2.5.1 The Witness ............................. 70 2.5.2 Firewatch ............................... 78 2.5.3 Her Story ............................... 86 2.6 A Technological Fix? . -
Indoor Fireworks: the Pleasures of Digital Game Pyrotechnics
Indoor Fireworks: the Pleasures of Digital Game Pyrotechnics Simon Niedenthal Malmö University, School of Arts and Communication Malmö, Sweden [email protected] Abstract: Fireworks in games translate the sensory power of a real-world aesthetic form to the realm of digital simulation and gameplay. Understanding the role of fireworks in games can best be pursued through through a threefold aesthetic perspective that focuses on the senses, on art, and on the aesthetic experience that gives pleasure through the player’s participation in the simulation, gameplay and narrative potentials of fireworks. In games ranging from Wii Sports and Fantavision, to Okami and Assassin’s Creed II, digital fireworks are employed as a light effect, and are also the site for gameplay pleasures that include design and performance, timing and rhythm, and power and awe. Fireworks also gain narrative significance in game forms through association with specific sequences and characters. Ultimately, understanding the role of fireworks in games provokes us to reverse the scrutiny, and to consider games as fireworks, through which we experience ludic festivity and voluptuous panic. Keywords: Fireworks, Pyrotechnics, Digital Games, Game Aesthetics 1. Introduction: On March 9th, 2000, Sony released the fireworks-themed Fantavision (Sony Computer Entertainment 2000) in Japan as one of the very first titles for its then new Playstation 2. Fantavision exhibits many of the desirable qualities for good launch title: simulation properties that show off new graphic capabilities, established gameplay that is quick to grasp, a broad appeal. Though the critical reception for the game was ultimately lukewarm (a 72 rating from Metacritic.com), it is notable that Sony launched its new console with a fireworks game. -
Estudios Sega Europe
ESTUDIOS SEGA EUROPE UNITED GAME ARTISTS Ya sea con carreras de rallies o con ritmos de rock, United Game Artists (antes AM9) toca todos los terrenos. Desde sus orígenes como uno de los mejores equipos de Sega en el campo de los juegos de carreras (con títulos como Sega Rally Championship) hasta su nuevo interés por marchosos juegos musicales (con, por ejemplo, Space Channel 5), UGA ha demostrado que nadie les supera a la hora de hacer las cosas con estilo. AM9 se transformó en United Game Artists el 27 de abril de 2000 y su sede, que da cabida a 55 empleados presididos por Tetsuya Mizuguchi, se encuentra en el moderno distrito de Shibuya, en Tokio. Mizuguchi nació en Sapporo y asistió a la Facultad de Bellas de Artes de la Nihon University, para luego entrar en Sega en 1990. Su primer trabajo fue Megalopolice, película japonesa de carreras con gráficos creados por ordenador. A continuación, puso sus miras en los simuladores deportivos y en 1995 creó una obra maestra de las salas recreativas, Sega Rally Championship. Simulando el siempre resbaladizo y todoterreno mundo del rally, el juego de Sega destacó por un estilo de conducción del todo innovador para cualquier aficionado a los arcades. Entre las características de Sega Rally estaba la posibilidad de escoger 2 coches y competir en 3 pistas distintas, unos gráficos sorprendentes gracias a la placa Model 2, un sencillo sistema de control y un modo de competición. Además, se creó incluso una versión de la máquina que traía una réplica de un coche con sistema hidráulico.. -
Art Worlds for Art Games Edited
Loading… The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association Vol 7(11): 41-60 http://loading.gamestudies.ca An Art World for Artgames Felan Parker York University [email protected] Abstract Drawing together the insights of game studies, aesthetics, and the sociology of art, this article examines the legitimation of ‘artgames’ as a category of indie games with particularly high cultural and artistic status. Passage (PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, 2007) serves as a case study, demonstrating how a diverse range of factors and processes, including a conducive ‘opportunity space’, changes in independent game production, distribution, and reception, and the emergence of a critical discourse, collectively produce an assemblage or ‘art world’ (Baumann, 2007a; 2007b) that constitutes artgames as legitimate art. Author Keywords Artgames; legitimation; art world; indie games; critical discourse; authorship; Passage; Rohrer Introduction The seemingly meteoric rise to widespread recognition of ‘indie’ digital games in recent years is the product of a much longer process made up of many diverse elements. It is generally accepted as a given that indie games now play an important role in the industry and culture of digital games, but just over a decade ago there was no such category in popular discourse – independent game production went by other names (freeware, shareware, amateur, bedroom) and took place in insular, autonomous communities of practice focused on particular game-creation tools or genres, with their own distribution networks, audiences, and systems of evaluation, only occasionally connected with a larger marketplace. Even five years ago, the idea of indie games was still burgeoning and becoming stable, and it is the historical moment around 2007 that I will address in this article. -
Programming and Engagement Coordinator Kathleen Lacey, SWPACA Awards Coordinator and Michael K
#SWPACA17 Southwest Popular/American Culture Association 38th Annual Conference February 15–18, 2017 — Albuquerque, New Mexico Welcome 2017 Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference Bienvenidos a Albuquerque! Welcome to the 38th Annual Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference—we are so pleased that you have joined us. We look forward to sharing the week with the diverse group of scholars who join us here in Albuquerque this year. We have a full complement of panels this year, drawn from our 71 subject areas and ranging in topic from adaptation studies to zombie culture. We hope you will have opportunity to sample a variety of these offerings. In particular, we would like to highlight the Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary at this year’s conference. You can locate the Grateful Dead in Grand Pavilion IV all week, where they will be holding 14 sessions over the course of four days. Join them as they consider the intersections between the band and cinema, philosophy, and literature, among other topics. To further commemorate this anniversary, David Gans will perform on Friday night with Albuquerque's own Dead cover band Let It Grow, at Low Spirits (2823 2nd Street NW). Doors open at 8:00pm, and the show starts at 9:00. Thank you, Nick Meriwether and all of the Caucus faithful, for your continued contributions to our organization. We are excited to announce our inaugural SWPACA film series, taking place on Thursday and Friday in Grand Pavilion I-II. Invited filmmakers will be screening their original work, with question-and-answer opportunities to follow. -
ACADEMY of INTERACTIVE ARTS and SCIENCES (AIAS) to PRESENT PETER MOLYNEUX with COVETED HALL of FAME AWARD at 7Th ANNUAL INTERACTIVE ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
For Immediate Release ACADEMY OF INTERACTIVE ARTS AND SCIENCES (AIAS) TO PRESENT PETER MOLYNEUX WITH COVETED HALL OF FAME AWARD AT 7th ANNUAL INTERACTIVE ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS LOS ANGELES, CA – (March 2, 2004) – The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS), the professional organization of the interactive entertainment industry, today announced that it will present Peter Molyneux, Managing Director, Lionhead Studios with its illustrious Hall of Fame award. The Hall of Fame award will be presented to Mr. Molyneux during the Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, which will be held at Rain in the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas on March 4. Peter Molyneux is one of the best-known names in the international world of computer games. He co-founded Bullfrog Productions in 1987 and created a new genre of computer games, “the god game” with the release of Populous. Since then Peter has been responsible for a string of massive selling games including Powermonger, Theme Park, Magic Carpet and Dungeon Keeper. Cumulative sales of his games are now approaching the ten million mark worldwide. In 1997 Peter left Bullfrog Productions to form a new games development company Lionhead Studios. The company’s first game Black & White was released to wide spread critical acclaim in April 2001 and sales currently top the two million mark. Peter is recognized as one of the computer games industry’s most articulate and eloquent speakers on the subject of the development of computer games. He has spoken at the American Museum of the Moving Image, the British Film Institute, ICA (London), the Tate Gallery and the Dortmund Museum of History and Culture. -
The Dreamcast, Console of the Avant-Garde
Loading… The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association Vol 6(9): 82-99 http://loading.gamestudies.ca The Dreamcast, Console of the Avant-Garde Nick Montfort Mia Consalvo Massachusetts Institute of Technology Concordia University [email protected] [email protected] Abstract We argue that the Dreamcast hosted a remarkable amount of videogame development that went beyond the odd and unusual and is interesting when considered as avant-garde. After characterizing the avant-garde, we investigate reasons that Sega's position within the industry and their policies may have facilitated development that expressed itself in this way and was received by gamers using terms that are associated with avant-garde work. We describe five Dreamcast games (Jet Grind Radio, Space Channel 5, Rez, Seaman, and SGGG) and explain how the advances made by these industrially productions are related to the 20th century avant- garde's lesser advances in the arts. We conclude by considering the contributions to gaming that were made on the Dreamcast and the areas of inquiry that remain to be explored by console videogame developers today. Author Keywords Aesthetics; art; avant-garde; commerce; console games; Dreamcast; game studios; platforms; politics; Sega; Tetsuya Mizuguchi Introduction A platform can facilitate new types of videogame development and can expand the concept of videogaming. The Dreamcast, however brief its commercial life, was a platform that allowed for such work to happen and that accomplished this. It is not just that there were a large number of weird or unusual games developed during the short commercial life of this platform. We argue, rather, that avant-garde videogame development happened on the Dreamcast, even though this development occurred in industrial rather than "indie" or art contexts. -
The Role of Audio for Immersion in Computer Games
CAPTIVATING SOUND THE ROLE OF AUDIO FOR IMMERSION IN COMPUTER GAMES by Sander Huiberts Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD at the Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU) Utrecht, The Netherlands and the University of Portsmouth Portsmouth, United Kingdom November 2010 Captivating Sound The role of audio for immersion in computer games © 2002‐2010 S.C. Huiberts Supervisor: Jan IJzermans Director of Studies: Tony Kalus Examiners: Dick Rijken, Dan Pinchbeck 2 Whilst registered as a candidate for the above degree, I have not been registered for any other research award. The results and conclusions embodied in this thesis are the work of the named candidate and have not been submitted for any other academic award. 3 Contents Abstract__________________________________________________________________________________________ 6 Preface___________________________________________________________________________________________ 7 1. Introduction __________________________________________________________________________________ 8 1.1 Motivation and background_____________________________________________________________ 8 1.2 Definition of research area and methodology _______________________________________ 11 Approach_________________________________________________________________________________ 11 Survey methods _________________________________________________________________________ 12 2. Game audio: the IEZA model ______________________________________________________________ 14 2.1 Understanding the structure -
University of California Santa Cruz Learning from Games
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ LEARNING FROM GAMES FOR GENERATIVE PURPOSES A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in COMPUTER SCIENCE by Adam J. Summerville June 2018 The Dissertation of Adam J. Summerville is approved: Professor Michael Mateas, Chair Professor Noah Wardrip-Fruin Professor Santiago Ontañón Dean Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Adam J. Summerville 2018 Table of Contents List of Figures vi List of Tables xiv Abstract xvi Dedication xvii Acknowledgments xviii 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Research Contributions ........................... 5 I Learning From Game 7 2 How Humans Understand Games 8 2.1 Human Annotation Tasks .......................... 17 2.2 Entity Persistence .............................. 17 2.3 Camera Motion ................................ 18 2.4 Room Detection ............................... 21 2.4.1 Teleportation ............................. 23 2.4.2 Traversal ............................... 25 2.5 Animation Cycles ............................... 32 2.6 Mode Dynamics ................................ 34 2.7 Conclusion .................................. 36 3 Mappy – A System for Map Extraction and Annotation via Observa- tion 37 3.1 NES Architecture and Emulation ...................... 41 3.2 Operationalizing Entity Persistence ..................... 43 3.3 Inferring Camera Motion .......................... 49 iii 3.4 Determining Room Transitions ....................... 59 3.4.1 Automatic Mapping ........................ -
Foundations for Music-Based Games
Die approbierte Originalversion dieser Diplom-/Masterarbeit ist an der Hauptbibliothek der Technischen Universität Wien aufgestellt (http://www.ub.tuwien.ac.at). The approved original version of this diploma or master thesis is available at the main library of the Vienna University of Technology (http://www.ub.tuwien.ac.at/englweb/). MASTERARBEIT Foundations for Music-Based Games Ausgeführt am Institut für Gestaltungs- und Wirkungsforschung der Technischen Universität Wien unter der Anleitung von Ao.Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn. Peter Purgathofer und Univ.Ass. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn. Martin Pichlmair durch Marc-Oliver Marschner Arndtstrasse 60/5a, A-1120 WIEN 01.02.2008 Abstract The goal of this document is to establish a foundation for the creation of music-based computer and video games. The first part is intended to give an overview of sound in video and computer games. It starts with a summary of the history of game sound, beginning with the arguably first documented game, Tennis for Two, and leading up to current developments in the field. Next I present a short introduction to audio, including descriptions of the basic properties of sound waves, as well as of the special characteristics of digital audio. I continue with a presentation of the possibilities of storing digital audio and a summary of the methods used to play back sound with an emphasis on the recreation of realistic environments and the positioning of sound sources in three dimensional space. The chapter is concluded with an overview of possible categorizations of game audio including a method to differentiate between music-based games. -
High-Performance Play: the Making of Machinima
High-Performance Play: The Making of Machinima Henry Lowood Stanford University <DRAFT. Do not cite or distribute. To appear in: Videogames and Art: Intersections and Interactions, Andy Clarke and Grethe Mitchell (eds.), Intellect Books (UK), 2005. Please contact author, [email protected], for permission.> Abstract: Machinima is the making of animated movies in real time through the use of computer game technology. The projects that launched machinima embedded gameplay in practices of performance, spectatorship, subversion, modification, and community. This article is concerned primarily with the earliest machinima projects. In this phase, DOOM and especially Quake movie makers created practices of game performance and high-performance technology that yielded a new medium for linear storytelling and artistic expression. My aim is not to answer the question, “are games art?”, but to suggest that game-based performance practices will influence work in artistic and narrative media. Biography: Henry Lowood is Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections at Stanford University and co-Principal Investigator for the How They Got Game Project in the Stanford Humanities Laboratory. A historian of science and technology, he teaches Stanford’s annual course on the history of computer game design. With the collaboration of the Internet Archive and the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences, he is currently working on a project to develop The Machinima Archive, a permanent repository to document the history of Machinima moviemaking. A body of research on the social and cultural impacts of interactive entertainment is gradually replacing the dismissal of computer games and videogames as mindless amusement for young boys. There are many good reasons for taking computer games1 seriously.