Notes Toward a Sense of Embodied Gameplay
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Notes Toward a Sense of Embodied Gameplay Peter Bayliss Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology 142 Latrobe Street Melbourne Victoria Australia 3000 [email protected] +61 03 99259970 ABSTRACT depth of complex considerations, ranging from socio- Despite the increasing maturity of the field of videogame cultural contexts of location, availability, competency, and studies, central concepts such as gameplay remain motivation through to the physical act of turning something underdeveloped, implicit in many theories yet without clear on and taking up the controls. An approach is developed investigation of the underlying assumptions informing here that focuses on a point between these two poles – the approaches to understanding it. Understanding gameplay as emergence of gameplay. a particular form of interactivity, the approach taken here The activity of gameplay is often considered to take place focuses on the notion of embodiment, drawing on Dourish's in a virtual realm, the player transported from their work concerning embodied interaction. The implication of corporeal reality into a world of polygons, abstract this approach is a focus on the concept of interface, which temporality, and arbitrary rule structures. The approach is developed here beyond the meanings adapted from taken here suggests an opposite movement, that rather the design and production contexts towards a more generalised videogame is drawn out from its existence as static software yet more powerful understanding that sees it as a particular code into the world we inhabit by the actions upon it by a site or space of interaction between two parties - the player player. This is to say that gameplay is an embodied and the game. An exploratory theoretical model of phenomenon, one that can only exist as experienced by the embodied gameplay is developed through a synthesis of player situated in the particular context of their own Dourish’s application of various phenomenological theories experience. This context comprises of many different social, to interactivity,1 Gibson’s ecological approach to perception, cultural, and personal considerations mentioned earlier, but and Järvinen et al’s approach to the concept of flow. what will be focused on here is how these contextual factors Author Keywords might affect the player’s experience of gameplay, looking Embodiment, Interface, gameplay, videogames not so much at what games they may play, or why they do, but rather examining in detail how gameplay emerges. Such INTRODUCTION a focus necessarily involves zeroing in on the interface used The current moves in the study of videogames away from to play. abstract treatments of formal mechanisms such as their The notion of the interface to be used here progresses narrative content or their ludological function towards the beyond the sense in which it is often used, particularly in socio-cultural context in which they emerge is welcome, but context of the design and production of videogames, as a in this movement something more fundamental underlying property of the game-system itself. A sense of the term will this context is over-looked – an understanding of the be developed that understands the interface as a particular activity of gameplay as an embodied phenomenon. The site or space where the interaction between the player and matter of interest in this paper is simply how does one play the game results in the particular experience we call a videogame? This is one of those disarmingly straight gameplay. The unique position of the interface as the forward questions which none-the-less conceals a great middle term between the player and the game provides many advantages to considering the issue of gameplay as an embodied experience. Firstly, as the aspect of the 1 Please note that the use of the ‘phenomenology’ in this videogame medium through which the player experiences paper attempts to follow Dourish in pragmatically applying play, it provides a perspective on the deeper levels such as aspects of differing approaches to the term. Though it is rule-structure and pacing from an embodied rather than noted that there are significant arguments overlooked by abstract view. Secondly, as the aspect through which the this usage, it is felt that a more substantial investigation of game-system communicates with its player, it is possible to these differences in regard to gameplay constitutes a infer from a range of design choices in both the software research project broader than what can be dealt with in the and hardware categories the likely audience group or limited space here. subgroup of particular games. Before considering these Situated Play, Proceedings of DiGRA 2007 Conference © 2007 Authors & Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA). Personal and educational classroom use of this paper is allowed, commercial use requires specific permission from the author. 96 issues in more detail, we need to unpack the concept of seems to be on its way to a slow recovery, with a variety of gameplay, and consider the nature of the experience. theorists setting their critical sights on it. Though there are many definitions of ‘interactive’ that could be explored here, THE EXPERIENCE OF GAMEPLAY there really isn’t the space or time. Instead we will focus on Gameplay is something of an indeterminate term, with a one approach, Salen & Zimmerman’s typological model, variety of different meanings, not to mention alternative which identifies four varieties of interactivity or spellings. The compounding of game with play can be engagement: cognitive/interpretive, functional/utilitarian, addressed in several ways, firstly and perhaps most explicit/participatory, and cultural [17]. 2 What is useful prominently, through Caillois’ differentiation between about this definition is that the different types correspond to paidia and ludus [3]. In this light, gameplay suggests an different kinds of engagement on the part of the player or activity which is simultaneously free and rule-bound, a user [17], and thus lend themselves to the layered model of meaning perhaps well suited for the type of activity the interface that I will discuss shortly. videogames offer their player. Another approach is to look at the two separate terms as belonging to different orders or One serious problem with Salen & Zimmerman’s dimensions. In this sense, we can follow Aarseth’s conception of interactivity is the assumption that it consists observation that games are at once both object and process of a series of meaningful choices by the player [16]. While [1]. That is, they exist as both static conditions for play, such a view of interactivity may be appropriate for a slowly formalised by their rule-set, as well as a dynamic activity paced strategy game such as chess, where the focus is on when these rules are applied to organise the behaviour of carefully considered moves, it seems less apt for faster players into consistently meaningful ‘moves’. In other paced games that demand a speedy response from the contexts, notably that of the production and consumption of player. For Salen & Zimmerman ‘choice’ seems to stand in videogames, ‘gameplay’ often refers to a property of the for a much more complex process involving intentionality, game itself, namely the nature of the experience that it skill, and physical limitations such as reaction time [17], offers the player, sometimes expressed simply as the which are all involved in taking action within a videogame. amount of time that the game will provide meaningful This broad notion is taken to somewhat counter-intuitive experiences. Such a definition is given by Rouse – “A degrees, such that “intuitive physical action” and the game’s gameplay is the degree and nature of the “random throw of a die” both constitute a form of choice interactivity that the game includes, i.e. how the players are for Salen & Zimmerman [17]. Their choice of “choice”, able to interact with the game-world and how that game- rather than the more appropriate “action>outcome unit” world reacts to the choices player make.” [14] Though the they also describe is a surprising one, and perhaps the actions of the player is implicit in Rouse’s definition due to legacy of hypertext theories of interactivity, or of overly the focus on interactivity, given that a videogame none-the- cognitivist assumptions about the experience of gameplay. less requires a player for it to function in the manner to As Heaton notes, “A decision in a sense is nothing … It is a which it was designed, the importance of the player should change in the state of the overall intent of the player[.]” [7] be explicitly acknowledged. – good intentions won’t get you through a boss level. Salen & Zimmerman’s definition is similar to Rouse’s, yet Heaton moves from the abstract notion of choice to the it more effectively captures these varied meanings more concrete idea of skills, differentiating between mentioned previously, describing gameplay as “the analytical and implementation skills [7], similar to the formalized interaction that occurs when players follow the evaluation and execution stages of Norman’s model of the rules of a game and experience its system through play.” action cycle [12], which the circular model of gameplay [17] The interplay between paidia and ludus is developed by Heaton also resembles. The example given by acknowledged by the fact that the player, though relatively Heaton of his cycle at work in a hypothetical situation in a free agent, follows the rules of the game. The dimensional Burnout 3 is telling – given the fast pace of the game the duality of Aarseth similarly so by the fact that the player’s “assessment of the risk and reward will be experience comes to pass by the player following the rules incomplete” [7]. Arguably it is the aporia-epiphany through play. Finally, the sense of gameplay as a property structure first identified by Aarseth [2], which is more of the game is more clearly articulated as the player’s central to the experience of playing Burnout 3 than the experience of the game-system through play, a more apt ability to make meaningful choices.