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Chell Game: Representation, Identification, and Racial Ambiguity in PORTAL and PORTAL 2 2015
Repositorium für die Medienwissenschaft Jennifer deWinter; Carly A. Kocurek Chell Game: Representation, Identification, and Racial Ambiguity in PORTAL and PORTAL 2 2015 https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/14996 Veröffentlichungsversion / published version Sammelbandbeitrag / collection article Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: deWinter, Jennifer; Kocurek, Carly A.: Chell Game: Representation, Identification, and Racial Ambiguity in PORTAL and PORTAL 2. In: Thomas Hensel, Britta Neitzel, Rolf F. Nohr (Hg.): »The cake is a lie!« Polyperspektivische Betrachtungen des Computerspiels am Beispiel von PORTAL. Münster: LIT 2015, S. 31– 48. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/14996. Erstmalig hier erschienen / Initial publication here: http://nuetzliche-bilder.de/bilder/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Hensel_Neitzel_Nohr_Portal_Onlienausgabe.pdf Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer Creative Commons - This document is made available under a creative commons - Namensnennung - Nicht kommerziell - Weitergabe unter Attribution - Non Commercial - Share Alike 3.0/ License. For more gleichen Bedingungen 3.0/ Lizenz zur Verfügung gestellt. Nähere information see: Auskünfte zu dieser Lizenz finden Sie hier: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ Jennifer deWinter / Carly A. Kocurek Chell Game: Representation, Identification, and Racial Ambiguity in ›Portal‹ and ›Portal 2‹ Chell stands in a corner facing a portal, then takes aim at the adjacent wall with the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. Between the two portals, one ringed in blue, one ringed in orange, Chell is revealed, reflected in both. And, so, we, the player, see Chell. She is a young woman with a ponytail, wearing an orange jumpsuit pulled down to her waist and an Aperture Science-branded white tank top. -
Portal: Impact Guide for Players
Portal: Impact Guide For Players Portal and Portal 2 are games developed by Valve Corporation available for consoles and PCs. The games are first-person puzzle solving games but also provide rich narrative development, interesting characters, and have developed a strong cultural impact including merchandise and a popular series of internet memes. The popularity of the Portal series stems from the quality of the games and from the way the games teach players how to play them so seamlessly. Indeed, Portal is one of the very best games at presenting players with embodied learning and scaffolded instruction – a model for 21st century teaching. How to use this guide: Players – We’ve identified several interesting or important themes in the game. As you play through, reflect on your play. How have you experienced these themes? Are there other important ones present in the game? What kind of impact does your play allow in the larger world? Answer the questions we’ve provided – but feel free to add more at www.gamesandimpact.org. Warning: Questions contain some spoilers about the games. Theme: Problem Solving Portal begins with a player alone in a test chamber; solving puzzles is a key mechanic for both the gameplay and for the story of the game. Puzzles gradually get more difficult as players are given tools sequentially in order to build on top of their previous solutions. Game Why do you think the game doesn’t give you the portal gun immediately? What is the point of limiting you in the early part of the game? Why do you think the test chambers are designed the way they are? What do you think the game’s designers are trying to teach you? At the end of the 19 test chambers, you begin the second part of the game where you get to face GLaDOS directly. -
Super Mario Portal Game
1 / 2 Super Mario Portal Game Lessons of Game Design learned from Super Mario Maker ... The portal gun is one of those mechanics that sounds like it has an unlimited .... The game combines the elements of the two popular video games: the platforming Super Mario Bros and the puzzle solving Portal. The game retains the traditional .... It's a mashup of Nintendo's classic Super Mario Bros. platform game with Portal. That's right – Mario now has a portal gun, which he can use to .... New Super Mario Bros. U is a game ... Portal 2, like Minecraft, is a highly popular console game that encourages experimentation and flexibility.. Last August we were promised to be able to play the classic Super Mario Bros. with 1 major difference integrated into the game. Aperature ... mario portal game · super mario bros meets portal game · blue television games portal mario.. Mario Bros Mappack Portal Mappack Mari0 Bros Mappack No WW Mari0 ... If you enjoy this game then also play games Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario 64.. Much like nuts and gum, Portal and Super Mario Bros. are together at last.. Click on this exciting game of the classic Super Mario bros, Portal Mario bros 64. You must help the famous Mario bros to defend himself from all his enemies in .... and Portal hybrid from indie game developer Stabyourself.net. Yup, it's the old Super Mario Bros. with portal guns, user created content, a map .... Mario and Portal, a perfect mix. Super Smash Flash 2. A fun game inspired by Super Smash Bros. -
The Heroic Journey of a Villain
Háskóli Íslands Hugvísindasvið Enska The Heroic Journey of a Villain The Lost and Found Humanity of an Artificial Intelligence Ritgerð til MA-prófs í Ensku Ásta Karen Ólafsdóttir Kt.: 150390-2499 Leiðbeinandi: Guðrún B. Guðsteinsdóttir Maí 2017 Abstract In this essay, we will look at the villain of the Portal franchise, the artificial intelligence GLaDOS, in context with Maureen Murdock’s theory of the “Heroine’s Journey,” from her book The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness. The essay argues that although GLaDOS is not a heroine in the conventional sense, she is just as important of a figure in the franchise as its protagonist, Chell. GLaDOS acts both as the first game’s narrator and villain, as she runs the Aperture Science Enrichment Center where the games take place. Unlike Chell, GLaDOS is a speaking character with a complex backstory and goes through real character development as the franchise’s story progresses. The essay is divided into four chapters, a short history of women’s part as characters in video games, an introduction to Murdock’s “The Heroine’s Journey,” and its context to John Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey,” a chapter on the Portal franchises, and then we go through “The Heroine’s Journey,” in regards to GLaDOS, and each step in its own subchapter. Our main focus will be on the second installment in the series, Portal 2. Since, in that game, GLaDOS goes through most of her heroine’s journey. In the first game, Portal, GLaDOS separates from her femininity and embraces the masculine, causing her fractured psyche, and as the player goes through Portal 2 along with her, she reclaims her femininity, finds her inner masculinity, and regains wholeness. -
The Computational Complexity of Portal And
1 The Computational Complexity of Portal and 2 Other 3D Video Games 3 Erik D. Demaine 4 MIT CSAIL, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA 5 [email protected] 1 6 Joshua Lockhart 7 Department of Computer Science, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK 8 [email protected] 9 Jayson Lynch 10 MIT CSAIL, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA 11 [email protected] 12 Abstract 13 We classify the computational complexity of the popular video games Portal and Portal 2. We 14 isolate individual mechanics of the game and prove NP-hardness, PSPACE-completeness, or 15 pseudo-polynomiality depending on the specific game mechanics allowed. One of our proofs 16 generalizes to prove NP-hardness of many other video games such as Half-Life 2, Halo, Doom, 17 Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Grand Theft Auto, Left 4 Dead, Mass Effect, Deus Ex, Metal Gear Solid, 18 and Resident Evil. These results build on the established literature on the complexity of video 19 games [1, 3, 7, 18]. 20 2012 ACM Subject Classification Dummy classification 21 Keywords and phrases video games, hardness, motion planning, NP, PSPACE 22 Digital Object Identifier 10.4230/LIPIcs.FUN.2018.19 23 Related Version arXiv:1611.10319 24 1 Introduction 25 In Valve’s critically acclaimed Portal franchise, the player guides Chell (the game’s silent 26 protagonist) through a “test facility” constructed by the mysterious fictional organization 27 Aperture Science. Its unique game mechanic is the Portal Gun, which enables the player 28 to place a pair of portals on certain surfaces within each test chamber. -
The Computational Complexity of Portal and Other 3D Video Games
The Computational Complexity of Portal and Other 3D Video Games Erik D. Demaine* Joshua Lockharty Jayson Lynch* Abstract We classify the computational complexity of the popular video games Portal and Portal 2. We isolate individual mechanics of the game and prove NP-hardness, PSPACE-completeness, or (pseudo)polynomiality depending on the specific game mechanics allowed. One of our proofs generalizes to prove NP-hardness of many other video games such as Half-Life 2, Halo, Doom, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Grand Theft Auto, Left 4 Dead, Mass Effect, Deus Ex, Metal Gear Solid, and Resident Evil. These results build on the established literature on the complexity of video games [Vig14, ADGV14, For10,Cor04]. 1 Introduction In Valve’s critically acclaimed Portal franchise, the player guides Chell (the game’s silent protago- nist) through a “test facility” constructed by the mysterious fictional organization Aperture Science. Its unique game mechanic is the Portal Gun, which enables the player to place a pair of portals on certain surfaces within each test chamber. When the player avatar jumps into one of the portals, they are instantly transported to the other. This mechanic, coupled with the fact that in-game items can be thrown through the portals, has allowed the developers to create a series of unique and challenging puzzles for the player to solve as they guide Chell to freedom. Indeed, the Portal series has proved extremely popular, and is estimated to have sold more than 22 million copies [YP, stea, Cao,steb]. We analyze the computational complexity of Portal following the recent surge of interest in complexity analysis of video games and puzzles. -
The Performative Interactivity of Video Games
SHALL WE PLAY A GAME?: THE PERFORMATIVE INTERACTIVITY OF VIDEO GAMES Michael J. Beck Thesis Prepared for the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS August 2014 APPROVED: John M. Allison, Jr., Major Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication Studies Justin T. Trudeau, Committee Member Shaun Treat, Committee Member Holley Vaughn, Committee Member Mark Wardell, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Beck, Michael J. Shall We Play a Game? The Performative Interactivity of Video Games. Master of Science (Communication Studies), August 2014, 113 pp., bibliography, 61 titles. This study examines the ways that videogames and live performance are informed by play theory. Utilizing performance studies methodologies, specifically personal narrative and autoperformance, the project explores the embodied ways that gamers know and understand videogames. A staged performance, “Shall We Play a Game?,” was crafted using Brechtian theatre techniques and Conquergood’s three A’s of performance, and served as the basis for the examination. This project seeks to dispel popular misconceptions about videogames and performance and to expand understanding about videogaming as an embodied performative practice and a way of knowing that has practical implications for everyday life. Copyright 2014 by Michael J. Beck ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapters 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................. -
Methods of Intimacy in Fantasy Role-Playing Game Communities
CONSTRUCTING ELYSIUM AND PLAYING UGLY: METHODS OF INTIMACY IN FANTASY ROLE-PLAYING GAME COMMUNITIES Genesis Marie Downey A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2015 Committee: Radhika Gajjala, Advisor Lesa L. Lockford Graduate Faculty Representative Kristine Blair Sandra Faulkner © 2015 Genesis Marie Downey All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Radhika Gajjala, Advisor Using Johan Huizinga’s concept of the magic circle as a context for understanding how sacred spaces reserved for play manifest within role-playing game (RPG) environments both digital and table-top, this dissertation argues that while certain elements of the magic circle are still present, the vast amount of work produced to monitor the boundaries of sacred game space stem from the intimate relationships between players. Online RPG environments are open to critique due to the seemingly wide-spread use of hostility as a gate-keeping tactic. Numerous studies and digital media scholars have examined how bullying, harassment, and bodily threats present within toxic digital gaming cultures act as a means of limiting access to participation. Because marginalized players, whether due to gender, race, or sexual identity, are often playing in gaming environments that get coded as toxic, this dissertation chooses to interrogate the ways in which some players negotiate game environments that are complicated at best and overtly hostile at worst. While the dissertation is careful to note the distinctions between online RPGs and offline table-top RPGs, the core argument made stems from the consistencies present between both: both the online and table-top groups who participated in the study use tools of intimacy both actively and passively as a means of fostering individual as well as group identity. -
Gender, Power, and the Gamic Gaze: Re-Viewing Portal and Bayonetta
***THIS IS AN UNPUBLISHED DRAFT. PLEASE DO NOT CITE OR CIRCULATE. IF YOU DID NOT RECEIVE THIS DIRECTLY FROM THE AUTHOR, PLEASE CONTACT [email protected] FOR AN UPDATED VERSION. Gender, Power, and the Gamic Gaze: Re-Viewing Portal and Bayonetta The Persistence of the Gaze in Gaming This chapter begins, as so many accounts of gender and gaming do, with Lara Croft. Though she was not the first action heroine in gaming, the star of Tomb Raider was an early focal point for the feminist critique of video games. An international media sensation, Croft was a digital iteration of the action heroines that emerged in 1990’s cinema. Crude polygon resolution, which made it difficult to render human figures in photorealistic detail, meant that markers of the action hero/ine—sweaty hair, “bulging biceps and striated shoulders”1—were not feasible except in cartoon style, requiring exaggerated proportions and lighting details. Tomb Raider, which followed the rest of the industry in pursuing photorealism in conjunction with three-dimensional graphics, opted to represent Croft’s femininity visually and her masculine power procedurally: she had famously large breasts, a small waist, and wide hips, but also the ability to drag giant stone blocks, climb sheer cliffs, and blast dinosaurs into oblivion with dual- wielded pistols. The gamic camera in the original Tomb Raider remains in a voyeuristic position: a few feet behind Lara, with her buttocks featured in the frame, relentlessly pursuing as she moves in response to the gamer’s control (See Figure 1). Her physical design, too, appeals to a sexualizing gaze that undermines her credibility as an action hero exploring ancient ruins: short shorts, thigh-mounted pistol harnesses, ample bosom straining at a small white tank top. -
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NARRATIVE STRENGTHS, ISSUES, AND COMPLICATIONS OF GRAPHIC NOVELS AND VIDEO GAMES A Thesis submitted to the faculty of AS San Francisco State University 30 In partial fulfillment of the requirements for FMGiL the Degree Master of Arts In English: Literature by Victoria Huu Trang San Francisco, California January 2016 Copyright by Victoria Huu Trang 2016 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read Narrative Strengths, Issues, and Complications of Graphic Novels and Video Games by Victoria Huu Trang, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree Master of Arts in English: Literature at San Francisco State University. Geoffrey Professor J a L . (<Lusrr% Wai-Leung Kwok, Ph.D. Associate Professor NARRATIVE STRENGTHS, ISSUES, AND COMPLICATIONS OF GRAPHIC NOVELS AND VIDEO GAMES Victoria Huu Trang San Francisco, California 2016 While some video games have novel counterparts, some novels have video game counterparts, graphic novels have video game counterparts, or any other adaptations, not many video games use other mediums to inform events in the video games themselves. Usually, video games and other mediums act more as "ports" or as another point of accessibility for the settings of the video game. However, some video games use other mediums as a means to build up the setting, add more information and depth, or to explain new game play changes or content. For this project I am considering video games and graphic novels that depict events in the same established settings and the narrative complications that come from having more than one source of material and the possibility of conflicting narratives either of the player, multiple players, and those existing in the video games. -
The Cake Is a Lie!« Polyperspektivische Betrachtungen
Greg Grewell, Ken S. McAllister, Judd Ethan Ruggill »You Really Do Have Brain-Damage, Don’t You?«: Ridicule as Game Mechanic in the ›Portal‹-Series Early in Portal 2, the game’s Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System (GLaDOS) remarks to Chell, the player’s avatar: »Most people emerge from sus- pension terribly undernourished. I want to congratulate you on beating the odds and somehow managing to pack on a few pounds«. ¯1 It is a biting (albe- it funny) comment, and one that reverberates through a number of registers. First, the comment is part of a salvo of ›fat jokes‹ that permeate the game. There is the moment when Core 3 (AKA »Fact Sphere«) insists »You could stand to lose a few pounds«, for instance, or Wheatley’s repeated chants/taunts of »Fatty«. GLaDOS, of course, is the most consistently demeaning, chiding Chell for her »fat eyes« and proclaiming that »One of these times you’ll be so fat that you’ll jump, and just drop like a stone. Into acid, probably. Like a potato into a deep fat fryer«. Second, the fat jokes are intended to be insulting, not just funny. They are un- deniably nasty and depend on a certain cultural knowledge concerning body consciousness in relation to obesity. To be fathomable, a ›fat‹ or ›thin‹ joke-in- sult requires a concomitant social norm about an ›ideal‹ or ›normal‹ body. The presumption in Portal 2 – one drawn from real-world stereotypes – is that ›fat‹ equals incapable, undesirable, and even doomed. Third, while Chell is ostensibly the focus of these joke-insults, the player is their real target. -
UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations
UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Portal Still Alive and Portal 2: Lessons from Critical Narrative Gaming Pedagogy Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4tt337vq Author Yamasaki, Lisa Josefina Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Portal Still Alive and Portal 2: Lessons from Critical Narrative Gaming Pedagogy A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements of the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Education By Lisa Josefina Yamasaki © Copyright by Lisa Josefina Yamasaki 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Portal Still Alive and Portal 2: Lessons from Critical Narrative Gaming Pedagogy By Lisa Josefina Yamasaki Doctor of Philosophy in Education University of California, Los Angeles, 2016 Professor Douglas M. Kellner, Chair Due to the increasing popularity of video games in mass media culture, I will be investigating one particular video game series, Portal: Still Alive and Portal 2 , and the manner by which players learn from them. After observing that most instructors use these games in physics and math classes, I want to expand more on the way that video games enact a new story- telling feature through experiential means, which also serves a pedagogical function. I assert that players learn from games through their interactive gameplay, which allows them to engage with the game narrative that contains ideological content embedded through portrayal of characters, plot development, use of imagery and text, and thematic development. Thus, I develop my model of video game literacy through interactivity with a game narrative. My model, Critical Narrative Gaming Literacy, provides a construction of game narrative comprising of thematic development as the central component encompassing the development of the other narrative elements such as plot, character, use of symbols, setting, and point of view.