Archive for the ‘game analysis’ Category

Tale of Tales have done it again: The Observational Immersionist Style

Friday, December 11th, 2009

fatale-300x225Tale of Tales just released a new game or rather “experimental play experience” (a phrase surely concocted to appease those who don’t accept their repurposing of the word game).  Anyhow, it’s called Fatale and it is awesome.

Starting with The Endless Forest, Tale of Tale’s have consistently created environments that exist for the purpose of being looked at and explored.  This may not sound all that unique as most 3D games have environments that are explored, but the difference is that these games exist solely for this purpose.  To them, game environments are not containers for gameplay, but rather are the reason for gameplay.  By only affording the player navigation controls, the player’s mind is free to embark on a journey of induction and introspection.  In their own words, Fatale “offers an experimental play experience that stimulates the imagination and encourages multiple interpretations and personal associations.”

Tale of Tales are not alone in creating games for this purpose.  Games that encourage observation and consideration of their environments can be said to form an art movement that I am referring to as the observational immersionist style.

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Kosmosis – Procedural rhetoric gone wrong (as usual)

Friday, December 11th, 2009

kosmosisMolleindustria recently created a new game prototype called Kosmosis: “A COMMUNIST SPACE SHOOTER AS AN ARCADE GAME FROM AN ALTERNATE PRESENT WHERE NON-DEGENERATED SOCIALIST VALUES ARE HEGEMONIC.”  The game was created as an entry for the Experimental Gameplay Project competition titled “Unexperimental Shooter.”  Molleindustria are known for tackling controversial subjects including free culture and religious hatred and are some of the few people who create games from the “message up” (i.e. design with procedural rhetoric in mind).

Interpreting game mechanics is a passion of mine and thus I have strong opinions about the faults and outright failure of most attempts at wrangling procedural rhetoric.  Unfortunately, Molleindustria ’s recent attempt at creating a shmup that subverts the war machine ended up with unconvincing and problematic procedural messages that almost completely rely on verbal rhetoric (i.e. skinning as usual).

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Rationalization’s Reception

Friday, December 11th, 2009

rationalization_smallRationalization was covered on the Indie Games blog and reviewed on Rock, Paper, Shotgun. It was great to see that people were interested in checking out the game.

Though, on Rock, Paper, Shotgun people did far more than just check it out. There were over 50 comments and many of these were very thoughtful interpretations of the game. It excites and surprises me that the audience of this primarily mainstream game industry focused blog would be interested in dissecting this admittedly strange “proceduralist” game.

Almost surprisingly, most interpretations were in line with what I was intending to communicate. A big inspiration for Rationalization was Rod Humble’s The Marriage. As part of my quest to harness the alleged and only slightly understood power of “Rules as Art“, Rationalization was first purely abstract (no words, instructions or key), but because of the difficulty most people have playing and interpreting The Marriage, I decided to slightly ramp up the amount of representation and give the player some context. I worry that I perhaps went too far, but I believe there is a sweet spot that someone will stumble upon soon enough.

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New Short Art Game – Toward Understanding Relationships

Friday, December 11th, 2009

Some weeks ago (in October 2008) I underwent a painful experiment. I made another art game. In the end, it wasn’t a complete success but I learned a lot and think it was a step in the right direction.

tur_titleIt all started when I heard about Gamma3D - a curated art show and call for short games that use 3D glasses in some way integral to their gameplay. I had been working on and bailing out on ideas for short art games all summer and I decided to commit myself to creating a game for this (despite the fact that I missed the initial call and there was only two weeks left before they were to be submitted…). What resulted was Toward Understanding Relationships and what follows is a description of the game, the metaphors at work (visual and system) and the motivations I had for making it.

I started with a subject that I have thought a lot about for years and still don’t really have a grasp on: Communication can be hard between any two people but even harder between two people who love each other. For example, with my fiance, I will often think I hear her say something and respond to what I thought I heard. Often we will be having completely different conversations altogether without even knowing it. To make things worse, you want to do nice things for your loved ones right? Well, sometimes you don’t know what is good for them at all. You only think you know and you can only make educated guesses (based on what you think you heard!). On top of all that you have your own thoughts and needs that are competing with your loved one’s needs. With a busy schedule, you only have so much time and a wrong response can be lead to a meltdown.

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