Games and Play

Consider the work you created for project 1. Is this work actually a game? Why/why not?

Perhaps the easiest way to approach this is by examining the different elements that a game should have, using Greg Costikyan’s article "I Have No Words and I Must Design: Towards a Critical Vocabulary for Games" as a guide.

In project 1, my group attempted to translate the narrative of the movie, The Others into an interactive work, preserving the integrity of the narrative while playing around with non-linearity. As a short synopsis of the project, I quote our project’s report:

“In this project, we transpose the narrative onto a hypertext interface that integrates still frames, text, audio and video excerpts from the movie. Each frame contains hotspots that are linked to other frames. In some frames, text aids appear on placing the cursor over certain hotspots to guide the user forward. A mindmap is available for viewing to show the user how much of the story has been revealed. The resulting narrative is portrayed as a non-linear network that ultimately culminates in only one outcome, at which the climax of the narrative is exposed.”

Alright, so on to the question at hand: was this work actually a game?

I’m not sure. If you will bear with me, let’s take apart the key points that Costikyan’s article for discussion. According to him, a game is interactive, has goals, the achievement of which require the making of key decisions to meet certain objectives and the process of which requires some struggle and lastly, have endogenous meaning.

While in lecture on Tuesday, the discussion on Indigo Prophecy reminded me of a glorified “upped” version of our project, given that our project really was an interactive movie. However, key differences lie in user experience in the level of immersion the user has.

That aside, on hindsight, our project easily satisfies the qualities of interactivity and goals. Firstly because the user’s movement affects the system and is “remembered” and stored as a scene being visited. This agrees with Crawford’s definition of interactivity, albeit to a small extent. Certainly, the user is not able to change the narrative or have any serious effect on the outcome. The goal to the project however, is less explicit than that. Any said goal has to be determined by the user, and the means to this goal(s) has some degree of struggle as hotspots are not so easy to find, and blocks in the mind map have to be unlocked before the ending climax is revealed. While it can be said that the ultimate goal is to unlock the ending, this assumes that the user is motivated in the first place. Here, the line becomes a little fuzzy. Also, assuming the said objectives are to find hotspots, then does one assume that finding hotspots is a difficult thing? One that requires struggle? This is certainly debatable.

Lastly, do the elements in the project have endogenous meaning? Certainly. The elements in the movie, the characters, events etc, all have a meaning pertaining to the context of the story only, and not to real life. This could also just be due to the fact that it is after all, fiction and make-believe. (Although I agree that endogenous meaning is a quality of games in general, it shouldn’t be used as a qualifying characteristic. Doesn’t a novel also contain endogenous meaning?)

That said, I think our project 1 was not a game at all. Although if argued to death, it could be a sort of game that we discussed in Tuesday’s lecture, one that involves peripheral to very low interactivity.

On New Media and Interactivity

1. In “What is New Media?” Lev Manovich proposes 5 principles of new media: numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability, and transcoding. Choose an example that you consider to be “new media”, and describe it in terms of these principles. What implications do these principles have for narrative and play within interactive media?
   
2. Manovich questions the usefulness of the term interactivity, suggesting that “once an object is represented in a computer, it automatically becomes interactive. Therefore, to call computer media ‘interactive’ is meaningless – it simply means stating the most basic fact about computers.” In contrast, in “What exactly is Interactivity?” Chris Crawford proposes a much stricter definition of interactivity. Compare these differing views, with reference to your own experience of interactive media systems.
   
3. Narrative, interactivity and play – how does Run Lola Run reflect these concerns? How does this relate to Manovich’s concept of transcoding?

Whoot. Long questions. :D My brief responses:

On question 1,

According in Manovich, all media that is computerised is new media. The properties of new media include numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability and transcoding.

A quick read of this chapter on "what is new media" brings upon the obvious example of a digital video (like Run Lola Run). Very easily, it fulfils the 5 principles of new media in that the data is digital (numerical representation), consists of different "layers" i.e. audio, subtitles (modularity), programmed to assemble into a complete piece of media (automated), is scalable/customisable (variability) and can be converted from one readable format to another (transcoding).

In his definition of interactivity, a piece of new media like a digital video is considered "interactive" as a user is able to view the video at time marks specified by the user himself. However, Manovich is quick to qualify that in examples such as digital video, "interactivity" with the user is bound by the aforementioned ideas only, i.e. "menu-based interactivity" that is restricted.

In terms of playing within new media therefore, the very open-minded would say that "play" is thus possible insofar as manipulation of the piece of media is allowed. However, "play" in the orthodox sense, which involves a certain degree of enjoyment as many of us would agree, would not be easily acheived with just Manovich's definition of "interactivity".

However, DVDs for example, usually include special features that the user can choose to view. Sometimes, for example, a user can choose to switch on recorded commentary to the video, changing the experience from just admiring the artistic narrative, to the discourse provided from the perspective of the producer or director, depending on the nature of the commentary. Some cartoon DVDs may also allow viewing of storyboards and raw animations instead of the finished piece, giving some insight into the production of the film, instead of merely appreciating the finished narrative.

In this sense, narrative in new media according to Manovich can be manipulated and "played" with as well.

At the end of it all, how new media affects the user experience really depends on the confines of the media that the user can move around in.

On question 2,

On reading Manovich after reading Crawford's critique of popular commercial loose usage of the word "interactivity", the differences in philosophies become very stark.

In short, it is almost as if Manovich endorses the usage of the word in the light of the refrigerator that swtiches on upon opening the door, the popular anti-thesis example used by Crawford to illustrate what is not interactivity. In his short comments on new media as interactive, Manovich refers to the existence of a user interface that provides the possibility of interactivity. Thus, since in all computerised media there exists a user interface, therefore all computerised media is interactive. He is careful to note though, that psychological interaction is an important element in interactive media.

Simply put, Crawford defines something as interactive if active communication occurs back and forth. In other words, there must be a response, listening, thinking, reacting and thus invoking another response as so on.

However, at the end of Manovich's chapter on "What is new media?", he describes interactive media as having been in existence in paintings, theatre and sculpture in olden days. In this sense, interactivity was used to describe how the work invoked emotions and reactions on the part of the viewer.

Ultimately, my take on this is that what is "interactive" cannot simply be qualified by a number of principles and definitions alone. Just like how our discussions on "what is a narrative" got a mite fuzzy before we distinguished that "discourse" and the "story" were two different elements of narrative.

What is interactive, therefore, should not be limited to definitions set in stone, but should be flexible in its reference.

For example, going by Crawford's definition of interactivity, the article in question must be able to listen, think and respond to elicit a response and so on. Doesn't this then make websites, clickable flash animations and digital videos non-interactive? As well as the "choose your own adventure" books?

Depending on the confines of the definition, the aforementioned media may be difficult to classify.

However, if like in "playing", defining the word "interactivity" is a movement within the boundaries of a number of principles, then as long as one is open-minded enough, many media can in fact be interactive, right?

Say, when you click on a hyperlink, the mechanisms connecting the browser to the new page is considered as "thinking", and the subsequent navigation to other pages constitute "communication".

I think this could go on and on.

On question 3,

Run Lola Run was really entertaining. I like how the opening credits mimicked a game, showing Lola running along some obscure hallway, making deliberate turns at sharp corners.

Even though it was not explicit in its presentation, Run Lola Run was really a big game. Wherein the player (=Lola) makes different decisions to accomplish a certain task.

A fixed narrative ran throughout the movie, in that there was a mission at hand, and it must be accomplished by a certain time.

The decisions made by Lola were confined to the fixed resources that were available to her, and each decision had different consequences. The "game" thus had different reactions to different decisions. Sometimes however, circumstances where variables appeared to be variable always showed a fixed consequence. Say for example, no matter what happened, in the 3 attempts, Mr. Meyer always ended up hitting the white BMW. In other instances, without any change in treatment, variables always changed. For example, the fate of the woman pushing the baby carriage was different each time Lola ran past her.