Chris Crawford - Story

Chris Crawford says "That's why (games) are so emotionally crippled...they just don't bother with people other than as walking dolls that preform mechanical functions. The cardboard people in games do for drama what inflatable doll do for sex" (2005:15)


He mentions six lessons to consider when it comes to story.


Lesson #1 - Stories are complexed structures that must meet many hard-to-specify requirements


Games have never paid much attention to games. Stories are about people (the basic rule) that is lost in the high-falutin analysis of narrative theory. The movie, known as KOYANNISQATSI is shown to lack this, it lacks a protaganist or dialogue. People in this movie are the auidence, revealed by their works. The reason why games are so emotionally crippled are because games concern themselves with things: things you acquire, things you use, things destroyed and so on.


Lesson #2 - Stories are about the most fascinating thing in the universe: people.


All stories have conflict. Sometimes the conflict is either direct and violent, examples include Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. There are some conflicts that is social, sometimes it can be symbalic, but ti's still conflict none the less. Jurrasic Parl 2 has indirect conflict. Mathmatician and a bussiness man. Dinosaurs are merely the 'noble savages'. Well conflict at least is one place where games shine, even though this is mainly done through violence.


Puzzles
Puzzles play a part of a story, but isn't a strong force of a story. Yes, CSI uses science to help solve the mysteries, and the technology is amazing, but it is the strong characters ad often poignant storylines that are the true strengths of the stories. Without them, CSI would be a whodunit.


Lesson #3 - Puzzles are not a necessary component of stories.


Stories that concern choices characters make. Can be used to help drive the story. Star Wars "Use the force, Luke".


Lesson #4 - Spectacle does not make stories.


Many observers have noticed that our culture is increasingly dominated by the image. It's not needed in stories, but at the same time, it can be good visually. Films like Saving private Ryan have benifitted from this.


Lesson # 5 - Visual thinking should not dominate storytelling.


Spatial reasoning is when we can work something out using our knowledge of space. When used in a metaphorical sense, it works well, it also allows us to use statements like "Your statement is wide of the mark". However, according to Crawford, he says that "when people use it too literally, in storytelling, it becomes a problem.


Lesson # 6 - Stories take place on stages, not maps.


Stories will mess around with time, they will break it up, jump backwards and forwards, as well as skipping parts altogether. They will skip how the character arrives at a place (personally don't really see much of a problem with it - unless there's something that happens that would bring more to the story). Games themselves use this pretty well, however, games like JRPGs (which are really heavily story orientated have you take the character everywhere.


These were the lessons I drew from the Crawford article, I found these to be interesting as well as insightful and look forward to using these lessons into my own story writting.

Remediation

What is remediation? Well according to Bolter and Grusin - it's what we call a representation of one medium in another remediation. We argue that remediation is a defining characteristic of the new digital media.

Immediacy

• Media that aspire to a condition of transparency.
• The aim is to make the viewer 'forget' that they are watching a movie for example and be drawn in the experience.
• Immersive virtual reality.
• Photo realistic images.

Hypermediacy

• Artfefacts that are aware of and wish to display their own constricted native.
• They call attention to their own constructed nature all the time.
• WWW.
• Video Games Hub.

Some redmediations relate to a whole range of conventions. Examples of Aesthectic conventions being constantly traded between the different media. Photorealism is an example of immediacy, but not the preserise of the medium of photography.

Hypermediacy isn't an example of aesthetic perserve of the world wide web, as it's conventions have been picked by the television's rolling news, news feeds on mobile phones.

Why remediations takes place?

It takes time for new medium todevelop unique foms of content. No surprise that sucessful conventions are traded between media. Computer games visuals have been used in film - CGI. Which has become very popular over the years as alot films use it, be it either for the whole film, or just certain aspects of it.

My personal opinion on remediation is that I find it very interesting how certain aspects of media have been taken from one and used onto another (may sound as if I am repeating myself a little bit), however, the problem with that is once people keep using a certain kind of remediation - be it majorly or a little bit, it starts to become a bit too samey, but on the other hand, as things keep getting over used there are a few ways people try and better them.

British Museum Trip

Due to the financial difficulties at that point in time, I wasn't able to attend the trip to the Bristish Museum where we would of have the chance to play The Royal Game of Ur on one of the original game boards.

My thoughts on La Decima Vittima

The folllowing post will be my thoughts on the film La Decima Vittima (translated as The Tenth Victim). In a lecture, we watched a italian movie (see the title of the post). We were discussing games that take place in real time (Pervasive Games ), and this film is a prime example of just that. The film takes place in Italy, where the world is like a game where assassin's have to kill each other to go up in the ranks. Minus that, you have a cheesy storyline between the main character, Marcello, who is one of the assassin's in a loveless marriage with his wife, who finds himself the traget of female assassin Caroline who is looking for her tenth victim (ironically enough, it just happens to be Marcello). My personal opinion of the film was that the concept and idea of how the world has become one big game show was fantastic, but unfortunately I wasn't too keen on the film. The storyline was a bit too cheesey for my liking, and a bit too predictable on how it would progress and how it ends.

The film did help make live action games more popular, one of the most well known examples would have to be The Assassin's game. It's a game that takes place in real time which involes a a group of people (who signed up to play this game) are assigned a target in the "outside world" and are set out to "kill" them. You have three ways of eliminations: direct, indirect and capture. Direct eliminations occur when a player uses long ranged weapons: examples include water pistols, nurf guns, and fake stabbings. Indirect eliminations involve "poising" the target using tabassco sauce or vinegar. Capture elimination is just by tackling the target to the ground. The game is pretty popular in universities around the world, and there are a few videos on it.

What Every Game Developer Needs to Know About Story

In an article I read, Southerland argues that:- The real substance of a story is conflict. This is one of the readings I did on story.

Story is a hot item in games, this is due to the quiality bar is rising in the relatively young art. A good way of approaching story for a game involves looking at what has worked for other story forms, and see what is unique to the new story form of games.

Most problems for games spring from the following: Story is dialog. Story doesn't matter. But it does. The most important thing to remember is: Story is CONFLICT. The dope deal in GTA: Vice City - 'inciting incident' - causes the protagonist's world to be thrown out of order.

Robert McKee wrote a book called Story, which was mentioned as an example of the article I read that is a book that has conflict. Conflict is a part of the structure - it needs to be planned out from the beginning of the development process for it to make sense and actually mean something to keep people interested.

The Three Gaps
The Three Gaps is an example of how conflict with story is spread out. I am going to use the original Star Wars Triliogy as a example to expand on this point.

-The First Gap: A gap opens up between the hero and an ordinary life. In the first Stars Wars film, Luke is learns that his father was a jedi and that he wants to follow in his fathers footsteps and then starts his journey to bring balance.

-The Second Gap: The protaganist learns something they didn't know before, the world is in whack again. Liuke learns that Darth Vader is actually his father, Anakin Skywalker.

- The Third Gap: After overcoming the second gap, the protaganist takes the biggest gamble to get the object they desire. After excepting Darth Vader is his father, Luke wants to save his father from the evil that has consumed within him.

Alot of people seem to think that things such as what the character likes, eats and all that is whta makes the character - that's just characterization. The character is defined by the actions he does throughout the story.

Reversal
* When the hero accomplishes the ordeal before them, the reversal that occurs stops them from going forward.

* Reversals can happen through actions (like shooting a cops partner) or maybe through a revelation - when Luke Skywalker finds out that Darth Vader is his father. Revelation's are more powerful.

* A good reversal is when everything you know ia true, but there's more and the world is flipped on it's head with this new knowledge.

Other types of conflict:-
- Internal Conflict - which is goes on in your head. This happens usually in novels

- Interpersonal Conflict - which consists bewteen people. Usually seen most naturally in plays, and/or soap operas.

- External Conflict - conflict in society in general or the physical world. This kind of conflict naturally happens in games and film.

All of these are expressed in different levels of visual and auditory storytelling.

Empathy - when you understand the feelings of another. Alot of people may not like chartacters but it doesn't mean that the player, or the audience can't relate to them. This means that for the first time, the viewer is the protaganist.

Tools for Creating Dramatic Game Dynamics

LeBlanc uses a number of terms, which are familiar to introduce us to mechanics we can use to create dramatic tension in games.

Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics

Mechanics: the necessary pieces to play the game. Mainly meaning the rules, but can mean the equipment, the venue, or other things needed to play the game.

Dynamics: the "behavior" of the game, the events and the phenomena that occurs throughout.
- Baseball is used as an example, fly balls, line drives, grounders, bunts are part of the dynamics in the game.
- There is a "relationship" between dynamics and mechanics, that is described as emergence. A games dynamics emerge from its mechanics.

Aesthetics: the emotional content, the emotional response players get when they play - all kinds of fun that result from playing hte game.
- the games aesthetis emerge from it's dynamics - as the games behaviors determines how the player feels.

He mentioned how the player goes the opposite direction (A---------->D---------->M) instead of M---------->D---------->A (Hunckle mentioned this in a previous article).





Drama Arc







Dramatic Tension is more of a quantity that can accumulate and discharge, increase and decrease as time passes, it can't be measured. Dramatic Tension is the level of emotional investment in the stories conflict.

The Drama Arc is a value stalemate. It possesses well-told stories that should have dramatic tension, and as time progress the tension should take on a shape, building towards the climax then dissipating.

Drama seems to be handcrafted by the story's author. In film or theater the director has complete control over the story. Game Designers have a harder time, we assume the game will be dramatic even when we don't have complete control over the games narrative, it's not scripted in advance, but emerges from the events of the game.

Dramatic Tension emerges from two factors:
. Uncertainty: outcome is unknown. Player can win or lose.
. Inevitability: the sense of moving forward towards resolution. Outcome is imminent.

Game Dynamics That Produce Dramatic Tension

Force and Illusion: Force is the approach of making the dramatic tension by manipulating the state of the contest itself. Illusion is the approach of manipulating the players perception so the game is closer than it is.

Rules of Play: provides a discussion of cybernetic feedback systems, and the ways in which they apply to games.

GAME STATE ------------------------->SCORING SYSTEM
       |                                                              |
       |                                                              |

       |                                                              |

       |                                                              |

       |                                                              |

       |                                                              |

      V                                                            V

GAME MECH. <------------------------- CONTROLLER
BIAS

GAME STATE is the complete status of the game at a particular moment. All the info, toy can put into a save game. SCORING FUNCTION is the sensor of the cybernetic feedback system. All numerical system that gives a measurement of who is winning and by how much. GAME MECHANICAL BIAS: the actuator of cybernetic feedback system. it's a rule that gives one of the contestants an advantage over the other. The CONTROLLER us the comparator of a cybernetic feedback system.

Negative Feedback System: when the advantage goes towards a losing player. This kind of feedback keeps the game close as it strives to make a score difference as small as possible. Mario Kart games are a good example here, you find that if your near last place, you get better weapons that would give you a chance to catch up (i.e. Red shells, Star, Blue Shell)

Positive Feedback system is the opposite.

Pseudo-Feedback: is the sort of mechanism that creates game dynamics that would appear in a game if it were being driven by a negative feedback system.

Escalation: is a mechanic in which the score changes faster and faster over the course of the game so that more points are at stake at the end of the game.

Fog of War: a way of creating dramatic uncertainty by limiting information available to the players.

Decelerator: describes an obstacle that slows the player down late game. makes the game closer by changing the scale and pace of the game.

Cashing out: describes a mechanic where the score of a game is reset to 7. Best of 7 is used as an example here from the World Series and other tournaments where the contest is actually several games played in sucession. The final event in the tv series Gladiators, "The Eliminator" is another form of cashing out, as the players go through a series of games and depending on how many points players have...it determines how long the head start is.

MDA (Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics)

This post will be about an article by Hunckle Et El (2004) in which he describes games as 'systems that build behaviour via interaction'.

To kick start this post off, I will give tell you what MDA is suppose to do. MDA - is a formal approach to understanding game - which attempts to bridge the gap between game design and development, game criticism and technical game research.


All artifacts are created with some design methodology. For building things like the prototype, architecting a software interface, constructing an argument, etc. Design Methodologies guide the creative thought process and help ensure quality work.


The MDA framework formalizes the consumption of games by breaking them into their distinct components:
            RULES------------->SYSTEM------------->"FUN"
...once that done establishing their design counterparts:
 MECHANICS------------->DYNAMICS------------->AESTHETICS


Mechanics: describes certain components of the game, from things like the level data representation and algorithms.


Dynamics: describes the run-time behaviour of the mechanics acting on player inputs and each other's outputs over time.


Aesthetics: describes the desirable responses evoked in the player, when she interacts with the game system.


The idea behind the framework I briefly explained is that games are more like artifacts than media. This is meant to mean that the content of a game is its behaviour - not the media that "screams" out to the player.


The framework can be thought of as "lens" or view for a game - it's seperate but casually linked (LeBlanc, 2004b)


From a Designers perspective, it goes as followed: the mechanics of a game give rise to the dynamic system, which then leads to the aesthetic experiences. However, the players perspective is the complete opposite.


Aesthetics: what makes the game "fun"?
Talking about games and play is heard because the vocabulary we use is limited. When it comes to describing things (the aesthetic qualities in games) they try to move away from words like "fun" and "gameplay". The words, at times, are not very helpful when it comes to describing the game, it's like asking someone to play a game you have a demo for and all they can say is "the gameplay is good, very fun" - that isn't helpful, tell me what's good, what bits you find enjoyable.


Sensation - Game as sense-pleasure
Fantasy - Game as make-believe
Narrative - Game as Drama
Challenge - Game as obstacle course
Fellowship - Game as social framework
Discovery - Games as uncharted territory
Expression - Game as self discovery.
Submission - Game as pastime.


Aesthetic Models
Using aesthetic vocabulary like a compass, we can define models for gameplay. The model are to help describe gameplay dynamics and mechanics.
Example  Quake + Charades both competitive. The teams or various players succeed when they emotionally invest in defeating each other.
If players don't see a clear winning condition or feels like they can't possibly win, they lose interest.


Dynamic Models
Dynamic work creates aesthetic experiences. E.g. Challenge creates the time pressure and opponent. Fellowship can be encouraged by sharing info between players or winning the game harder to win it alone. Expression comes from dynamics that encourage individual users leaving their mark: systems for purchasing, building or earning game items, constructing and changing levels or worlds, and for creating personalized unique characters. Dramatic Tension comes from dynamics that encourage a riding tension, a release, and a denouement.


Monopoly can be used as an example - the leader becomes incredibly wealthy - therefore enjoyable gameplay experience. Losing players lose more and more money makes it "impossible" impossible to win therefore it becomes a bad gameplay experience.
The article came up with a way of 'fixing' Monopoly, which was to reward poorer players so they don't fall behind or make progress more difficult for the leading player. But by doing that, the changes would then change the game dramatically by recreating the reality of the game practices - but reality isn't always "fun".


Mechanics
Various actions, behaviors and control mechanisms afforded to the player wthin a game games context. Combing the games content, the mechanics support the overall gameplay dynamics.


Tuning
Iterating - refine certain aspects of a game. Monopoly was used again, it talks about refining the values of penalties, rate of taxation or thresholds for rewards and punishments. Making the game more balanced (by iterating more).