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Reading Games and Playing Books - Dr Souvik Mukherjee, Presidency University: NGDC 2012
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Reading Games and Playing Books
Or, a game researcher’s ‘leap of faith’
Why You Guys (Probably) Already Hate Me …
• I am an academic. I get to talk a lot and do little by
way of coding.
• I research videogames and say that I do GAME
STUDIES (now that’s a contradiction!)
• I try to correct misconceptions about videogames.
• People always raise questions about the VALUE and
the SERIOUSNESS of games research.
• Anyway, LIKE IT OR NOT, games are a cultural
phenomenon and influence how we understand
CULTURE, SOCIETY and ART these days.
• Both Academics and the industry need to consider
these aspects if they wish to stay in business.
• That’s why I’ll talk about STORIES in
VIDEOGAMES.
THIS IS TRUE OF MORE THAN TECHNOLOGY
I love reading Max Payne. I mean the videogame, of course.
Videogames as literature
“This is, of course, a gigantic debate, played
out constantly between two schools of
videogame theory; the ludologists and the
narratologists. I think the key points here are
that game narratives can at least be thought of
in similar terms as novels, and that they
provide a different insight into the whole
concept of story-telling. But I won't be holding
my breath for the first game to appear on an
'A' Level English Lit syllabus. GSCE is a
different matter, though...”
(Keith Stuart in the Guardian Gamesblog)
Why do these damned things have so many endings
? Who’s the Agent, Baldy?
Why all this intensity?
NOW, ACADEMIA IS VERY CONFUSED …
Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough
to experience the medium as an art form!!!
The game is "about trying to find a balance between elements of urban and the natural." Nothing she shows from this game seemed of more than decorative interest on the level of a greeting card. Is the game scored? She doesn't say. Do you win if you're the first to find the balance between the urban and the natural? Can you control the flower? Does the game know what the ideal balance is?
VideogamesAIN’T
ART ???
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American journalist, film critic and screenwriter, who has been described by Forbes as "the most powerful pundit in America".
If there’s nothing artistic about videogames, then what are we
doing here ? (especially the artists among you)
Some people say, videogames don’t tell stories.
Then why all the fuss? Why do people say they love the story of Skyrim or Fallout 3?
“I’m sure there was a time when movies first started that they weren’t considered art, and it’s not like movies went to the world of literature and said, ‘Please, could you say that we’re art? They didn’t ask permission from fine painting, they just did what they did and they took it seriously, and that’s where people started considering it art.”
Tim Schafer, Noted game-designer and founder of Double Fine Productions
Clearly, the Eberts of this world have a problem.
Rethinking Morality: The ‘No Russian’ mission in Call of Duty 5
Rethinking Time: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Prince: Take this, return it to your father's treasure vaults...guard it well...Farah: I owe you thanks, but why did you invent such a fantastic story, do you think me a child, that I would believe such nonsense?(Prince kisses Farah)Farah: (pushes him away) I said I owe you thanks. You presume too much.(Prince rewinds time)Farah:...Such a fantastic story, do you think me a child, that I would believe such nonsense?Prince:...You're right, it was just a story (gives her the dagger).Farah: Wait, I don't even know your name...Prince: Just call me...Kakolookiyam..."―Farah and the Prince[src] Their final words before parting in one timeline.
Rethinking Involvement: Spaced!, British TV serial
Rethinking GAMES
“The function of this center was not only to orient, balance, and organize the structure-one cannot in fact conceive of an unorganized structure-but above all to make sure that the organizing principle of the structure would limit what we might call the freeplay of the structure. No doubt that by orienting and organizing the coherence of the system, the center of a structure permits the freeplay of its elements inside the total form. And even today the notion of a structure lacking any center represents the unthinkable itself. Nevertheless, the center also closes off the freeplay it opens up and makes possible.” Jacques Derrida
“If we apply to science our definition of play as an activity occurring within certain limits of space, time, and meaning, according to fixed rules, we might arrive at the amazing and horrifying conclusion that all the branches of science and learning are so many forms of play because each of them is isolate within its own field and bounded by the strict rules of its own methodology.” Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens
Can you read a story that you read yesterday?
Can you read a game that you read yesterday?
Rhizome (Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, ) : artist’s impression
Chapter XVI – 204BC (From The Rise and Fall of the House of Jimius, an after-action report based on Rome: Total War)with one comment
204BC – Roma Victor Quintus II finally reaches the front, having abandoned his infantry for extra speed, but all he gets to do is hunt down a Brutian family member that’s just hanging around. Galerius goes to the boot of Italy and sieges Croton, while Lentulus hits Tarentum on the heel. Meanwhile, a scipian fleet carrying 2000 troops is sunk in the Tyrhennian sea. Takes about fifteen separate attacks to sink a single ship, but still. I did it.
Tarentum sally with the aid of the last Brutian stack of troops. The pre-battle odds give me 1:2, I think this is meant to be one I lose. Screw that, while I may have no chance in a straight defence, they won’t be expecting an attack. As the troops leave the gates, my siege towers rumble up to their walls, and all the melee infantry I can spare rush in. Under heavy fire from the gate and just generally being heavily on fire from boiling oil, they force their way into the city. Racing to the square, they manage to engage the relieving cavalry before they can get to the square. The enemy pour through the streets as they realise the countdown timer for city possession has begun, but thanks to the dogs holding them for precious seconds, they can’t reach it in time. It’s almost a bloodless victory, but it is one of the best manoeuvres I’ve ever pulled off. Daring can work occasionally. I’ve summarised it in this sexy, sexy tapestry.
After-action reports
An after action report (or AAR) is any form of retrospective analysis on a given sequence of goal-oriented actions previously undertaken, generally by the author himself.The two principal forms of AARs are the literary AAR, intended for recreational use, and the analytical AAR, exercised as part of a process of performance evaluation and improvement, while in most cases AARs are a combination of both.
The first AARs were developed by army generals. One of the first and best examples of an AAR is Julius Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War.Contemporary examples of AARs include project evaluations in business, as well as summaries of large gaming sessions in videogame culture. (Wikipedia)
AARs are a fun way to read about a game and provide interesting details and examples of gameplay that reviews often don’t. They also can be very funny, entertaining and even enlightening! So read on and enjoy as we list to new games, old games and niche games that may surprise you. (After Action Reporter)
Hello, I’m Mike, I’m 24, and I write game diaries.
‘House of Jimius’ was based on Rome: Total War and was a chronicling of a grand campaign, from city state to Europe-spanning behemoth. ‘The Amateur’ was based on Hitman: Blood Money and was a more character-driven playthrough of the game, as someone who became a hitman by accident. I write a few AARs a year but mostly they stay on the cutting floor of a forum somewhere. […]
What you write has to reflect what happens, the events described must be an accurate portrayal, otherwise there’s no point, go off and write some fanfic. Sure, come up with the fluff that connects the dots the game presents, but don’t let that overwhelm it. I’ve seen some massive, sprawling AARs that divorce themselves from the game being played far too much to be interesting, that devolve into florid prose and twiddly stuff that is just filler and distracts from the point of the thing.
It has to be clear what you, the player, have done and how the gameworld has responded, you never want to come away from reading a diary with a lack of understanding over what just happened. This can be difficult to put across in text and image form so you have to be imaginative in how you get it across without being overly boring.
With The Amateur I was playing in-character which does help with that. That is, you can’t just play the game and write the AAR afterwards, you need to have played it in a certain mindset and reported on it accordingly, whether that’s a sneering disdain for the game, some naive optimism in one aspect, or whatever. Having something personal that a reading audience can latch onto is important.
Permanent Death in Far Cry 2
Death in games is often very… temporary. I want to find out what happens to me as a player if I make my videogame death much more permanent. This is the story of one game of Far Cry 2 – one single narrative that one way or the other will end in my death. Whether it is at the hands of my enemies, the harsh environment, or my own ineptitude, I am not going to survive the telling of this tale.
The rules: Normal difficulty; fortunes DLC installed. When I die, that’s it. Game over.
Let’s see how far Qurbani Singh can get.
Ben Abrahams (2009) Permanent Death – the Complete Saga
So why should you bother about the videogame-story ?
Involving and innovative
game design
Challenging exploration of the story medium Players love good stories
Exploring key issues in Culture and Society
Wherever you look now there are white Mysorian flags fluttering. Souvik seems to be mustering what’s left of his force for a final assault on the pavilion. His own archers arc arrows onto the flat roof of the building. Bargirs fire back at them from behind sawtooth crenelations. Musketmen edge forward and are driven back by a hailstorm of lead. Perhaps sensing the last chance of victory has slipped away, the Mysorian leader charges his own horsey formation into the corpse-strewn pavilion yard. A musketball knocks him permanently from the saddle.
From ‘Bangalore Galore: An Empire Total War AAR’ by Tim Stone (slightly modified)
Dr Souvik Mukherjee, Department of English, Presidency University,
[email protected]: http://readinggamesandplayingbooks.blogspot.com
