A new issue of dichtung-digital edited by Patricia Tomaszek came out a few days ago. I have an article in the issue which analyzes Molleindustria’s game Every Day the Same Dream. I am still making my way through the other articles in the issue, but I am completely impressed by what I have read so far. Definitely worth checking out. Other contributors include Eduardo Navas, Davin Heckman, Roberto Simanowski, John M. Vincler, Scott Rettberg, Nele Lenze, Martina Pfeiler, and an elegant editorial introduction from Patricia.

The Electronic Literature Collection Vol. 2 just came out.  There are some canonical texts/projects included, but some fresh fantasticness too. It’s definitely worth some exploratory peregrinations. I have one piece included, mémoire involuntaire no. 1, which I did awhile ago. I should post other similar texts I did back then…the project was, after all, entitled no. 1, and I made other permutations that I didn’t bother posting. Anyway, I hope to read through the collection soon and maybe post some reactions when I get a chance…

Extinction Level Events

A few days ago I posted about the Miami Global Game Jam, before it began. After the jam I wrote up a review of the games produced during 48 hours in Oxford Ohio. You can read the original post at Miami’s blog here. I did not actually attend the jam since I will be at Miami in the Fall. Yet, being an outside observer (or player) was ideal for writing up the review. I have some distance from what was produced… Some of the games are more complete than others, but one can find some amazing ideas at work here. Reviewing the games makes me realize that the innovate creativity of Global Game Jams is certainly important. The model of innovation can produce fascinating ideas; it is beyond doubt. Yet, thinking through this model of innovation and its relation to dominant ideologies of the games industry is still important: indie game production, rapid-prototyping, etc., will still feed into the game industry more than challenge it. The production of innovative “game mechanics without politics” is fodder for the same-old, same-old of the game industry, even though what we witness is the absolute, interesting new. This is not to say that the games created at Miami are not amazing and astonishing in their own right. They are! I suppose I just want to take the criticality further. What would be a political, progressive model of the GGJ based on production models that do not feed dominate industries but subvert them? Brecht said that innovation is only renovation if it is not attached to true political motivations for change. It may be that GGJ are generators of (amazing) renovation, but not (dare I say) innovation. True innovation would require, as Brecht said, the “revolutionizing” a medium’s aesthetic production. But, of course, the methods of Brecht were eventually co-opted, as was the notion of “revolution” itself. So, it remains to be determined, both theoretically and practically, what “true innovation” would be…in the meantime…check out these rad games from Miami U!

From Lindsay Grace’s game Nurture-Extinction

A few days ago the 2011 Global Game Jam ended, and Miami University wrapped upits second successful year of participation. Since then I have had the pleasure of checking out the games created by the 42 participants (many of them Miami students and some AIMS faculty to boot). They produced twelve different games, either individually or as part of teams. Frankly, I am amazed by the breadth of creativity and innovation demonstrated within this vibrant collection of games, and all participants should surely be proud of their endeavors and impressive results. Moreover, all the organizers, volunteers, and sponsors deserve hearty accolades for a job well done.

The games created at the Miami Jam orbited the general theme of this year’s GGJ, extinction, an apt choice for a game jam topic given that the term could mobilize ideas from the environmentally conscious to the violently apocalyptic, from the literal to the literary. One tile-based RPG entitled Herbedca (still in its nascent stages) is based on the wacky premise that ancient, extinct plants have returned to terrorize the world, and it is the player’s goal to save his or her loved ones from this little “gamestop” of horrors. Another game created at Miami envisioned the extinction of the human race carried out by an army of Snookybots (obviously beginning their assault from the Jersey Shore). This humorous shooting-gallery game reminded me a tad of Cory Arcangel‘s mod I Shot Andy Warhol, though updated for MTV‘s Gen-Z. In another shooter entitled Extinction Level Events (E.L.E), the player plays Earth herself as she spins around the Sun, using various mechanics to thwart the destruction of the Earth’s population by hurtling asteroids, solar flares, and alien attack. You will fail. Earth will be destroyed. But, you can try to rack up as many points as possible before the “E.L.E” gets the best of you. At first this spinning, digital orrery made me dizzy with its intense action, but after forty-five minutes (yes, it IS that addictive) I was mastering my force-fields and nukes while trying to tweak my score one notch higher.

Shadow

Meanwhile, such irreverence and wicked fun was matched by more ethereal ideas such the game Shadow, a beautiful adventure style game where you play a shadow trying to find the human host that it has been detached from. Sneaking through the city streets you dodge bright lights which will extinguish your form while sticking to darker nooks and crannies for sustenance. The premise is eerily imaginative, and the artwork convincing through its refined simplicity. Similarly ethereal was the gameNurture-Extinction created by the principle organizer of Miami’s jam, Lindsay Grace. In this exquisite artgame a line of delicate flowers grows toward the sun, each emblazoned with a letter from the world “Extinction” shining from their flowery faces. The player simply attempts to keep the blossoms alive by pressing the letter on the keyboard that matches the letter on a flower that has begun to fade. The goal—almost impossible to achieve when playing alone—is to keep all the budding flowers from fading (which would eventually spell the word “extinction” on the screen, perhaps keeping the demon at bay by naming it). The game’s difficulty reminded me of how challenging it is to prevent the loss of fragile nature in an industrialized world. We cannot nurture nature with our two hands alone. It will require many hands to save the natural world from extinction. I also thought, perhaps, that the game could be appreciated as a slightly subconscious expression of Grace’s roll in the game jam: nurturing the event, tempering it with just the right atmosphere, fertilizing it with energy, and helping to coax the budding games into the light of day—these are no small tasks and certainly laudable, as is the game he created.

Freeword

Here and there, words kept popping up in the games produced. Thus, the intriguing game Freeword slightly resembled the Google Image Labeler game, but instead of mobilizing my fun to do tedious work for a large corporation, it sparked my individual creative juices and challenged me to vitalize my own vocabulary. Presented with bizarre images of unidentified technologies and objects I was asked to describe these images with individual words. A nearby flame was “fueled” by the unique words I typed and “diminished” when I became lazy and tried to use the same word twice. As I played, the strange images of human technology dovetailed with my desire to create clever and unique descriptions, trying to keep the flame of human ingenuity alive. Then there was another game for “wordies”  entitled Growth and Decay: A Head-to-Head Word Game, a two person lexical battle made for the Android. Here, the players scramble (or “scrabble”) to create a word from an array of letters that each is given, then try to take apart or “decay” the word their opponent created by removing letters from it in order to create another word. Phew, a mouthful indeed. Words fail, you just have to play it. It’s devilishly fun. Instead of spending a three hour flight flinging birds at blocks in order to kill pigs, you might find yourself turning to the bloke sitting next to you and asking, “Growth and Decay?” Knowing the rules, hopefully he will respond with a simple, “Go.”

MEchine

Though not a word game, MEchine is 2D-platformer which should satiate the meta-gamer in all of us. Jumping here and jumping there, you soon meet your co-conspirator in play: the game itself. Redefining the “cut-scene,” after you complete a few levels you will come “text-to-text” with the self-conscious entity which is the game. In these ELIZA-esque moments the game’s convincing personality will ask you questions about how things are going. Then the game will change “itself” (its mechanics, its “look,” etc.) based on these conversations. Self-reflexive innovation at its best! Look for this one to appear soon on Armor Games or Newgrounds.

One of the best parts about the GGJ, in my opinion, is its openness to game creation beyond the bounds of the digital. Indeed, Miami’s jam saw the creation of two fascinating multiplayer card games. Okay, the game Vanished is digital through and through since three players work collaboratively (awesome!) with their mobile phones (awesome!), attempting to save the interconnectedness of human knowledge from extinction by linking disparate spheres of information through the jungle of wikipedia (again, awesome!). So, for example, starting with cards that send you to the wikipedia pages for Lady Gaga, James Joyce, and The Kansas City Chiefs, can you and two other players work together, following links from these pages in order to arrive at a common page, say, Grand Theft Auto? Yes, you can! Of course, there are other mechanics at work in this sophisticated game which will derail your efforts. In another card game, Dissolution: A Space ‘Venture, you vie against other players in a resource hungry colonization of a new planet. Earth, after all, is faced with extinction. The Settlers of Catan jumps to mind, but Dissolution is equal to that famous game in terms of the tightness of its game mechanics. It’s truly an amazing feat that a team of individuals can gather for 48 hours and create a fun, challenging, multiple-player game with such a stunning balance of rules (the same goes for Vanished as well). So, if you and some friends are thinking about what to do on snowy evening, print out those .pdfs, scissor them up, and settle in for a social gaming experience where nothing will be extinct except your boredom.

Rubicon

Then there was Rubicon, a captivating and fragile artgame which provides a nice closure to my post. Rubicon is meant to be played by an individual only once, where he or she initially controls a bubble ascending from a body of water. As the journey unfolds the player can merge with other bubbles within the water, thus becoming larger, or instead choose to avoid other bubbles, and thus remain smaller. At a certain point the bubble erupts from the water and becomes airborne; the player now attempts to avoid blowing leaves that will burst the bubble that he or she has evolved. Depending on your choices in the water stage you end up with different movement skills within the air as you float. The game is perhaps a wonderfully distilled version of the first stage of Spore (and, in my opinion, packs a more meaningful punch than an aesthetically similar award-winning game, flOw). When you finally—inevitably—strike a leaf and “die” the game records a phrase that describes how you lived your fleeing, effervescent life (so-and-so was “curious at an early age” or “explored wide and far”). Future players can read these brief descriptions of prior journeys before they begin their one play-through.

A “rubicon” is defined as “a limit that when passed or exceeded permits of no return and typically results in irrevocable commitment.” Is this not a nice description of the Global Game Jam event, a threshold participants cross, irrevocably committing to the production of a game in 48 hours? Each individual or team chooses how to design their game, their innovative bubble of creation, eventually releasing them into the world. Each journey is different, each exploration unique, but all leave a mark that others—like me, an unknown, distant player—can encounter and enjoy.

If you haven’t yet played these excellent games, fortunately they are not threatened with extinction. In fact, they are alive and well, right over here. Go play.

So, with that said, this first post about games arises from a recent re-reading of Espen Aarseth’s “Genre Trouble“  a key text in the ludologist vs. narratologist debates (as they have unfortunately become to be known). In particular the following quote spurred my thoughts:

Games are not “textual” or at least not primarily textual: where is the text in chess? We might say that the rules of chess constitute its “text,” but there is no recitation of the rules during gameplay, so that would reduce the textuality of chess to a subtextuality or a paratextuality. A central “text” does not exist — merely context. Any game consists of three aspects: (1) rules, (2) a material/semiotic system (a gameworld), and (3) gameplay (the events resulting from application of the rules to the gameworld). Of these three, the semiotic system is the most coincidental to the game. As the Danish theorist and game designer Jesper Juul has pointed out (Juul 2001b), games are eminently themeable: you can play chess with some rocks in the mud, or with pieces that look like the Simpson family rather than kings and queens. It would still be the same game. The “royal” theme of the traditional pieces is all but irrelevant to our understanding of chess. Likewise, the dimensions of Lara Croft’s body, already analyzed to death by film theorists, are irrelevant to me as a player, because a different-looking body would not make me play differently. When I play, I don’t even see her body, but see through it and past it.

Thus, game studies would ideally focus on the rules and gameplay–though the latter would seemingly require some analysis of representation or the “semiotic system” given that gameplay emerges within the relationship between gameworld and rules. Though the example of Lara Croft is immediately intriguing (and has caught the eye of many others) what leap into my mind upon this rereading was the dismissal of semiotics and the use of the chess example, given that Ferdinand Saussure (founder of semiology) uses practically the same chess example to illustrate his rationale concerning the inauguration of semiotics. Of course, Aarseth’s use of the word “semiotic” is really a codeword for narratives and visual representations which frame the game system within a gameworld; less a reference to actual semiotics (and Saussure for that matter), the word is intended to indicate a certain brand of theory – perhaps of the poststructuralist flavor – and practitioners of this theory who mindlessly port their training (developed through the study of literature or media such as film and television) to the field of game studies. (Incidentally, Aarseth explicitly denies the privileged usefulness of semiotics proper to the study of electronic texts in his book Cybertexts). Nevertheless, Aarseth’s choice to frame the other of game studies as semiotics is intriguing given that the methods of the ludologists to create a stable foundation for game studies share traits with Ferdinand Saussure’s attempt to ground the field of semiology. Indeed, Saussure claims that “language must, to put it correctly, be studied in itself; heretofore language has almost always been studied in connection with something else, from other viewpoints.” If one replaces “language” with “games” one arrives at Aarseth’s basic qualms concerning the state of game studies and the unreflective porting of theories derived from literature & film to games. But, let’s look at the chess examples Saussure uses.

Ironically, Aarseth’s example of chess (through Juul) could have been directly supported with quotations from Saussure such as:

Take a knight, for instance. By itself is it an element in the game? Certainly not, for by its material make-up—outside its square and the other conditions of the game—it means nothing to the player; it becomes a real, concrete element only when endowed with value and wedded to it. Suppose that the piece happens to be destroyed or lost during a game. Can it be replaced by an equivalent piece? Certainly. Not only another knight but even a figure shorn of any resemblance to a knight can be declared identical provided the same value is attributed to it (110).

For Saussure, of course, the unimportant representational qualities of the chess pieces relates to the concept of the arbitrariness of the signifier where the materiality of the signifier has no positive relationship to the signified. Saussure’s dismissal of writing as an external representation of speech, a signifier of a signifier, and non-essential to studying the system of language could be compared with the externality and arbitrariness of representation that Aarseth posits in relation to the formal system of the game. One could perhaps continue thinking about “the arbitrariness of the signifier” in terms of game systems – i.e. treating games as semiological systems – where rules of the game become the differential values (in the Saussurean sense) that make up the “language” of the game, but this is not my intent; honestly it is difficult to see how such a comparison would become significant  (though I do not outright dismiss the potential usefulness of this comparison). The point I want to make is simply about method: whereas Saussure attempts to uncover the general rules (not the grammar) that govern the signifying function of language (thus arriving at useful concepts such as arbitrariness, the syntagmatic versus paradigmatic axis, differences without positive terms, etc.) one might characterize the approach of the ludologists as attempting to uncover the general rules which govern certain collections of games (not the “rules” of individual games, but the rules which govern formal systems of games as such or genres of particular game structures; Aarseth’s delineation of “user functions” in his analysis of cybertexts might be akin to the useful concepts that Saussure extrapolates: i.e. interpretative, configurative, etc.).

At first glance, game studies as envisioned by the ludologists would seem intent on analyzing games as synchronic system of rules, for example, looking at contemporary chess in terms of its rule structure at a particular instance in time, as a temporal slice removed from the historical changes which have influenced its development. This was also the proclivity of Saussure (or, at least, his academic reception which often teaches his thoughts on the synchronic axis of linguistics, not the diachronic). The following from Saussure will illustrate:

Language is a system that has its own arrangement. Comparison with chess will bring out the point. In chess, what is external can be separated relatively easily from what is internal. The fact that the games passed from Persia to Europe is external; against that, everything having to do with its system and rules is internal. If I use ivory chessmen instead of wooden ones, the change has no effect on the system, but if I decrease or increase the number of chessmen, this change has a profound effect on the “grammar” of the game (22-23).

There are truthfully two external elements of language that Saussure rejects here: historical change and the material, visual representation of the pieces. It is the latter which ultimately becomes the true external to linguistics as Saussure patently denies the relevance of both phonetic materiality and visual materiality of language (terming them arbitrary) while extensively analyzing the former in terms of language in the less studied and acknowledged second portion of his Course in General Linguistics, “Diachronic Linguistics.” Even in this section though Saussure is bent upon both dismissing phonetic changes as important to the synchronic study of language (i.e. having a determined effect on transformations in the “meaning” of words) while also dismissing, though not outright, potential determinants of phonetic change over time such as historical disturbances (times of political, economic and social unrest), race, fashion, nature and climate, childhood inaccuracies in language acquisition, etc..

But, what does all this have to do with games and their study? Well, even though there is seemingly a simplistic parallel between Saussure’s founding of semiotics and certain attempts to ground game studies, it is clear that games are not language. First and foremost, games and their rules are not arbitrary, at least not to the same extent as “living language.” Saussure’s principle of arbitrariness means simply that language evolves without firm, direct control over its temporal changes: individuals cannot affect its course, and even the determinants he articulates in the section on diachronic linguistics are seen as suspect, unsatisfying and ultimately untenable given that even in the absence of these determinants change still occurs. Yet, it seems to me that games and their rules are cultural articulations to some extent existing outside language (as Aarseth’s quote above suggests); they are created by humans, changed by humans and (possibly) ultimately determined by historical forces and situations. Rules are motivated. This is not to say that they are motivated completely, but more so than language and its relatively uncontrollable flux.

Now, it also seems to me that game studies could be pursued in both a synchronic and diachronic fashion–the latter being a path that has not been followed as much as the former. While synchronic game studies would isolate rule systems at a particular time (or generalize about a set or genre of games and their rules in order to make theoretical arguments) diachronic game studies would study the development and changes in rules or game systems over time attempting to locate historical determinants that might have shaped these changes and thus have shaped how games are played, formed, and enjoyed. Indeed, sometimes transformations in games might be akin to language change…say, for example, children playing a traditional game with a slightly different–perhaps local–adaption of rules which then becomes more culturally widespread. In this (obviously vague) example perhaps the change in rules was spontaneous creating a mutation in rules over time that is hard to pinpoint and explain. Yet, other temporal changes in rules might be explained more forcefully by historical determinants–be these cultural, political, technological, etc.. Those studying games diachronically might isolate changes in rules in order to describe and theorize changes in particular historical periods (when the changes occurred), or they might even pursue general laws which illuminate changes over larger periods of time.

In contemporary computer and video games one vector of change would surely be technological mutations–thus changes in rules (or “innovations” as the industry might say) could be linked to developments in hardware, software, programming, etc.. which allow for systems that were not previously possible. Yet, diachronic game studies would seek other determinants as well, using changes in rules to diagnose cultural changes. Would changes in the formal system of games and rules over time (say, for example in the evolution of Final Fantasy or Metal Gear Solid) illuminate cultural changes beyond the forces of the technological? Whatever the answer such an inquiry stands as an intriguing possibility.

Although to my knowledge there are not many studies that would fit within diachronic game studies, one could mention a few examples. Jesper Juul’s paper “The Game, the Player, the World: Looking for a Heart of Gameness” might fit as an example of studying the forces of technological determinants in games, tracing as it does differences in a classical game model versus the imapct of computerization on gaming. More interesting in reference to Aarseth’s quote above might be Marilyn Yalom’s Birth of a Chess Queen where the historical appearance and subsequent development of the queen within the game of chess is delineated and diachronically outlined. For example, the development of modern “queen’s chess”–where the queen becomes the most powerful piece in the game through a shifting of the rules governing the movement of the queen piece (from a short diagonal movement to her modern, extended range of movement)–is linked to the influential role of Queen Isabella of Spain.  Diachronic game studies might pursue a similar course of analysis in terms of other games.

One point that emerges–directly in reference to Aarseth’s quote above–is that in the diachronic analysis of games representation becomes a stronger force, not readily dismissed such as Aarseth’s move to ignore the representation of Lara Croft. Take chess again. Raph Koster wrote that, “It’s very likely that chess would not have its long term appeal if the pieces all represented different kinds of snot.” This is Koster’s way of saying that representation does matter (though he is quick to point out that it does not matter as much as other aspects of that game). My point is simply that, for example, the representation of the queen in chess was likely a key component of the radical change in rules that the system of the game underwent; the link of this representation to actual social/political functions in the historical period of the change would likely be a factor in the sedimentation of the new rule and the change in the “system” of chess. I am not saying that representation is the only determinant in this change, but that it  shares a determining role in the mutation of the system of chess. Afterall, if the pieces where not “royally themed” (or thought of in terms of this representational schematic) would the transformation of chess in terms of a more powerful queen have occurred?