Blips: Defining Doorways

Source: Threshold
Author: Claire Hosking
Site: Claire Hosking

Some really interesting thoughts on how we define "games" from Claire Hosking this week. In a post on her Tumblr page titled "Threshold," she begins by comparing games formalism to art formalism, positing that instead of taking art's approach, that "art" is to a certain degree undefinable, in games, everyone has their own definition of what a game is. While this leads to a nonetheless fractured definition, at the very least it avoids art's elitist mindset of needing to be granted membership into a secret club before being allowed to "get" what art is. Though gaming's gatekeepers could end up similarly halting progress depending on how the lines end up being drawn.

Hosking goes on to then compare this existential debate in games to evolutions in architecture, which in many cases have blurred the lines between "inside" and "outside." In fact, these middleground spaces in architecture are evocative of a similar situation with games where perhaps a game isn't simply inside or outside of an exclusionary criteria, but something that contains various percentages of game-like structures among elements from film, drawing, or any other media. Some would even say this is inherent to games as hybrid structures or logic and expression.

There are many more fascinating ideas in Hosking's full piece, including the consideration that maybe some of the fringe software that gets lumped into the ever-expanding definition of games should actually be thought of as some new category instead. As you might imagine, it's not a simple yes/no answer. My only criticism of Hosking's piece is that when she debunks games as a medium (a really interesting consideration) she's only speaking of video games, referencing the medium of code, instead of considering video games and physical games together. Perhaps physical games can be seen as programs too, just ones with different methods of enforcing rulesets. After reading Hosking's post, I'm extra eager to hear Charles Pratt's formalist defense Thursday at NYU Game Center.

Blips: Not Watching

Source: Watch Dogs is a miracle even if it sucks
Author: Emanuel Maiberg
Site: Kill Screen

I'm not excited for Watch Dogs. In fact, I'm not really excited for any upcoming blockbuster action games; they all just feel kind of the same, like something I've already played. I get a similar feeling from superhero movies, which I'm well past the point of feigning interest in. The disinterest encroaches on two fronts: my nostalgia for comic book characters has worn through, and the calculated roll-out of something like the Marvel universe movies just feels like business decisions that happen to take the shape of a particular artform. So, you'd think a title like Watch Dogs would have a bit more promise, since it isn't drawing source material directly from an existing trademark, but when I look at it, I just see futuristic Assassin's Creed. And I mean, futuristic Assassin's Creed could be good (it's a proven formula), but it doesn't inspire excitement. Even moreso with its delayed development, Watch Dogs is a game that will simply exist someday –no need for anticipation.

But that's not how Ubisoft wants me to feel about Watch Dogs, which is a product that hundreds of people have worked on in some capacity and some of those individuals have been plugging away for upwards of 5 years. In a new article for Kill Screen, writer Emanuel Maiberg illustrates the palpable rift between the mountain of labor that goes into a game like Watch Dogs and the lack of face-value recognition that that labor receives. He doesn't want to protect these types of games from criticism, but rather recognize that there is a quantity of effort that in some way supersedes the final evaluation of whether a game is any good. No matter how good or bad Watch Dogs ends up being, it's still a tremendous feat of engineering, both on technical and personnel levels. That said, I'd still rather have the 50 smaller games that the budget and laborforce for Watch Dogs could otherwise be applied toward instead of seeing that work spent on a single, flashy yet middling title for half a decade. Not that I don't enjoy some spectacle for time to time.

Blips: Islamic Artgames

Source: How Islamic Art Can Influence Game Design
Author: Dave Owen
Site: Kotaku UK

Despite a formal art education, I know very little about Islamic art other than it being aniconic and often spoken of in mathematical contexts. Without illustrative imagery of people or really anything taken directly from nature, line, shape, and pattern become primary tools. The results can be quite breathtaking in their intricacy and beauty, most commonly associated with architectural installations like the dome above. But the principles of Islamic art needn't be confined only to these physical structures; one would assume that an art practice with such an emphasis on geometry would thrive in the digital realm: a world founded on numeric values and algorithms. Turns out, that's the case, and several video games are actually in development right now that draw influence from Islamic art.

In a recent piece for Kotaku UK, Dave Owen speaks to the creators of two such titles, Music of the Spheres and Engare. Both games ask players to conduct close reads with complex patterns and shapes to determine puzzle solutions. Players must look past the dazzling overlaps of lines and angles to follow single paths, which in turn grant an understanding of the structure of the artwork as a whole. And really, these concepts are a natural fit for games, which despite the pervasive penchant for narrative role-play, is also that medium that gave us abstract puzzlers like Tetris. Games don't have the same expectations as movies or books as outlets for human storytelling, they can simply be experiences in and of themselves; story generators as much as tellers.

Blips: Musically Inclined

Source: FRACT OSC isn’t a synthesizer or a game. It’s both
Author: Dan Solberg
Site: Kill Screen

I reviewed FRACT OSC for Kill Screen this week, which is a first-person exploration/puzzle game that also leads you through the basics of producing music with a synthesizer. The "game" part is sort of a combination of TRON, Metroid, and Myst where each puzzle you solve, unlocks a new component of your synthesizer studio. That you can go into the studio and record music that kind of sounds like the beginnings of Kraftwerk sketches is pretty cool in it's own right, but I loved that the puzzles drew inspiration from the step-sequencer as well. FRACT's not perfect, but it's definitely worth checking out, particularly if you're adept at these kinds of puzzle experiences. While there's a learning curve to the studio portion, the exploration component offers little guidance, and thus is more attuned to players who are already adept with this sort of gameplay.

For full disclosure, the developers granted reviewers access to a walkthrough video of many of the game's puzzles, and I referenced it on a handful of occasions, either as a time-saver or because I was genuinely stuck and on a deadline. As I mention in the review, there's a certain irony to the diametrically opposed learning curves of the studio and puzzle sections. So, while I enjoy a good heady puzzle game, I think some of the visual language of FRACT could stand to communicate certain interactive points a bit more deliberately or perhaps other aspects of the world could be a bit more playful. Surely I can get some kind of synth to emerge by waving the cursor over a pillar of neon. Alas, there's always Proteus for that.

Blips: Charged Imagery

Source: Being Black and Nerdy
Author: Sidney Fussell
Site: Medium

There's a lot of denial about the influence of racial politics in popular media, including games. Hopefully at this point we can at least agree that there's no such thing as an apolitical game, and that the pertinent question asks what a game's politics are, not whether it has any. Writer Sidney Fussell has published a very personal account of his relationship with the racial politics of video games, reflecting both on the images depicted in games and those projected by the medium as a whole. Check it out via the "Source" link above, but in summary, it's about growing up black in a racially divided Midwestern city where games are both an escape and a curse of sorts. It's a story about the perceived whiteness of games and how that racial label impacted Fussell's feelings of conflicted inclusivity among members of his own race as well as among his white magnet school classmates. And there's more to it than just that, so please give Fussell's article a look as it's an honest account of the power and influence games wield.

Though it is part of a critic's job to read and interpret media, it's the responsibility of creators of all media to thoroughly consider the politics of their creation before releasing it to the world. Case in point is the header image for this post, an actual promotional screenshot for Ubisoft's upcoming open-world cyber-crime game Watch Dogs. Another white male protagonist of vigilante justice (now also armed with a smartphone!) and another gang of angry black street thugs. Of course Ubisoft has the right to create and publicize these sorts of images (no one stopped them, after all), but it's also entirely within their power to produce imagery that rejects this status quo or at the very least frames their game in a less problematic context. Now, that would have potential to be a refreshing exercise in free speech. Everything in games is a design choice, and as Sidney Fussell's essay details, sometimes those choices have real world consequences.

Blips: Moments of Silence

Source: Myst uses emptiness to calm you; its sequel uses emptiness to provoke you
Author: John Teti
Site: Gameological

This week over at Gameological, John Teti has begun a series of posts about empty spaces in games. He sets up the series by pointing out the disconnect between images of games that depict them as all-out action while the reality is that games allow for many quiet moments as well, often at the player's discretion. Of course there are games that are largely devoid of action, no matter how you play them, and two of those games, Myst and Riven (it's sequel), are the first to go under the microscope. Teti's argument is that while Myst uses emptiness as a way of ensuring that the player doesn't feel pressure to complete puzzles quickly or shame in failure to do so (no one is watching), Riven presents people on the fringes of your view. In Riven, you don't feel extra pressure because there are humans elsewhere on the island, but finding out why they're running away from you serves as a kind of motivation for puzzle solving. I'm excited to see where this series goes next as there are many games that offer moments of silence or emptiness that are often glossed over in favor of more frenzied moments.

While there are certainly a multitude of games that position characters in empty worlds, I hope that pause menus are spoken of at some point too. When I think about menus, I think about RPGs, and how much time I spend navigating them compared to "playing" the game. Whether it's arming characters in Final Fantasy games or navigating deep space in Mass Effect, my time spent in menus has offered me a solitary, introspective space. How do I want to engage in this next scenario? What should I wear? Time collapses in pause menus, and nothing proceeds without you (unless you're playing online, of course). Sometimes the official game clock even halts while you're in menus as well, as if to say that time spent amongst the upgrade paths and equip screens is somehow separate from everything else. In a way, it is separate, but that shouldn't diminish its influence on the tone and pacing of the game as one, whole experience.

Recap: Jeff Gerstmann at NYU Game Center

Earlier tonight (April 9th) NYU Game Center hosted a conversation with long-time video game critic and Giant Bomb co-founder Jeff Gerstmann. During the talk, Gerstmann discussed a wide range of gaming-related topics, covering his involvement in the critical sphere across past, present, and future. One of the main points of emphasis was Giant Bomb's position as a website that covers video games from a personality-driven angle. Gerstmann and company don't discuss every game on their site, and production of actual reviews has dwindled in favor of video "quick looks" where two editors play through part of a game and provide commentary and impressions through voiceover. The website has a friendly, conversational energy that contrasts with Gerstmann's previous work at Gamespot, which he described as a much more solitary, review-focused routine. As a frequent Giant Bomb visitor, and because of that site's transparent tone, a lot of what Gerstmann had to say sounded pretty familiar to me, but hearing it all at once painted a clear picture of where Gerstmann sees himself in the current industry and where things could be headed.

As engaging as the conversation was, there's not a great through-line to easily sum up what was discussed. One of Gerstmann's strongest qualities is his adaptability. In his career, he was unjustly fired from a job at Gamespot, a job that was, more or less, the entirety of his professional experience up to that point. He was then at a crossroads: either figure out some way to continue getting paid to talk about games or start over from square one on some new path. Ultimately, Gerstmann created Giant Bomb, which served as both a fresh restart, but also a way to remain within a familiar field. Being fired was an opportunity of sorts for Gerstmann to reevaluate how he was covering games. The controversy brought him into the public spotlight in a way that had people interested in hearing his side of the story, but not only that; all of a sudden, people didn't just want to know Gerstmann's opinions on video games, but also his point of view on all manner of subjects in the vicinity of game journalism in general. While personality-based game coverage has certainly gained widespread popularity due to a number of factors, Gerstmann's situation positioned him to move ahead of the curve in a way that probably couldn't have existed without the debacle that preceded it.

It's Gerstmann's adaptability that gives him the confidence that he'll make out alright going forward into an uncertain future. This isn't to say that he's completely got the games thing all figured out, but rather that he's put himself in a position where he can be flexible. This, opposed to older, bigger outlets struggling to keep afloat as traditional revenue streams dry up. An audience member at the talk asked about the significance of Twitch and YouTube personalities, and while Gerstmann acknowledged some of the tremendously exciting things happening in those spaces, he also noted the issues with rights-holders looking for a cut of profits, and how this will likely only get worse. In contrast, Giant Bomb is in a unique position where they can dabble in livestreams, in "let's play"-style videos, in news reporting, criticism, and yes, even game reviews without fully committing the ship to any of them. There's a certain level of celebrity status at work, but without the phony sheen that permeates most public figures who perform in front of a camera for a living. Gerstmann has cultivated a following that's genuinely interested in what he thinks about things, not in an image or fictional persona (or at least as much as that's possible on the Internet).

The Q/A segment of the talk was extensive, and more than anything, showed the fondness and respect that people who follow and care about Gerstmann's work have for him. The room was undoubtedly packed with Giant Bomb fans and followers. When asked how many in attendance subscribed to the site, what felt like an overwhelming majority of hands were raised. What do you think about VR? What do you think about sexism in games? What do you think about people who say Proteus isn't a game? What do you think about academic game design programs? Do you have any plans to get back into music production? Many of these questions are only tangentially related to Gerstmann's "job;" they're questions for a guru. And as a clear sign of his adaptability, Gerstmann was able to address all of them. However, there's a chance this amicability could just be an echo-chamber in action. If everyone knows what everyone likes, within a staff, between artist and audience, between game developers and players, then where's the challenge? I went into the talk with a pretty solid understanding of what Jeff Gerstmann thinks about VR, sexism in games, and Proteus, but I learned just how much effort he spends hunting for those challenges. It keeps him up at night, he says, but it also certainly keeps things interesting.

Blips: Infinity x Threes!

Source: Meet the Clones
Author: Patrick Klepek
Site: Giant Bomb

The Threes! cloning story has been pretty well documented at this point, but I found Patrick Klepek's report on the issue particularly enlightening. For a quick update on the issue, the super-popular free mobile game 2048 is a clone of another popular mobile game 1024, which itself is a clone of the popular-but-somewhat-less-so mobile game Threes!, which retails for $1.99. All of these games are tile-sliding puzzlers where each tile has a particular number and certain tiles can be combined to create a new tile that is the sum of the two numbers being combined. While some of these games use different number combinations and color pallets from Threes!, the game mechanics are pretty identical, right down to the size of the game board.

What's great about Klepek's piece is how he tracks through the cloning narrative and actually gets the points of view of the accused cloners, where possible. This is an enlightening approach to the subject where it's all to easy to talk about offending parties without them present (note: depending on the issue, sometimes offenders should not be brought to the table, but this is one where there's potential for good to come out of it and minimal chance of increased harm). It's not really a surprise that none of the clone developers see themselves as doing anything wrong as they each have their own explanations for why they made their version of Threes! the way they did, sometimes ignorant that Threes! even exists. Gabriele Cirulli made the web version of 2048 as a copy of 1024, unbeknownst to that games direct lineage to Threes! It's not really a surprise that the creator of the mobile, ad-enabled version of 2048, which is #1 on the App Store declined comment, since his game is the most unabashed clone of the bunch (a carbon copy of Cirulli's take, plus ads), but since Cirulli released 2048 as open source, there's no legal precedent to prevent this from happening.

Hearing these sides of the story serves to inform the public as to how a situation like this could arise in the first place. You can point to the creator of the ad-filled 2048 as the "bad guy" in this situation, but it's a string of events that made his clone possible. The App Store is a place where opportunists can thrive, and in doing so, they'll throw whatever informal inter-developer honor code may exist under the bus to do so. Where "open source" might mean a constructive, creative environment for experimentation for some, it's just free code to others. Whatever ends up happening on the "clone wars" front will be interesting, but I don't expect much in the way of action from Apple or Google. Instead, I think the fallout of this could potentially have a negative effect on open source game development, with studios deciding to be more protective of their source code than before or striving for more complex, less copyable designs. Or at least these were the views expressed by Threes! dev Greg Wolhwend in Klepek's follow-up interview.

Blips: Filmic Layers

Source: What does it mean when we call videogames cinematic?
Author: Chris Priestman
Site: Kill Screen

The word "cinematic" is tossed around a lot with games, but what does that label really entail? Well, since it's often coming from a marketing department, "cinematic" is somewhat of an empty phrase in games, taking for granted that people like movies and hoping that they'll enjoy this other medium if it seems similar. I believe a lot of the use of "cinematic" in games writing is derivative of marketing speech too, which has been allowed to inform and shape the perception of the medium. If I look at the games that are called cinematic, I see a couple things: film-like cinematography (at least in the cutscenes shown in, you guessed it, commercials), realistic looking/sounding characters performance-captured by movie actors, and a 3-act narrative arc to the game's central plotline. Of course there's more to film than just these elements, so it's worth considering other games that offer cinematic experiences, but aren't generally considered as much.

That's the premise of a recent piece by Chris Priestman for Kill Screen wherein he argues that a game like Papers, Please uses cinematic split-screen visuals as a means of dividing player attention. In the end, no one medium stands totally alone, and as Priestman admits, even split-screen itself isn't born of film, and the visual style we typically associate with cinema in games often owes as much to painting, theater, and photography as its moving pictures cousin. And as far as I can tell, David Cage is already making "interactive movies" as much as something like that can exist, which is likely not wholly a game or a film, but something somewhere in between. Now he just needs to use that interesting middle-ground to tell an equally interesting story.

Blips: Raggedy Dismount

Source: Why are ragdoll physics so funny?
Author: Dan Solberg
Site: Kill Screen

In my most recent piece for Kill Screen, I focused my thoughts about the virtues of physical comedy in video games onto one particular element: ragdoll physics. Essentially, when game design moved into a polygonal 3D space, a more realistic physics engine was also needed to make characters and objects more reactive to one another –more able to negotiate and interpret contact and what occurs afterward on a relational basis. Since many games still had such a large emphasis on killing enemies, death animations we actually rather prominent. Ragdoll, where a regular human figure turns into a boneless, floppy mass, was born out of this situation. Though ragdoll has gotten better over the years, it still often shows its flaws in moments where body parts can't find a settled resting place and spasm in perpetuity.

Finding humor in all this is definitely morbid, but ragdoll animations are so ridiculous, it's kind of difficult not to laugh. Lucky for everyone, games that focus primarily on ragdoll humor are more prominent than ever. I looked at Turbo Dismount for my article, which is basically the premise for a series of fatal Jackass stunts, complete with variable ramps and obstacles to hurl your crash-test dummy protagonist against. That said, I do think the scoring system in Turbo Dismount works against its humor to a certain degree. The funniest crashes aren't necessarily the highest scoring ones and repeating a level over and over to try for a better ranking eventually dulls the joke's edge. While there is still some good laughs to experience playing dedicated ragdoll games, I think my favorite instances of ragdoll are usually when they pop up unexpectedly in games that aren't trying to be funny.