Some Approaches to Videogame Space

1. Some Approaches toVideogame Space

2. Approaches to Videogame Space • Formal • Narrative • Magic Circle

3. Approaches to Videogame Space: Formal • “Evolution of Spatial Configurations In Videogames” • Class website on Resources page • http://www.cc.gatech.edu/%7Ejp/Papers/Spatial_configurations.pdf

4. Approaches to Videogame Space: Formal • 1D gameplay: the player can move along a single axis, X or Y. • 2D gameplay: the player can move along two axes, X and Y, or X and Z. • 3D gameplay: the player can move along the three axes, X, Y and Z. http://www.cc.gatech.edu/%7Ejp/Papers/Spatial_configurations.pdf

5. Approaches to Videogame Space: Formal • Discrete Space • the screen contains one fragment of the gameworld, when the player reaches the limits of that fragment, the screen refreshes to a different segment of that space. • Continuous Space • the screen scrolls, or moving the point of view of the player as she moves around. • http://www.cc.gatech.edu/%7Ejp/Papers/Spatial_configurations.pdf

6. “Evolution of Spatial Configurations In Videogames” “This paper deals with the basic spatial configurations in videogames from early games until today, focusing on how they position the player with respect to the playfield, and how they affect gameplay. The basic spatial configurations are defined by a few basic features (cardinality of gameplay, cardinality of gameworld and representation) which combined can account for most videogame spaces.” • http://www.cc.gatech.edu/%7Ejp/Papers/Spatial_configurations.pdf

7. Approaches to Videogame Space: Formal • 3D Asteroids • The problem with trying to navigate a 3D asteroids field is that you need to be able to see and dodge asteroids from all directions.

8. Approaches to Videogame Space: Formal • 7D Asteroids

9. Approaches to Videogame Space: Narrative • “Game Design as Narrative Architecture” • Henry Jenkins • Class website on Resources page • http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/firstperson/lazzi-fair

10. Approaches to Videogame Space: Narrative • Game Design as Narrative Architecture • Game designers design worlds and sculpt spaces. • Monopoly is about the experience of moving around the board and landing on someone's real estate. • Dungeon Master's activities start with designing the space—the dungeon—where the players' quest will take place.

11. Approaches to Videogame Space: Narrative • Game Design as Narrative Architecture • Player-generated narratives • Game designers should not attempt to totally predetermine the uses and meanings of the spaces they create • From Urban Planning: "a landscape whose every rock tells a story may make difficult the creation of fresh stories. An aesthetic of urban design should endow each space with poetic and symbolic potential. Such a sense of place in itself enhances every human activity that occurs there, and encourages the deposit of a memory trace”

12. Approaches to Videogame Space: NOT Narrative but Formal • Quilted Thought Organ, Julian Oliver • Began in 1999 and sought to explore the possibilities that first person shooter engines offered live experimental music performance. Its primary engine was Half Life 1, though the project also involved exploration of the Quake II engine.

13. Approaches to Videogame Space: Formal • Julian Oliver • Stan Brakhage

14. Approaches to Videogame Space: Narrative • Environmental Storytelling (Disney) “The story element is infused into the physical space a guest walks or rides through. It is the physical space that does much of the work of conveying the story the designers are trying to tell.... Armed only with their own knowledge of the world, and those visions collected from movies and books, the audience is ripe to be dropped into your adventure. The trick is to play on those memories and expectations to heighten the thrill of venturing into your created universe.”

15. Approaches to Videogame Space: Narrative • Environmental Storytelling (Disney) • Tell the story through every means possible • Pirates of the Caribbean at Disney Quest

16. Approaches to Videogame Space: Narrative • “Designing Interactive Theme Park Rides: Lessons From Disney's Battle for the Buccaneer Gold” • Class website on Resources page • http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20010706/schell_01.htm

17. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle

18. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle • The magic circle is the social and psychological frame that encircles play. • Within the magic circle there is a suspension of disbelief required for people to play together.

19. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle • Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture • Johan Huizinga • “All play moves and has its being within a play-ground marked off beforehand either materially or ideally, deliberately or as a matter of course. Just as there is no formal difference between play and ritual, so the ‘consecrated spot’ cannot be formally distinguished from the play-ground.”

20. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle • Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture • Johan Huizinga • “All play moves and has its being within a play-ground marked off beforehand either materially or ideally, deliberately or as a matter of course. Just as there is no formal difference between play and ritual, so the ‘consecrated spot’ cannot be formally distinguished from the play-ground. The arena, the card-table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the screen, the tennis court, the court of justice, etc., are all in form and function play-grounds, i.e. forbidden spots, isolated, hedged round, hallowed, within which special rules obtain. All are temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart.”

21. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle • Even a trivial-seeming game like Twister allows people to “safely” play with intimacy. Since it’s “just a game” they are supposed to ignore the sexuality or materiality of their bodies. However, the unspoken thrill is in enjoying the informal tangling of limbs and hovering torsos.

22. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle

23. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle

24. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle • Gold Farming

25. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle

26. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle • Second Life • “Residents”

27. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle • Keep Virtual Worlds in Magic Circle • Money and the law are the ultimate verification of the reality of the fiction. • If real-world economics penetrate our virtual worlds they zero out the value of play. • Real-world laws would ruin the fantasy, experimentation and freedom.

28. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle Virtual worlds represent a new technology that allows deeper and richer access to the mental states invoked by play, fantasy, myth, saga, states that have immense intrinsic value to the human person. Yet virtual worlds cannot provide these mental states if the magic circle, the boundary that distinguishes them as play spaces, is eroded. —Edward Castronova

29. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle Players should abide by the rules or expect extreme sanctions. —Edward Castronova

30. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle • Virtual World are Already Out of Magic Circle (they are extensions of Real World) • Markets are already penetrating • Players need legal protection because it is their property, time, etc. • Our real-world Identities are increasingly blending with our virtual identities

31. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle “Tom, I’m not the person you have gotten to know. But at the same time I am. I’m a man in real life, but about three weeks ago I learned that I’m transsexual. […] Here in Second Life I created something new in myself that I never realized was there before. At first I was just role playing, but then I grew to love Pavia. I kept infusing myself into her, but then something expected started to happen: Pavia started coming out in the real world. I became her, she became me.” —Boellstorff

32. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle • Virtual World is Extension of Real World • Someday there won't be any admins. Someday it's gonna be your bank records and your grocery shopping and your credit report. On the day that happens, I bet we'll all wish we had a few more rights in the face of a very large, distributed server, anarchic, virtual world. —Raph Koster

33. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle • Virtual Worlds • Keep Inside the Magic Circle (Castronova) • Protect Fantasy • Keep Outside the Magic Circle (Koster) • Protect Reality

34. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle • Virtual Worlds • Inside the Magic Circle (Castronova) • Protect Fantasy • Outside the Magic Circle (Koster) • Protect Reality • ???

35. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle Griefers

36. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle • Griefer • A player who plays a game to aggravate and harass other players. Griefing is a form of emergent gameplay.

39. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle • Griefers • A griefer is a player who plays a game to aggravate and harass other players. Griefing is a form of emergent gameplay.

40. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle • Griefers • Reject both the virtual world as: • stable fantasy • extension of reality. • The illusion of virtual space itself is disrupted.

41. The Virtual Window

42. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle • http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/magazine/16-02/mf_goons?currentPage=5 • “Mutilated Furries, Flying Phalluses: Put the Blame on Griefers, the Sociopaths of the Virtual World”

43. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle • “Mutilated Furries, Flying Phalluses: Put the Blame on Griefers, the Sociopaths of the Virtual World” • “Life on the Internet really is a serious business. It matters. But the tricky thing is that it matters above all because it mostly doesn't — because it conjures bits of serious human connection from an oceanic flow of words, pictures, videoclips, and other weightless shadows of what's real.”

44. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle • “Mutilated Furries, Flying Phalluses: Put the Blame on Griefers, the Sociopaths of the Virtual World” • “Life on the Internet really is a serious business. It matters. But the tricky thing is that it matters above all because it mostly doesn't — because it conjures bits of serious human connection from an oceanic flow of words, pictures, videoclips, and other weightless shadows of what's real. • The challenge is sorting out the consequential from the not-so-much. • The antics of the griefers might actually sharpen our ability to make that distinction. To those who think the griefers' handiwork is simply inexcusable: Well, being inexcusable is, after all, the griefers' job. Ours is to figure out that caring too much only gives them more of the one thing they crave: the lulz.”

45. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle • 17 Sims Crashed in Swastika Pattern. Rosedale Sim Among Them

46. Approaches to Videogame Space: The Magic Circle