The question isn''t "What sort of a world will you create inside a computer that cares?" it''s: "How will you create a world inside of a computer that cares?"

"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" - JFK

I think I may be beginning to understand. It sounds like an interesting integration of the Game and it''s Medium (i.e. the computer).

Superpig
- saving pigs from untimely fates
- sleeps in a ham-mock at www.thebinaryrefinery.cjb.net

quote: Original post by deClavier
I''ll explain this somehow... I think the problem is that I''ve lost my sense of center: simulation makes no sense to me, it lacks purpose. The solution seems to be to play a game in which I am not the center of my own attention, but in wihch my playing of the game centers me in the gameworld, over time. The more I think about it, the more I understand that I''m not trying to think of the best game idea, but that idea which is so good that I cease to be playing the game of thinking the game... and start to live it, outside the confines of the game I imagine myself to be involved in.

It seems you want a game where you start off being just an ordinary joe, but over time the game grows into a story that features you as a leading character. Presumeably, you''d like the story to be different each time.

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If only I could remember the way it was before it is the way it will be when I don''t want it to be. Isn''t that every gamer''s wish?

I just want to have fun.

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This brings me back to the question I didn''t know I wanted to ask: is there a (subtle) progression of emotional development buried beneath the release of game after game, which explores the relationship we have to computers?

Some games, yes. Some games, no.

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System Shock was heralded as a unique and gripping game, was this because the game toyed with its own sense of authority and invited the player to run the gauntlet even as the game insisted the player wasn''t welcome.

As I recall, the rogue AI (who''s name I forget) insisted the player wasn''t welcome, rather than the game. The impression I get is that she''s toying with you: partly to satisfy her sadistic tendancies, partly to see if you are more interesting than you appear. That isn''t the game being smart, that''s the character designers being smart.

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What would happen if you developed a game that was never self-aware but always aware of the player? Can you take it further than System Shock did? Imagine a game which recognizes the player as its source of... sustenance?

Despite that it is contradictory for a non-self-aware game to recognise anything as being related to ''itself'', since it has no self, don''t you just mean ''imagine a game which has been programmed by its developers to act as though the player is its source of sustenance''?

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Is that where the Matrix theory comes from?

You''ll have to enlighten me... AFIAK ''Matrix theory'' either refers to a branch of mathematics, or something that explains dimensionality in some of the string theories. Neither seems appropriate for this post.

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What if you take it further than that? What if the game recognizes that if the player believes in himself outside the game, any self-control the game has will end?

Unless the player has a debugger, the game is always going to be fully autopotent. You perhaps mean that if ''Suspension Of Disbelief'' is lost, the game will not be able to control the player.

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Is that the Matrix conclusion?

Now I see that you''re talking about the film. Yes. That is the conclusion of the Matrix - if people are shown that what they believe is a lie, they will magically be free from its control. In the case of the Matrix, however, the theory is flawed - most people who were told they were merely part of a computer simulation would not believe it - even if they were removed from the simulation.

The problem of SOD is that computer games are unreal. They are controlled via a keyboard and mouse, seen via a small, 2-dimensional rectangle with (compared to RL) comically poor imagery and dull, flat sound. SOD is very difficult to maintain, especially when the game does what you want it to do: when a game attempts to manipulate the player, unless it is done VERY skillfully the player will notice that he/she is being manipulated and SOD will be lost.

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What if you take it further than that? Imagine a game that prepares itself to continually entertain the player at all costs beginning with all sorts of simple and easy choices,

Most games start off easy.

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But when the player gets sick of this and starts to leave the game threatens the player.

And most games get harder. The challenge is to make sure the game gets harder in a way that the player appreciates. i.e. if the player appears to like being scared, scare him; if the player likes solving puzzles, confuse him; if the player likes looking at pretty scenery, dazzle him. (This is not as impossible as it sounds: if the player goes to pieces when posed with an expected threat, he''s probably scared; if the player chooses the ''deduce the combination'' route over the ''blow the lock off'' route, he probably likes puzzles; if he spends a lot of time looking around at things that aren''t enemies, he probably likes the scenery.)

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Imagine a game where being able to quit was not a forgone conclusion but the very object the player would have the hardest time achieving.

There is one mechanism that can be used to quit any computer game. Bear in mind that stories in which the character is striving for death as an escape have a feature that prevents them from being used in computer games - the character doesn''t get to quit; players can ALWAYS quit.

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Is that where the hidden demonism of gaming lies? Is that why many game developers are preoccupied with Satanic imagery in their games?

Controlling the minds of your audience is not a ploy that is limited to Satanists - all successful religions do it, and all good artists do it.

It''s because: demons can be scary; people like defeating a purely evil enemy; the censors are more relaxed about you blowing demons up; demons can be sold in any country.

In my experience, most games don''t feature pure-evil NPCs as antagonists: System Shock features a mad computer that wishes vengence upon its masters, Half Life features an alien civilisation that wishes to expand its influence, Rune features a god who wishes vengence upon his father and a mortal who wishes to expand his influence.


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