Kugels - What is the/a "Lord of the Flies". What does the title meen?

quote:
But I don't see what a book can do that a computer game can't.

Can a computer game be a refrence...can a computer game be a cook book?...a art history book concerned with the social aspects of 'impressionisam' in the modern age?...a critique of Beowulf?...a alligory for the writers point of view concerning humanitys tendancy toword violent behaviour?...an autobiography?...a technical document concerned with networking protocals?...a psychoanalysation of modern human networking needs?

a book can do linear story telling very well..."this happens after that with no variations"...is this something that a game can do?...no multiple endings..no divergeing from the set path...are games good at non-interactiveity?



[edited by - MSW on October 26, 2002 8:25:34 PM]

MSW wins some kinda prize.
You're right. A computer game can't really be a good cookbook(though I once played a mini-game that involved putting ingredients together for baking some stuff).
A game can't be non-interactive or it wouldn't even be a game.

Maybe I should have restricted it to just novels...

I haven't read the book. I don't know what the f**k the title means. KaMiKaZ asked what we thought about a game based on the book. I said what I thought.

sheesh...I really dislike these arguments, makes me wish I never replied to these things.

and yet here I am doing it again...

[edited by - Kugels on October 26, 2002 8:52:20 PM]

How mediums are unique.

Novels: Static representations of events. That is, they do not change from reading to reading.

Games: Allow interaction with a graphical environment. Things change based on what user does.

Poetry: Condensed meaning, using some combination of the rhyming, rhythm, meter and sound of words.

Film: Static graphical representation of events. Director controls how what you "see" and "hear" and how quickly you see it.

Theatre: Non-static graphical representation of events. Like games, every show is different. Unlike games, the audience doesn''t really have a say on what happens, but can react.

Well, games are not books but sure as fuck they can also use symbolism. The game I am currently uses a lot of symbolism and references to add depth. A story which seems to be about a private detective who dies acctually a story about human nature and beurocracy in modern society. Just because the majority of thew games that is made does not have a higher intellectuall meaning, it does not mean games cant have one.

The idea is interesting, but why use a island. How about a planet? It would certainly make Goldings tale a bit less boring, with a element of exlpration added in ...

Well, seeing as this thread has been officially hijacked:
I think a very important thing non-interactive forms of entertainment have that makes them really cool is the feling of helplessness. You, who is reading the book know that it is a trap! You''re screaming at the main character not to go into the room with the guy, Praying to the Gods of litereature that fate will direct his steps elsewhere. Of course they don''t hear you. And you are thrilled when, even though he took the bait some ingenious plot twist means that he gets to live another page.
Whereas, in a game, the thrill is that your fate is in your own hands. A game that makes you helplessly watch while your character gets into trouble (say in a cutscene or something) come across as crappy and makes your character look stupid for falling for something which you had already figured out. On the other hand if the game actually tricks you into falling for it, then you don''t get to feel helpless just shocked or surprised, and very often you will just reload and not fall for it this time. If you have to fall for it to continue the game then you just feel restricted.
So, while technically a game can duplicate the events of a book, it can never duplicate the experience of a good one.

i wish i could say i''d like to call a truce but i am convinced that just because two mediums overlap they can''t mimic each other''s experiences

even those identical components that are shared BEHAVE diffenerently according to their different useages

the problem greatly paralells translating a between languages. the simpler the text eg a manual, the easier it is to translate but converting eg a decent french poem into bulgarian is impossible because even if the literal meanings are the same, all the nuances are lost

cut-scenes can come close to delivering cinematic experiences but it''s clumsy on a typical budjet. this is why point-and-clickers have vastly superior cutscenes but they''re more like a cartoon than a novel or even comic book. this is the best we can hope for.

the brain treats words and pictures differently. catroons can be considered symbolic of reality, words take symbolism and abstraction to the greatest level: resembelence lost - meaning retained. hence "a picture''s worth a thousand words": words are more primitive, informational atoms.

the collision of words and pictures easily becomes a messy compromise, unless you''re careful they can conflict. in games and other visual mediums, all text HAS to be simplified whereas in books, words rule unconditionally.

if the experience of a book was fully incorporated in a game it would inevitably be ruined, the audience would have trouble focusing on any one thing, and shifts of attention would cause confusion.

you could have just text and nothing else but then it''s not a game- it''s a book

********


A Problem Worthy of Attack
Proves It''s Worth by Fighting Back

I hate it when there''s a topic on here that I REALLY want to respond to, but there are two pages of replies and I don''t have time to read more than three or four. So, my apologies if I touch on something thats already been addressed.

I just wanted to address the following:

quote: Original post by MSW
Honestly, that would pretty much be takeing the book on face value...which might work for a book written in the pulp vien...but Lord of the Flies is filled with symbolisam, takeing it at face value (as in the film versions) pretty much negates the reason the book was written in the first place...the power of the story lies not in what happens, but in what it meens.

the boys didn''t become "savages" because Jack(? been a while sense I read it) was the strongest and most feared leader...they became savages because they purposely cut off thier last ties to the civilised world (symbolized through the smashing of Piggies eye glasses)...then of course there is the ending, which is very frightning when you consider what it represents.

such a book can and should stand on it''s own...unique to it''s medium.

Actually, if done properly, a game most certainly could represent the deepest symbolism of the type you''ve mentioned here. Obviously, if done improperly like the majority of book- and film-based games, the game would be a shameful disgrace to what has become what has been called one of the most important classics of our time.

I''m ashamed to admit that I haven''t read it so I want to just take an example you mentioned in your post, MSW -- but realize that its only an example of what can be done not only from a book like Lord of the Flies, but other classics as well. The example: The Smashing of Piggie''s Eyeglasses. I suspect moments like this would be best shown through a cutscene, and I think that probably an adventure-oriented game following one or two characters might be ideal. In this genre, you can hint through dialogue and through character observations at the importance of the boys'' ties to civilization. Then, when the precise moment occurs that initiates that particular event, a short cutscene could show Piggie''s glasses up close, and then show their destruction. Perhaps in slow motion or repeated or any one of the many other visual indicators of something truly important and symbolic used in Film. A brief pause, a moment spent on a character''s stunned face, or the shattering glass compared visually to erupting chaos later on. These are elements of film, it is true, but cutscenes have proved themselves as a powerful story-assisting element in interactive games, they in no way detract from the importance of the interactivity, but they can often help carry a story during more emotional or symbolic moments like this one.

Other visual indicators of something more important than whats on the screen: A waving, fully extended flag, only slightly torn, amidst a field where a bloody battle has just been waged -- perhaps signifying victory or courage in the face of near defeat. A child crying or sleeping peacefully after its mother has been killed -- a symbol of life continuing on. A broken doorjam in an otherwise pristine home -- perhaps a sign of domestic violence.

Here''s a much better example, and one thats closer to home for all Americans, hopefully demonstrating how meaningful symbolism can come into play in games: A player character walks into a mutilated village, ravaged by an enemy regiment, and finds a child''s doll lying alone in the ash and rubble -- a reminder that war is not just about tactics and wanton violence, but that innocent men, women, and children lose their lives during a political struggle. Such a reminder stands to give the player a dose of reality that hits home, reminding them in the proper setting that War is not just about glory or righteouness, no matter how proud or vile or underhanded the enemy -- in War, people that deserve to live are going to die.


Brian Lacy
Smoking Monkey Studios

Comments? Questions? Curious?
brian@smoking-monkey.org

"I create. Therefore I am."

quote:
Actually, if done properly, a game most certainly could represent the deepest symbolism of the type you've mentioned here.

Um...no.

Lord of the Flies uses tons of symbolic relationships...The character Piggy has eyeglasses that represent the link to civilization....the glasses are smashed about midway through the book...up to that point the story focused more on the boys working together...after that point they became savages....this is a linear progression, pre ordained by the writer...the fact that the eyeglasses have symbolic power is reinforced through variant refrences through the book...at one point they use them to focus sunlight to start a fire...other times notice how Piggy uses them...Piggy can't see without them (he is blind without civilization "guideing" him), but with them he seems to view thier situation differently (because he is seeing the island as "a civilized person would see it")...which meens that there would have to be a lot of cut-scenes to establish the eyeglasses as a deeply meeningful symbol. and if these cut-scenes are shown out of order as they appear in the book, much of the signifigance becomes lost...

Note that the main character is the one to point out the use of the eyeglasses to start a fire...the main character here represents "resourcefulness"...Piggy wasn't able to start a fire be cause in "civilization" eyeglasses are used to see with and matches are used to start fires...

To reinforce the signifigance of the sysmbolisam, the game would be reduced to a series of cut-scenes...with the player just running back and forth between characters to initialise them...not much of a game them...but if players were given more interactivity...it reduces the symbolisam, as players can change things around and/or in counter situations in a different order then in the book...which destroys the symbolic importance, as the book was written linearly to support it.

break the glasses at a earlyer or later point in the story and the importance of the symbolisam is greatly reduced...start a fire with the glasess at a earlyer or later point in the story, and the symbolic relationship to the main character is greatly reduced (if the character never spent time looking for matches...then the main character wouldn't represent "resourcefulness" because it would never be established that there were no matches)...

Stories that are deeply symbolic are also very fragile, change anything, and the whole thing falls appart.

Which meens such games would have to be extreamly linear inorder to come close to duplicateing the original intent...and games can't be linear, can they?

quote:
Here's a much better example, and one thats closer to home for all Americans, hopefully demonstrating how meaningful symbolism can come into play in games: A player character walks into a mutilated village, ravaged by an enemy regiment, and finds a child's doll lying alone in the ash and rubble -- a reminder that war is not just about tactics and wanton violence, but that innocent men, women, and children lose their lives during a political struggle. Such a reminder stands to give the player a dose of reality that hits home, reminding them in the proper setting that War is not just about glory or righteouness, no matter how proud or vile or underhanded the enemy -- in War, people that deserve to live are going to die.

That isn't "deep" symbolisam of the type used in Lord of the Flies...if the player were to pick up the doll...and give it to some child...would the child relate to the doll as a toy or as the symbol it represents? If the child takes and destroys the doll...how does this relate to the original symbolic meening? What if the player smashes the doll upon seeing it? what does that symbolicly meen?

you see, by not allowing the player to interact with symbolic objects, by locking them down...thier symbolic signifigance is retained...but when such symbols are as reinforced and called upon as often as they are in Lord of the Flies...it leaves fewer options for the player to chose from...which reduces the gameplay to simply reading text from the screen or watching cut-scene after cut-scene...the eyeglasses arn't mentioned once, but all over (with the same meening attached) and the situation in which they are used has symbolic meening as well...




[edited by - MSW on October 27, 2002 7:27:39 PM]

dang it.
I quit defending myself in the hopes that it would stop, but someone else took up my cause...oh well...might as well chime in then, since the problem isn''t going away anyhow.

All those things that happened with Piggy''s glasses can happen in a game!
Most games are pretty linear, there''s no reason the cutscenes would be out of order.
If we take the player to be the main character, why can''t he figure out to use piggy''s glasses for the fire?

"if players were given more interactivity...it reduces the symbolisam" um...how?

There''s no reason that the player needs to be able to break the glasses at the wrong time. But there''s no reason that it destroys the game if he does.

Along the same vein, why not allow the player to make changes though? You can still have symbolism with interactivity, its just you''d have to do a lot more work to come up with all the symbolismssmsms for the bronching paths.

"Stories that are deeply symbolic are also very fragile, change anything, and the whole thing falls appart."
uh...no... I bet it would have made little difference to the spmbolism if you threw a little scene in, and I''m sure that some could have been removed.

"Which meens such games would have to be extreamly linear inorder to come close to duplicateing the original intent"
if its just the intent you want to duplicate, there are MANY ways of doing that.

"and games can''t be linear, can they?"
aren''t like 99% of them linear?

Breathes great sigh of relief

Its always great when you go to say something in a debate, and the person right before you has already presented all your points. Its especially wonderful when its 12:55 AM and you want to go to bed but you just HAVE to reply ''cause its a topic you are fervent about.

So, Thanks Kugel! Amen to all that!

Shuts up and goes to bed