Pac, there was a whole movement in Interactive art a few years back. Not a gallery goer, much?

Wav, You''re not a musician, are you? There''s this old style of music people used to like, called orchestral music? You see, it didn''t used to have lyrics, and there were no top 50 charts.

But this is way off topic. You say the focus is on GAMEPLAY. This is where I disagree. Gameplay is an important part of the experience, but it isn''t the experience itself. It would be just as foolish to say the writing is the experience.

the experience of playing a game is in part everything the game is. Writing, Gameplay, art, music, etc. You can''t subtract quality from any of these things and expect the result to be any good. But this is true of any artistic medium. So games are an artistic medium!

BTW, the beret wearing, stripe-shirted Artistes never produce anything I would call ART. Thet''re not real people, and art can only be made by real people.


It IS important to not lose sight of what you are making. It is a GAME. But you''re a damn fool if you think things stop there.

quote: Original post by Landfish

Pos-modernism is a backlash. It''s right about some things, but it tries to be a little too right to compensate for the 50+ years before hand.

Postodernism tries to break the stranglehold of judgement wrt what art is and is not. Once upon a time, the (mostly European) upper crust / intelligencia dictated what was and wasn''t art. Now we''ve had a kind of democratic backlash that puts velvet Elvis paintings right next to the Little Boy Blue.

quote:
By your logic, many of my favorite movies cannot exist. These movies teach me, they are funny, they get me to relax, but they are also serious, scary, and they are ART.

Heh, here''s postmodernism in the way again. Not sure what art is to you, but art moves me and enlightens me on a deep level. Entertainment does not.

When I watch a documentary on the African slave trade, or the annihilation of Jews in Europe, I am not entertained. I am deeply moved, disturbed, and connected to humanity in a way I can''t describe. But when I watch the Matrix or the Terminator, there''s no place for these emotions. In fact, they get in the way.

Perhaps it is different for you.

quote:
Just because something is spiritaully enriching or educational, doesn''t mean you didn''t have fun doing it. Viewing art can be fun. Hearing Art can be fun.

There''s a difference here that needs highlighted: Things can be fun, but this doesn''t automatically make them a game. Sex is fun. Swimming is fun. Driving fast is fun. This doesn''t automatically make these activities a game.

quote:
A game is fun. There''s no more to it than that.

I''m afraid that''s far too simplistic. True, fun is the core, but our debate is more of an issue of how you go about getting to that core.

Art can get you to fun. But the path it takes-- particularly when it comes to meaning, emotion, and authorship of the reciever''s experience-- is in strong conflict with that of a game. The paths may in some places cross and intertwine, but they''re mostly parallel.



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Just waiting for the mothership...

Damn!! I wish I had time to post now, but I guess I''ll have to respond to you all tomorrow. I''m extreamly eager to see what everyone says. I can say that no, I''m not involved in artsy art, it doesn''t intrest me. Orchestral music does though.

Bye Bye.



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"What's the story with your face, son?!?"

quote: Original post by pacman

Woah, you're forgetting something Wavy (can I call you Wavy ). Games have the capacity to tell freat stories, and be very emotionally moving while still being _games_. I thought the single player story in Vampire was a great story, and I think the game is very fun (especially Multiplayer ).

I agree that art and games are two seperate enteties. But they are not complete opposites.

You're right AND I'm being overzealous.

I just get tired of the bashing game designers receive when they focus on gameplay but don't muster up to par with Feodor Doestevsky or Charles Dickens. Tetris is just fine the way it is. So is Half Life. So is System Shock.

What ticks me off is when design takes a back seat to artistic expression. If you want to be an artiste, go make friggin' movies! Go write a novel! Please, oh please oh please, DO NOT drag us down the path that lead to the great FMV plague of the early 90s.


PS: Yeah, sure, you can call me Wavy... it's my old nickname!



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Just waiting for the mothership...

Edited by - Wavinator on September 6, 2000 6:21:41 PM

quote: Original post by Landfish

You say the focus is on GAMEPLAY. This is where I disagree. Gameplay is an important part of the experience, but it isn't the experience itself. It would be just as foolish to say the writing is the experience.

Okay, here's where I'm afraid I'm gonna have to be a damn fool and part company with you.

N O T H I N G is more important than the gameplay. Story, character, dialog, writing, music, plot, graphics... these are all subordinate to gameplay. You have only to fire up MAME and play old arcade hits to see what I'm talking about. Or go play Elite. Or go play Civilization. Or go play Starflight. Or Star Control. Or Empire. Or Escape Velocity. Or M.U.L.E. Or Pirates! Or Doom.

These are examples of games where the gameplay was law, and I believe they hold up even in today's 3D accelerated, voice over-acted, professionally written / directed / produced world.



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Just waiting for the mothership...

Edited by - Wavinator on September 6, 2000 6:22:12 PM

This thread has apparently gone off into the games as art discussion. In an effort to get back on topic, which was the quality of writing in games, I offer some thoughts:

1) Games without writing. Some game (genres) do not have or need writing. Adding a script to Tetris would be wholly irrelevant, IMO. Other puzzle games like 7th Guest, where a series of puzzles are tied together with a story, offer the player 2 experiences (the story and the puzzles) that could be seen as seprate.

2) Linear writing elements. Traditional story writing is insufficient for games. Many of the writing elements (foreshadowing, for example) only apply to games that are linear in nature. In a game that contains an interactive world, whose contents vary depending on the player''s actions, foreshadowing has no place. Likewise, if my strategy troops barely squeak through a scenario, calling it a crushing defeat for my enemy in a prescripted cutscene is rather silly.

3) Writing to convey information. Individual descriptions of people, items, and places can be improved, but will be ignored if they are not integrated into gameplay. In Ice Wind Dale, most (all?) of the magic items had a sotry along with them. A brief history of the item. None of it was relevant or even used in the rest of the game. It was a nice bit hanging on the edges if you went looking for it, but useless given how the rest of the game was laid out. The writing here conveyed no information of rlevance to either the characters I played or the story as a whole.

4) Symbolism, bigger picture relevance. This is closer to the writing as art bit, but let''s say we have chosen to make a game ina genre that lends itself to the possiblity of a strong story, one where we want the player to think and experience rather than point-n-click. I''d like to hear suggestions on how we accomplish this without alienating the player as a participant.

It''s hard to demonstrate a universal truth about human nature if the player doesn''t behave how you expect. And artificially restricting the player''s actions reduces a game to a story (might as well write a book).
''Iago suggests that your wife is cheating on you.''
''I go talk with her.''
''No no. You;re supposed to throttle her.''
''I don''t want to throttle her.''
''Even if I throw in some great lines like put out the light then put out the light?''
''I still don''t want to throttle her.''

You can do a little better with some larger than life symbols (see also the religion threads), but it gets tricky, again because the nature of the game is such that you don''t know how it will end.

Maybe have some hidden numbers in the game characters that will indicate how they are aligned with more abstract symbology to vary their interaction with the player. Thus if the player acts more violently, this violent demeanor is evident to other elements of the game, without changing any of the icons on the screen, but instead changing some dialogue options. Likewise, if a player is passionate about NPC x, then the story molds itself around the passion.

I''m not sure that this would work, since most normal folks have a rather average personality - no one set of traits would tend to stand out very strongly. But if you did want to do it, you need a new kind of AI that manipulates the environment altogether, with some very versatile writers to cover all of the option you make available.

Well, that''s a little more than $0.02

Hmm, flamer welcome? You suck, you suck, you suck, you suck. Anyway, some games have awesome writers. Lets see:

Secret of Mana(I have seen almost no games better on the same level, when the Mana tree told me I was her son I knew the game was awesome)
Commander and Conquer(after the original the writing was sort of the same, but the original had a nice backround story about kidnapping Hitler before WW2)

That being said, if I wanted a story I''d read a book. A short and simple story expanded in the process of the game gradually is much better than reading a 50 page novel in the manual before understand the game.

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A wise man once said "A person with half a clue is more dangerous than a person with or without one."

I agree, in essence, with what landfish is saying. I''m a programmer - I can''t write (plot) for shit. If I had an unlimited amount of money and time to make a game, I''d hire a team of talented writers and designers to thrash out a brilliant vision for a game, and a huge team of programmers to get the game as close to the writers'' vision as possible. In short, I''d design the engine around the plot.

However, as I don''t have a vast amount of money and time, I''m pretty much forced to design the plot around the engine (and its limitations). The game has to be commercially successful (ie: I have to eat): in order to make it sell in the present market, it must: 1)look nice 2)play well 3)be original 4)have a good plot (in that order). With limited resources, 3) and 4) just go out the window.

http://www.geocities.com/ben32768

quote: Original post by Landfish
But I have a question: Was Schindler''s List a good movie? Was it FUN?

Yes. No. I defy you to find anyone who would want to play the computer game though (and no, you don''t count). Games have to be fun - that doesn''t necessarily mean they can''t be involving and well written.

http://www.geocities.com/ben32768

A lot of people (losers in my opinion) consider the greatest moment in RPG history to be when Aeris died in FFVII. This was not a happy thing to them, yet they loved it. I guess I can kinda see what they''re on about, but FF games suck...