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Together I think these articles really summed up what it is to play a video game. After all, what do games have? They have journeys, and they have places to go to. I really liked how the narrative architecture piece described video games and theme parks as “spatial media”, and I think that description fits some games (especially my MMO’s) really well.

I definitely resonated with the transit article, though. When I played through Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, I never fast traveled. The ability to journey through unfamiliar territory was so refreshing, and it really is something that has been marginalized with globalization.

With the ideas of putting space and obstacles between destinations, and filling those spaces with narrative design, I feel empowered to make an awesome assignment 4!

I haven’t made that much progress yet with assignment 4 due to having to finish projects for other classes but here is my basic idea: You are playing a girl who is living in a snow globe (though you don’t know it yet).  You explore your world and are able to interact with other objects in it in different ways but are only able to do so very zoomed in so you don’t have a sense of the larger picture or the scale of the world.  The landscape is all snow-covered and cold and it snowed on and off as you move (by someone shaking the snow globe).  As you explore the world, you gain different skills and attire such as warm fur clothing, the ability to make your own food, a shelter where you can rest, etc. that help you better survive in the cold environment.  Eventually (though I don’t know how or why yet) you realize that you are in this snow globe and the object of the game becomes trying to escape and live on your own independent of the world.  I don’t have that much artwork yet but here is some of me playing around with pixel art:

I realize that some parts of this are really vague and the scope is kind of big but I’m think that this is what I will want to work on for my final project so I’m hoping to get a small version done for assignment four and the whole game done for the final.

Also this is what I’m thinking about for my music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8MXw3Md9FI

Game Design as Narrative Architecture
This paper did a good job of outlining a lot of the general debate regarding player choice and tight narrative.  As more and more games of this generation get criticized for not having enough “choice” (Mass Effect 3’s ending comes to mind), more large franchises seem to be deciding that all games definitely need choice.  Personally, I believe that having focusing too much on choice either waters down the story or eventually makes the choices irrelevant (regardless of what you choose, you get the same result anyway.)

The idea of game designers being more narrative architects is interesting, and distinctly made me think of the game Yume Nikki, a free game that has no real narrative, just a beginning and an end and a (majorly messed up) dream world to explore.  The lack of narrative allows the player to think of their own back story to go with the environments and the small hints in the world.  I found this a more memorable experience than most “epic” stories in other games.

Narrative Environments from Disneyland to World of Warcraft
I read this article hoping to see more about the narrative architect idea in the other article, but instead got a discussion about environments and community in MMORPGS.  While I can definitely see communities forming from MMORPGS, (WoW guilds and such), I don’t feel the environments partake as much of a narrative in games like WoW.  While there is a main story, the environment quickly becomes a series of points based on what is available at each point (sell items here, pick up quest here, etc.)

Transit got the stupid Train Simulator rap stuck in my head. I don’t even know. More to the point, it also made me think of two games:

–Shadow of the Colossus– you could literally just spend hours going places in this game and it was enjoyable all on its own. (I also spent a good fifteen minutes running Wander headlong into waves when I discovered that they would knock him over backwards, but I am easily amused.)

–Wind Waker– Also had a lot of transit (BOATS), but somehow made people complain a lot about it. I dunno. Sailing around did get a little boring after a while, but nothing too bad I thought.

Game Design as Narrative Architecture reminded me of a couple things:

–Telling the story through setting: Portal does this and I love it. The whole story of the Aperture Science Enrichment Center isn’t told through any narration or text of any kind, it’s explored as you run around. I like that technique. A lot. It’s something that non-game mediums can’t really do.

–Effects of the player’s actions on the narrative: This actually reminded me of the doomed timelines in Homestuck. In video games, your character dies again and again, and you keep playing, but as Homestuck shows, there are sort of these alternate timelines where you failed. Wonder if something could be done to harness that in-game.

(Dead Daves keep piling up and dead Daves are somehow useful to the game?)

Game Design as Narrative Architecture

This article seemed a bit outdated to me.  In the article the author talked about how games have to base themselves off emotional residue of other narratives in order to be successful.  I disagree in that I don’t think just games play off this base.  Many elements of life and story telling rely on a foundation that the person listening/playing is human and has in some way a shared experience to the story.  The first years of life are all about building this foundation of emotions and without it the world would seem strange or misinterpreted.  But at the same time there needs to be room to fill voids in the story to make it a personal experience.  I was interested in the role of urban designers described in the article.  They should design a space in which people enjoy to use but is not completely dictated and filled with meaning.  People want a place they can call their own, just like in literature or games.  Perhaps this is why games like Minecraft are so successful   Everyone shares the same base and motivations but what they create is uniquely theirs.

How to do Things with Video Games – Transit –

I pretty much agreed with the author.  Games are becoming a bit more about a journey narrative rather than linear jumps.  I like this however.  For me I do enjoy the stories in games much more than the action depending ont the situation.  But I also like simulations with out any story at all and I see them as equally thoughtful and interesting works.  So I dont believe that for a game to be successful there has to be a strong story wether it progresses rapidly or slowly.  Some of the best games have no plot except for what the player puts into them.  I do completely agree that games can be more enjoyable than real life because there is a chance to find something new with relative ease.  World exploration games are a personal favorite of mine.  Seeing what I can discover and how I can move through the space is extremely rewarding to me, narrative or not.

The Atopia reading seemed sort of inaccessible to me when it talks about “gamer theory” as a subject of study and “gamer theorists,” but it brings up an interesting point about the text in books creating utopias through description.  These utopias aren’t really possible in the real world or in a visual, virtual space.  But in the game world, the better description of the space is an atopia where the possibilities seem endless and you as a character can play your own story. This differs from the textbook utopia or heterotopia which confines the user to a particular storyline and particular setting.

Working out images.  I have a Song, Character, and Concept.

Concept.  You play as a robot trapped in a lab facility.  You can travel through the rooms but cannot exit them.  However you can download your core to the system and circuitry and re-upload to other robots in another part of the lab facility.  There are two playable ares in the game.  Real time physical bots or circuit grids.  You have to blend the two worlds to escape the lab with as many counter part robots as possible.

music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_VCbnqbwwA

The above is the song my game is based off of. I have no title for it at the moment, but the game is a about a community of scavengers living in the gullet of a world-eating leviathan. You play as an old woman, the most experienced among them, off to check the mouth of the leviathan for any new finds. Along the way you talk to other members and creatures who have made their home in the beast.

I can’t quite figure out how to make convincing sprite-based organic backgrounds.