The Way of O'Luanaigh

Patrick O'Luanaigh gives a very simple and easy to understand overview of some of the basic concepts in games and game design in the introductory chapter to his book Game Design Complete.  Being no stranger to these concepts, I found the most helpful parts to be the little asides he strews throughout the chapter in the forms of Creative Ideas and Reality Checks.  The thing I enjoy most about the Creative Ideas is that they give the reader new ways to approach games and the creative process.  I love reading about theory but sometimes have difficulty creating meaningful connections between disparate abstract ideas and how to creatively engage with them outside of the parameters created by the text.  Giving me something tactile, something tangible to relate back to what I read opens up a novel way for me to engage the material.

When he started going through core gameplay fundamentals there were a few points that I understood the spirit of but didn't agree with.  I was about to take arms against them fervently, with citations of games that have went against these so-called "fundamentals" very famously, until he ended it with the core fundamental of "Break the Rules When You Need To."  That's when I cooled off a bit and realized that most of the games that I was going to cite took the risk of going against the fundamentals and were able to pull off something phenomenal in their own right.

Game design

Just a quick shout out that I loved the Douglas Adams quote at the begining.

This reading seemed pretty simple, though very effective. It was all about game design. She went over basic concepts in game design, presented ten rules she felt a designer should follow and gave a lot of advice to aspiring designers. We have used some of this vocabulary in class and  I knew a lot of it from learning about video games over the years. But it was good to sit down and read a well written piece about the basics of game design. There was also a lot I didn't know in here. I enjoyed the different tid-bits in the reading, like the reality checks.

There was a lot of useful information in this reading, but I don't feel I'll understand all of it until I start trying to apply it to creating my own games. Difficulty levels, on the one hand, make perfect since. But how do I actually make a game more or less difficult? How can I get a player to play my game, let alone replay it? I guess it's just the idea of seeing something on paper and actually putting that information to use. I found her rules interesting to read and I think they made sense, but I don't think that's a decision I can make until I start making games, either.

O'Luanaigh - basic game design stuff

Straightforward stuff...

the basic game designer lingo: gameplay, game mechanic, GUI, front end, demographics, first person/third person, USP, mass market, IP, immersion.

the ten rules to live by: 1. stand up for your ideas 2. listen to other people's opinions 3. be tact 4. pick your battles (with the producer/project manager) 5. remember your overall design vision 6. play as many games as possible 7. the first level or 30 minutes of every game is important, so make an impression 8. develop a professional story for the game (with a proper beginning, middle, and end) 9. think about/leave room for future sequels 10. abuse people's primal instincts.

the core gameplay fundamentals: camera, control systems, interaction, variety, accessibility, replayability, exigency, completing techniques, difficulty levels, fun.

when designing games: brainstorm, use experts, step out of your comfort zone.

Lots of this we've already covered or touched on, but I think it's really interesting to think about how complex making a video game is. From beginning to end, there's so much work and thought that goes into it that it almost seems like an overwhelming about of work. I guess that's why it usually takes teams of people to make games. I think it would be really cool to follow the creation of a game from beginning to end and see just how much time was put into it and see how the process works and the people and tasks involved.

For me, this reading came across as almost a sort of over simplification of what it really takes to make a good video game. I'm probably wrong, because I have no idea what it's like, but I get the feeling that there's something O'Luanaigh is leaving out. Like this is the minimum you need to know to understand what game designers do, but probably isn't even close to what it takes to actually design game - like no really successful game has just these basic game design elements. 

I guess it's somewhere to start, so I enjoyed reading...

McGonigal - reality is broken

Wow, she covers a ton of information in this reading and it was all interesting! She really is trying to understand games on a deeper level, so we can apply what's so great about them to make our "real lives" for satisfying. She always comes back to this idea that games give us a "sense of being fully alive, focused, and engaged in every moment". To be honest, I like here arguments, but I feel like some of them are a bit exaggerated. Yes, some games do and can make players feel alive, focused, and engaged, but not every game, and not for everyone. Each person has their own way of playing and interpreting games, so I could agree that games and game designers are heading in that direction where the games we create and play are becoming more and more social, engaging, and fulfilling, but not all of them, not for anyone who sits down and plays a game for an hour a day. I like her ideas that "we should try to use what we can know and understand about video games to 'fix' what's wrong with reality", but it seems like such an impossible feat, I can't quite see it actually happening.

She gives a great definition of a game. Games she says "have four defining traits: a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation." I'm not going into detail on what those traits entail, but I think her main argument is that if you fully understand those four core traits of games and how they affect players' interaction with games, you can start to apply it to real life.

I was looking at one of her more recent games called "SuperBetter" and you can see exactly how she's trying to get people to do that. In this game, you pick your challenge/problem you what to solve and set your goals, obesity/to lose weight for example, and the game or other people you can network with gives you various quests to help you reach your goals, along with "future boosts:, "power ups", and
bad guys" to watch out for. It's a great example of how it's possible to sole real life problems by applying gaming knowledge or game characteristics to the situation.

Overall, I like where McGongal's trying to go with her ideas.

The Chronicals of McGonial

First of all, I really did enjoy this reading.

McGonial sees a future where games are explicitly designed to imporve quality of life, prevent suffering and create real wide spread happiness. She talks about reality being broken. What does that mean? She raises the question, what if we started to live our rea lives like gamers and lead our real business and communities like game designers and solve real world problems. This alone is an amazing thought. What if we did treat everything like a game?

97% of our yourth play computer and video games. We are collectively spending 3 billion hours a week gaming. Wow! We can interpret these two different facts in so many different ways.

The amount of facts and stories used really gives her credibility with the claims that she is trying to make.

McGonial she says "Games in the 21st century, will be a primary platform for enabling the future. She wants families, schools, companies, industries, to come together and play to tackle real world dilemmas and improve real lives. She says we need to develop our core game competencies so we can take an active role in changing our lives and enabling the future.

McGonial breaks down games to 4 defining traits: a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation. Goals are a sense of purpose. Rules unleash a creativity and foster stategic thinking. Feedback system is however you use it. "The game is over" Voluntary participation requres that everyone who is playing the game knowingsly and willingly accept the goal, rules, and feedback. The ability to win is not a necessary degfining trait of games. Ask Tetris. When I think about it, there are many games that we play with no intentions of winning. The games where you fling something on a slingshot and it just measures the distance. Has anyone ever beat a castle defense game? I really like this way of thinking of a game.

I found it interesting when she said that gamers would rather work hard than be entertained. Perhaps that is why gamers spend less time watching tv than any else on the planet. "We are much happier enlivening time rather than killing time."

The term happiness engineer is my new minor, as long as I can work at the microsoft testing labs. The ones that are like a psychological research institute than a game studio. I am going to close this blog so that I can submit my entry.

The Conical Adventures of McGonigal

There are many things that Jane McGonigal talks about in Reality is Broken that really resonate with me.  I heartily enjoy how she draws from such an eclectic mix of disciplines to frame her argument.

She talks about one thing in particular that I continually struggle with in her presentations of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards.  First of all, this section delves chest-deep into the philosophical end of game design.  McGonigal addresses the misleading nature of the American Dream; that we gain happiness through the status and material belongings we earn for ourselves through our hard work. She says that these are temporary, extrinsic and hedonistic avenues of happiness.  Over time we build up resistance to this form of happiness and need to get greater and greater amounts of it to bring us happiness.  Unsurprisingly, she relates this to drug usage.  This model is unsustainable.

The idea of intrinsic happiness is happiness that comes from within.  It follows the mindset that the individual is the only force that can bring happiness to itself.  The overall system is self-propagating, self-propelling and completely renewable.  It follows the same sort of mindset that Eleanor Roosevelt hearkens in saying “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” The individual is the only force that can allow an external event to affect her internal state. Yes, an outside force can affect an individual’s physical body but only the individual can allow an event to affect their spiritual body.

As one who is in the milieu of American society, it is difficult for me to combat the cultural force of the idealized American Dream.  I completely agree with McGonigal that the extrinsic aspects of the American Dream are unhealthy.  There is a great deal of unhappiness in the world because there is an emphasis on the material and external pleasures of life.  The cultivation of the individual’s innate happiness, separate from the larger cultural context, is ignored; self-cultivation and inner peace are not the focus of the American Dream.

I live in constant fear that I have been living my life incorrectly; that I have concentrated on the wrong things.  As a person, I’m ambitious and constantly working towards my future and I often feel that I neglect the present.  Now, sure, that could be a temporary thing because of the circumstances surrounding college.  I do feel that I am working towards what McGonigal outlines as the four major categories of intrinsic rewards, but I often feel that there is a disparity between what my mind says I should do and actually happens.  There’s a phrase I try to live by now in hopes that I will adjust myself and not lose sight of what I feel should be most important, friends and family.  That phrase is, “I choose to invest my time and money in people and experiences.”

In the past, I’ve been victim of gamer regret countless times.  Throughout, the years, though, the skills and mentality that I’ve acquired are invaluable to me.  The lens of games has given me a new way to look at life. 

There’s a movement to gamify reality, and Jane McGonigal is a part of that.  I believe that through my upbringing I’ve become a part of it as well.  Because of my exposure to games, I am able to view the different systems that govern people in reality as the rules, the procedure, the games that they truly are.  Through acknowledging that the procedures that govern life operate in the much the same way as the procedures that control games, we are able to sculpt a society that is happier.  This is exactly what Jane McGonigal is trying to get at.

Unfortunately, a good chunk of this post is a bit of an incoherent rant.  Jane McGonigal hits on so many points in this reading that you could literally write dissertations about the repercussions of what she’s saying.  Since I’ve decided to go for a more free-form blog entry, editing would bring greater cohesion to what I’m saying but there always more to be done.

Bogost round 2

Ian Bogost in his second half of discussion addresses the particulars in what he considers rhetoric. Visual rhetoric, what can be synonymous with graphic design and visual art, and digital rhetoric, which is the medium and the processes, both tie in together. In the field of digital technology, and specifically video games, digital and visual rhetoric tie in together to make a general argument. Touching back on the previously discussed idea of procedural rhetoric, a video game follows the mechanics and rules just as if we were to play a game of cards. However, with the idea of visual and digital rhetoric, these mechanics can be built to influence the user as well as create a completely new arguement. Allowing the player to play as a 'god' or as a hieracrhy for example could create a new thought process not yet considered by the player. In a way, it comfortably allows the player to play 'in another person's shoes' and see another point of view.

The interactivity and the syllogism continues on this process of creating custom mechanics used to communicate the argument. The designer decides how to build the maze through which the player will enter, with each turn and button mash, the player will learn the rules of the game and how to anticipate it's overall interaction. There is a conversation between the medium created by the designer and the player that introduces this information, but allows the player to make the deductions.

Games can shift their logic, however, and can in theory take the player in a step by step process of thoughtful philosophy considering the situation. Sometimes, the player can become so involved with the game that they can switch the logic and meaning behind their game play later in the game without it even bothering them- all for the sake of keeping up with the game they fell in love with. Is it trust? Can we trust games? Overall, games can become so enticing that we may not even know that it can be giving us medicine because it's so sugar coated. This is why I love rhetoric= because I know I can logically strip something down to it's bear bones and really think about whether I agree with it's purpose or not; ;)

Bogost Part 2

I enjoyed this part of Bogost more because he seems to be bringing his many pieces of interesting points together to make a much larger picture.

It was interesting to think of his writing on procedural rhetoric while playing the persuasive games in class today. I thought of his idea of digital rhetoric, and the fact that the medium plays a big part in the rhetoric. I think I saw the reflected in the games. The biggest part that alienated me from the people in the airport game I played was not just how they were drawn or their lack of speech, but how I felt nothing when I was in the middle of forcing them to remove their clothes to go through security. It was the lack of interaction even as I was directly interacting with them that stuck with me.

I also thought of his idea of the visual rhetoric. The three games I played had almost no speech. The front of it was the visuals and the mechanics. The debt game had a ridiculous comic setting but seemed to be using that to ram home how awful the topic could get. The airport game was extremely mechanical, ridged and stress-inducing, adding strong emotion to the simple design.

I'm still trying to figure out the idea of a persuasive game, though. Are all games persuasive? At first I would want to lean toward yes; though I will say that there are many different levels of persuasion.

I think I saw a Bogost!!!

This second part of Bogost was pretty cool, it focused on Procedural Rhetoric. He again defines procedural rhetoric as the practice of using processes persuasively, and cites numerous games throughout the reading.  He argues that verbal, written, and visual rhetoric's inadequately account for the unique properties of procedural expression. Procedural rhetorics afford a new and promising way to make claims about how things work. When he describes the McDonald’s videogame, he talks about how the procedural rhetoric teaches the user that the interaction throughout the four separate aspects of the McDonald’s production environment where every action they choose, will have a reaction from the game. For example, using growth hormones will offend health critics. I think that these games a really cool way for people to understand how running a business works, while offering the option of pushing reset and starting over. Bogost uses several examples of how these different processes teach us how things work. He says “procedural representation is a representation, and thus is not identical with the actual experience.”

When talking about Interactivity, Bogost says that we think of interactivity as user empowerment. The more interactive, the more that a user can do, and the better the experience. GTAIII is a prime example. Interactivity guarantees neither meaningful expression nor meaningful persuasion, but it sets the stage for both.

Persuasive games to Bogost mount procedural rhetorics effectively. Basically how arcade games and slot machines have a “coin drop” approach that persuades players to insert more coins. An effective approach requires some fine balancing. If the game is too hard, no one wants to play it. If it is too easy, people will play for a long time without putting more money in. Two games that work like this are Pin Ball games and Ms. Pacman.

Bogost also cites partial reinforcement as the psychological configurations embedded in game design that aims to get players addicted to gaming. Like powerups, double score, and any additional bonus that the game provides the user.

This reading was much more entertaining since it was directly relatable to video games I have played and enjoyed.

Bogost part 2

To recap Bogost defines procedural rhetoric as "arguments through authorship of rules of behavior, the construction of dynamic models" or "the rules authored in code through practice of programming". It's more than just verbal, written, and visual rhetoric. This distinction is important because by looking at these "procedures" we can understand video games even better.

I'm still a bit confused as to what Bogost meant by "procedural representation". It seems just like procedural rhetoric to me, but I think they might be different. But I really like the relationship between procedural rhetoric/representation and play/agency. Here play is defined as "free space of movement within a more rigid structure". Bogost also points out that the agency in video games needs to be more than just requiring a user to hit buttons. The "environment requires meaningful response to user input". In other words, "video games require user action to complete their procedural representations". I've never thought about video games quite like this. There's structure and rules/controls set up by programmers in video games, but the actual space that the users/players experience when they play them is created by the processes. How much and how seamlessly a game invites a meaningful "movement" in the "space" of video games really is important for players to engage it and have fun with it. Makes me think of how this class is set up….  :)

Game Wars: Bogost Strikes Back

In the second half of the Bogost reading, the author digs into digital rhetoric, procedural rhetoric, interactivity, and video games.

He says that "digital rhetoric tends to focus on the presentation of traditional materials... ...without accounting for the computational underpinnings of the presentation." In other words, digital rhetoric uses traditional forms of discourse without considering the structure which binds everything together. It could almost be considered a not self-aware procedural rhetoric in that it has aspects of other forms of rhetoric but is not conscious of the underlying processes.

Bogost then goes into more details about the ramifications, limitations and philosophical crossovers of procedural rhetoric.

Chris Crawford's relation of interactivity to a conversation, or "a cyclic process in which two actors alternately listen, think, and speak" and that "the quality of the interaction depends on the quality of each of the subtasks (listening, thinking, and speaking)"  took me aback.  It's simplicity is baffling.  And in its simplicity, this statement has elucidated how I think about what interactivity means.

Another concept that, to use the cliche, stopped me in my tracks is that video games can be broken down into a system of nest Aristotelian enthymemes that compel the player to complete the interaction.  Even just putting a name to the idea of the enthymeme, leaving out a bit of information in a discourse to have the listener come to it on their own, is both empowering and inspiring.

Jane McGonigal Reading

I think this is probably my favorite reading so far. McGonigal is a great writer with a lot of interesting thing to say.

I think the most interesting point she made and the one that stuck me the hardest is when she us Csikszentmihalyi's study and he points out that we will spend most of our lives feeling bored and unhappy. And why should we when games have proved that there is a better alternative. My knee jerk reaction was to resist this, because the idea that reality should be as it is. It's, well it's reality. But throughout her writing she makes the very good case that we do not play games because they are fun. We play games because they present us obstacles that we voluntarily face. I face obstacles in life all the time. Very few of them are faced voluntary. And I've always just assumed that's been a part of life. So many times in school - both k-12 and university - taking a class because I have to. And no class is worse then the on that I pass but don't feel like I actually got anything out of passing that obstacle. Yet, I get something out of the obstacles in the games I choose to play. I've spent hours trying to jump over one whole because damn it, that plumber is getting to that final castle. I've trekked for hours through treacherous landscapes filled to the brim with stuff that wants to kill me and looked forward to it. I've even enjoyed some obstacles that games have given me that I had no way to prepare for and, in truth, no real way to avoid. But I still enjoyed it.

The idea that I could enjoy my education - all of it, not just the pieces that make it worth it - should not be surprising to me. I want to take a test, fail, and still feel like I got something out of it. I want to feel like I'm actually doing something with the information being given to me.

This reading made me wonder, though. Has it always been this way? Have people always lived in a reality that is broken. Have people always had such a problem with getting a positive engagement from the world around them? I mean, videogames did stem from games, and games have been around for ages. McGonigal herself brings up golf, and how little since it makes that people enjoy getting a tiny ball in a tiny hole in the most convoluted way possible. The amount of games based around cards is staggering, and yet the concept of a card deck is amazingly simple and straightforward. Csikszentmihalyi's was working in the 70s, so he must have had something to notice.

I guess the difference between then and now is that most other games work in the real world. Videogames is the first time I think people are actually leaving. I think of this as a I try to explain to Professor Gale - the professor I'm doing my independent study with - some of the simplest aspects of gaming. He keeps coming up with a very simple, yet very confounding, yet very important question. "Why?" He keeps asking this because he is applying his logic, the logic of someone who has never played a videogame, any kind, every, and trying to understand why we would do anything in the realm of a videogame; and he's coming up with nothing. Since I don't think he is doing this to make fun of me or annoy me he must have some bases for this question. I also don't think he would ask "Why do you hit a ball into a tiny hole" if he was talking with a golfer.

This is why I find McGonigal's point so interesting. I like the idea of having videogames not break us from this reality, but to effect, expand, or even make this reality better. I will fully admit I have absolutely no clue how to do this, but that still doesn't stop me from being excited.

How to Cite a Video Game in MLA

How to cite a video game in MLA format: 

Computer software or video game: List the developer or author of the software (if any); the title, italicized; the distributor and date of publication; and the platform or medium.

Firaxis Games. Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution. Take-Two Interactive, 2008. Xbox 360.

 Ironically I'm not going to properly cite the site. But here's a link to where the above was copied: http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/resdoc5e/RES5e_ch08_s1-0011.html Thanks, Bedford/St. Martin's!

Ian Bogost argues that rhetoric not only exists in every statement or word written, but in video games as well. Holding that video games are a means of persuasion, he compares the procedural 'rule following' habit of computers to those of people in the workplace. People who are just doing their job, who were following orders and not listening to their own instinctual response while handling, for example, customer service, are seen as no differently than computers themselves for except one thing. People can be influenced, they can change their mind, and in the case of video games where rules are set- people can make exceptions.
Entering into the discussion of procedural rhetoric, Bogost begins to describe how we use "procedural rhetoric (as) a technique for making arguments with computational systems and for unpacking computational arguments." To tackle this in my own understanding, rhetoric is becoming a media tool using computers, rules, and systems to create a reality/symbolism/argument that is a trail of procedures leading the player to the ultimate argument of the game. In the case of Fable, the game was a huge success and popular topic in that it allowed the player to chose between good/bad/ambiguous options and then watch the outcome of the situation. The rules were there, the procedure was followed, but there was a new dynamic in which the procedure chosen interacted with one another. In a counterpoint, Bogost notes that while we may feel that following the rules can be limiting, not following the rules can yield unwanted results.
I believe it is Beauregard who taught that everything is a symbol waiting for interpretation. With this in mind I believe that Bogost was ultimately arguing about creating symbols or situations for people to experience and walk away from. However these symbols and situations are presented has great influence over the experience of the gamer in general, influencing how they interact and leave the game. The three main topics of politics, advertising, and education are discussed as having been affected by the means of procedural rhetoric. Those games on the back of the cereal boxes? Advertising. Hooked on Phonics? Education. Pin the tail on the donkey?.... Politics? haha.

As far are discussing what constitues a game, and if creating an avatar is a game in itself- I'd argue yes, it is. Creating the avatar was a one player game that kept the participant engaged in thought and a silent conversation with their self. The ultimate point and goal was self satisfaction, and given the constraints of ultimately realistic choices the goal was particularly guided to be one of realistic identity. Perhaps the makers of Wii thought that their players would benefit more from creating one character that was so closely related to them that it would some how enhance their experiences. I'd argue that players of Wii have fewer avatars than those playing Xbox however- those avatars can have hundreds of thousands of fantasy like outcomes. In my personal opinion, I could easily become just as attached to an avatar that looked like my black cat, JuJu, as I would an avatar that looked similar to myself.

Bogost Reading

The reading starts out with Bogost talking about a game that was played in the 70’s called Tenure for the PLATO computer system. The game allowed the user a creative and strategic approach to your first year of teaching. Every action has a consequence. Every small thing that you would do now would affect your future coming up. That is when he introduces procedural rhetoric as the practice of using processes persuasively. I'm not big on politics, but it would be very interesting to see a modern day politican game that used a similar concept as Tenure.

Procedural rhetoric is thought provoking, especially in the context it was used. Procedural is the way of creating, explaining, and understanding processes. Processes are defined as the methods, techniques, and logics. The term rhetoric is open to more interpretation.

It is interesting to find out that the term rhetoric is often thought of as negative, and looked at as a smokescreen the with language used to confuse, occulate, or manipulate people. The term was around in Plato over 2,500 years ago. The reading goes through various different definitions of rhetoric. My favorite is the art of persuasion.  

As a designer, I could relate to visual rhetoric also known as visual arguments. Bogost says, to create visual rhetoric, it requires a visual argument. In order to create that argument the visual has to supply the audience with reasons for accepting a point of view. Everything needs to be strategically placed to clearly convey your message. Digital rhetoric did have me kind of confused at what he was trying to say. So is this the study of how we use rhetoric within our various digital media’s blogs, message boards websites?

In my opinion, I enjoy what we are learning about, rhetoric and video games is awesome. But the way we learn about the theory behind the scenes could be presented in a much more effective way. I feel like some of these paragraphs could be shortened to key bullet points a rhetoric filled summary with visual arguments with what is being presented.