After briefly paddling into the choppy waters of emotions in video games, I have momentarily paused that train of thought in pursuit of one of my initial thought topics which I now believe has yet more importance then I gave it credit for.
"Does the genre of a game affect the importance of narrative, and how?"
I have been pondering this since I first thought of it it during our first 'proper' masters class, though yesterday I found myself considering the actual depth of the question. Initially I thought it was rather cut and dry, genres such as sport and puzzle game had less regard for narrative as say role-playing or adventure games. However as I look further into the depths of narrative as an idea I find it less so. I was particularly intrigued upon reading this blog post about Minecraft ( http://blog.failbettergames.com/post/One-Hundred-Miles-of-Solitude.aspx), the post by an author known as Alexis expresses the idea of Intrinsic and extrinsic narrative in video games.
This dictates that the extrinsic narrative is one which is set from the beginning and already in place, whereas the intrinsic narrative is the circumstantial narrative built by the player as they play through the game. Upon reading the article the narrative concept resonated with me in regards to my genre question, in that perhaps different genres put more importance upon either one of these genres or both as a whole. Through that way of thinking the sports and puzzle games I previously thought had little concept of narrative perhaps just have a more variable form of intrinsic narrative (for example in FIFA the narrative built would be the goings on in the individual matches).
I will continue to think about this and I have tasked myself with conjuring prime examples of each genre and trying to figure what their individual narrative consists of.
I will also try to properly reference this article, I just need to figure out the correct method to do so.
Wednesday 28 September 2011
Friday 23 September 2011
Level 2: Getting All Emotional
Through what various bits of reading and research I have done thus far and my own experience I have started considering something which strongly affects the players enjoyment of both a game and a narrative (perhaps in different ways?). That being those little things we all have, emotions.
We as human beings have our very lives molded by our emotions, suffering through times of sadness and anxiety and cherishing our happy and fun moments. Therefore its only natural that as video games strive towards more grandiose goals it is these emotions which must be acknowledged and catered to in order to grant the gamers a truly engaging experience.
At this point I should clarify this doesn't necessarily mean each our characters need to have complex personalities and personal demons, whats important is how much we emotionally invest within the characters because that is where we can really derive memorable and rewarding experiences.
Few out there would outline Mario as a particularly deep character he seems to have fairly simple goals (Save *Insert Appropriate Princess Here*) and he doesn't say all that much. Yet we still invest emotion into him, countless of us gamers enjoy the antics of the mushroom eating simpleton not because we particularly relate to him just because he wields a certain innocent enjoyment. Perhaps with characters like Mario and the contexts in which they fit into an immediate likability is all that is really required for us to click. It may be worth considering here that using the Mario example, such game series have always been aimed at being 'fun-for-the-whole family' which likely explains the limited complexities within.
However we must consider the deeper narratives which the industry seems to be steering towards. One game which drew a great amount of emotional enrichment out of me was Mass Effect 2. I'm well aware Mass Effect faces some scrutiny from the more critical out there as it boasts freedom when the player can still only create limited variations on the main plot. To me however the enjoyment wasn't from the main plot at all it was all the smaller parts. After carrying my character from Mass Effect 1 into 2 it instantly just felt like a continuation of my own chronicles, with even seemingly minor things still adding to the experience. ME2 is packed with small callbacks to the characters experiences in the previous game, and this is what made it feel individual to me. Then through my interactions with the characters (especially those from the previous game) I felt like I had built bonds with these characters each had there own identities and idiosyncrasies that made them who they were. Now I am well aware such moments where there is no prepared dialogue involved me saying hello hearing the same response then leaving, but it didn't matter these characters didn't need to feel like real people for me to enjoy them. Despite knowing they aren't real and therefore I had no 'real' emotional link to them, when the chance came up I could lose these allies in the final mission I did all I could to prevent fatalities. Which I think is enough I never needed them to be totally lifelike they just needed enough emotion for me to engage with them.
These thoughts are however mainly aimed at those genres which bare a lot of consideration to narrative, genres such as sports and racing games rarely (though occasionally) include a narrative as such the main goal essentially being just to win. Which isn't to say such games don't affect ones emotions, I don't think I could argue the emotional investment all those fans out there put into their games of FIFA with there friends I've seen my own brother undergo an emotional rollercoaster even over the course of one match.
However even as I write this I find myself wondering are these emotional investments that different, is my emotional attachment to my Commander Shephard as we save the galaxy any different to my brothers attachment to his Sheffield Wednesday team as hes playing a tournament with his friends.
Its clear even as I'm only scratching the surface of this deep subject matter that the complexities within shall need to be compartmentalized in some form in order for my understanding to improve. Indeed I may find the ideas which I have fired out here to be anomalous once I start delving further. Firstly I feel I must investigate the enigmatic idea of emotional investment, both towards the characters within the game (eg Mass Effect) and also the investment in the players own action within the game (eg FIFA).
We as human beings have our very lives molded by our emotions, suffering through times of sadness and anxiety and cherishing our happy and fun moments. Therefore its only natural that as video games strive towards more grandiose goals it is these emotions which must be acknowledged and catered to in order to grant the gamers a truly engaging experience.
At this point I should clarify this doesn't necessarily mean each our characters need to have complex personalities and personal demons, whats important is how much we emotionally invest within the characters because that is where we can really derive memorable and rewarding experiences.
Few out there would outline Mario as a particularly deep character he seems to have fairly simple goals (Save *Insert Appropriate Princess Here*) and he doesn't say all that much. Yet we still invest emotion into him, countless of us gamers enjoy the antics of the mushroom eating simpleton not because we particularly relate to him just because he wields a certain innocent enjoyment. Perhaps with characters like Mario and the contexts in which they fit into an immediate likability is all that is really required for us to click. It may be worth considering here that using the Mario example, such game series have always been aimed at being 'fun-for-the-whole family' which likely explains the limited complexities within.
However we must consider the deeper narratives which the industry seems to be steering towards. One game which drew a great amount of emotional enrichment out of me was Mass Effect 2. I'm well aware Mass Effect faces some scrutiny from the more critical out there as it boasts freedom when the player can still only create limited variations on the main plot. To me however the enjoyment wasn't from the main plot at all it was all the smaller parts. After carrying my character from Mass Effect 1 into 2 it instantly just felt like a continuation of my own chronicles, with even seemingly minor things still adding to the experience. ME2 is packed with small callbacks to the characters experiences in the previous game, and this is what made it feel individual to me. Then through my interactions with the characters (especially those from the previous game) I felt like I had built bonds with these characters each had there own identities and idiosyncrasies that made them who they were. Now I am well aware such moments where there is no prepared dialogue involved me saying hello hearing the same response then leaving, but it didn't matter these characters didn't need to feel like real people for me to enjoy them. Despite knowing they aren't real and therefore I had no 'real' emotional link to them, when the chance came up I could lose these allies in the final mission I did all I could to prevent fatalities. Which I think is enough I never needed them to be totally lifelike they just needed enough emotion for me to engage with them.
These thoughts are however mainly aimed at those genres which bare a lot of consideration to narrative, genres such as sports and racing games rarely (though occasionally) include a narrative as such the main goal essentially being just to win. Which isn't to say such games don't affect ones emotions, I don't think I could argue the emotional investment all those fans out there put into their games of FIFA with there friends I've seen my own brother undergo an emotional rollercoaster even over the course of one match.
However even as I write this I find myself wondering are these emotional investments that different, is my emotional attachment to my Commander Shephard as we save the galaxy any different to my brothers attachment to his Sheffield Wednesday team as hes playing a tournament with his friends.
Its clear even as I'm only scratching the surface of this deep subject matter that the complexities within shall need to be compartmentalized in some form in order for my understanding to improve. Indeed I may find the ideas which I have fired out here to be anomalous once I start delving further. Firstly I feel I must investigate the enigmatic idea of emotional investment, both towards the characters within the game (eg Mass Effect) and also the investment in the players own action within the game (eg FIFA).
Tuesday 20 September 2011
Level 1 - A New Start....
So this signals the start of the blogging thats particularly important, as I embark on a journey of self development through my masters studies. I suppose these posts will inevitably come across as more serious then any previous blog writing I have done, but I will endeavour to keep them entertaining while also addressing the relevant work. I always think a blog should present itself like it would you speaking, however that rarely seems true in my case due likely in part to my rather fast and frantic method of conversation (Needs to be addressed?).
Anyway so today marked the 'proper' start of my masters studies where we really start doing our own stuff (We were about on friday but it mainly consisted of a tour of Preston, strange Lancashire beer, and parched peas). It did however involve an impromptu session of getting to know the masters classmates I'll be going through this with which was a big plus, and we got on fairly well I would say so thats a bigger plus.
My chosen area of study for my masters will be narrative and gameplay and how they come together, what has been termed as ludonarrative. This will involve more in-depth studies into the 2 individual areas of narratology and storytelling within various mediums and the various elements which make up ludology (the study of games and their design). The 2 areas have sparked a fairly recent line of debating, consisting of 'narratology vs ludology' suggesting which of the 2 is more prevalent, important or even to a degree relevant. At this point in time i'd like to think that neither are mutually exclusive and the potential is within the combination of the 2, however whether this is eventually the case remains to be seen.
Within my studies of these areas I will also look into the 'Silent Protagonist' debate, the conversions between areas of media (eg movie to video game, video game to comic), the effect characters, environment and genre have upon the 2 and other mediums of game such as board games, pen and paper role-playing games and 'choose your adventure' style gamebooks. These studies will then branch to further areas of relevant research which will all ideally contribute to the final body of work (whatever that may be).
After firing out all my related ideas I have chosen for the moment to look into whether the genre of a game impacts the importance of the narrative. Which from the get go I thought sports and puzzle games would be examples of genres which by in large don't feature a large amount of story and rely solely on gameplay or in the case of sports games the faithful recreation of the real sport. Whereas a genre such as an RPG would seem to rely very heavily on narrative which is usually the force which drives the character and enhances the experience in such games.
Well this post has turned out longer then expected but I suppose and introductory post will tend to do that, so for the moment I will continue mt research and post again when any breakthroughs come to mind or when I have enough research to make another blog post necessary.
P.S I'm aware the level system in my titles has a slight wif of cheese but I consider okay when not pushed to the extreme, plus I figure it will be an easy way of documenting my posts in chronological order if for whatever reason I should have to. Also certain elements of my writing may make more sense if emoticons were usual however a friend once informed me they are unprofessional *sad face* (Ignore that relevant last emotion)
Anyway so today marked the 'proper' start of my masters studies where we really start doing our own stuff (We were about on friday but it mainly consisted of a tour of Preston, strange Lancashire beer, and parched peas). It did however involve an impromptu session of getting to know the masters classmates I'll be going through this with which was a big plus, and we got on fairly well I would say so thats a bigger plus.
My chosen area of study for my masters will be narrative and gameplay and how they come together, what has been termed as ludonarrative. This will involve more in-depth studies into the 2 individual areas of narratology and storytelling within various mediums and the various elements which make up ludology (the study of games and their design). The 2 areas have sparked a fairly recent line of debating, consisting of 'narratology vs ludology' suggesting which of the 2 is more prevalent, important or even to a degree relevant. At this point in time i'd like to think that neither are mutually exclusive and the potential is within the combination of the 2, however whether this is eventually the case remains to be seen.
Within my studies of these areas I will also look into the 'Silent Protagonist' debate, the conversions between areas of media (eg movie to video game, video game to comic), the effect characters, environment and genre have upon the 2 and other mediums of game such as board games, pen and paper role-playing games and 'choose your adventure' style gamebooks. These studies will then branch to further areas of relevant research which will all ideally contribute to the final body of work (whatever that may be).
After firing out all my related ideas I have chosen for the moment to look into whether the genre of a game impacts the importance of the narrative. Which from the get go I thought sports and puzzle games would be examples of genres which by in large don't feature a large amount of story and rely solely on gameplay or in the case of sports games the faithful recreation of the real sport. Whereas a genre such as an RPG would seem to rely very heavily on narrative which is usually the force which drives the character and enhances the experience in such games.
Well this post has turned out longer then expected but I suppose and introductory post will tend to do that, so for the moment I will continue mt research and post again when any breakthroughs come to mind or when I have enough research to make another blog post necessary.
P.S I'm aware the level system in my titles has a slight wif of cheese but I consider okay when not pushed to the extreme, plus I figure it will be an easy way of documenting my posts in chronological order if for whatever reason I should have to. Also certain elements of my writing may make more sense if emoticons were usual however a friend once informed me they are unprofessional *sad face* (Ignore that relevant last emotion)
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