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Game Movement as Enactive Focalization
Get PDFThis paper integrates thought on game narrative and embodied cognition, in order to consider the significance of movement to the embodied narrative experience of games. If games are a mode of ‘environmental storytelling’, determining the player’s mobile situatedness within the gamespace is of crucial importance. The metaphor of game design as narrative architecture should be expanded to include te the design of movement dynamics, alongside geographical gamespace. I suggest a theoretical infrastructure that aims to enable further analysis of movement design’s role in this scope.
The theory of enactive perception asserts that all perception is inherently negotiated through embodied understanding of moving within environment. According to this model, by giving meaning to perception, movement is also directly related to the structure of consciousness and thought. Cognitive definitions of ‘narrative’ that integrate embodiment are applied to argue it can relevantly account for part of thought’s role in enactive perception.
Mieke Bal’s concept of focalization (1997) broaches narrative perspective by underscoring the constant “movement of the look”. For enactive perception, such mobility should be understood as inseparable from the movement of the body even when perspective could appear detached from embodiment. Therefore, I offer the supplementary concept of “enactive focalization” – narrative perception as interpreted through the interconnected dynamics or perspectival and physical movement.
To exemplify my ideas and the potential of future research in this scope, I discuss the uniquely effective and affective movement dynamic design of Journey. This paper concludes by reflecting on enactive focalization in light of the increased utilization of embodiment in the contemporary digital media landscape.
 
frictiOns - the software-surface-rubbing game: A case study on experimental film and smartphone culture
Get PDFSmartphone usage has drastically changed the way images are produced and contemplated, creating thus fertile ground for a virtual environment blurring information exchange with entertainment. In the experimental film frictiOns, virtuality and interaction have been reconsidered under an analogue perspective. Disobeying assumptions on device and virtuality by challenging the concept of surface and interface. An analysis of art games and the binome (i)phone-entertainment, examines the prospective of users as players, highlighting cultural determining factors such as flattening and soft power.
 
Being Anal About the Rules: How digital media and gamification redefined the sexual practices and culture of the MSM community
Get PDFDeveloping technologies, digital media and mobile internet access have allowed members of the MSM community the opportunity to integrate their lives more fully into a world once dominated by exclusively straight places and communities - the change fostered by hook-up apps and services has taken the socio-sexual interaction of men who have sex with men (MSM) from the old physical community spaces into digital sexual oases.
This paper will discuss from a theoretical standpoint the changing sexual behaviours and new opportunities to create a sense of space for MSM individuals made possible by geolocation-based apps and the emergent playstyles that are born from the app developers’, and players’, gamification of sexual expression
Desperately Trying to Mediate Immediacy: A discussion of lived experiences in the digital and mediated context of esports
Get PDFEvermore aspects of contemporary cultures, societies and human life appear to be changed through processes of digitization and mediatization. A great body of work is touching on these processes of change. However, not many discuss aspects of leisure and aesthetics. And if they do so, seldom regarding bodily and worldly aspects. This paper thus seeks to discuss such changes alongside the phenomenon of esports. More precisely, the paper situates the aesthetic dimension and practices of watching and doing esports in contemporary cultures and societies, focusing on lived experiences (ästhetisches Erleben) in digital and mediated contexts. The failing attempt to understand, the attempt to re-present and Gelassenheit (composure or serenity) are introduced as modes of coping with immediate aesthetic experiences. Here, especially the constitutive transition from a physical to a meta-physical dimension of reality will be grasped on. By that, ongoing philosophical debates about the constitution of reality and being can be supported in their progress
Papers, Please as Critical Making: A Review
Get PDFThis article examines Lucas Pope’s independent game Papers, Please as an instantiation of critical making within the discipline of the digital humanities. By confronting the player with moral decisions in their capacity as an immigration officer allowing or denying entry to immigrants within a totalitarian state, the game introduces an expressive form of game design in which conceptual practices are used to examine political and social realities. This type of critical media practice introduces a political ethic to the digital humanities that is arguably scarce within the discipline
The Design Process of a Board Game for Exploring the Territories of the United States
Get PDFThe paper reports the design experience of a board game with an educational aspect, which takes place on the location of states and territories of the United States. Based on a territorial acquisition dynamic, the goal was to articulate the design process of a board game that provides information for individuals who are willing to learn the locations of the U.S. states by playing a game. The game was developed using an iterative design process based on focus groups studies and brainstorming sessions. A mechanic-driven design approach was adopted instead of a theme or setting-driven alternative and a relatively abstract game was developed. The initial design idea was formed and refined according to the player feedback. The paper details play-testing sessions conducted and documents the design experience from a qualitative perspective. Our preliminary results suggest that the initial design is moderately balanced and despite the lack of quantitative evidence, our subjective observations indicate that participants’ knowledge about the location of states was improved in an entertaining and interactive way
Playing Producer: An alternative perspective on video games as film
Get PDFThis paper proposes a perspective on analyzing video games as film by comparing the interactions of the player with those of a producer or other member in the film-making process. This contrasts with existing methodologies which focus on formal characteristics or narratology. This proposal also provides a method for combining the interactivity of games with the storytelling capacity of cinema without encountering the narrative paradox
Pokémon is Evolving! An investigation into the development of the Pokémon community and expectations for the future of the franchise
Get PDFPokémon is one of Nintendo’s largest, most influential franchises. With a history ranging more than twenty years, its enormous fan-base spans video and trading card games, anime TV shows and films, amongst other media. This paper aims to investigate the Pokémon fan community while exploring how the franchise has grown: from its beginnings as a pop-culture phenomenon, to one of the strongest and friendliest gaming fan communities in existence today. Data gathered from 165 online respondents examines how fans’ past experiences with the franchise inform their expectations towards future products. It also explores how considerable efforts from developers – as well as the gaming community – contribute to the creative growth of a continually-expanding fan-base. Additionally, this study was in a unique position to gather data before two new Pokémon games were released: Pokken Tournament and Pokémon GO. The former did not generate high expectations but still performed well in terms of sales. The latter was thought of as a casual game but, as the world now knows, was a tremendous success. Insights obtained from researching fan attitudes to unreleased games show that expectations do not always become reality
Book Review: The Post-9/11 Video Game: A Critical Examination
Get PDFReview of The Post-9/11 Video Game: A Critical Examination by by Jason C. Thompson and Marc A. Ouellette
"Grant us eyes, grant us eyes! Plant eyes on our brains, to cleanse our beastly idiocy!": FromSoftware\u27s Bloodborne, and the New Frontier of the Gothic
Get PDFThis article will consider the ways that Bloodborne (FromSoftware, 2015) plays on a broad range of Gothic themes and conventions, utilising unusual narrative techniques and gameplay mechanics which offer the player a means by which they might experience a Gothic narrative in ways that the traditional novel format does not allow for. It will argue that Bloodborne showcases the genre\u27s potential new frontier: converting conventions into interesting new gameplay mechanics, and letting the player experience the genre through player-led narrative and agency