Parks as Game Spaces

Despite best intentions, I am still not yet a professional game designer, although work does slowly

Women in Game Worlds

When a friend and colleague of mine showed me a clip of some brilliant dialogue from PS3 title Uncha

Social Cataloguing

I’m currently working on a social website, due for a public beta launch pretty soon. Working o

 

Parks as Game Spaces

February 7, 2012 in Theory

Despite best intentions, I am still not yet a professional game designer, although work does slowly continue over at our Blue Demon Studio. In the meantime I work as an admin. assistant, helping to run a variety of charity and community groups. Fear not – I’m not about to write a lengthy CV post! What I am interested in is the surprising crossover between these two types of work, and as ever, I hope you are too.

My task at the moment is to create a leaflet and generally spark a recruitment campaign, engaging locals in a ‘friends’ group for our municipal park. Such groups essentially act as a buffer between councils and the public, bridging the gap between those who might wish to use a park, and the authorities who own it. Where this community bridge is in place, each party can then contribute in a much more meaningful way to improving the green space, and generally livening the community up. It was only when I started looking past the peripheral, graphic design concerns in this task to those sorts of motivations that I realised how relevant games design can be to this sort of community work.

I choose to see parks as game spaces. My focus at the moment lays in engaging local people with this space, bringing them on board so that the ‘friends’ group has more power to enact change. The best way I know how to do that is to convince them that their actions will have an impact. Of course, parks are arguably far more interactive than many games, because the fundamentals of that space can be altered after release. There is also an element of illusion, however. No one person is going to be suddenly granted the right to ban dog walkers, or uproot great rows of trees and install more football pitches instead, just as World of Warcraft‘s Chosen One is not allowed to single-handedly assassinate King Varian Wrynn and claim Stormwind for the Horde.

There’s a similar analogy amongst councils, who are far from tyrannical conservatives – I’m not trying to make a political point here! – but they do generally want to keep green spaces under their control. There are a variety of very logical reasons for this. Councils and politicians both stand to benefit from granting local communities an illusion of participation and choice in what happens locally, though it’s up to groups like ours to actually enact some of the more reasonable change – patching in the death of the Lich King, if you will.

All of which basically engages me as the park’s community manager, helping to balance the fundamentals of this metaphorical game space against delivering on promises to users who signed up on the basis of interactivity. My goal is certainly the same in either sphere – I just want to see people having fun.

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Women in Game Worlds

December 31, 2011 in Culture, Miscellaneous

'Left 4 Dead' is an agile and adaptive game with an impressive cast, but where are the female equivalent to Bill and Francis in this and other games?

When a friend and colleague of mine showed me a clip of some brilliant dialogue from PS3 title Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, he then asked if I recognised the female character in it at all, since the animators made use of motion capture during their performance. I didn’t, as it goes – I heaven’t seen Farscape or Starget SG-1 - but I realised I couldn’t see past Chloe Frazer’s slim physique, attractive hairstyle and general air of an action girl in her late twenties. She looks like every female character I think I’ve seen in games, at least outside the mould of the pneumatic dominatrix.

I don’t mean to single these games out in particular, nor rant unnecessarily about a topic which has already been covered with greater authority on quite a few occasions (but which sadly has yet to yield results). In fact, although I haven’t played Uncharted 3 myself, I was told to look out for its antagonist, as her placement on billboards marks some new ground for games. Katherine Marlowe is her name, though the Uncharted wiki link there is probably awash with spoilers. In her we have an older woman of rich and interesting character, who one hopes is unlikely to confront the game’s protagonist in an underbust corset with a whip in hand as so many villains seemed to at the turn of the century.

The points I want to get across are twofold:

  • matters of equality,
  • and downright interest.

The former is a tricky one, as while I can point to casts like that of Left 4 Dead and ask for the biker chick, successful businesswoman and female army veteran, men too can be quite limited when it comes to a choice of protagonist. Marcus Fenix (Gears of War), Axel Stone and Adam Hunter (Streets of Rage), and the admittedly shadowy Master Chief (Halo) represent one type, of the gruff-voiced and muscle-bound hero. More realistic characters come in the form of Tommy Vercetti (Grand Theft Auto: Vice City), Louis and Nick (Left 4 Dead), and Nathan Drake (Uncharted). It’s understandable, as men and women alike probably derive greater pleasure from inhabiting the skin of a good-looking, cool and capable hero. But where is the female Gordon Freeman? It’s still far more common to find variety in the body types and ages of male characters than female ones, and most women really are reduced to eye candy, be it as a result of impractical armour or somehow inhabiting a world in which men are allowed to be ugly, but less glamourous women appear to have been nudged out of the gene pool. I recently saw this in Overlord, though it’s common to many such adventure games:

Two scenes captured in close sequence, of wives typical to the Overlord's realm, and the male NPCs with which he interacts.

The latter point is the more positive one to make, and is really the crux of my wish. Not only do I want there to be a character I can relate to somewhere in these games, but I want the more realistic ones to do a better job of portraying reality. The world is filled with interesting characters, from the real ale enthusiast to the camp confidante and, of course, the science fiction geek. There’s a broad spectrum of men in games (though you’d be hard pressed to find a feminine man portrayed at all, let alone done well), but women are relegated to narrow types, and it just makes game worlds that little more dull.

I don’t much care for the token blonde thrown into a military unit of socially- and racially-diverse males – her figure is stunning and her presence such a transparent box-ticking. Show me the single mother trying to raise four kids in your gang’s neighbourhood; the misandrist W.I. leader who’s realising the futility of her attitude in face of the Outbreak; or the non-conformist teenager who embodies the real and genuine population of masculine women. There are men this interesting throughout the games I play, but the closest I think I’ve come are Midna and Tetra from the Legend of Zelda series, both of whom surrendered their individuality upon becoming the token princess.

As ever with issues I try to cover in this blog: I just think it would be more fun.

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Social Cataloguing

June 26, 2011 in Theory

I’m currently working on a social website, due for a public beta launch pretty soon. Working on the project has led me tothink long and hard about the medium, and about social cataloguing in particular. This aspect of the so-called ‘social web’ is particularly fascinating to me, as I love organising and displaying collections. The web as a whole has developed some pretty consistent standards, all of which allow obsessive-compulsives like myself to pour hours into a website which in turn benefits from my input to a community, and the raw data of what it is I own and buy.

Examples

I’ve used quite a few such websites in my time, but the ones which have stuck are Goodreads and My Animé List; I also have collections up on Board Game Geek and Gdgt, and Amazon, although its features are arguably quite insular. Firstly, what is it about these ‘sites which makes them social catalogues, and where do the common features lay?

Goodreads' home dashboard

Goodreads is a combined book catalogue, reviews website and social network. My Animé List works on a similar premise, but for Japanese-influenced TV, DVD and comics media.

  • It encourages its users to search a variety of catalogues (from Goodreads’ own to local and foreign Amazon stores) for books in their collection. Users can then rate these, arrange them upon virtual shelves to suit their tastes, add reviews or just appreciate the bulk of their collection.
  • Goodreads features status updates quite prominently. These inform others – within the wider community, closer friendship circles or whole other networks (e.g. Facebook) – of one user’s activity within their own collection. One user can invite another to follow their reviews, keep track of what they’re reading, and offer to do the same in return. This ‘toing and froing’ of content forms the backbone of Goodreads’ community.
  • Users and Goodreads both end up benefiting from a near-spontaneous side-effect of this activity; they can target recommendations. This seems to my untrained eye to be where social cataloguing ‘sites start to earn an income, as easy links to purchase a book your friend has recommended to you make for a very effective advertisement. There are other, more conventional adverts, of course.

Board Game Geek's home index


Board Game Geek is a much older-looking website, similar to My Animé List in that their design places greater emphasis upon user input feedback. They’re targeted at more ‘hardcore’ fans, in relative contrast to the minimalistic Gdgt.

  • “BGG” and “MAL” allow their users to browse large, manually-submitted databases of media and read detailed information on their releases and make-up.
  • Board Game Geek prides itself on hosting a variety of board game manuals, some of which can be hard for collectors to find; it also provides links to market websites like eBay in the same mode.
  • My Animé List features a prominent ‘recommendation engine’, actually powered by its users. By forming links to media which they believe to be similar and writing a short explanation, these users provide visitors and members alike with informed suggestions. It also taps into the ‘fansubbing’ community, allowing fans of subtitled animé (as opposed to the more common dub releases for Western audiences) to base their community on “MAL” ‘s catalogue.

Gdgt's home dashboard


Gdgt certainly stands out for its interface, but shares the same fundamental features as the ‘sites above – particularly My Animé List’s focus on informed user reviews and recommendations.

  • Users can browse its catalogue of gadgets, find a product they may own or are interested in, and gauge its worth or find an answer to any issues they may have, all without signing up.
  • The website is predominantly targeted at experts, although it encourages non-experts to make use of their input as two sides of the same coin. In summary, Gdgt seems to rely upon a particular type of user – one who’s enthusiastic about solving other people’s technology problems – in order to create its community. Maintaining a collection of your own is a secondary attribute to this, though it’s still valuable to its users, presumably to back up their status and expertise.

 

Social Cataloguing Communities

In all these examples, community is built up not from the catalogue, but users’ interactions with the catalogue. Each does have an impressive database to which any user can refer, in the same way they might at Wikipedia, IMDB or MobyGames; where these become social cataloguing ‘sites, capable of attracting an active user base, is that value shifts from the data to the user and their actions. I believe that the rewards here are manyfold:

  • The user is drawn in by the prospect of curating ‘their own collection’. Although some may find brief and compulsive reward in ‘logging their collection, the majority of users do this as a basis for further social interaction. Users being made to feel like they own a collection does, however, foster loyalty and emotional investment at a foundation level.
  • Interest can then develop from these collections in different ways: in Goodreads, the fun lays in seeing if your friends have any books in common; at My Animé List and Gdgt, it lays in sharing your expertise about the media and devices you own. These sorts of incentive – to compare, impart knowledge and compete – keep the users logging in regularly, and generating more content in the form of reviews and commentary.
  • As a result of this, the ‘site owners create a community whose investment in the ‘site keeps them coming back – ripe for impressions by advertisements. The users are also motivated to generate recommendations as mentioned before; these have their own value to retailers and service providers.

That, I think, is why I find social cataloguing ‘sites particularly intriguing. They start with a catalogue, add social elements, and then basically rely on user momentum to keep the ‘site running. There usually comes a time when users take over the roles of cataloguing, allowing administrators to move away from databases, and instead manage this fascinating social medium.

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Genre Genre

June 1, 2011 in Culture, Theory

Returning once more to the subject of genre: just where do we – or indeed can we – draw the lines?

I’ve recently had cause to sit down and tame a very elusive beast: the video game genre. As a serial cataloguer and self-contradicting fan of labels, I’ve often sorted my games out in my own head. Putting them into various piles based on their stylistic category for the benefit of others, however, has gotten me thinking.

I started by looking at other examples:

There is some common ground, and Wikipedia – perhaps as is to be expected – covers the most. Because its purpose is not to sell games effectively (necessitating clear and concise categories which even the most inexperienced gamer might grasp), and its format is that of an article rather than an open database, the custodians of this article have narrowed games down to the following types:

  • Action
  • Action-adventure
  • Board & card game conversions
  • Music
  • Party
  • Programming
  • Puzzle
  • Role-playing
  • Simulation
  • Sport
  • Strategy
  • Trivia
  • Vehicle simulation

The article also lists genres according purpose, notably including adult and casual games. The debate about whether a casual game is a genre or not is – to my mind – deeply misguided, since most of the casual games I’ve played have fallen under the role-playing or simulation umbrella. Adult games are an interesting one however, and a good example of the ‘meta-genres’ I observed in my own list of genres (I’ll return to this idea in a moment). Adult films and erotica are, of course, quite well-defined genres within film and book media. Unlike sci-fi, horror and fantasy, the adult genre refers to both a demographic and the type of content – irrespective of whether the book or film may exhibit other generic traits.

It’s because of quirks like this that I realised my own list should be split into three meta-genres, or ‘types of genre’, if you will. I’ve named them demographic, inherited and mechanical genres.

Demographic Genres

This rather small category of genres is a repository for those works whose content is overwhelmingly guided by the target audience. Adult games – just like adult films and books – fall into this category because they exist to provide erotic entertainment. Most or all elements of the game are geared towards providing that experience.

Although they make for disturbing bedfellows, lifestyle and childrens games work on a similar principle. I would concede that they could be weaker genres in this context; many a childrens’ game would also be considered an action or puzzle game. Again the demographic does dictate much of these games’ makeup though, and it’s fair to say that their being classed as a lifestyle or childrens’ game is what helps consumers to pick them out from the shelf. Just why the adult genre is better-defined is surely the topic of another blog. It could be because erotic entertainment is a simpler principle to understand, or a result of the stigma attached to pornography. Perhaps it’s also because some mature gamers enjoy ‘childrens’ games’ – who knows?

Inherited Genres

This is where I started, having written before on the way I felt some historical games should be classed as just that, rather than coming under the ‘first-person-shooter’ bracket wit the likes of Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath and Halo 3. These games have no thematic similarity with the earlier Call of Duty games, beyond the presence of guns and a ruleset inherited from its mechanics.

Borrowing heavily from existing media (hence these being ‘inherited’), I devised the following list:

  • Action adventure
  • Crime
  • Educational
  • Fantasy
  • Historical
  • Horror
  • Humour
  • Sci-fi
  • Sport

Despite my persistence however, classifying the likes of LittleBigPlanet, Angry Birds and even Sonic the Hedgehog in this way is plainly impossible. Sonic games could at least be classed as action adventures, and while it sounds more like a mechanic, I believe that games of this type have come to form their own narrative and plot structures.

Though one would expect an element of (inter)action from a game anyway, there is some unique feedback between the player’s involvement and the adventure within the story which manages to define them as a whole. Action films like Die Hard, Sucker Punch and Terminator offer a similar experience, but because of the passive nature of film, the ‘action’ element comes to the fore and the ‘adventure’ becomes implied.

Mechanical Genres

These genres were the ones I’ve most tried to avoid, but had to concede as worthy ‘types of games’. Mechanics can definitely define the game and the type of player that they attract, so why should they not sit alongside the established genres listed above? I feel a need to stress the importance of that ‘sitting alongside’, since the medium has matured to a point where the narrative in a game has just as much allure as its mechanics. Gone are the days when most gamers would play games simply to test a high score – instead we long for rich experiences, and so I feel we deserve to filter horror out from history, and humour out from sports.

What really surprised me was just how many genres I felt I needed for this category. Though I’ve decided to leave behind the markers of the retro era (like ‘jumping game’, ‘dungeon game’ and so on), it seemed foolish to ignore the specific appeal a turn-based strategy game might have over real-time strategy, or the changes in narrative and plot which a first-person perspective brings to a shooter, compared to a third-person one. There are many gamers who will ignore a whole experience if it does not fit their preferred mechanics, and so I bowed to democracy:

  • Adventure (point & click and text-based)
  • Board game
  • Card game
  • Driving
  • Fighting
  • Hack ‘n’ slash
  • Music
  • Online world
  • Party
  • Peripheral
  • Platform
  • .. and the list goes on.

There are, of course, some games which fit purely into a mechanical genre: digital versions of Monopoly, the Mario Party series and Virtua Fighter to name a few. Many of the best-known contemporary titles fit into one or more of these and an ‘inherited genre’ as well though, and that fact got me to wondering if there’s a direct correlation.

The Mix

Take for example the Halo series, Portal and World of Warcraft. All are prized for their well-executed mechanics, but also for their plots and themes, which in turn generate a fierce fandom. Halo leans very heavily upon action, being a first-person shooter, but it distils solid science fiction through its cliffhanger narratives and enigmatic teaser trailers. Portal too combines a subtle plot with stellar mechanics, all the while ensuring that GLaDOS sits right up there with HAL and the T-1000 on a list of memorable sci-fi nemeses.

My intention with this article was not to come to some sort of conclusion based on generic appeal, but this has been a hard result to ignore.

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