I haven’t got a brain… only straw.

Week 4

I cannot wait for the day that they start making games that are more intelligent. Lately I’ve experienced games that are nothing more than a string of button mashing destruction that is somehow dragged on through dozens of levels by a barely plausible storyline.

There are games that attempt to be intelligent. The most recent attempt at intelligent content I’ve come across is in Prototype. Shocked? Frankly I cant believe I’m using the words intelligent and prototype in the same sentence. BUT! It is there should you choose to pay attention to it. If you actively pay attention to the story line, if you hunt down and watch all the memories that you collect, there is something there. It seems that what they are attempting to do is satisfy the destruction craving but also to justify the action through the insertion of the government-experiment-gone-wrong mystery that unfolds throughout. This is just an attempt at intelligence.

I think the problem with both the rants is that they categorize mindless violence and fun together and all the way on the other side is artistic, human condition representations, and intelligence. They say this as though it is impossible to combine anything from column a into column b. Isn’t it possible to have a game that is violent, fun, artistic and represents the human condition? I think it is, all you need is a good storyline and a fixed camera. That’s really all you need.
People like to argue for games as a legitimate art form, so lets take a look at art. If my years of studying art have taught me anything (apart from the 2 thirds rule and the glory of painting the colour wheel over and over again) it is that the artwork is not supposed to be intelligent, it is supposed to trigger an emotional, intellectual or even spiritual reaction from the viewer. The artwork itself is just an object, the viewer has to fill in the gaps.
Look at Blue Poles by Pollock. You may all know it from the boring Australian history classes back in whatever grade that was. It is a painting that creates an intelligent emotional response. Anyone who’s seen it in real life hopefully knows what I’m talking about. The painting itself isn’t meant to be intelligent. Its just a painting. The artist had an emotion and a thought that he wanted to convey and he chose the simplest way to pass it on to the viewer. Some people will get it, some people wont, and some people will be reminded of their aunt, a sandwich or feel really happy. None of these responses are wrong, none are right. The painting isn’t stupid, its not smart, its just a painting, don’t try to make it something that it isn’t. What makes it intelligent is the viewers response. Its not about being complex or deep, its about presenting one idea as affectively as you can. Its about stimulating an intelligent response, not dropping a whole bunch of information on them at once.
If that makes no sense in relation to Blue Poles then try Marcel DuChamp’s ‘Fountain’. If you don’t know Fountain then hang your head in shame. An upside down urinal isn’t exactly intelligent, but when you think about its context, think about its meaning, in other words; think, then you’ve contributed to the intellectual discussion of what makes that one of the most influential and important works in contemporary art.

Proof that you can make something violent intelligent artistic and representing the human condition, the best example in my opinion is the film Pan’s Labyrinth. Could you turn it into a game? Hell yes.

The same thing could be applied to games; one key idea presented in a simple way can turn a game from mind numbing to inspiring.

The problem right now is that in catering to the baseline of taste, games like Halo, Gears of war or GTA whatever, are the Taylor Swift of gaming (*shudder*). Making a game intelligent isn’t about making it boring, its not about taking out the mass murder, and its not about injecting a storyline that is dense and uses every word in the dictionary. Right now they are trying to make games intelligent through the story line, but an intelligent storyline that doesn’t mesh with the game play is pointless. An intelligent game isn’t about making the game complex, if anything the simpler you can make the story the better. As long as the story isn’t in conflict with the action, as long as the two justify each other, the audience will fill in the rest. We do have brains after all. Any game can be intelligent, if you know what reaction you want the player to have, there are always ways to achieve it. Present a simple idea and the player will fill in the rest. It is up to the Player to create an intelligent emotional response to the game, and there is no point if the game crushes any hope of a reaction when over stimulated to the point where nothing comes as a shock. When you spend an entire game just killing everything, or an entire game listening to some overly complex story line, you stop paying attention. Once this happens there is no hope for any kind of intellectual response.

That’s pretty much all I have to say, the game doesn’t have to be smart, it just has to make you think.

(side note; this was proof read by Kacie, who said, and I quote, “yes, it makes sense.” I still think this is a lie. She also said “this ending is a COP OUT.”
Well sooooorrry. After 900 words, the train of thought crashed into a truck of dinner that was ignoring the red light.)

Soap Wars

Just realised that its my week to present a game, so, here, goes, nothing…

What would happen if street fighter and gish made beautiful babies? Soap Wars.

In the cold, barren and bacteria infested world of public bathrooms, there remains only one oasis of hygiene. Yet even this swine flu crushing Saviour has fallen into a pit of Raging Horror where it must fight for its life.

Carelessly dispensed the soap begins to plummet towards the basin, its potential is crushed when a hand lacking in basic coordination takes a wild swipe. The soap sees the hand, empty, confused, dirty, but it cant help any more, fate, and gravity, have taken over. The soap watches as its entire life plan dissolves because of one careless mistake. As it falls it screams, ‘why? am i not good enough? am i not worthy of aiding your sanitation purposes?’ But its too late. The cold porcelain shatters all its hopes and dreams. Its old life is over. Soap wars begins.

The unloved globules, tainted by the cheep dirty basin, striped of their hygienic purposes, bitter and confused, unleash their fury upon one another. they were once brothers, but no longer. theres only enough room for one blob of soap on this basin, will it be you?

This is essentially a button masher. two to four players, each pick a different soap colour (pink, green, blue, etc.) and fight to the death. the soap looses lives when it gets pushed or thrown off the edge of the basin. the more damage your soap takes the easier it is to get pushed off. Attacks range from jumping and crushing other soap, to pushing, bighting (i guess soap have teeth?) consuming others and spitting them off the edge. To avoid an attack you scatter, though this could make you easier to consume? and every now and then if you mash the buttons just right, a finger will come down to try to wipe the soap away, taking any that get in its way.

so theres my game. enjoy. personally, i predict it’ll be the next Big Hit.

or rather not.

Asteroids? not just yet.

Attempting to do the asteroids mod has just gone to show how much i suck at coding. because im using game maker. or rather attempting to use game maker and failing epically. lets just say that one of my finer moments was trying to figure out how to delete an instance from the room.

20 minutes later. instance finally deleted.

oh dear. give me a mac and a wacom any day.

currently asteroids is functioning. however, this is a tentative state. if i could get the scoring and lives to work i could maybe even call it a game. not a great game, but at this point im not asking for more.

the mod is pretty simple, you get hit by an asteroid, two more appear. The real change is more cosmetic. lets just say, the title ‘asteroids’ doesnt really apply anymore. it looks more like a promotional game for a brand of diet pills. though it does look kind of distressing having a person walking (ok, sliding) around shooting pills out of there mouth. a bit too kings cross. but regardless of the diet pill junkie/bulimic that my spaceship has become, it looks retro fabulous.

I think the lesson here is pretty clear: if you want a game to look good, look me up. If you want a game to work, maybe call someone else.

Prepare for a blogening

The cry of academia has called once more for a solid blogging, this time its comp4431.

So why am i doing this course? Its a pretty cliched answer but, why not? It looked like fun (which compared to most of the subjects I’ve done is a big plus), it worked with my timetable, and who doesn’t love games? When @maskedfool told me about this course my first question was: “are you sure we can enroll in that?” she said yes, and I squealed like a 13 year old girl meeting Zac Efron.

I love playing video games, but thanks to a little interfering thing called “life” it just doesn’t happen that often. When it comes to choosing something to play, i’ll take anything with a good story (Zelda oot) or pretty graphics (Rolando/LittleBigPlanet). Though having said that, after suffering through the horrifying controls of GTA4 (“why wont you climb the *%#^ ladder?! im mashing the %^*# triangle you ^*#%!”) I’ve realised that i will play anything. absolutely anything. right to the end. Unfinished games are just an itch. this is possibly part of the reason people wont play monopoly with me (we have to play until everyone is bankrupt).

There are games that i play for enjoyment and not to only to satisfy my obsessive completionist tendencies. Theres Rolando, visually gorgeous with simple controls and one great soundtrack. Assassins Creed, because of the motion and the interaction between the character and environment. Also the horse animation is the best i’ve ever seen. Prototype, because of the senseless destruction. and the fact that you can destroy a tank by throwing a helicopter at it.

But really my personal all time favorite is always going to be Zelda Ocarina of Time. Its the childhood game that just satisfies every request i could ever make in a game. its got the great storyline, the strong characters, the action, the puzzles, huge environment, iconic music, and the wide variety in the enemies and bosses. oh, it just gets me every time.

As for what games i’d like to make, well i dont really know. What i can tell you is they will be flash games. Also i’ll probably spend more time on the graphics than any kind of coding, so you know they will be a Visual Experience and a controls nightmare.