Posts by Sentura

  • "Level with Me", my level design interview series at RPS

    i'm constantly getting the impression that trying to define what games are and what they aren't isn't a proper way to go. i have a class on exactly this at uni, and i'm getting pissed at the lecturer every time i'm there. speaking from a strictly pragmatic point of view, there isn't any reason to have an ontology for this. what does it matter what games are? why should we care? it's not like the cure for cancer is embedded in the field of game studies and we must search rigorously to uncover it. it seems that these "game scholars" are much more inclined to argue definitions relentlessly than actually coming up with discoveries that are of use somewhere in the real world; and honestly, this is where i lose all respect for game studies.

    on the other hand, the right kind of analysis can bring about better games, in terms of immersion, message, inspiration, gameplay and so on. so there are topics that should be discussed feverishly, but i'm still thinking that these topics have very little, if anything, to do with game studies. you want to know the formula for immersion? take a look at a psychological perspective of how events are understood. message? literary theory. inspiration? artistry. gameplay? game design. these are all large fields of study that we haven't fully understood or researched, yet we're arrogant enough to build a new field of study on top called game studies? please.

  • State of Game Design 2011

    Quote from Bunglo

    Relevant?!?

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    relevant on SO MANY LEVELS. holy shit, this guy is right on the money on everything, and basically he mentioned 95% of what i love about megaman x.

  • "Level with Me", my level design interview series at RPS

    Quote from KoKo5oVaR

    Could you ever convey a "message" when people just want to play chess ?

    i don't think so, but chess is a competitive game. so the focus of the player is to eliminate the other player. most arcade games are competitive in their nature (eliminate the other player, get the highest score), which makes them hard to contain or even show a message. it's just not what they were designed for.

    single player experiences on the other hand, is where players play to get an experience that is something in itself, akin to reading a good book or watching a good movie. experiences are by nature subjective, and so it's going to be hard to force the same experience down different players' throats. still, whatever the experience may be, it may be lasting depending on how much effort into immersion the creators used. silent hill 2, for instance, is a game where everything is presumably going on in the head of the protagonist. the enemies and everything represent the dark journey inside yourself, the pyramid head symbolizing your anxieties and fears. not everyone will bother with this analysis after playing the game, but you can give the player the same experience if you show the player how it works rather than telling him.

    yesterday i found this comic panel and it gripped me. so i studied it as to understand why it gripped me. try for yourself: http://d24w6bsrhbeh9d.cloudfront.net/ph ... 9_460s.jpg

    i think this thing is very similar to what is necessary for immersion in games.

  • "Level with Me", my level design interview series at RPS

    word arhurt, i basically came to the same conclusion. i don't have a favorite among interactive experiences, i think it's mostly because since none have given me the option to immerse myself in them, as to really understand their message. passage and graveyard are very explicit with their message/intent, and it makes (in my opinion) shallow works of art.

    something that really made an impact on me when i was younger was

    Quote

    the fall

    in rune (the game). it was so simply made, yet for me the experience of it was amazing... possibly because i had immersed myself in the game. maybe the entire game wasn't art, but that right there was art for me.

  • "Level with Me", my level design interview series at RPS

    Quote from arhurt

    You are saying that the message and narrative of a game are solely based on the game play actions of the player?

    As in, Shadow of the Colossus's message is that you should climb and murder the biggest animals you can find?

    It's like saying that the message of every book to date is that you gain knowledge by turning square paper pieces bound to a hard cover over and over again while looking at the printed ink markings. That's what you do 99% of the time.

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    also, the regular show is art

  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

    Quote from Mazy

    I always go by weight to worth ratio.

    That said my storage crates are already overflowing with loot that's actualy worth something.

    This is gonna be like Morrowind where i had a house full with hundreds of precious weapons, armor sets and jewelry in the end.

    Silver swords baby!

    uhhh just get soul gems and fill them up and you never run out of money?

  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

    Quote from Rick_D

    i think there is sometimes too much freedom, it makes it feel like they are having trouble conveying a solid focused story. doesn't feel very dramatic when a guy insists i go kill a dragon and instead i go around picking flowers and stealing apples like some kind of 18th century london orphan.i'm enjoying it but i keep looking at some of the scenery and thinking they could have appeased a PC crowd by just throwing in some DX11 shit, some nice rendering, tesselation or POM, or just anything to make it less fucking ugly. it's pretty much on the same level of quality as oblivion, and that game is old as shit i like the technical idea of some of their stuff - like auto generating either moss or snow on rocks depending on the objects height in the world, but then they have this terrible 1bit alpha as a mask.

    the voice acting is, once again, diabolical. there's main storyline characters who sound like 18 year old norwegians, and then there's some sidequest dude hidden underground who has the coolest most badass voice in the game. it's just really weird.

    i wonder if beth were working on this since falllout3 or if this is a second team who were given a year.

    lmao