First Person Podcast Episode 11

Procedurally Generated Feels: No Man's Sky

Alexandra Orlando, Rob Parker, Shawn Dorey, Justin Carptenter 1 Comment

In this first episode of the term, we discuss the highly controversial game No Man’s Sky. We go in depth with the early and more recent marketing of the game and how Hello Game’s relationship with Sony helped and hindered the development process of the game. We also talk about our personal experiences with the game, how the procedurality is executed in comparison to similar games. We close out the episode with a discussion about how games scholars and media archeologists might want to approach a game like this. Continue Reading →

Book Review

8th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling

Antranig Sarian

The word “Interactive” is a much abused and rarely defined buzzword. Espen Aarseth notes this in his 1996 book Cybertext where he observes how the word “Interactive” is more of a marketing term with little academic depth, a slogan that brings to mind “computer screens, user freedom, and personalized media, while denoting nothing”.1 More recently, Miguel Sicart in Against Procedurality has criticised a trend within game studies to unduly fetishize the digital and structural aspect of games. 2 Nowhere are these trends more apparent than in the recently published conference proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling. The term “Interactive Digital Storytelling” is supposed to tie the papers together, but does so with little definitional cohesiveness: signifying branching paths, collaborative fiction, digital spaces, authoring tools and simulation games all at once. This reflects a worrying trend in game studies, a trend which fetishizes the digital while neglecting to explore the theoretical implications of the games that are actually being discussed. Continue Reading →

Environment as Narratives

Firewatch Analysis

Jude Baril-Bédard

Firewatch is a narrative first-person game released in 2016 by indie studio Campo Santo. In this game, the player embodies Henry, a middle-aged man spending the summer of 1989 working as a fire lookout in the Shoshone National Forest, Wyoming. Studying Firewatch provides insight into the relationship between environment design and narrative experiences, since the latter is supported or emphasized by the former. Gameplay restricts players’ movement to a mountaintop, where they walk between trees and on top of rocky formations. I will unpack my shifting emotional response to the environment as I explored it. I felt the initial novelty and the awe induced by its technical prowess quickly subsided, creating in me a spectrum of affects. As the overarching narratives imposed themselves and interfaced with my reception of the game, they colored my reading, shining a new light on my surroundings. Continue Reading →

Gamification as Responsible Experience Design

Disrupting the New Norm and Fostering a Hero’s Journey

Dr. Sylvester Arnab 1 Comment

Within the domain of educational technology, new pedagogical approaches and technologies have been “disrupting” the status quo of teaching and learning practices, which have in turn become mainstream and then been accepted as the “new” norm. In recent years, digital platforms, ranging from e-learning and simulation platforms to digital games and mobile applications aiming to enhance engagement, have provided alternative means and options for the way learning content is delivered and consumed. However, there is danger that a learner’s focus is further fragmented by these “disruptions.” Furthermore, dependence on different online and digital platforms for facilitating learning could lead to disconnections between learners’ engagement with the different sources and disparities between the virtual/digital and real knowledge, capabilities, confidence and self-awareness (Warburton, 2009; Arnab et al., 2011). Continue Reading →

First Person Podcast Episode 10

Press A to Boob: Women's Sexuality in Video Games

Emma Vossen, Alexandra Orlando, Judy Ehrentraut, Betsy Brey, Elise Vist 1 Comment
Two women shown standing close together

In this Podcast (which is Elise and Emma’s last podcast!) we have a conversation about sex and sexuality in gaming that discusses a lot of topics that don’t really get covered in game studies very often! These topics Include: the difference between in game sexuality and sexualizing characters, the differences between depictions of sexuality in video games and depictions of sexuality in film, sexual awakenings via video games, our first video game crushes, Bioware games, queer representation, and “the gay button”. Furthermore, we wonder if women attracted to women can appropriate or inhabit the male gaze that is so prominent and games and we ask a lot of questions including: why does it feel like there are there so many queer women in game studies? When is sex in videogames sexy? When is it horribly unsexy? Will better graphics make a difference? And, ironically, did videogames make me gay? Continue Reading →