nitaip's blog

The big file (600K or so) includes Frotz for anyone who doesn't have it.

The smaller file is all the source code and project file for Inform 7.

Hope you enjoy it. Feedback appreciated.

As the author of the Unforums and one of the (I imagine) leading pioneers of ARG (or has he likes to call it, Chaotic Fiction), Spacebass obviously has a lot more experience and understanding of the genre-medium than I do. And after spending enough time interacting with ARG's and understanding the theory behind them, the author grew wary of the term "ARG" itself, as it does not properly convey what the "game" is all about.

I should probably preface this by noting that Spacebass's article is called "Undefining ARG", rather than "defining" ARG. Right from the beginning, "Chaotic Fiction" is therefore considered either an incomplete term (but MORE complete than ARG) or a term embodying a type of game so intrinsically malleable and fluid as to defy all definitions entirely.  read more »

On Friday, Zach brought up an interesting question to consider, with regards to the narrativity of Cathy's Book extending beyond the limits of cover-to-cover and incorporating peripherals (the evidence pack) and reader (or player?) involvement through a community. Does "open media" extend the breadth of narrative beyond the concrete text? For example, let's consider MMO/MUD communities. I'll use City of Heroes as an example. If any of you are unfamiliar with City of Heroes (CoH), the basic premise is a Massively Multiplayer roleplaying game set in a fictional metropolis (in Rhode Island, of all places) that also happens to be the boiling pot of superhuman activities. Players create a superhero and engage in a predefined, pre-programmed world with previously scripted, coded and incorporated storylines (saving banks from AI-controlled thugs, etc.)  read more »

On Monday, I think we were talking about the categorization of "genre fiction" and "literature". I share the general sentiment that separating genre fiction from literature on grounds of quality, professionalism and "worth" is a fallacy, a value judgement that should not permeate scholarship, since intellectualism should lead to neutrality. Unfortunately, at least in my experience, it is scholarship itself that insists on a stark separation between the good, valuable, timeless "literature" and pop, cheap, dime-a-dozen, formulaic "genre". I don't exactly buy that argument at all, but I do want to acknowledge that literary exclusion/elitism seems to be the norm.

[Actually, before I go on, I should acknowledge that exceptions to the rule do exist. "The Hobbit", for example, is becoming required reading in some schools, and even our Lit class focuses on narrative from a very nontraditional, open-minded perspective. Having said that...]  read more »

Disclaimer: I apologize if this seems fragmented. I'm writing this on a supply of allergy meds.

So, Markku Eskelinen and the ideas surrounding Ludology seem like a dead horse by now. We've already established that most--if not all--of us either don't like his work or aren't convinced Towards Computer Game Studies is a valuable work of scholarship. While I don't exactly disagree, I'm more interested in trying to understand why his opinions are met with such open hostility, and what (if any) scholarship can be extracted from his essay.

So, if we consider Towards Computer Game Studies something of a flagship for Ludology's self-proclaimed maiden voyage into the glorious uncharted territory of the Computer Game (and while that may seem like an unfair judgement, ludology itself is a very contemporary school of thought created upon the platform of direct resistance to narratology), we run into basic problems with premises. Eskelinen's premises.  read more »

Brand logos are probably the most evident examples of imagetext at work. Elements of text (language, words, names, letters) and elements of image (color, shape, visual structure) become co-dependent and create a new, instantly recognizable hybrid form, and ultimately, the logo itself becomes a standalone product, capable of manipulation while still retaining recognizability. Google, for example, changes its logo somewhat during important events. A snowman might adorn one of the O's during Christmas season, or a turkey and a cornucopia might decorate the G and E, for example. Since the basic elements of the Google logo (font, structure, color) remain the same, our minds still process the input as a play on the original logo, rather than an entirely new logo altogether. The most fundamental elements of imagetext persist.  read more »

"Rise of the Video Game" introduced Space Invaders as a successor of "Pong" in the video game market, and the very first experimentation with a fantasy setting: invading aliens and the defense against. While the premise of Pong was relatively simple (two people playing a highly simplified, symbolic, pixelated table tennis), a "story" and "discourse" space still existed, but wasn't at all elaborate and dependent almost entirely on the player/viewer's imagination. Space Invaders is similarly minimalistic, although out of necessity, given that game technology had not yet evolved to become a diverse storytelling toolset. Props were limited to simple, often monochrome, pixels and a game play established upon basic, simple premises.  read more »

This blog entry will make no sense unless you watch THIS first.

If you recall Chapter 4 of Story and Discourse, Chatman delineates a few examples of "non-narrative" discourse, where an omniscient narrative voice is eschewed for a more intimate perspective of a character's thoughts. Instead of watching a story unfold from the perspective of an external narrator, the reader (or audience) is immersed directly into the character's consciousness.

Specifically, Chatman describes a soliloquy as:  read more »

• The character speaks
• Either he's alone, or his direct surroundings are unaware of his speech
• Traditionally, he faces the audience
• The audience may be anonymous, in that the speaker may not always name the audience
• The style and diction is typical of the character's normal language
• The content reflects the character's situation

This is just a tangent from a little remark brought up in class today, about Okami and Comix Zone as contemporary examples of interactive imagetext, specifically focusing on the visible relationship between artist<-->art<-->audience.

For anyone who doesn't know, Okami is one of the last games to be released for the PS2 platform. It's a cel shaded adventure game where the player takes the form of the Japanese Shinto goddess of the Sun Amaterasu, incarnated as a wolf, to save Nippon (Japan) from a primeval malevolence known as Orochi. It all sounds a little archaic, but that's part of the game's appeal. The game itself plays like a sophisticated fairy tale, with one important element of gameplay: The celestial paintbrush.  read more »

(I say mainstream for the sake of simplicity. Mainstream, by my definition, is any commercial game. In other words, a game available at your local Gamestop. Passage is not a mainstream game. Halo is, and so forth.)

If you're not familiar with the term kernel/satellite, Chatman uses them to describe elements of discourse that support the story. Kernels are necessary parts of the story, without which the story would collapse into itself. Patroclus's death in the Iliad is a kernel. Huck deciding to go down the Mississipi on a raft with Jim is a kernel. In other words, the author selects one option out of two or more (Huck goes or doesn't go, Patroclus dies or lives) and that selection becomes an anchor of the plot.  read more »

Sort of. Passage is a game by the barest definition: You play it. You have one single, generic character that you navigate along a linear path with some limited room for maneuvering. There's one music track, one non-player-character, and exactly one (depressing, or cathartic, or anticlimactic, depending on how you look at it) ending.

The digital "game" is just the medium of Passage. Personally, I think of Passage as more of an artistic expression than a traditional game. Some artists use prose, and others use canvas. Passage happens to be a digital game. I don't mean to sound pretentious though. The idea of something being a 'work of art' has connotes a status of importance that transcends what many would consider the ultimate goal of any given video game: mundane entertainment. Personally I didn't think Passage was so groundbreaking and brilliant to be a "work of art" (but, some people break down into tears upon seeing a Rothko painting, so what do I know?), but it is artistic. Here's why.  read more »