Adventure as art, without wanking

[Las Naranjas]

Some of you may recall a brief stint I had on the AG forums at the beginning of the year during which I enquired about games that had moved you as I was writing an article for my HSC on the emotive impact games had which was greater than they should have if we were to look at the inherent "quality" of writing and production.

 

That article is now all but finished, bar a short conclusion.

It gave me an oppurtunity to invent a ridiculous word and express to the layman what potential Adventures have.

As it is written for an audience that knows nothing of Adventures, you will probably find it unsatisfying (it certainly didn't satisfy me), but length limits prevented me from talking about what I wanted to talk about.

I also chose examples for their startling power rather than them being fine examples of Adventures. Unfortunately I couldn't talk about TLE among others.

 

I also attack Syberia in it. May it not reignite the useless debate already seen.

 

I give this to you so as to help myself collect my thoughts for a conclusion.

 

http://www.sylpher.com/novomestro/blargh.htm

 

Enjoy

 

---edit---

I saved the word document as a html, so the formatting may be a bit untidy in places.

[zarathustrian]

Wow, it took me a good 15 minutes just to get through the title, Las. I'll try and tackle the body of the essay tomorrow.

 

[Las Naranjas]

any luck thus far?

[Moosferatu]

Thanks for reminding me. I was going to read it a few days ago but forgot. Since, it is midnight now, I'm still not going to read it yet, but I'll try for tomorrow.

[Las Naranjas]

Don't worry, I know everyone's trying to keep up with the flood of new releases

[Homoludens]

Thanks for following up with us on this, LN. I decided to read your piece section by section. Things as rich and deep in scope as this shouldn't be rushed. I hope you don't mind a few comments. I'll be posting more thoughts soon, the further I get into your article.

 

As it is written for an audience that knows nothing of Adventures, you will probably find it unsatisfying.....

 

....there is an element that has not been adequately explored as to its potential, and that is interactivity. Although attempted by many artists over time it has been regarded as novelty rather than a serious contribution to art, much as cinema was once maligned. However it has offered a glimpse of its potential in the unlikely and scorned field of Computer Games, specifically the, of late, neglected variety of Adventure Games. Here a startlingly powerful phenomenon has revealed part of itself and tantalized as to what it may be capable of.

 

Not only would some people who might read your writing not be familiar with adventure games, but they also may not be familiar with art history as well.

 

Why not include a very brief history of modern art, leaning towards its technological aspects (film, photography, video, sound, mixed media), and eventually leading up to the idea of interactivity-dependent and technology-dependent artists and their contributions? This would place computer games in a more connected context, strengthening your case.

 

There has traditionally been interaction between a theatrical production and its audience, with the latter, notably in the stalls of the Globe, giving considerable vocal input to the atmosphere. But to consider this to give the responder any greater insight or attachment to the themes of the play, apart from the base and simple emotions of the mob seems to be misguided. The roars of their neighbours may inspire them to greater virulence against a villain, or inspire the actor to revel in the malevolence of the role but the impacts are not profound, nor can it be said to be truly interactive. The production could risk descending into pantomime by inviting the direct participation of the audience and destroying the 4th wall, but can it be said that awkwardly self-conscious people on stage or cries of "Look behind you!" add anything to the performance beyond simple entertainment value?

 

....For some time there has existed in Fiction a series known as "Choose Your Own Adventures" and books in the same vein such as John Marsden’s Kool School. These involve a 2nd person narration, which is periodically interrupted by requests as to the direction the narrative should follow.......

 

....There have also been a number of innovations in an age of communications by allowing participation via votes. Viewers can help influence the outcome of reality TV shows by phone and novelists may conduct an internet poll to determine what direction the narrative should head in. But what does the responder gain by placing their vote along with the rest of the anonymous hordes? Does he grow closer to the plot (or lack of it in the former’s case) as a result?

 

The best example I can think of in terms of the 'immediacy' of drawing the viewer/participant into the narrative construct of the author's fictional world is improvisational theatre, where the audience's direct input during the live performance dynamically and variably affects the outcome of the story. In this case the interactivity is almost instant and highly effective, infusing the audience with the feeling that they had a tangible effect on the character's fate because of their involvement. As you pointed out, historically, much of the direct input from audience participation had been collective (as in The Globe Theatre productions). Today, however, you can see more 'personalized' audience interactivity in productions from, say, The Second City Theater in Chicago, where the actors onstage ask individual audience members for suggestions.

 

You also should have mentioned performance art, of which many pieces by various artists rely on viewer participation, often times individualized, and, far more than theatre, affect the context of the expressiveness and even the political flavour of the pieces themselves. Try looking into the oeuvre of such artists as Vito Acconci, Chris Burden, and Mabou Mines.

 

The genre that comes closest to Adventures, enough to often be confused with it, is the Role-Playing Game, or RPG........Much of the story becomes thus the direct creation of the player themselves. Whilst undeniably interactive, if we see a text as a vessel by which to convey something from the composer to the responder the RPG may not be affective. The responder could arguably achieve as much with their imagination. The narrative structure is not strong, the lack of an ending being a telling sign, as Dzikowski (an aquatinted Polish writer) said of endings; "Maybe [it is] the constituting element itself - maybe it's more important than the beginning, maybe it's the only element a story needs to exist?"

 

As per your case, authorship is probably the most critical element when discussing the idea of art and interactivity. In this instance, for the typical adventure game, the designer, i.e. author, is the omnipotent catalyst for the narrative construct, the one who decides ultimately where the story will go. Depending on the design of the adventure game the author cedes some power to the player, usually in the forms of puzzles, dialogue trees, inventory, multiple paths in the gameworld. This is notably the most acute attribute of the benefits of interactivity in the adventure genre - the author gives the player some 'wiggle room' to express themselves while ultimately retaining full control over his/her expressiveness of the entire narrative construct. The same idea applies to other similar forms of interactive art. For example, in a piece titled The Intruder by artist Natalie Bookchin, the 'gameworld' is modelled liberally after the classic arcade game Space Invaders. The player's direct involvement is not different from that of typical arcade gaming, that is, aiming and shooting the onslaught of sprites. But in this case, the sprites are actually text, passages from Jorge Luis Borges' short story, The Intruder. It is up to the player to discover such things as ideas, issues, and discourse while 'playing' the piece, and yet the authorship is retained by Bookchin, whose intent was to bring forth, within the piece, ideas about gender relations and violence.

 

Conversely, the role playing game (or RPG) seeks to relinquish a proportionately larger amount of power on to the player. In a typical RPG game, the story really takes second place, and what is emphasized is the interactivity itself, in effect turning the players into their own little authors, creating their story as they go along. The original narrative is purposely 'weakened' to make room for this possibility, and much of the authorship will belong to the players themselves in the end. What is preserved, however, is the basic architecture of the original narrative construct, which necessarily serves as a functioning framework which the players can embellish. Perhaps the most potent example I can think of for this is the upcoming Peter Molyneaux game, Fable. Other good examples are Deus Ex and Morrowind.

[Moosferatu]

I just finished reading it. It was an enjoyable read.

 

(world famous in France)

 

I thought that that was the best line of the entire thing! LOL;)

 

 

(In a subsequent title in the series he gleefully drops a heavily laden cart on a beachcomber he has trapped in order to steal his belongings).

 

I hate that moment the most of any game that I have played. Actually the entire game drove me nuts. Simon the Sorcerer 2 is not a game that I am planing on playing over again any time soon.

 

 

You were around when Valynis was here weren't you? He would have been mighty disapointed with you for not talking about The Pandora Directive. Have you played it?

[Las Naranjas]

Unfortunately, Pandora Directive was sacrificed along with The Last Express.

 

It was too good for the purposes.

 

 

 

As for the actors, that occured to me after the main body of text was written (and it's more or less too late to change it now), although I wrote it in the journal we were required to keep. Eventually I decided that (using the jargon of the course) the actor was still a Composer of the text, rather than a responder, whether they're being impromptu or acting a script. Although they are responding, and indeed have something similar to the Uber Protagonist I describe, they are still creating and composing. What I was specifically looking at in this article was a text which was handed complete to the responder, in this case a player, from the developer, in which the player makes no direct creative changes.

 

Something with already developed characters and plot(s), whether linear or not. So the "message" being imparted is still the tool of the composer, although, like all works of art, it gets affected at the receiving end by post structuralist interpretations and various other buzzwords. However, in this case due to the interactive element, a strikingly strong emotive element is brought up.

Whether we can use this as anything but another way to make tear jerking material is another matter;)

In short, Adventure's are still something in which the maker puts ideas, and then the player changes them. If you're an actor, you're largely making your own ideas, whether in collaboration or not, instead of responding to others. That has similar powers, but was not my concern here.

 

One thing I might have to stress slightly is I'm talking about Hypertext Narratives, as opposed to simply hypertexts.

But then again, the Uber Protagonist relies on the existence of a Protagonist, which arise only in narrative.

[twifkak]

Originally posted by Las Naranjas

various other buzzwords

LOL.

 

I'm bookmarking this page. There's lots of smart-talk going on that I don't have time to read now. (And I don't have the capacity to contribute to.)

[pleto4_ryan]

i want to read it but i am in a lazy mode right now....

 

i'll get to it