When I said that narrative was not a game mechanic, but rather a form of feedback, I was getting at the core point that chunks of story are generally doled out as a reward for accomplishing a particular task. And games fundamentally, are about completing tasks — reaching for goals, be they self-imposed (as in all the forms of free-form play or paideia, as Caillois put it in Man, Play and Games) or authorially imposed (or ludus). They are about problem-solving in the sense that hey are about cognitively mastering models of varying complexity.
Some replies used the word “content” to describe the role that narrative plays. But I wouldn’t use the word content to describe varying feedback.
In other words, perverse as it may sound, I wouldn’t generally call chunks of story “game content.” But I would sometimes, and I’ll even offer up a game design here that does so.
At GDC, there was a Game Design Challenge (I’ve participated in one of these, in the distant past!). This year the topic was religion. And you’re going to need to know everything about what happened to make sense of this post. 🙂
Jason Rohrer won the challenge, with a game that was a Minecraft mod with very particular rules. The big rule to know about is that it’s a game played sequentially, with the world having persistence, so that each player gets to see the remnants of what the previous player left behind, but with no explanation. This is supposed to engender the sort of mystery that in real world leads to myths and thence religions.
Side note: I actually received a “miracle” during this process, and then it was taken from me for the purposes of keeping score, something which I felt was rather gamificationy. 🙂
Which then led to some tweeting back and forth about whether this was in the spirit of the idea, including heated remarks and comments from Jason himself. It even led to a Gamasutra article on it all.
And just now I stumbled across a blog post that links the arguments I make about authorial intent and games as art in A Theory of Fun for Game Design to the controversy:
This morning I found myself reading the tail-end of Raph Koster’s A Theory of Fun For Game Design. I found a lot to love about the book, but one of the things that persistently bothered me was his insistence on value and meaning being bestowed by authorial intent…
…It’s fascinating to me that with an extremely simple ruleset and a modded copy of someone else’s sandbox game, [Jason] managed to generate something that’s simultaneously a reflection on continuity (I’d actually dispute that the game OR its reception is much of a reflection on religion) and a medium in its own right…
…Jason Rohrer’s reaction was excellent. He has encouraged whoever ends up with Chain World to NOT pass it on to the next person in the chain… it’s more a declaration about what he feels is valuable about the whole project than an attempt to reassert authorial control on a ruleset that he created…
…To my mind, it’s that kind of thinking about author-ity that will lead games/videogames to fulfill their potential rather than the call-to-arms for authorial intention on which Koster closes his otherwise excellent book.
Most modern theories of art hold that all forms of art and all media are interactive, that there is an implicit conversation between any audience (despite the original roots of the word in just “listening”) and any creator — that the act of interpreting the work even in the most shallow way means that there is a collaborative construction of the work.
So I don’t actually hold with the idea that games are somehow special in that regard. They are more interactive than many. But frankly, they are less interactive than many forms of performance art. A concert where the audience sings back unpredictable stuff, or a comedy show being heckled, are arguably *more* interactive than a game.
That leads me to conclude that Jason, through his surrender of authorial intent, is actually imposing authorial intent. “Asserting what he feels is valuable about the project” is exactly expressing authorial intent, and is in fact often the worst-regarded form of it in many art circles: telling the audience HOW they are “properly” supposed to enjoy the art.
I don’t actually have any issue with telling people they are playing a game “wrong,” even though it is futile. Once it exists as an artifact, then the designer’s opinion shouldn’t be significantly more privileged than anyone else’s except insofar as it provides additional insights into ways to interact with the work. I only start to worry when the author(s) start getting obnoxious about it, which Jason is definitely not doing.
For what it’s worth, I think that authorial intent in games, and especially in art games or what Bogost calls proceduralist games, is expressed via the rule constructs that are conveyed and (usually) enforced by the code. Because of the unique nature of working in rulesets as a medium, we typically see two sorts of generalized approaches:
1) prescriptive rulesets, wherein the choice of what to leave out and what to include in the rules effectively conveys a message. SimCity was accused of this despite its goal of being descriptive, and September 12th is probably the canonical example. The Marriage is another good art game example; the dynamics that exist between the “husband” and “wife” certainly lean one towards specific ways of interpreting the meaning in the rulesets.
2) descriptive rulesets, which present the mathematical framework, and then leave the judgement up to the player as to how to approach the problem sets that the rules implicitly pose. I would put Chain World in this category, and Sleep is Death as well, but not Passage.
I would also say that MMOs and multiplayer games in general have a very natural affinity for this end of the spectrum, and I’ll go so far as to assert that all the virtual worlds I have worked on have explicitly had that quality of being a “medium” that the blog post suggests, because virtual worlds in general encourage a sort of player generativity far beyond what we see in single-player environments or even “team sport” style games.
Needless to say these are points on a spectrum. At the descriptive end, no author(s) can claim to truly have an unbiased and objective ruleset and still have a game, I suspect. Chain World includes some assumptions that convey to us some of how Jason thinks about the problem he is modeling — indeed, at the GDC session, he walked us through exactly those assumptions — and this leads to his having shaped perhaps not the possibility space of reactions, but certainly at least the probability space thereof.
On the other extreme, of course, the fact that the audience is a participant in the process means that prescriptive rulesets are just about always subverted in some fashion; a classic early example would be the pro-peace graffitti in Counterstrike mods, which were done as part of a guerrilla art project!
It is as yet early days for the art game movement (and I do term it a movement). Making prescriptive games *intentionally* is hard enough right now. I very much applaud those who set out intending to create provocative descriptive rulesets (though in the MMO world, we get called “ant farmers” for attempting to do so).
(Ironically, Jason has told me more than once that some of his own exploration of these issues was inspired by the very passages that the blog post author cites in my book, and I happen to know that Rod Humble got going in this direction also in part because of my prompting. Such a small community…)
In any case, I do think that people *set out* to create such rulesets, with intention. And whether they do it singly or as a team, I can’t help but call that an authorial impulse.
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
Cookie
Duration
Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement
1 year
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Advertisement".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional
11 months
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Cookie
Duration
Description
lang
session
This cookie is used to store the language preferences of a user to serve up content in that stored language the next time user visit the website.
__cf_bm
30 minutes
This cookie is set by CloudFlare. The cookie is used to support Cloudflare Bot Management.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Cookie
Duration
Description
CONSENT
16 years 4 months 16 days
These cookies are set via embedded youtube-videos. They register anonymous statistical data on for example how many times the video is displayed and what settings are used for playback.No sensitive data is collected unless you log in to your google account, in that case your choices are linked with your account, for example if you click “like” on a video.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Cookie
Duration
Description
IDE
1 year 24 days
Used by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.
test_cookie
15 minutes
This cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user's browser supports cookies.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
5 months 27 days
This cookie is set by Youtube. Used to track the information of the embedded YouTube videos on a website.
YSC
session
This cookies is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos.
yt-remote-connected-devices
never
These cookies are set via embedded youtube-videos.
yt-remote-device-id
never
These cookies are set via embedded youtube-videos.