Hello again everyone,
This week we discussed Chapter 5 of Astrid Ensslin’s Literary Gaming, which primarily revolved around the idea of learning how to play through play itself, with engagement and interactivity as a product of the interface and UI itself. There was also an interesting point about categorizing movements – that is, the physical way we play games as in mouse-clicks, arm movements, and eye movements – and the potential of analyzing them to find how we best interact with a game.
We also played the primary text referenced by Ensslin – the game Loss of Grasp by Serge Bouchardon, which you can play here. It is, suffice it to say, very clever, and worth your time. You do need a webcam to see the ending though, as we discovered…
I have also attached next week’s reading to the email, Chapter 6, entitled “Loss of Innocence”. We will be again discussing it in 1W4 in the Arts Building at 1pm on Tuesday.
We continued playing the third chapter of The Dream Machine this week, the game made of real cardboard and clay that took two people nine whole years to finish. Not much new to report on that front there beyond the fact that we are still enjoying the experience of the game, and I’m looking forward to dissecting it a bit more when we’ve reached a later point in the game. The whole game is currently on sale for NZD $6 until the 23rd of March, so if you were interested in buying it to play for yourself, you can pick it up from Steam!
Hope to see you next week!