[Literary Games Group] 18/5/21 – Dreams of Reality

Hi everyone,

Today we brought The Dream Machine to a close, finishing the sixth and final chapter of the game. It proved to be a truly compelling ending, that, while not bringing a definite conclusion into sight, allows the player to define the final meaning of what you see. In my opinion, the ending merely proves the game’s prowess as both a psychological horror and a well-designed point and click adventure game. It forays into things that I don’t imagine many other games or developers would ever touch, and it’s a thought-provoking marvel, in my eyes. I’ll have to let it sit for a while, but it might be one of my favourite games I’ve ever played.

We also discussed chapter 3 of Galloway’s “Essays on Algorithmic Culture”, “Social Realism”. We discussed games like September 12th, Toywar, and America’s Army in relation to how a player experiences them and then takes bits of the game away in real life, i.e. startling statistics regarding how players who’ve played a lot of skill-based first-person shooters has higher accuracy than trained police officers. We also discussed the level of agency that a player has in a game, and whether or not a diegetic character has more agency than the player (which I disagreed with).

Next week’s reading is chapter four from Galloway, “Allegories of Control”.

Hope to see everyone next week,

Jacob

[Literary Games Group] 12/5/21 – From The First Person

Hello everyone,
Another good meeting this week. We discussed the origin of first-person shooters, and how they didn’t necessarily have to have a violent bent to them. We also looked at immersion, and how it can be maintained, broken, or subverted, and looked at how The Dream Machine does this almost imperceptibly when you are sucked into a dream. We also examined the origins of the first-person angle come from film, but how games can build upon it in a better way than film can ever hope to achieve. Games create a sense of place and being when they use the first-person camera, and this can even be considered “confronting” – a stressful, limiting way to experience a game. FPS games often pit the player against hordes of deadly enemies, so these sorts of situations (to a person who doesn’t game as much) can be confronting and feels like an interesting problem to solve. How do you introduce a new player to these kinds of games? Is the ever-popular FPS genre a place to introduce those who haven’t gamed before to gaming?

We are tantalizingly close to finishing The Dream Machine. However, we encountered a game-breaking bug that prevented us from continuing. I messaged the developers, and within the span of about three or four hours, they had fixed the bug, so hopefully next session will be the final session required to cap off The Dream Machine and unravel its final mysteries before we begin to take it apart a bit more.

Next week’s reading is another of Galloway’s “Essays on Algorithmic Culture”, this one entitled “Social Realism”. As always we meet every Tuesday at 1pm in the Digital Humanities Hub.

Hope to see everyone next week!