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[Literary Games Group] 10/3/21

Hi everyone,

We had our first meeting of the Literary Games Group for this year on the 10th, where we discussed our plans for at least the next five or six weeks of semester. We’re going to be continuing with our reading from last year, Astrid Ensslin’s Literary Gaming. I’ve attached a link to the book for your perusal. When we reconvene next week (as always, Tuesday at 1pm in the Digital Humanities Hub, room 1W4 on the first floor of the Arts Building) we’ll discuss the chapter we are currently on, hopefully in relation to some of the games we will be playing.

We began playing our first “project-game” as a group, The Dream Machine, a story-rich point-and-click adventure game with some themes that aren’t normally explored in a lot of video games. It also has a fairly unique art style for a video game, being a game made from clay and cardboard. I’m hoping to explore this game’s story and themes as a group, as well as some of the simple and traditional mechanics that the game has, and whether they are good enough to carry the game’s fairly heavy themes.

We also played a short, politically motivated (and darkly humourous) game made in Twine called You Are Jeff Bezos, which is also free if you wanted to check it out. To finish the meeting we also looked at a few interesting, almost archival, videos that attempt to summarize years of gaming in roughly two minutes. You can watch the best one here.

Hope to see some of you again next week!

Seminar back on: “What You Should Know about Simulation if You Care about Videogames”

This Friday the Department of Computer Science and Information Science Seminar Series is hosting Associate Professor David Ciccoricco for a talk titled:

“What You Should Know about Simulation if You Care about Videogames”

ABSTRACT: This talk historicizes the tangled relationship between two kinds of simulation, the mental simulations that happen in human minds and the digital simulations that happen on computer screens, and speculates about that relationship’s transdisciplinary future. It also suggests some ways in which aesthetic appropriations of simulation – as seen in videogames and other creative media – can play a significant and revealing role in mediating between the cognitive and the computational.

WHEN – 4 September at 1PM

WHERE – live & streamed online

Room G34 (Owheo building, 133 Union St. East)  (places limited – to secure a seat you must email:  
csadmin@cs.otago.ac.nz )

& online on Zoom at:

https://otago.zoom.us/j/98869375927?pwd=dmRTWTNrL2V4VEtRTkpwVmE2MlBwdz09

Password: 965073


BIO – David Ciccoricco is Associate Professor in English and Linguistics at the University of Otago. His research is focused on literary and narrative theory with an emphasis on emergent forms of digital literature, as well as digital culture and posthumanism more generally. He is the author of Reading Network Fiction (2007), a book on pre-Web and Web-based digital fiction, and Refiguring Minds in Narrative Media (2015), which is focused on cognitive approaches to narrative and literary theory in print novels, digital narratives, and story-driven videogames.

[Literary Games Group] 8/5/20 Defining Literary Games and Exploring Subversion

Today we read through the third chapter of the book Literary Gaming, and found out really why the book is called Literary Gaming – it explores the concepts of how to game in a literary fashion, but also how to define literary games – and even experiences which we wouldn’t define as games, but still involving some ludicity – that is, still some element of play within them. The different types of games are available to look at in the graph I’ve attached at the bottom of this post.

We also discussed the results of our Bartle test – a test which determines what kind of gamer you are personality-wise (primarily in relation to the way you approach multiplayer RPGs, but it can grow to extend the way you approach other games too). I discovered I’m a combination of Explorer and Socializer, with Achiever and Killer far down the list.

After our discussion of the chapter (the next chapter is available to read here) we went on to explore another game I’d discovered just a few weeks prior called Indecision. Indecision. is a game that masterfully subverts the way we approach videogames, specifically 2D platformer, by constantly baiting you to act a particular way and changing the rules for victory, and we can critically examine ourselves and the way we play and function.
It’s also a lot of fun! Extremely clever, too.

We finished our session with a bit of Pathologic 2 gameplay, which we’ll continue with next week to finish the two or so hours of gameplay that are on offer in this particular “chapter” or segment of the game.

Hope to see you around!

[Literary Games Group] 29/7/20 Paratopic and Exploring Literary Gaming

Today we read the next chapter of the book Literary Gaming – “Playing With Rather Than By Rules” in which we examined games as not just entertainment, but as political tools and weapons for activism and hacktivism, which is how such a popular medium will likely be used more and more as we begin to enter a more mature age of video game storytelling.

There are also several different ludology theories we learned about, my favourite concept being that of Johan Huizinga’s “magic circle” – the space and state that we enter when we play a game, where we buy into the fantasy or essentially “sign a contract” with the game allowing you to be immersed and follow rules that are different from the regular world, whether they be scientific or ethical rules.
Over the next week, we’ll be looking at the next chapter, which you can read here if you are interested.

Later in the session we booted up the short 2018 game, Paratopic, which I have played before but was keen to introduce the other members of the group to. The developers (Arbitrary Metric) themselves describe it best, saying that “Paratopic [is] an atmospheric retro-3D horror adventure through a cursed fever dream.” It subverts how we regularly experience video game stories and challenges our interpretation of events by making things deliberately unclear. It is an excellent, very unique, game that I have been a fan of since I played it last year, which I can highly recommend to anyone who is interested in non-linear narrative and experimental video games.

Interestingly, when asked to describe how the game made them feel, the player and viewers who hadn’t played the game could only say – “I don’t know”, and  “disgusted” which I believe means that the game is doing its job very well, utilizing its game design and story together to create a potent experience, like a forbidden game you stumbled across in an archive somewhere.

Hope to see you around, looking forward to seeing what kinds of literary games other people have played and recommend!

[Literary Games Group] 22/7/20 Deciding On A “Game As A Project”

Today we discussed the kinds of games that might appeal to us as a  running project or thing to analyze in the weeks to come. There are plenty of worthy candidates, but we want to find something that’s not overly long while still being deep enough to really sink our teeth into.
And also something that is entertaining for others to ask questions of while we’re watching the person playing on the projector!

One of the more recent games that comes to my mind is Hideo Kojima’s latest release, Death Stranding, which is essentially a game as a societal statement. Walking simulators are an oft-derided genre for their simplicity, but they have the capacity to tell interesting stories, even if the gameplay can be considered undercooked. Kojima took it upon himself to make a walking simulator about the feeling of isolation and reuniting a divided country. It’s a great game, and one to keep on the radar as we continue.

Death Stranding (2019)

We also explored a superb Twine experiment that you can access for free here, which is an immensely challenging game, but not in the traditional, gameplay sense. Won’t spoil anything about it just yet, in hope you’ll experience it for yourself blind!
It makes for a great taster for the sort of games we’re looking at and the kind of projects we’d love to find out more about.

Finally, we began reading the book Literary Gaming by Astrid Ensslin, and figured out how to define literary games going ahead with the group. In it, she describes how literary games can grow to encompass fields previously unthought of, and how the melding of video games and traditionally literary media can advance storytelling and video games at once in leaps and bounds. On to chapter two!

Hope to see you round!

[Literary Games Group] 15/7/20 First Update

After our first meeting, we’ve come away with a good understanding of the kinds of places we want to go, the experiences we want to share, and the aspects of games that we want to explore.

No one lives under the lighthouse (2020)

Games are a young  medium, and a medium catering to a very broad audience, that unfortunately doesn’t always appreciate the kinds of very intelligent and subversive game design that new developers, especially indie developers, are coming up with – games that challenge you not just as a player, but as a person. I think there is a lot of fun to be had from exploring games and their ultimate potential, exploring choice, consequence and how games allow us to inhabit roles in fantastic worlds we wouldn’t otherwise be able to be a part of. We can assert our will and our choices on a game, and I think that’s a really interesting thing to be able to explore. Watching others play games and see the choices they make compared to you is a great way to gain a deeper appreciation for a game, and it’s one of the ways we’ll be proceeding from here.

To start the group we’ll also be looking at a book available here, reading the introduction for this week as we figure out how we approach games as things to be analyzed and enjoyed as works of art in their own right.

Hope to see you around!

INTRODUCING… the Literary Games Group

We’re thrilled to announce the start of Otago’s Literary Games Group – an open, informal, undergraduate group devoted to the critical study of literary videogames.

The group will meet weekly in the Digital Humanities Hub (Arts Building room 1W4, on Wednesdays at 11am.

Contact literary gamer Jacob Cone for more details: conja458@student.otago.ac.nz  

 

 

[#dhBytes Seminar UPDATE] POSTPONED until further notice | Digital Data Drama in the Humanities

It is with regret that we have decided to call off this DH Bytes seminar and others in the series planned for this semester.

This will probably come as no surprise to most of you, especially given the government and University announcements of Monday and the consequent necessary shifts in our ways of working, teaching, learning and researching.

We hope to revisit the series for Semester 2, and will be in touch when we are able to go ahead.

Take good care in these challenging and unsettling times!

Join us on Thursday 26 March at 1pm for the inaugural dhBytes seminar at 1pm in Seminar Room 6 at the University’s Central Library | Te Iho Mātauranga o Te Whare Wananga o Otago.

The session will feature two presenters from the University Library, Alexander Ritchie and Judy Fisher, who will each speak for 15 minutes on data and drama in the Humanities. Following that we will have some kai, coffee, and discussion. We will also offer an update on DH initiatives at Otago.

Continue reading “[#dhBytes Seminar UPDATE] POSTPONED until further notice | Digital Data Drama in the Humanities”