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Reid discusses one way he thinks games can become more artful, by engaging players in a dialog on specific topics.
Saying Nothing Gets Us Nowhere
Leo Tolstoy
My reading of Leo Tolstoy’s What is Art has greatly influenced my thinking on art and its application in the realm of videogames. Art of all forms (literature, music, painting, sculpture, theater and cinema) purposefully use their unique properties to communicate ideas and feelings of the artist to an audience.Six Days in Fallujah
To have someone play videogames and then forget them is a tragic waste of the developer’s passion and effort. It’s not often that people have the opportunity to make art that infects others with their ideas and feelings. I want to seize the potential of my chosen art form and I think others have similar ambitions.
The question is how do we create more artistic games using the unique properties of our medium?
Games Asking Questions
I’ve heard developers talk about the idea of a game asking questions to the player, but anything can ask a question. A painting can ask, “What if people took care of the planet?” A song can ask, “Why do we hurt the ones we love?” A novel can ask, “Is exploiting the poor justified if it benefits the world’s economic growth?”
I’m not saying games shouldn’t ask questions; it’s fine if they do, but why stop there? The interactive nature of games enables them to pose questions to the player, give players the tools to answer and then interpret those answers and respond or ask deeper questions.
That is dialog. That is something unique to gaming. It’s worth exploring and it might be one path towards our own unique voice in the world of art.
A Path Towards Art: Games as Dialog
In an interview with Gamasutra’s Brandon Sheffield, Warren Spector said regarding narrative in games, “The end goal for me now isn't for me to allow players to play a movie, ride a roller coaster ride or provide a sandbox so they can do what they want, but is to find the compromise where I can have a dialog with each player virtually. That's what's exciting to me.”
Frank Lantz of Area Code had this to say during a Micro Tralk at GDC 2009, “Games are not a medium. They do not carry an idea from one place to another. Instead, they are a conversation between developers and players and game systems. And that is what will propel gaming into an age of meaning", he says.
Yes, an age of meaning. Games are about exploring. Whether it’s exploring 3D worlds, or gameplay mechanics and systems or exploring our own views about the world around us, videogames have an untapped potential to provide deep meaning for players.
I think having a dialog between a designer’s game systems and the player is important. It’s powerful. It’s something that no other mass media art form can do. This could be how videogames can embrace their unique property of interactivity to enter a new age of meaning and art.
The Age of Meaningful Games
What kinds of discussions can designers have with players? How do you design such a game to be engaging and meaningful? One approach is to take a topic that you are passionate about and through the game ask the player their opinions on the topic. When the player responds, using NPCs or system events, you comment on their views. Depending on their response and your agenda, you might try to persuade them to change their opinions.
Ken Levine as a Little Sister
If this sounds all theoretical and useless, I’d argue that BioShock already attempts to engage players in a dialog through its gameplay. Though, the dialog isn’t particularly deep and doesn’t evolve to ask related questions.Also posted on my personal blog, Reiding...
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