Thursday, October 19, 2006
Scarytales - a game?
Scarytales - a game?
Consider the work you created for project 1. Is this work actually a game? Why/why not?
We initially established that Scarytales wasn't a game, but simply an interactive fiction (IF) where users explore the world through various events and existents. Costikyan's definition of games supports this, but further provides that Scarytales has game elements, and can be potentially a game with a more sophisticated platform, and more time :)
Scarytales achieves endogenous meaning through both its narrative and structure. It provides unique context - the fairytale world, corrupted by Sadako. Puzzle-solving underscores the entire experience, from finding out the rules to revealing the narrative in story-time, concurrently churning out a new-narrative in real-time (discourse time). This is achieved through some interactivity, where users must decide where to go and who to talk to, thereby determining the order and detail with which the story unfolds, ultimately leading to three different endings. The rigid point-and-click structure of the game is invisible to the user, which affects the experience but enhances the exploration function. The objective of the game becomes slowly clear - to find the villian. Hence, there is purposeful interaction and is goal-directed. (Users may want to play the game a second time and purposefully die, just to see a different outcome).
However, there is little struggle in the overall experience. There is no count-down timer in which users are stressed to complete the fiction; no meaningful combat with the villian (just a hit or miss by point clicking); and no competition, human or otherwise. In short, there is no opposition.
Interestingly enough, Scarytales does provide for all the game pleasures described in LeBanc's taxonomy. There is sensory pleasure in users' immersion; masochism by submitting to the structure; an element of fairytale fantasy; snippets of narratives which draw on already-present knowledge; slight challenge of figuring out the rules; discovery - of new elements; and finally expression, as users can choose paths of success or failure (a reflection on mood and character). Fellowship was also achieved as we held a midnight beta-testing session in the PGP basement, under ambient lighting. This created a very tiny fellowship among our friends who tried the IF, which became a subject of conversation the next day!
Is a game one if it achieves gaming pleasures yet doesn't fulfill every element of the game as defined by Costikyan? I guess our project meets these pleasures only on a very superficial level, and hence is not a good game, but a mere IF.
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