Breaking All The Rules: My Brother and I as Nonconformist Gamers
Reading the “Game Design as Narrative Architecture,” got me back to thinking about the videogames I used to play back home with my younger brother, and just how angry the people that designed them would probably be if they ever saw the way we played them. I’m just about certain that I have never actually “finished” a video-game or completed one of their stories; in fact I rarely, if ever, play games the way they are supposed to be played to go along the narrative the designers laid out.
Whenever my brother and I played Grand Theft Auto Three, we would just drive around and blow things up, seeing who could evade the police the longest. The point of the game was actually to make money and complete different missions presented by characters in the game, but we never did those. We didn’t find those particularly fun or interesting, so we made our own rules and constructed our own narrative. We appropriated the virtual world that the creators of GTA 3 designed for us, and made up our own way of playing in that virtual space, completely ignoring the complex storylines and intriguing narrative the designers included.
My favorite type of video games are the ones that leave you free to do what you want, like the multiplayer levels in the old James Bond games, for instance. I found it much more fun when my friends and I were free to come up with our own way of playing the games.
It’s interesting, because in a sense, what we are doing by making our own rules and designing our own type of game play is essentially what kids across the world have been doing for ages. The only difference is they normally did it outdoors.
The Calvin and Hobbes clips we saw in lecture just made me think of this; but kids have always taken old games, made up new rules, and essentially created their own game or style of play. Normally it is with more “traditional” things, like when Calvin and Hobbes come up with new ball games. Everybody knows the real rules of football or baseball, yet that didn’t satisfy Calvin and Hobbes, so they adopted the basic system, recreated the rules, and made their own type of game-play. People have done it in their backyards forever. Just think of any time you aren’t tagged “It” because you were standing in the no-tag-backs-yet-only-for-me zone.
The way my brother and I played our video games was the same thing, only in a different space that hasn’t existed quite as long. We are remaking the rules of games in a virtual space on the television. It’s interesting to see the way our tendencies have transferred. We are doing the same thing in the game world that we do in reality: creating our own rules and making our own games. It is almost frightening to pair the two, thinking about a classic game of capture the flag transposed with videogaming. It shows just how far we have come in terms of technology. It has diffused around the globe, with video game spaces becoming just as frequent as backyards; and kids are learning to navigate them both in the same way they always have- by making their own narratives.
I just hope that these video games and other virtual environments don’t make the classic space for your own narration extinct: the cardboard box. Kids aren’t going to need the cardboard box to play rocketship if they have videogames that can make them appear on the screen. It will be interesting to see the way things turn out as technology becomes more widespread and more and more people turn away from reality. Perhaps traditional things like playing outside, making up imaginary stories in cardboard boxes, and building forts will go to the wayside as technology enables us to play games where we can create our own narratives, play in ways not physically possible, and build entire civilizations. How will kids learn to navigate this new virtual space? Will they transpose the same tendencies they have in reality to these new games and devices? It seems like that’s what my brother and I did.
Reading the “Game Design as Narrative Architecture,” got me back to thinking about the videogames I used to play back home with my younger brother, and just how angry the people that designed them would probably be if they ever saw the way we played them. I’m just about certain that I have never actually “finished” a video-game or completed one of their stories; in fact I rarely, if ever, play games the way they are supposed to be played to go along the narrative the designers laid out.
Whenever my brother and I played Grand Theft Auto Three, we would just drive around and blow things up, seeing who could evade the police the longest. The point of the game was actually to make money and complete different missions presented by characters in the game, but we never did those. We didn’t find those particularly fun or interesting, so we made our own rules and constructed our own narrative. We appropriated the virtual world that the creators of GTA 3 designed for us, and made up our own way of playing in that virtual space, completely ignoring the complex storylines and intriguing narrative the designers included.
My favorite type of video games are the ones that leave you free to do what you want, like the multiplayer levels in the old James Bond games, for instance. I found it much more fun when my friends and I were free to come up with our own way of playing the games.
It’s interesting, because in a sense, what we are doing by making our own rules and designing our own type of game play is essentially what kids across the world have been doing for ages. The only difference is they normally did it outdoors.
The Calvin and Hobbes clips we saw in lecture just made me think of this; but kids have always taken old games, made up new rules, and essentially created their own game or style of play. Normally it is with more “traditional” things, like when Calvin and Hobbes come up with new ball games. Everybody knows the real rules of football or baseball, yet that didn’t satisfy Calvin and Hobbes, so they adopted the basic system, recreated the rules, and made their own type of game-play. People have done it in their backyards forever. Just think of any time you aren’t tagged “It” because you were standing in the no-tag-backs-yet-only-for-me zone.The way my brother and I played our video games was the same thing, only in a different space that hasn’t existed quite as long. We are remaking the rules of games in a virtual space on the television. It’s interesting to see the way our tendencies have transferred. We are doing the same thing in the game world that we do in reality: creating our own rules and making our own games. It is almost frightening to pair the two, thinking about a classic game of capture the flag transposed with videogaming. It shows just how far we have come in terms of technology. It has diffused around the globe, with video game spaces becoming just as frequent as backyards; and kids are learning to navigate them both in the same way they always have- by making their own narratives.
I just hope that these video games and other virtual environments don’t make the classic space for your own narration extinct: the cardboard box. Kids aren’t going to need the cardboard box to play rocketship if they have videogames that can make them appear on the screen. It will be interesting to see the way things turn out as technology becomes more widespread and more and more people turn away from reality. Perhaps traditional things like playing outside, making up imaginary stories in cardboard boxes, and building forts will go to the wayside as technology enables us to play games where we can create our own narratives, play in ways not physically possible, and build entire civilizations. How will kids learn to navigate this new virtual space? Will they transpose the same tendencies they have in reality to these new games and devices? It seems like that’s what my brother and I did.
It's interesting to see what the creation of this new virtual space has made possible. Will we just project our real-life tendencies onto the screen, or will we begin to create new ways of interacting in and with this new environment? Also, what will happen as images and experiences in these games on the screen begin to become "more realistic" than reality? After all, watching an IMAX film of shark attacks is much more exciting than just going and watching sharks swim
in tanks, even if the sharks in the film aren't real....right? I know typical essays, responses, and blogs probably aren't supposed to be so question-based, but that is pretty much all I can do at this point. I know this blog poses more questions than answers, but that is my response to this new virtual space at this point; a plethora of questions that I don't think I can answer myself, or can be answered just yet for that matter. Maybe they never will be able to be fully answered, as new spaces are constantly being created and "virtual visuals" just keep getting closer and closer to the real. I've actually heard people say that the images on the screen looked more realistic than the real thing....so I'd like to end with that, because it is something that has been knawing away at me since I heard it. What does it mean when the virtual has become more realistic than the real? Is that possible? I'd love to hear what everybody thinks, so feel free to post comments answering the many, many questions brought up in the blog. After all, it is for us to decide how we navigate this new space that we have been given. This is going to the the world we live in. We get to make the rules and figure out how to interact in it...so let's work together to figure out just what that should be.
in tanks, even if the sharks in the film aren't real....right? I know typical essays, responses, and blogs probably aren't supposed to be so question-based, but that is pretty much all I can do at this point. I know this blog poses more questions than answers, but that is my response to this new virtual space at this point; a plethora of questions that I don't think I can answer myself, or can be answered just yet for that matter. Maybe they never will be able to be fully answered, as new spaces are constantly being created and "virtual visuals" just keep getting closer and closer to the real. I've actually heard people say that the images on the screen looked more realistic than the real thing....so I'd like to end with that, because it is something that has been knawing away at me since I heard it. What does it mean when the virtual has become more realistic than the real? Is that possible? I'd love to hear what everybody thinks, so feel free to post comments answering the many, many questions brought up in the blog. After all, it is for us to decide how we navigate this new space that we have been given. This is going to the the world we live in. We get to make the rules and figure out how to interact in it...so let's work together to figure out just what that should be. 
1 comment:
Are you talking about GoldenEye007 for the N64? How did you do the multiplayer?
Post a Comment