Gamers as Artists.

Read this.  Right now:

http://kotaku.com/5857873/games-are-art-only-when-youre-playing-them

A couple of brief observations tonight:

1. A quote from the article: "...is a symphony meant to be played or listened to?"  
2. I notice that the author of this article seems to be a believer.  Well, he's working on a Masters in Systematic Theology, so that's something.  This is one of the more original posts I've seen on Kotaku in a while and a believer wrote it.
3. His last thought is wondering how gamers would respond to a call to artistry.  How can gamers be artists?  And guess what?  All the comments have nothing to do with the article.  They're all about trolling.  That's telling.

 As you play games, how can you consider yourself a co-creator in the art of the game?  Does it require research?  Playing along with the story instead of seeking to break the game and stretch the rules (a la last night's post)?  What do you think?

Reading Between the Lines.

(This turned out to be quite a bit longer than I originally thought it would be. And it's mildly self-indulgent. I do apologize. But I wanted to still post it just in case there are other world-builder types like me trying to figure their lives out...)

I just read a lovely article thanks to a friend and several things came crashing together in my brain. Said article was called "How to Steal Like an Artist" and, essentially, was a giant, "Here's some stuff I've learned about creating art."

It's no big secret that I have, at times, fancied myself an artist, so it was good to read an article that spoke directly to that part of my identity that has not been getting fed like it should have been.

His last point, however, stuck with me.

10. Creativity is subtraction.

It’s often what an artist chooses to leave out that makes the art interesting. What isn’t shown vs. what is.

In this age of information overload and abundance, those who get ahead will be the folks who figure out what to leave out...

It's something I've heard, for sure. That creativity is choosing what to not show or tell as much as it is choosing what to show or tell. But, all of a

sudden, a bunch of things started mashing together in my brain.

I've recently become slightly obsessed with Echo Bazaar. For those of you who are unfamiliar (which, I'm sure, is most of you), it is an online game that uses the intervalled actions of social games and mixes it with cleverly written narrative set in Fallen London. Here is the text from the About page:

1889.

Three decades ago, London was stolen by bats. Dragged deep into the earth by the Echo Bazaar. The sun is gone. All

we have is the gas-light of Mr Fires.

But Londoners can get used to anything. And it's quiet down here with the devils and the darkness and the mushroom wine. Peaceful.

But then YOU arrived.

Welcome. Delicious

friend.

You learn almost nothing from that block of text. That doesn't tell you that the game is based around 40 actions a day that regenerate at one a minute. It doesn't tell you that new narrative threads are opened up by how it tracks various stats. And it certainly doesn't tell you anything about the world. At least, not on the surface.

You see, the brilliance of Echo Bazaar is that it tells you nothing. It treats you like a citizen of Fallen London and expects you to keep up. Stolen b

y bats? Literally? No. It couldn't be. Or could it? And what exactly do you mean by "delicious friend" and why do I imagine the eyes of the speaker looking sort of hungry?

I have been absolutely driven to play this game. I want to solve every little mystery. I take little cues from seeming insignificant details. What was just said about Mr Wines? And I wonder if that's related to the Fourth City in some way... And if that's the case, then the Starveling Cat must be...!

The restraint that the designers and writers showcase is exactly the thing that allows me to string together these mysteries and have fun. They know who the Masters are. They know where each of the Bazaar's former cities are. They knew that Hell is, in fact, connected to Fallen London far before I ever figured out that it wasn't just a metaphor.

There is, to me, something primordially attractive to this model of storytelling. As I think about it, this is the model most of my favorite properties have used.

As a child, I was obsessed with Zelda games. Like, seriously. I wrote fan fiction and everything. Back in the late 90s as Ocarina of Time was getting ready to come out, I remember Miyamoto (the series' creator) stating that it would be, chronologically, the first in the series.

"WHAT???" said little Kemp (and about half the game wo

rld with him). "They're not just a bunch of games with similar gameplay, titles, and themes? They have a metanarrative??" And so we went to work.

Analyzing each of the games, trying to figure out what the correct order was using evidence from inside the games themselves. When Miyamoto came back a year later and, in an interview, gave his "official timeline," most of the Zelda fansites I frequented had already disproved it months before. He was wrong about his own games! Is that even possible? Did it even matter? And why the heck did I care?

The genius in the Zelda games is in the story that isn't told. I was (and still am, honestly) attracted to the series precisely because there was all t

his depth to it that was unexplored. I could put the pieces together myself. And I did. A lot.

I read this article by Leigh Alexander a few days ago and she says it this way:

When games were more abstract-simple designs and massive worlds with yawning gaps in between each fragile plot point-they engaged us more, because they became worlds we could own. When all of the work of creation is done for us, when every element of lore is written in, when every object in the game world is explicable and available for interaction, there's nothing for our hearts and minds to do except ride along. And that's beautiful and well, but it's just not very engaging.

She goes on to say:

But if a game wants me to care-if it wants to grab my heart in its fist the way I used to feel-it needs to engage my imagination. Present the skeletal threads of a backstory without feeling the need to fill it all in, to connect all the dots for me; give me characters I'll only get to really know in my wildest dreams. Give me a world that's richly realized, but don't feel responsible for making it all interactive.

I have never been able to put the pieces together quite like that. Why is it that, despite my love for world-building and environmental storytelling, I've never been able to get into Fallout 3? Maybe because of these reasons. There's just too much detail. Too much to play with. Not enough just to accept.

It's like the difference between Lord of the Rings and the Narnia series. Tolkien wrote volumes of history and an entire language to support his world. Lewis just wrote what was and left it at that. And I've always been more attracted to Lew

is' world than Tolkien's...

When it really came home for me was how I connected it to my own creative process. Since I was small, I've been trying to build worlds. Back in high school, I worked on ideas that provoked me to make up languages, societies, religions, magic systems... Anything to help justify and give meaning and rules to a world - a place for real cha

racters to exist.

It's the exact same thing I used to do with Zelda. You see, in my head, there are these almost self-existent ideas. If you write or create anything, you know what I'm talking about. Half the time, my job is simply to find those and record them accurately. But the challenge and the fun comes from connecting those. From taking those points that feel like they've already been authored and figuring out how they go together.

On my wall right above me right now is a long string of post-it notes.

Each of those is a little story beat for a thing I've been working on for a long time. See the blank spots? That's the challenge. The actual notes are story nodes that, in my mind, are as true as the tsunami in Japan or the 2008 election. What I find joy in is completing the story. Finding or creating the ties. Explaining the characters' choices after the fact.

The question is... is that something that I should be doing for a career? I love constructing these elaborate worlds and mythologies and metanarratives. But, when it comes down to it, I just don't like those games that much. The games and stories that truly draw me in are the stories where those things just aren't explained. They're there, surely, but they are never explained clearly.

Any good fantasy/sci-fi property has a series bible - that document that spells out all the secrets and shows the creators how the characters are in their internal selves. But you know what? The audience never gets to see that. I can't think of a single world bible that has made it out into the public. And that's okay. It shows itself by natural character interactions and subtextual dialog.

But still. Who hires people just to flesh out backstory and build worlds? And does it matter that I probably won't like the games that I make nearly as much as the games like Zelda or Echo Bazaar? (You know, the ones that really engage my imagination...) Will I be okay making games that don't engage me as much just because the process of making them engages me? Or should I learn how better to craft the games that I enjoy the most?

I dunno. Things to think about.

Good articles.

This is a story I just read on Relevant Magazine's website. You should read it now. It's short.

I was at work when I read this today, but after the first paragraph, I couldn't stop. The writing was so beautiful, it was as if my eyes were compelled to keep moving down the page.

I sometimes don't know what to think when I read articles like this - so well written and powerful. My first thought was for this man who the author met: how tragic of a story his must be. My second thought was for myself: could I ever respond as elegantly as the author did? Could I, in that moment, love this man? Buying him the diapers would be easy. But would I pray with him? Or would I be scared of... whatever. Embarrassment. Harming the gospel through reckless words. Awkward bumbling.

May God continue to be gracious with me as I rely more on his grace...

Why I'm not all about player agency.

I have a problem.

I want to be a video game designer, but I don't always agree with how the industry and culture is moving, behaving, and expecting, especially when it comes to story and narrative design.

You see, 0ne of the fancy shmancy terms tossed around by game designers from time to time is "player agency." It is the idea that the player is in control of the story. Games like Oblivion or Grand Theft Auto put quite a lot of agency into the hands of the player - their stories are mostly optional, discovered through what missions the player chooses and how they complete them. These games take pride in the agency of the player - the ability for the player to determine the course of the story. These games stand in stark contrast to many role playing games like the Final Fantasy series, where the story unfolds in a linear fashion and the player makes limited decisions that don't really affect the outcome of the characters' actions.

Popular opinion in the video game industry is to put more and more power in the hands of the players - let them make their own stories. In this camp, the role of the designer is to create an interesting world and starting conditions for the player's own creative expression. The player is free to participate in the telling of the story by telling it how they want it told. They determine protagonist, antagonist, conflict, desire, obstacle - everything. Through this, players can compare notes (stories) revolving around the question, "What did you do?" or "How did you get past that boss?"

But are players ever going to really interact with the game in a meaningful way? Will they be changed by the stories they tell in the same way that an audience is changed in other media?

I don't think so. I tend to think that players, when left to their own devices, are highly unlikely to tell a story of nuance, meaning, and thematic significance, no matter the tools they are given.

So why the obsession with player agency? Why do we buck so much the hand of a good designer/storyteller?

More personally, why am I so comfortable with it? My favorite games are ones in which I am a participant in a larger story - games where I assume the role of a character, rather than creating one myself. These games, through their gameplay (to a small extent) and their story, create meaning, thought, and, ultimately, change in how I view the world. (Drop everything you're doing and play Final Fantasy Tactics all the way through - you'll understand what I mean.)

Perhaps it all comes down to theology.

I think a large part of my struggle is that I have little problem trusting someone else to tell my story. I submit myself daily to the story that God is telling, to following his son with my life, and to the wonderful power of his themes and signficance. I have no problem believing that someone behind the scenes knows more than I do and has something to teach me.

Maybe running to player agency is really just a small part of the rebellion coming out in a new way - people trying to control their own lives and tell their own stories, and meaning nothing in the process.

Now before anyone reads this and gets all upitty about some judgmental Christian banter and blah-blah-blah, I'm not writing this to condemn the idea of player agency or to suggest that those who hold to that narrative theory are rebels, sinners, and godless fools. Rather, I write it to defend my own instinct toward authorial control.

If video games can be (and are) a powerful and somewhat accurate metaphor for life, then just as I believe there is a Designer of the world who arranges things for meaning and purpose for our good, so too I believe a human designer can inject some of that meaning and purpose for the good of his characters and players. Just as we as humans find life most fulfilling while following Jesus, I think it can be apt that players will find a well designed game most fulfilling when they follow the plan (or story or whatever) of the designer.

As with so many of my ideas, I'm not sure if everything came through effectively, so I'll summarize as simply as I can: If life has a designer who has a plan that we should follow, why shouldn't video games?

(Inspiration for this post brought to you by The Brainy Gamer. Read the comments and follow links. There's good times in there.)

I am frustrated.

I just want to be a video game designer. That's it. No more of this silly school stuff. Just let me have a team that shares my vision, some time to get better influences, and some money and let me design video games.

If you have any interest at all in video games, you should read and understand as best you can this article. Then, you should proceed to get just as passionate about it as I am and decide to do what you need to do to be on my team some day.

Currently, there are these positions:

• Programmer(s) with a passion for programming, but with wide influences
  
• Artist(s) with a passion for 3D modeling, concept art, and visual storytelling with wide influences
• Business folks with a passion for the video game industry, but with wide influences
• Investor(s) with little expectation for success but deep pockets. Must believe in vision and trust the creatives.
• Writer(s) with a passion for storytelling, video games, and being a part of video games becoming art. Must have wide influences.
  
• Lawyer(s) with a passion for law and experience and passion for the entertainment art industry

And the best part of all? No previous experience in the industry is required!

Soon...