Issue 27 07.15.2011
Games as Art – Aesthetics of Interaction
Agency in Video Games
Video games, when designed in a robust way, create a rich system of interactivity that empowers players. Through exploration and play, they develop a sense of their own agency within that system and, in some cases, a sense of the inner workings of that system: how it functions and their ability to change it. To perceive both the reaches and limits of interactive player power is […]
Cinema of Video Games
Video games are a multimedia mosaic in their approach to storytelling. Video game artists incorporate elements, in varying degrees, from literature, illustration, theater, and film in all games with a narrative. Games have the potential to merge a number of strengths from these various formats without being bound by their individual limitations. As with literature, video game artists use prose and language to describe worlds, characters, […]
Enslaved Interactivity
It should be self-evident that video games are a natural medium for activism. They free players from the patriarchal and infantilizing structure of the artist/audience hierarchy, giving the players active roles in forming the video game narratives. No longer are players passive recipients of the vision and knowledge of the artist–since when were artists supposed to be listened […]
Stop Putting the Hero’s Journey in a Skinner Box
What happens when you decompose a game? When you take a game and remove the goals, remove the structured levels, remove the explicit challenges, remove everything except the components that make it up? Someone who makes games can tell you that get kind of a glorified toy box. Sometimes it’s fun to play in, sometimes […]