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Caring ABOUT versus caring FOR a character -- Fascinating critique of gaming principles from "The Last of Us"
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<blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 8945451" data-attributes="member: 85870"><p>Yeah, the "predetermined" descriptor is confusing. I took it to mean, "There's no immediate/assumed/inherent correlation between the game 'bits' and anything narrative". Game bits like, I/O (mouse / keyboard / game controller inputs and buttons), mechanical number-crunching, how "heavy" something is within the game's physics engine, etc.</p><p></p><p>Which is true. In video games there is no relationship between game bits and narrative until the game bits are layered above/beneath/around some other factors outside the actual code which drives the bits.</p><p></p><p><em>The Last of Us</em>, with its protagonists and their relationships stripped away, is just point-and-click-and-digital-shoot, vastly more sophisticated but still of a kind we've had since the 1970s with <em>Asteroids</em> and <em>Space Invaders</em>. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>True. The aesthetic value arises through the individual character choices/playbooks, the GM "fronts" chosen, and the interplay between making moves and success/failure/complication. It's not "predetermined," but more likely, shall we say, "expected to arise" from those components.</p><p></p><p>Which I think explains why you've always been highly cognizant of how much scene framing plays a part in all of this --- <em>Why</em> are characters framed into <em>this </em>scene, with <em>these </em>stakes? You've consistently beat that drum for years, and the article provides some thoughts on why, I think.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="innerdude, post: 8945451, member: 85870"] Yeah, the "predetermined" descriptor is confusing. I took it to mean, "There's no immediate/assumed/inherent correlation between the game 'bits' and anything narrative". Game bits like, I/O (mouse / keyboard / game controller inputs and buttons), mechanical number-crunching, how "heavy" something is within the game's physics engine, etc. Which is true. In video games there is no relationship between game bits and narrative until the game bits are layered above/beneath/around some other factors outside the actual code which drives the bits. [I]The Last of Us[/I], with its protagonists and their relationships stripped away, is just point-and-click-and-digital-shoot, vastly more sophisticated but still of a kind we've had since the 1970s with [I]Asteroids[/I] and [I]Space Invaders[/I]. True. The aesthetic value arises through the individual character choices/playbooks, the GM "fronts" chosen, and the interplay between making moves and success/failure/complication. It's not "predetermined," but more likely, shall we say, "expected to arise" from those components. Which I think explains why you've always been highly cognizant of how much scene framing plays a part in all of this --- [I]Why[/I] are characters framed into [I]this [/I]scene, with [I]these [/I]stakes? You've consistently beat that drum for years, and the article provides some thoughts on why, I think. [/QUOTE]
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