| Mathieu MarquisBolduc |
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Grim Fandango? Just kidding... (well, semi)
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| Langdon Oliver |
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I think a video game could easily handle the subject of death and the example provided, but I don't think that the concept can stand on its own as a video game.
I can imagine easily portraying Joyce Vincent's story in something like LA Noire where the Cole sees Joyce at a coffee shop for half the game. For few missions she doesn't appear there anymore and Cole makes slight mention of it in passing, and then one day a case of her disappearance shows up on his desk. |
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| Kareem Merhej |
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Margaret Robertson is lacking creativity. She's also lacking some skills and tools that could help her achieve her goal.
No subject is too complex for any medium, this is a basic truth and there's never been a good argument against it. |
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| Daniel Cook |
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One thing that I've found helpful: When making games about people, actually include real people in the mix and try to use systems to build up scenarios that result in real emotion (people actually hating one another or actually feeling despair). Is this 'entertainment'? Not always. However, the result is deeply meaningful.
Too often we are caught up in reflecting the world instead of creating the world. This is dead tree and celluloid thinking, not people and systems thinking. Single player story-based games do have immense limitations. Games as a broader, more inclusive human activity do not. |
| Paul Marzagalli |
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No, of course not. If games are art, which I believe, then it's a matter of using the medium to provoke discussion and introspection. Even something as gaudy and done on the fly as Super Columbine Massacre tackles a complex issue like that in a way that gets people thinking about what those issues mean to them. Look at Braid - a game that used platforming mechanics to dwell on a number of themes large and small. Or even Red Dead Redemption, whose most artistic achievement (IMO) was the way it dealt with the last sequence that got you to the end credits. Just how do you tackle that last mission? Nature or nurture? In Fallout 3, I helped some ghouls make peace with humans, only to have my work thrown in my face by betrayal. How I chose to deal with it affected me as much any movie that I sat there and passively watched.
The medium is young, but it's bold and people are doing great things with it. It's capable and diverse enough to tackle any subject. |
| Raymond Ortgiesen |
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Maybe it's not an issue that can be tackled by a team concerned about number of times downloaded, accessibility, positive media reception, meeting client expectations or 'playful experiences'.
From the very front page of the Hide&Seek website: "Hide&Seek make social games and playful experiences. We expand the boundaries of play, reaching out into public space, new technologies, culture and media." Frankly, that does not sound like a team that can handle the unknown death of a woman society forgot. A game on these themes might offend. It might disgust and challenge. What it doesn't do is fit in with the studio's own stated philosophy. Not that I'm saying any of those attitudes are bad for your studio, clearly Hide&Seek is pretty successful. But to suggest that because they couldn't pull this off then probably no one can seems downright silly. |
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| Maria Jayne |
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Relating to the game about death, I had a concept which may or not be hugely offensive, but I'll explain it anyway.
You create a game with a countdown clock, when the timer reaches zero the game ends fading to black. You see the clock when you initialy begin the game but within seconds it vanishes, suggesting you can't predict exactly when the game will end. For the duration of the timer you have multiple objectives but not enough time to complete all of them. Each objective requires a certain ammount of time which reduces the effective time remaining. Saying goodbye to friends and family, tidying up your home, helping somebody you've never met achieve something, finding a home for your pets, leaving a will and negotiating who has what, removing anything potentialy embarrassing from your belongings, Choosing what to wear, settling your debts, writing a letter, creating a video diary, and so on. These activities take the form of picture puzzles using photos from your social networking account or photos/pictures folder on your platform of choice. The objective is to arrange the puzzle pieces into the photo of your subject you are familiar with. Each objective you choose to complete takes a random ammount of time, this is represented by having the puzzle use up more pieces for longer activities and less pieces for shorter activities. The concept is to show players you simply can't plan for everything, and to realise what is important to them. We always expect tomorrow to come, we rarely consider what state people would find our life in if it were to stop suddenly. There is no score, you know if you win simply by if you get what you consider most important done in time. |
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| Arthur De Martino |
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A story that has little to no interaction oportunities didn't turn into a game?
Well color me surprised. If they really wanted to raise awareness, slap a interactive experience on the subject matter and try to reach tue audience through other means like a possible oportunity for tangencial learning. I'd even argue that some games deal really well with said subject but most of the stuff I'd say (Planescape Torment) have already being mentioned. |
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| Justin Sawchuk |
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Okay your a node on a big hivemind type creature, your goal is to kill the evil beast but in order to do it you yourself.
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| Robert Schmidt |
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I think the premise of the article is very similar to the question, "are there questions that science will never be able to answer". In both cases the very nature of the question means we will never be able to answer it. Just because someone fails to make a game of a subject doesn't mean that no one can. The only way we know if a subject can be translated into a game is by someone doing it and succeeding. Other than that, we just don't know. But, I think failing is also a learning experience. Trying gives us insight into the challenges faced by turning a subject into a game. It gives us more insight into the subject itself. If failing means the authors chose another medium to express the subject then society is still well served.
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| Robert Schmidt |
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I think this also re-introduces the question, what is a game? The game that came out years ago about the woman in the cemetery also seemed to ask the same question. Is a game a competition or just a choice? Was the game where you click on a cow a game? In my mind these are games in the same way abstract art is art. The game is the meta-game of seeing how far you can push the concept of a game.
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| Robert Schmidt |
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Sorry but this article got my mind spinning. It seems to me that the story of Joyce Vincent has nothing to do with death. It is about neglect. Is the story any better if she sat in her home alone for all those years instead of being dead? In my mind it is worse. The fact that she was dead seems to highlight the issue that she was so badly neglected by her community that she could disappear for three years and go unnoticed. So it is her neglect and not her death that is the story. How do you make a game about that, and from who's perspective?
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| Michael Pianta |
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I watched this video a while ago and have been thinking about it off and on ever since. I think they just had too many restrictions - if it wasn't about a REAL person (which requires it be handled tactfully), or if it wasn't tied to a specific story (which limits it in many ways) then I think the same basic theme could be explored in a game context. However, with the restrictions they described, I have no idea what they could have done. I definitely think having players walk around her apartment or try to save her - anything like that, a traditional game experience - would be a really offensive. But if you make it completely abstract then it fails too because what does it have to do with this specific person?
Also, more generally, I see a lot of comments saying "Oh, of course, games can handle anything." I wouldn't be so sure, nor would discovering that games have limitations in that regard be a big deal. Art in its totality may be capable of addressing every type of human theme/issue, but I believe it is false to say that every medium is equally capable of addressing every theme. They all have their strengths and weakness, which is a good thing; it's why they're all necessary. |
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| Mark Venturelli |
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You could make a game about this woman's experience. The secret is to not try and *tell* the story, but to create a system where this story can emerge naturally.
Maybe a social-focused multiplayer game where people need each other for some reason, but someone can make decisions in such a way that other people stop interacting with them, and at some point the person becomes completely forgotten and alone? |
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| Bob Johnson |
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Great to see game folks realize games have weak points along with strongpoints.
And great to see they went with the medium that worked best for them. |
| Joshua Oreskovich |
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This is probably the best article I've seen on this site. It just makes sense. And she is a greta communicator.
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| Bernardo Del Castillo |
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Funny, I would never expect this but probably the most effective and direct Game piece on death for me comes from Modern Warfare... you know, the nuke scene.. maybe. Hard to explain why, I was not expecting my playable character to be there to just die. of course, it is completely different, but it also touches on the theme of anonymity, hope and hopelessness.
/* may be slight spoilers ahead Maybe more abstract for me is Journey (because I feel that in journey the whole rebirth end sequence is just a dying dream, and the game is just about atonement), the foolhardy pushing forward into the blizzard. Also Dear Esther, which I read as a whole metaphor for passing. The trip through the island represents coming to terms with the frustrations , fears and hopes of life before letting go. */ It seems interesting, I believe their approach to the theme is a bit limited, I suppose it responds to their production details with the movie and all. But i suppose it is interesting to observe death as the final point in the seemingly chaotic trajectory which life is. Playing the final game, it all seems like high hopes deflating to something rather selfhelpish. Interesting theme though.. i'd love to tackle it one day. |
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| Aaron Casillas |
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Is what the article proposes in the teams original venture a Game at all? It reads more like a Toy than a game and more akin to a Novel. Did they have win and loss conditions?
More details please! |
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| Tore Slinning |
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Interactivity does not make a game.
A program can use the same technology and platform, but again...just having interactivity will only give you "Grandma and me" (Brønderbund anyone :) ) I can see the value of realtime programs, art and interactivity as valuable en devours of design. |
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