ARTS 160B - Intro to Digital Art: September 2013

Monday, September 30, 2013

Boundary Collisions - example code

int xPos;
int yPos;
int xSpeed;
int ySpeed;

void setup() {
size(600, 600);
xPos = width/2;
yPos = height/2;
xSpeed = 1;
ySpeed = 2;
}

void draw() {
background(0);
ellipse(xPos, yPos, 30, 30);
xPos = xPos + xSpeed;
yPos = yPos + ySpeed;
boundaryCollision();
}

void boundaryCollision(){
if(xPos > width-15){
    xSpeed = xSpeed*-1;
}
if(xPos < 15){
    xSpeed = xSpeed*-1;
}
if(yPos > height-15){
    ySpeed = ySpeed*-1;
}
if(yPos < 15){
    ySpeed = ySpeed*-1;
}
}

Artist Games - Examples

OpenProcessing Games Collection
http://openprocessing.org/collection/25

Levity - Lindsay Grace
http://www.criticalgameplay.com/levity.html

Lets Play Ancient Greek Punishment - Pippin Barr (2011)
http://www.pippinbarr.com/games/letsplayancientgreekpunishment/LetsPlayAncientGreekPunishment.html

Papers, Please - Lucas Pope
http://papersplea.se/

Phone Story - molleindustria (2011)
http://phonestory.org/index.html

Viscera Clean-up Detail - Runestorm (2013)
http://www.runestorm.com/viscera

One Note Piece - Hunter Jonakin (2011)
http://hunterjonakin.com/onenote.php

Messhof
http://messhof.com/

Cactus Squid
http://cactusquid.com/

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Reading 3 - Mariah McCauslin

"Begin like this: If photographs are images, and films are moving images, then video games are actions. Let this be word one for video game theory....Video games come into being when the machine is powered up and the software is executed; they exist when enacted." (2) Out of the entire reading, this quote stuck with me the most. Video games are nothing until the user interacts with them. I think the reason this stuck with me is because of its similarity to Brenda Laurel’s Computers as Theatre. Just like computers, there has to be a relationship between the user and the game in order for the game to exist. Galloway even talked about the similarities between theater and video games, just as Laurel discussed theater and computers.

One section I found interesting was on page 46 of chapter 2. Galloway points out one of the common uses of the subjective shot, ‘to show the optical perspective of a drugged, drowsy, drunk, or otherwise intoxicated character’. I never realized how much effect the angle of a camera could have on a movie or video game. I find this interesting because I am a gamer myself. It is difficult to go from playing in first-person mode (subjective shot) to third-person mode. After reading about the subjective shot, I recall getting hurt in the game Call of Duty and watching the screen get blurry as if your character is losing consciousness. The camera angle really does play a huge role in games and movies.

Reading 3 - Panpan Deng

In the first chapter of the book Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture by Galloway, Alexander R, he mainly talked about the four steps of the classification system of video games. Combining the experience I have with the computer games and the context in this chapter, I would like to describe human's action of playing computer games as a dance with imaginary characters. There are several reasons why I hold that point of view.

First and foremost, the games could not be games if no one play with them. Alexander wrote in his book that "they(video games) exist when enacted" (Page 2). He believed that without human participation, video games were nothing but dead computer codes. Dance is the same. If there is only one dancer, other people could only consider the whole action as a show. For example, the game Dance Dance Revolution makes players to control the movement of the characters. the players input the wrong buttons, correspondingly the characters will make the discordant movement. There would be just like a cartoon show for the players if dancers' action have nothing to do with players.

Also, the devices players use can be considered as a platform for the human-player dance. On that platform, they communicate with the computer code which plays a role as a shared knowledge. Different platforms can hold different types of dances. However the mission is the same which is to corporate with each other in order to present a high-quality dance. Besides, it is very significant for the players to find a "suitable" dancing partner on the basis of their own levels. Skilled players can corporate better with high level dancers and new players may be better to practice with low level partners.

Last but not least, the designers of the game work as a dj while players are dancing with the characters. Designers control the pace of the dance even though it is not real-time control. Gunfight games are always the exciting one while the education simulation games are leisure.

In all, video games can not run with the absence of the players' participation.

Reading 3 - Michael Jennings

Having only just recently finished the video game Bioshock: Infinite, I have come to discover that user interaction and communication with the machine is a fascinating relationship that can blur the real world with the virtual. As Galloway described, “both the machine and operator work together in a cybernetic relationship.” This relationship is obviously artificial, but the in-depth, movie-like storyline along with the user actively making decisions that affect the outcome of the game, makes the user feel as though they ARE the main character, Booker DeWitt. When I finished the game, I felt like I had personally experienced the struggles of Booker DeWitt.

The user is free to roam the world of Columbia, but in order to finish the game the user must follow a set storyline. This freedom to explore even deepens the plot more than a film would. In my opinion, Bioshock is just as beautiful a work of art as any film, book, or painting. The game is a commentary on the human condition, and a criticism of industrialism, racism, and fascism. Although these same concepts can be discussed in other works of art, video games have a unique ability to discuss their points in a clearer way. This is because the user is directly in control over what is going on. Without the user and the machine both working together, and, in a way, against each other, the game does not exist.

In general, the gaming industry has many different extremes in the same sense that any other art form does. For example, there is not much artistic value in a game like Borderlands or Skyrim in a real cultural sense other than their aesthetic quality. But those types of games create their own culture because they are so incredibly open. In Skyrim the player creates a character with it’s own distinct features and appearances, and you seem to create another you inside this epic world of dragons and empires. Although movies such as Star Trek and Star Wars create their own subcultures, these are fixed stories that cannot change. In a video game like Skyrim, you create your own story.

Reading 3, Taoxi Li

I never consider myself a gamer, and the concept of game of any type (computer, console, mobile etc.) has been almost non-exist to me since my elementary school times. But this summer, because of my job as a QA tester in a game production company, gaming took up at least 8 hours of my time a day for two months. This job boosted my knowledge and exposure of games exponentially and also altered my view of gaming industry overall. The game I tested/played most is a remake of Microsoft Studios’ classic RPG, Fable: the Lost Chapters. While reading this article, I found a lot of concepts applicable to Fable.

In a nutshell, Fable is a story about a boy (“Hero”) whose hometown is destroyed by bandits in his childhood, and his mission is to find his lost families and to fight a big evil boss behind all the disasters. The intriguing thing about Fable, and the point that is relatable to the article, is that the operator/player can make his own decisions about how and where the game goes. The operator can choose to develop the main character into a noble angelic hero or a cold-blooded devil, or somewhere in between. The main storyline remains the same, which is the hero’s growth and revenge, but the side-plot varies significantly based on the character’s kindness/evilness trait. As suggested in the Fable’s tagline, “Every decision, a consequence”, the operator has almost but complete control of the storyline. If placed in Galloway’s diagram, Fable should fall into the first quadrant because of the significant flexibility the operator has and the lesser effect of diegetic storytelling. In addition to being a gamer, my role as a tester also gave me an alternative perspective to look at this game. To ensure the quality of the game, we used quite a few cheats to test the games. As pointed out in the article, cheats or hacks are usually intentionally embedded in the games for debugging or testing purposes only, but hardcore gamers could also discovers these tricks while playing and that is seen a great achievement and entertainment by gamers. As testers we also intentionally end the character’s life at various situations to have the “Game Over” scene, which is probably the actual gamers’ nightmare, especially if they failed to make saves copies. This nondiegetic action is essential to testes’ job but probably disastrous to common players.

I think the author did a good job explaining the four moments in gaming with some good examples, yet I am confused and curious about why the author did not mention the platforms that games are played on, i.e. PC, console (PlayStation, Wii, XBOX), mobile, web etc. It would be interesting to include some discussion about how the four moments are manifested on different platforms, because different machines also give operators different level of freedom and control, and that will vastly alter how the operator and machine interact with each other, and how much diegetic and nondiegetic element can be shown in the games.

Last but not least, the balance between machines and operator, diegetic and nondigetic factors in games also reminds me the "order v.s. chaos" theme we have been discussing, because on one hand, the game producers need to limit the actions operator have in the game to keep the story proceeding in the pre-programmed direction, but on the other hand, it’s essential for players to have enough amount of flexibility in the game to be entertained and interested. Order and chaos is what makes a good game focused but entertaining at the same time.

Reading 3 - Katherine Martin

When I was younger, I was a gamer. My dad had his own computer programing company, and the office room in my house had three or four old fashion box monitor computers that my sisters and I were free to use. Even though I've had experience gaming, I never really considered video games as a type of art that involves "action", and Alexander Galloway opened my eyes to this idea.
Galloway says in Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture that "If photographs are images, and films are moving images, then video games are actions". This quote really stuck out to me. Instead of being a passive consumer looking at a picture or watching a film, when you play a video game it requires you to do an action. Without user input then there is no game and instead it's just a bunch of computer code.
This idea relates back to Brenda Laurel's piece we read last week about human-interface interaction. Galloway agrees with Laurel's idea that both the computer and the user are essential in order for anything to work properly. Galloway says that there are two basic types of action in video games. The first type is machine action, which is when an action is acted out by the software or hardware of the game computer. The second type of video game action is operator action, which is when the player performs the action.
The following link is a trailer for Mario Kart for Wii: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKHLzFGA8o8. This video shows examples of both types of video game actions. A machine action takes place whenever the player runs over a banana and spins out of control, because the computer code is controlling that actions and not the gamer. Steering on the other hand is an example of gamer action, because the player controls the direction the kart goes in.

I really enjoyed Galloway's piece because I've never really thought about video games in this way. I've always been much more of a passive consumer, and never really thought about games in comparison to pictures and movies. This piece has really changed the way in think in terms of games. It takes a user in order for the code to become an actual video game.

Reading 3 - Kristin Martin

Image Link

In Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture, Galloway explores the comparison of video games versus images and video. He explains, “A game is an activity defined by rules in which players try to reach some sort of goal,” which sets up his main contrast between video games and other media, video games are interactive. He tells us that video games aren’t just moving images like films or multiple photographs; they are actions (2). This is an interesting thing to topic to think about because it leads into if the user wasn’t playing then the video game doesn’t exist. Video games are user dominated. Without the user the software could run and run but nothing would happen unless the user choses an action, But the video game also has some choice in what happens and can create games that would rarely have the same series of events happen over and over again. A good example of this is one of my favorite games, Sims 3.

Image Link

Sims 3 is a interactive role playing game where the user puts tons and tons of input into what happens to the character(s) he/she create. The user can choose from a variety of career paths, appearance options, personality traits, social relationships, and housing options that give the user freedom but ultimately the Sims program can choose what happens in the world. The Sims program can control everything from weather to death, which leads to a unique experience for the user.

The video game to user relationship is similar to a team; they work together to create a unique experience in the gaming world revolving around both the actions of the user and the computer program being played. Ultimately in the gaming world possibilities are endless because each user is unique and will have a different experience playing the game, and that’s what makes video games so addicting.

Reading 3- Sarah Proctor

In Gamic Action Four Moments, the author goes over every possible way to view video games through what we already know about media, i.e. video and still images. However, in doing so, the author actually outlined how video games actually break most rules attributed to these to media art forms and makes it's own rules.

Video games are like a interactive art piece. They ebb and flow as you want them to, for the most part anyway. While the user/operator has a lot of say in what happens with in the game, the machine also does a lot of the work as well. While an operator could explore a world and collect things and do actions, the computer has to create all of these things and enable all of the actions. Without a machine or an operator, a video game could not exist.

The game itself, while tried to place under categories of diegetic and nondiegetic, breaks the molds of both by incorporating nondiegetic processes into the diegetic aspects of the game. The play of the game is what makes a video game so unique. The user is whisked away into a virtual world of possibilities, where they can, for the most part, control their destiny. This idea of freedom in game play is essential to the very essence of the video game.

Reading 3 - Jon Good

The gaming industry has grown immensely since the 1970s and 80s when the first 2D games were released. Now our technologies have developed so much in the gaming world that basically anything is possible now. It has created another form of entertainment that has exploded and has created a different definition in this realm. Photographs are still images, film is moving images, and now video games have created the definition for themselves as being "actions."

In the reading of “Gaming : Essays on Algorithmic Culture," there is a breakdown of what video games can do and how they work. The "video game" is broken down into a table of diegetic and non-diegetic actions and then whether it is controlled by the operator or the machine.

These different areas of a video game are associated with different processes. A non-diegetic act would be something such as dying in the game or having save stations along the way to prevent you having to start the game over everytime. Where a diegetic act is more based on the world in which the game is played. The interesting thing about these 4 basic parts to a video game is that with a growing technology in gaming, the lines get blurred quite a bit. Some examples of this already are the Xbox Kinect where gestures and even body language can be used in a game.

I am in fact fond of the gaming world. I have been playing video games from my N64 in the day to my Xbox 360 now. One game in particular that has been sucking my life lately is Grand Theft Auto 5. I think it's interesting to bring up this game while discussing this topic because GTA is a prime example of blending the quadrants of the 4 categories of a video game. There is so much that is put into this game that it is intense in the sense of it seem like a movie. I personally have been enthralled by the game play. It's really cool to see all of the factors that take place in the game that you don't control, but then can get involved in if you want. An example of this would be maybe you see a regular plane just flying minding it's own business and you can just shoot the pilot and take the plane. Even though it's a fun game it's also quite violent. Rated M only.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Reading 3 - Truc Le

In the first chapter of his book, “Gaming : Essays on Algorithmic Culture”, Galloway, Alexander R. (2006, page 1-38) categorizes gamic actions into four stages: the Ambience act, the Setup act, the Movement act, and the Disabling/Enabling act of the machine. While Galloway critically analyzes the four stages, he fails to relate any user experience to the overall act of gaming. I believe that with an addition of the user experience, Galloway can make a better impact on his readers.

According to Galloway, the definition of playing video games is “an activity that is (1) free, (2) separate, (3) uncertain, (4) unproductive, (5) regulated, and (6) fictive” (Caillois, Man, Play and Games, 43) and this activity is “embedded inside algorithmic game machines” (Galloway, 21). While I do not fully understand what algorithmic game machines mean, I agree with Caillois as I used to be a dynamic gamer myself. My summer days in middle school used to be filled up with computer games, which I think is not much different from video games. I would sit on the computer all day trying to improve my character’s skills and popularity whether it was in “Hot Step”, “Ghost”, or “The Sims 1, 2, 3”. The whole activity was fun, unproductive, and, sadly, separated from the real world. The beautiful graphics of games in the Ambience and the Setup acts tempted me into the online virtual worlds, and eventually, they confused my reality with the Movement and the Disabling/Enabling acts. Although it is true that “Without the active participation of players and machines, video games exist only as static computer code” (Galloway, 2), most gamers like myself could not resist the urge to engage in the lively world of actions that games bring to our eyes.

It was only when my parents told me to stop that I regained my awareness of the real world. However, that sudden feeling of being detached from the virtual reality always made me feel confused: I knew I was wasting time, but I also knew that I enjoyed the fanciful feeling of being another character. Now, after four years of not being a keen gamer, I found somewhat an answer to my confusion: “Play is a symbolic action for larger issues in culture....It is an aesthetic, enacted vehicle for “a powerful rendering of life”” (Galloway, 16). I interpret this statement as: people who are having problems in real life come to games to clear their minds and/or to live the identities that they want but have not had. If I look at gaming this way, I think it both has good and bad sides. As long as people have enough self control, gaming can do them good as it allows them to escape the social pressure.

To sum up, gaming has four stages of actions that, when combined, can be very tempting to people, especially those who are trying to get away from the daily stress. However, each person should have their time limits on gaming so that they will not get stuck in a virtual reality.