Ludotopia II: An Any-Space-Whatever?
Cosplay
,
Ludotopia
,
Manchester
,
perspective
,
Romanticism
,
Videogame Spaces
,
Wastelands
2 comments
In-between spaces, holes, interstices, people milling around coffee tables and Danish pastries talking about space and the sliding from one reference frame to another. Copenhagen in 2010, Manchester this year - the Ludotopia game was reloaded and revealed a space throbbing with possibilities. Throbbing in the sense of a vibrating space where ideas constantly keep forming, get expressed or even suppressed and forgotten. Ludotopia is a conference / workshop or even what my boss Sue Thomas calls an 'unconference'. Last year a group of around 15 people convened in Copenhagen to discuss various aspects of spatiality in videogames. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and also managed to come up with papers of high quality (as we thought). Hence, the need for a second event to polish the rough edges, expose the papers to further scrutiny and to stimulate a general discussion that would result in a book proposal. I learnt much and can indeed give page-long glosses to some of the changes made in the papers (I reported on their contents last year). Much of these is work in progress at this stage so I shall not outline all the details. Instead I shall discuss in general some issues that struck me as well as the two new papers that were presented. Finally, I have no issues with revealing where my own work will go so I'll attempt to provide a preview of my own paper as it will look later on. As usual, Ludus ex always welcomes feedback.
Among the concepts that fascinated me last year, Espen Aarseth's 'ludoforming' stands out,. Marked with an incisive wit and yet an affable gregariousness, Espen's presentation of his ideas have always interested me mostly because of their contentiousness but this time because I was in full agreement. To ludoform, in Espen's Copenhagen presentation, was to construct a game's space over a real space and it was interesting to see how game meaning's formed / reformed / ludoformed real spaces. Back then, he had used examples from the S.T.A.L.K.E.R games' version of Pripyat, the African savannah in Far Cry 2 (where he famously showed a pacman-like structure in FC2's map of its fictitious African landscape). It seems from his recent discussions that as a concept, 'ludoforming' will become much more robust and address even games like Monopoly (in the sense that places in Monopoly have their own specific attributes adapted from their real counterparts that are modified by the game). Sweeping across more games, this concept looks like it'll be an attractive one for Game Studies.
This year we also had a more distilled version of Stephan Guenzel's paper. Stephan explained his concept of trialectic space (first, second and third spaces) in more detail. Essentially, he describes how computer games symbolically exemplify concepts without missing out reality.
Almost all the papers have been developed and enriched but I'll let you read them in their final incarnations. My previous post on Ludotopia and Bjarke Lieborussen's blog will give you summaries of the papers as they were last year.
My own paper is on the use of the wasteland as a spatial metaphor in games and I see the wasteland as a space of possibilities from within which events are actualised (so from a mesh of possible events, one is made to occur depending on the influencing environment -whether this consists of the game affordances or the player's emotional state etc). At first glance, however, the wasteland seems to be a space devoid of meaning and human interaction. Like the railway stations and terminals that Marc Auge calls 'non-places', the wasteland too is a place for passing through. Here, there is no history no human relationships. The game wasteland is, however, not such a 'non-place'. Instead, it is a place that throbs with possibilities. It corresponds with the affective spaces or the vast public spaces where events form despite the apparent nondescriptness of these spaces. Gilles Deleuze calls this the 'any-space-whatever' in his Cinema 1. Whether Deleuze is commenting on Auge we do not know (despite a very problematic footnote in Deleuze) but in game terms, any-space-whatever certainly emerges as a better description for game spaces. Even the wasteland setting in games is not like a bus station where players just pass through Deleuze even in the bus station lies a space of possibility that is going to give rise to an event, an actualisation of a possibility. The wasteland setting in games is such an 'any-space-whatever'. This is a difficult concept to fathom and in spatial terms it is abstract. Some of the immediate criticism that I'd received focused on the fact that after a while, the any-space-whatever exhausts its possibilities in a videogame whereas I was claming otherwise. The any-space-whatever consists of possibilities that are structural (games are unique in that they have such a wide range of structural options) but also at the same time semantic and experiential (all media, including cinema to which Deleuze applies this, would have this plane of reference). A complex notion such as this when applied to a complex medium like videogames causes much controversy and worse, confusion. However, judging by the number of times the term was used in various contexts in the two days, it is a useful framework in game studies. A rewrite, therefore, is necessary where I need to expand on the primacy of the concept of any-space-whatever, tease out the various layers of meaning and pace O Deleuzians, simplify the concept in relation to digital games.
Having expounded on my grand plan for videogame wastelands (yes, I'm building a housing estate in Megaton - ring for bookings), I'll take you through two fascinating presentations by the new guys who joined our Ludotopian spaceship. Speaking of spaceships, the event was organised in the control cabin of the starship Uni of Salford. Lean back with me in your console in ThinkLab to see the two discussions unfold.
The first new paper was Stephan Schwingeler's study of perspective in videogames. He started with a comparison of Uccello's use of the checkerboard with that of the checkerboard base in Wipeout! thus pointing to the development of perspectival spaces in games. Illustrating the use of perspectival spaces through a discussion of Alberti and Brunelleschi with much reference to the art historian and theorist Erwin Panofsky, Stephan announced that videogames are still in their Baroque age and that other artistic movements like Romanticism and Cubism hadn't permeated the videogame world yet. He also pointed at the difference between videogame spatial perspectives and Renaissance ideas of perspective in that although both ideas of perspective 'turn the space of bodily presence into represented space', in digitising psycho-physiological space, spectators become users as well. Some of the questions in response were about non-visual videogame spaces (such as aural games) and about other forms of perspective besides the standard first or third person perspective, such as the Asmodean (Asmodeus is an intrusive devil that can look into people's houses from above) perspective in Sims or the God's-eye view in RTS games. I added to these the problems with the shift in perspective in games like Rome: Total War and also on another level, as Michael Nitsche clarified, in games like Max Payne where the view of Payne drugged and Payne sober are different. Finally, how about non-Western ideas of perspective that may have been used in games. Would games like Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy require a different understanding of perspective? Similarly, how about Echochrome ?
Later, on our way to the Curry Mile in Manchester, Stephan suggested similarities with my wasteland metaphor and Romantic images of ruins (in Friedrich's paintings - but I can think of enough English examples as well). An interesting parallel to pursue.
The second paper, by David Hancock, was equally interesting. Working on Henry Jenkins idea of transmediality, David is looking at scenes in videogames that remediate images from art (as in the Golden Compass videogame) and is then doing paintings based on them (for example, the painting of a sunset in GTA). He is also filming the practice of cosplayers and provided some interesting insights into the practice of local cosplayers. Cosplay, he says, is not a subculture in that it's not a 24X7 identity like the Gothic and Alternative groups have. Cosplayers are apparently more concerned with the character they cosplay than anything else. This also brings up issues in spatial terms. I was intrigued how the cosplayer switches spatial awareness from the game space (which should form the context for the character) to the city space in which they cosplay. There seem to be two levels of spatiality at work here. Stephan Guenzel made an observation about multilayered space existing as a directed space for those players whom Richard Bartle refers to as 'killers' and as a non-directed space for the 'explorers' in Bartle's categories. I'm not sure if Stephan made the comment in this connection but I certainly see two overlapping and interlinked spaces in cosplay - the game space undercut by the cosplayer's city space.
Ludotopia, however, is never about the formal. The in-between affective spaces rule here so here's a random list of trivia. Stephan Guenzel announced that 'Romanticism (as in landscapes that you can only contemplate) in games comes before the epoch of Far Cry'. David told us about the possibility of Zelda going for coffee at Affleck's (a coffee bar in Manchester I guess). We started wodering again about fiction and story as well as the sartorial elegance in British nightlife. Espen definitely has a prospective alternative career as chilly-taster - he ate three raw chillies without batting an eyelid (or maybe he did blink a little). I ate them too but I'm Indian and I have them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Michael's designing this huge duck toy that feeds othher ducks with chocolate (I might be making this up by the way so ask him).
Last but not least, I met rapid cyclist on the way to Manchester. Thank God he was there; otherwise I would have read all the papers again and been over-critical. Rapid cyclist is a psychiatrist by profession whose first love is computers and guess what, computer games. He turned out to be an Elite aficionado, having played the game since his Amiga days and now plays Eve Online. We had so much in common. We are both from the Indian subcontinent and I am a games researcher who wanted to be a doctor whereas he is a doctor who wanted to research informatics. As it would happen, the so-called non-place (pace Auge) of a train compartment suddenly resembled an any-space-whatever in that it provided so many possible interactions. It was like having found a friend in City 17. By the by, I'm sure you know this but Rapid Cycling is said to be the favourite malady of artists.
The return from Manchester proved equally eventful. During a walk down the city's lanes (not very nice ones) and a flaneur -like journey around the remains of a Victorian fish market, we discovered a shop that sells PacMan cookie-cutters and Star Wars blasters. I think they also had Obi Wan's tooth but the thought of a Jedi toothpaste was daunting enough. A friend of mine did buy a PacMan stress ball. We ended up in this alternative pub and the behatted barman inspired me to buy a trilby yesterday. The place (or maybe it was just us) inspired us to think of a project where we'd all do peer-reviewed critical close-analyses of games for a journal or a some-as-yet-undefined-thing. Sebastian Moering brought this up and everyone was enthusiastic. As for me, this has been my dream since 2000 and there have been hurdles everywhere. I do a bit of this in Ludus ex as you might have noticed but for a formal project all I have to show is a disappointed face after the abortive funding applications. I've still not given up and Seb's plan is certainly a glimmer of light at the end of a dark tunnel.
The other Ludotopians dispersed towards the Manchester City Centre for more revels. I was on the tiny train to Nottingham again after having waited in the station. 'Welcome to City 17' , the loudspeakers said. No, it was actually, 'the next station is Nottingham' and the lady exhorted us to remove any remains of our existence - the compartment was gearing up to look like a non-place. Looks, however, are deceptive.
Among the concepts that fascinated me last year, Espen Aarseth's 'ludoforming' stands out,. Marked with an incisive wit and yet an affable gregariousness, Espen's presentation of his ideas have always interested me mostly because of their contentiousness but this time because I was in full agreement. To ludoform, in Espen's Copenhagen presentation, was to construct a game's space over a real space and it was interesting to see how game meaning's formed / reformed / ludoformed real spaces. Back then, he had used examples from the S.T.A.L.K.E.R games' version of Pripyat, the African savannah in Far Cry 2 (where he famously showed a pacman-like structure in FC2's map of its fictitious African landscape). It seems from his recent discussions that as a concept, 'ludoforming' will become much more robust and address even games like Monopoly (in the sense that places in Monopoly have their own specific attributes adapted from their real counterparts that are modified by the game). Sweeping across more games, this concept looks like it'll be an attractive one for Game Studies.
This year we also had a more distilled version of Stephan Guenzel's paper. Stephan explained his concept of trialectic space (first, second and third spaces) in more detail. Essentially, he describes how computer games symbolically exemplify concepts without missing out reality.
Almost all the papers have been developed and enriched but I'll let you read them in their final incarnations. My previous post on Ludotopia and Bjarke Lieborussen's blog will give you summaries of the papers as they were last year.
My own paper is on the use of the wasteland as a spatial metaphor in games and I see the wasteland as a space of possibilities from within which events are actualised (so from a mesh of possible events, one is made to occur depending on the influencing environment -whether this consists of the game affordances or the player's emotional state etc). At first glance, however, the wasteland seems to be a space devoid of meaning and human interaction. Like the railway stations and terminals that Marc Auge calls 'non-places', the wasteland too is a place for passing through. Here, there is no history no human relationships. The game wasteland is, however, not such a 'non-place'. Instead, it is a place that throbs with possibilities. It corresponds with the affective spaces or the vast public spaces where events form despite the apparent nondescriptness of these spaces. Gilles Deleuze calls this the 'any-space-whatever' in his Cinema 1. Whether Deleuze is commenting on Auge we do not know (despite a very problematic footnote in Deleuze) but in game terms, any-space-whatever certainly emerges as a better description for game spaces. Even the wasteland setting in games is not like a bus station where players just pass through Deleuze even in the bus station lies a space of possibility that is going to give rise to an event, an actualisation of a possibility. The wasteland setting in games is such an 'any-space-whatever'. This is a difficult concept to fathom and in spatial terms it is abstract. Some of the immediate criticism that I'd received focused on the fact that after a while, the any-space-whatever exhausts its possibilities in a videogame whereas I was claming otherwise. The any-space-whatever consists of possibilities that are structural (games are unique in that they have such a wide range of structural options) but also at the same time semantic and experiential (all media, including cinema to which Deleuze applies this, would have this plane of reference). A complex notion such as this when applied to a complex medium like videogames causes much controversy and worse, confusion. However, judging by the number of times the term was used in various contexts in the two days, it is a useful framework in game studies. A rewrite, therefore, is necessary where I need to expand on the primacy of the concept of any-space-whatever, tease out the various layers of meaning and pace O Deleuzians, simplify the concept in relation to digital games.
Having expounded on my grand plan for videogame wastelands (yes, I'm building a housing estate in Megaton - ring for bookings), I'll take you through two fascinating presentations by the new guys who joined our Ludotopian spaceship. Speaking of spaceships, the event was organised in the control cabin of the starship Uni of Salford. Lean back with me in your console in ThinkLab to see the two discussions unfold.
The first new paper was Stephan Schwingeler's study of perspective in videogames. He started with a comparison of Uccello's use of the checkerboard with that of the checkerboard base in Wipeout! thus pointing to the development of perspectival spaces in games. Illustrating the use of perspectival spaces through a discussion of Alberti and Brunelleschi with much reference to the art historian and theorist Erwin Panofsky, Stephan announced that videogames are still in their Baroque age and that other artistic movements like Romanticism and Cubism hadn't permeated the videogame world yet. He also pointed at the difference between videogame spatial perspectives and Renaissance ideas of perspective in that although both ideas of perspective 'turn the space of bodily presence into represented space', in digitising psycho-physiological space, spectators become users as well. Some of the questions in response were about non-visual videogame spaces (such as aural games) and about other forms of perspective besides the standard first or third person perspective, such as the Asmodean (Asmodeus is an intrusive devil that can look into people's houses from above) perspective in Sims or the God's-eye view in RTS games. I added to these the problems with the shift in perspective in games like Rome: Total War and also on another level, as Michael Nitsche clarified, in games like Max Payne where the view of Payne drugged and Payne sober are different. Finally, how about non-Western ideas of perspective that may have been used in games. Would games like Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy require a different understanding of perspective? Similarly, how about Echochrome ?
Later, on our way to the Curry Mile in Manchester, Stephan suggested similarities with my wasteland metaphor and Romantic images of ruins (in Friedrich's paintings - but I can think of enough English examples as well). An interesting parallel to pursue.
The second paper, by David Hancock, was equally interesting. Working on Henry Jenkins idea of transmediality, David is looking at scenes in videogames that remediate images from art (as in the Golden Compass videogame) and is then doing paintings based on them (for example, the painting of a sunset in GTA). He is also filming the practice of cosplayers and provided some interesting insights into the practice of local cosplayers. Cosplay, he says, is not a subculture in that it's not a 24X7 identity like the Gothic and Alternative groups have. Cosplayers are apparently more concerned with the character they cosplay than anything else. This also brings up issues in spatial terms. I was intrigued how the cosplayer switches spatial awareness from the game space (which should form the context for the character) to the city space in which they cosplay. There seem to be two levels of spatiality at work here. Stephan Guenzel made an observation about multilayered space existing as a directed space for those players whom Richard Bartle refers to as 'killers' and as a non-directed space for the 'explorers' in Bartle's categories. I'm not sure if Stephan made the comment in this connection but I certainly see two overlapping and interlinked spaces in cosplay - the game space undercut by the cosplayer's city space.
Ludotopia, however, is never about the formal. The in-between affective spaces rule here so here's a random list of trivia. Stephan Guenzel announced that 'Romanticism (as in landscapes that you can only contemplate) in games comes before the epoch of Far Cry'. David told us about the possibility of Zelda going for coffee at Affleck's (a coffee bar in Manchester I guess). We started wodering again about fiction and story as well as the sartorial elegance in British nightlife. Espen definitely has a prospective alternative career as chilly-taster - he ate three raw chillies without batting an eyelid (or maybe he did blink a little). I ate them too but I'm Indian and I have them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Michael's designing this huge duck toy that feeds othher ducks with chocolate (I might be making this up by the way so ask him).
Last but not least, I met rapid cyclist on the way to Manchester. Thank God he was there; otherwise I would have read all the papers again and been over-critical. Rapid cyclist is a psychiatrist by profession whose first love is computers and guess what, computer games. He turned out to be an Elite aficionado, having played the game since his Amiga days and now plays Eve Online. We had so much in common. We are both from the Indian subcontinent and I am a games researcher who wanted to be a doctor whereas he is a doctor who wanted to research informatics. As it would happen, the so-called non-place (pace Auge) of a train compartment suddenly resembled an any-space-whatever in that it provided so many possible interactions. It was like having found a friend in City 17. By the by, I'm sure you know this but Rapid Cycling is said to be the favourite malady of artists.
The return from Manchester proved equally eventful. During a walk down the city's lanes (not very nice ones) and a flaneur -like journey around the remains of a Victorian fish market, we discovered a shop that sells PacMan cookie-cutters and Star Wars blasters. I think they also had Obi Wan's tooth but the thought of a Jedi toothpaste was daunting enough. A friend of mine did buy a PacMan stress ball. We ended up in this alternative pub and the behatted barman inspired me to buy a trilby yesterday. The place (or maybe it was just us) inspired us to think of a project where we'd all do peer-reviewed critical close-analyses of games for a journal or a some-as-yet-undefined-thing. Sebastian Moering brought this up and everyone was enthusiastic. As for me, this has been my dream since 2000 and there have been hurdles everywhere. I do a bit of this in Ludus ex as you might have noticed but for a formal project all I have to show is a disappointed face after the abortive funding applications. I've still not given up and Seb's plan is certainly a glimmer of light at the end of a dark tunnel.
The other Ludotopians dispersed towards the Manchester City Centre for more revels. I was on the tiny train to Nottingham again after having waited in the station. 'Welcome to City 17' , the loudspeakers said. No, it was actually, 'the next station is Nottingham' and the lady exhorted us to remove any remains of our existence - the compartment was gearing up to look like a non-place. Looks, however, are deceptive.
Reloads
'Reload' has been the word of the week for me. In real life and the virtual world(s). A chain of events that I thought had terminated eight years ago suddenly swung around and like those moving staircases in Hogwarts, reconnected some things that I never thought of as possible. Reload. I've been working on my article on rebirth eschatologies, time and in-game death. I also reworked my other article on Sherlock Holmes called 'Sherlock Holmes Reloaded.' Reload. I've been thinking about memory and identity recently and a revisit to Deleuze's Bergsonism is called for. Reload. I've just reloaded a saved 'memory' of virtual ancestor, Ezio de Firenze, using his DNA chain in Assassin's Creed 2. Reload. In an in-game event, the protagonist of the first Assassin's Creed game, Altair, turns up.
Reload again. Think Ludotopia. Our workshop in Copenhagen is now coming closer home to Manchester. We'll be seeing the entire Ludotopia team again and I need to get back to my Videogames and topos discussion.
Time to exit game temporarily. More reloads are possible. Subsequently. Will this year bring lots of reloads, then?
Happy New Year by the way.
Happy New Year by the way.
Game Philosophy Conference in Athens, April 2010
Philosophy and games come together yet again in the place where Western Philosophy started and the Olympic Games were launched. Fancy a chance to ask Aristotle what his favourite videogame is? Come to the Games and Philosophy Conference being hosted in Athens, this April (6th to 9th).
I've never been to Athens. A few years back I could never have dreamt of going - let alone discussing identity in videogames in the hallowed ground of Greek philosophy. This is all too good to be true. And to miss. If you want to know more about the conference, here's the link to the cfp: http://game-philosophy.blogspot.com/.
Trust me, this is one videogame event you should not miss.
I've never been to Athens. A few years back I could never have dreamt of going - let alone discussing identity in videogames in the hallowed ground of Greek philosophy. This is all too good to be true. And to miss. If you want to know more about the conference, here's the link to the cfp: http://game-philosophy.blogspot.com/.
Trust me, this is one videogame event you should not miss.
Souvik's Waterloo
Waterloo, November 2010
Yesterday, I finally managed to beat Wellington and Bluecher’s combined armies near this little Belgian village called Waterloo. This happened on my third attempt when I finally decided to play on the easy skill level. Yes, I’ve bought Napoleon: Total War after reading all those rave reviews that dub it the best strategy game ever and although I haven’t gone very far with the campaigns, I’ve played all the historical battles that are available in the game. Waterloo, obviously is one of the most signficant. The historical battles begin with you playing as the British at Waterloo and end by putting you in the same battlefield as the French - talk about complex and nonlinear histories. Of that, however, another time. Here, I’m more concerned with strategy and with describing how I led Napoleon’s army to victory.
In the real battle of Waterloo, the British under the Duke of Wellington were facing Napoleon himself near Waterloo, an area that the Duke had visited and remembered from the previous year. The British army was actually a very mixed group of soldiers with many Dutch and Prussian units. They were stationed at a strategically advantageous position behind a ridge with only a fraction of their main strength exposed to Napoleon. Further, below the ridge lay three villages which they occupied: Papellotte on the left, Huguemont on the right and Le Hayes Sainte in the centre. The French forces were on lower ground within striking distance of the villages and with superior artillery. They had lost some vital time in beginning the attack on account of the ground being too muddy for the artillery to move. Wellington and Napoleon had never faced each other. The only way for the French to win was to defeat Wellington before his Prussian allies under Bluecher arrived to reinforce him. The Prussians did arrive in time and Napoleon suffered a devastating defeat after which he was exiled to St. Helena.
In Napoleon, the number of forces on each side are much less than in the actual battle. Nevertheless, the units that participate in the battle are all historical units and their placement on the battlefield is more or less accurate. The events, however, might be quite different because they depend on how you play the game. The battle is hard, very hard indeed. Quite uncannily you end up doing what Napoleon did in the actual battle and suffer the same consequences. I’ve watched Waterloo, the movie, countless times and read the battle plans as many times. Many a time had I thought that if I had a chance, I’d do it all differently. However, this didn’t quite work out in Napoleon and except on the easiest level, my troops were decimated to a man.
Waterloo: Battle Map in Napoleon Total War
Even though I say so myself, I’m no mean armchair general. I’ve conquered the other Total War games with relative ease, even at the hardest levels. Napoleon, however, is way too hard. The AI is quite good and the game cheats a bit and starts you off with unfair handicaps. The three farmhouses are virtually indestructible and after a constant barrage of 12-pounder fire on them for over an hour (game time), I was only able to cause 3% damage to Papellotte. Wellington’s troops have incredible high morale whereas even Napoleon’s Guard show their backs much more easily. Finally, Napoleon’s famed artillery is hardly present on the field. In Waterloo, Christopher Plummer (as Wellington) is heard saying that Napoleon moves his cannon as if they were pistols. In the game, Napoleon hardly has any cannon to move and those that he has are under sustained artillery attack seconds after the game starts. God, how I missed my 24-pounder howitzers from Empire: Total War.
The battle, however, was too big a challenge to resist - fighting in Waterloo against the heaviest odds which, as many forums testify, have beaten many good gamers was sheer glory. After the initial battle scene was revealed through a cutscene, the enemy cannon started blowing holes in the ranks of my fusiliers. Haste was required and I found myself frantically moving all my units save two corps of the Old Guard and Napoleon’s bodyguard. All this while, my stationed artillery fired at the British cannon, if only to draw fire away from my infantry units. Then, the siege of Papellotte began. Unlike Napoleon, I did not choose to tease the British at their strongest position and I did not tempt them out of the ridges that provided them with cover. I had attacked the British left, skirting around a hill towards Papellotte with the mass of my units and leaving two units of fusiliers to attack the farmhouse and one to wait as reserve.
The jaegers in Papellotte were overthrown after some initially effective resistance. The farmhouse in French hands, my reserve fusiliers moved in to provide the extra support against any troops that might emerge from hiding (from previous gameplay, I knew that there was a detachment of Rifles concealed nearby).
Battle Plan for Waterloo in my gameplay of Napoleon: Total War
As soon as I reached the far side of the hill near Papellotte, the Prussian army began to pour in. Marshal Grouchy who was sent to pursue them had clearly been as unsuccessful in the game as he was in the historical battle. I could almost hear Napoleon sighing, ‘Grouchy, Grouchy! How he tries my patience!’. Anyway, you don’t need to be a Bonaparte to get upset with incompetent colleagues. Seeing the Prussian move closer, I had my cannon unlimber and spray his front ranks with canister fire while my lancer cavalry dug into his rearguard which was already being harried by my grenadiers and fusiliers. The Prussian cavalry had by now come within range of my fusiliers who quickly formed squares to repel cavalry charges. Encouraged , and at the same time, not knowing what else to do I threw in my cuirassiers and Marshal Ney’s cavalry into the melee. My cavalry was, alas, destroyed to a man but by God, they managed to break the Prussians. Bluecher, their general, was dead and their artillery was being cut to pieces by my Chasseurs Cheval horsemen whom I had moved into this sector. The game AI here was quite spectacular in its stupidity. The British troops stood still and watched while I destroyed their allies. The Prussians destroyed, I had over four infantry divisions and the mounted Chasseurs to attack Wellington’s left flank with. Even more importantly, I had my horse artillery up on the mountain with Wellington’s flank at my mercy. Soon the Earl of Uxbridge’s horseman were scattered by volleys from my cannon. The dragoons and the Duke’s cavalry who charged to save their dying comrades were sliced to pieces by my fusiliers in square formation. Soon the British commanders were dead and my troops were proceeding to roll up the British lines like a carpet.
That, however, was not to happen too easily: the Black Watch intervened. Masses of these Scottish soldiers attacked me in waves, their red uniforms soaking up their blood but still their morale held and constant fire from two sides, canister fire from my artillery and two abortive cavalry charges could not break them. I had to throw my fresh division of the Young Guard against them as my other two divisions routed. The Black Watch was beaten at last but as the last tartan uniforms were edging away to retreat, they created time for waves of British infantry to move into position and harass my Young Guard. An advancing column of Rifles (anyone familiar with Sean Bean from Sharpe’s Rifles ?) was held back by my fusiliers in the Papellotte farmhouse. Time to send in the Old Guard.
The British finally attacked my left flank. Jaeger and Riflemen (remember Sharpe’s Rifles) attached my only Fusilier Regiment that remained intact - firing at will, they almost broke my ranks. The Old Guard had just started marching and one Corps was despatched to destroy the British light infantry. The Jaegers and Riflemen dissolved into the forest whence they had emerged. This time, however, they didn’t retreat in order: they routed.
My reserve was now poised towards attacking the British flank and my artillery kept firing ceaselessly. The Young Guard had held and the Fusiliers from Papellotte had given them some support. It was now the turn of the Old to replace the Young. Two companies of my elite Old Guard broke the British flank. I could now send Napoleon’s bodyguard to mop up the rear of the routing British and Dutch. They offered to surrender and I accepted. My men were exhausted and I couldn’t pursue. Shifting the camera further above the battlefield I actually saw the British soldiers running away - little red squares scattered on the mini-map while the blue squares representing my remaining army in a close formation on Wellington’s chosen hillock.
That’s how the Battle of Waterloo was won by Napoleon … by me.
That's the man!
In the real battle of Waterloo, the British under the Duke of Wellington were facing Napoleon himself near Waterloo, an area that the Duke had visited and remembered from the previous year. The British army was actually a very mixed group of soldiers with many Dutch and Prussian units. They were stationed at a strategically advantageous position behind a ridge with only a fraction of their main strength exposed to Napoleon. Further, below the ridge lay three villages which they occupied: Papellotte on the left, Huguemont on the right and Le Hayes Sainte in the centre. The French forces were on lower ground within striking distance of the villages and with superior artillery. They had lost some vital time in beginning the attack on account of the ground being too muddy for the artillery to move. Wellington and Napoleon had never faced each other. The only way for the French to win was to defeat Wellington before his Prussian allies under Bluecher arrived to reinforce him. The Prussians did arrive in time and Napoleon suffered a devastating defeat after which he was exiled to St. Helena.
In Napoleon, the number of forces on each side are much less than in the actual battle. Nevertheless, the units that participate in the battle are all historical units and their placement on the battlefield is more or less accurate. The events, however, might be quite different because they depend on how you play the game. The battle is hard, very hard indeed. Quite uncannily you end up doing what Napoleon did in the actual battle and suffer the same consequences. I’ve watched Waterloo, the movie, countless times and read the battle plans as many times. Many a time had I thought that if I had a chance, I’d do it all differently. However, this didn’t quite work out in Napoleon and except on the easiest level, my troops were decimated to a man.
Waterloo: Battle Map in Napoleon Total War
Even though I say so myself, I’m no mean armchair general. I’ve conquered the other Total War games with relative ease, even at the hardest levels. Napoleon, however, is way too hard. The AI is quite good and the game cheats a bit and starts you off with unfair handicaps. The three farmhouses are virtually indestructible and after a constant barrage of 12-pounder fire on them for over an hour (game time), I was only able to cause 3% damage to Papellotte. Wellington’s troops have incredible high morale whereas even Napoleon’s Guard show their backs much more easily. Finally, Napoleon’s famed artillery is hardly present on the field. In Waterloo, Christopher Plummer (as Wellington) is heard saying that Napoleon moves his cannon as if they were pistols. In the game, Napoleon hardly has any cannon to move and those that he has are under sustained artillery attack seconds after the game starts. God, how I missed my 24-pounder howitzers from Empire: Total War.
The battle, however, was too big a challenge to resist - fighting in Waterloo against the heaviest odds which, as many forums testify, have beaten many good gamers was sheer glory. After the initial battle scene was revealed through a cutscene, the enemy cannon started blowing holes in the ranks of my fusiliers. Haste was required and I found myself frantically moving all my units save two corps of the Old Guard and Napoleon’s bodyguard. All this while, my stationed artillery fired at the British cannon, if only to draw fire away from my infantry units. Then, the siege of Papellotte began. Unlike Napoleon, I did not choose to tease the British at their strongest position and I did not tempt them out of the ridges that provided them with cover. I had attacked the British left, skirting around a hill towards Papellotte with the mass of my units and leaving two units of fusiliers to attack the farmhouse and one to wait as reserve.
The jaegers in Papellotte were overthrown after some initially effective resistance. The farmhouse in French hands, my reserve fusiliers moved in to provide the extra support against any troops that might emerge from hiding (from previous gameplay, I knew that there was a detachment of Rifles concealed nearby).
Battle Plan for Waterloo in my gameplay of Napoleon: Total War
As soon as I reached the far side of the hill near Papellotte, the Prussian army began to pour in. Marshal Grouchy who was sent to pursue them had clearly been as unsuccessful in the game as he was in the historical battle. I could almost hear Napoleon sighing, ‘Grouchy, Grouchy! How he tries my patience!’. Anyway, you don’t need to be a Bonaparte to get upset with incompetent colleagues. Seeing the Prussian move closer, I had my cannon unlimber and spray his front ranks with canister fire while my lancer cavalry dug into his rearguard which was already being harried by my grenadiers and fusiliers. The Prussian cavalry had by now come within range of my fusiliers who quickly formed squares to repel cavalry charges. Encouraged , and at the same time, not knowing what else to do I threw in my cuirassiers and Marshal Ney’s cavalry into the melee. My cavalry was, alas, destroyed to a man but by God, they managed to break the Prussians. Bluecher, their general, was dead and their artillery was being cut to pieces by my Chasseurs Cheval horsemen whom I had moved into this sector. The game AI here was quite spectacular in its stupidity. The British troops stood still and watched while I destroyed their allies. The Prussians destroyed, I had over four infantry divisions and the mounted Chasseurs to attack Wellington’s left flank with. Even more importantly, I had my horse artillery up on the mountain with Wellington’s flank at my mercy. Soon the Earl of Uxbridge’s horseman were scattered by volleys from my cannon. The dragoons and the Duke’s cavalry who charged to save their dying comrades were sliced to pieces by my fusiliers in square formation. Soon the British commanders were dead and my troops were proceeding to roll up the British lines like a carpet.
That, however, was not to happen too easily: the Black Watch intervened. Masses of these Scottish soldiers attacked me in waves, their red uniforms soaking up their blood but still their morale held and constant fire from two sides, canister fire from my artillery and two abortive cavalry charges could not break them. I had to throw my fresh division of the Young Guard against them as my other two divisions routed. The Black Watch was beaten at last but as the last tartan uniforms were edging away to retreat, they created time for waves of British infantry to move into position and harass my Young Guard. An advancing column of Rifles (anyone familiar with Sean Bean from Sharpe’s Rifles ?) was held back by my fusiliers in the Papellotte farmhouse. Time to send in the Old Guard.
The British finally attacked my left flank. Jaeger and Riflemen (remember Sharpe’s Rifles) attached my only Fusilier Regiment that remained intact - firing at will, they almost broke my ranks. The Old Guard had just started marching and one Corps was despatched to destroy the British light infantry. The Jaegers and Riflemen dissolved into the forest whence they had emerged. This time, however, they didn’t retreat in order: they routed.
I don't like St. 'Elena: going home after victory
My reserve was now poised towards attacking the British flank and my artillery kept firing ceaselessly. The Young Guard had held and the Fusiliers from Papellotte had given them some support. It was now the turn of the Old to replace the Young. Two companies of my elite Old Guard broke the British flank. I could now send Napoleon’s bodyguard to mop up the rear of the routing British and Dutch. They offered to surrender and I accepted. My men were exhausted and I couldn’t pursue. Shifting the camera further above the battlefield I actually saw the British soldiers running away - little red squares scattered on the mini-map while the blue squares representing my remaining army in a close formation on Wellington’s chosen hillock.
That’s how the Battle of Waterloo was won by Napoleon … by me.
GameCity in Retrospect: Polemics and Playgrounds
It's been a week since GameCity and I'm finally able to collect my thoughts on the event after getting through an extremely busy week. This is not a report but a few reflections on what impressed me most and what didn't.
Newport and Narratives
Once again, on the top of the list will be my conversations with the academics and students from the Uni of Newport's game design department. For the last three years, busloads of students from Newport have come to GameCity and this time they showcased their games to hundreds of visitors. I didn't get to see the games themselves but managed to chat with some of the designers (now famous as Angry Mango Games) over a curry lunch. They are designing games about concepts that are offbeat in game design terms: Mush is a platform puzzler for Windows Mobile 7 where the player controls an orange fluffy character by tilting the phone. Even more unique is that by drawing a smiley or a sad face on the screen with your fingers makes the creature move. As the Blitz1UP website describes it:
From the pupils to their lecturers: the previous evening I met up with the Newport teaching team, namely Corrado, James and Richard. This was the first ever occasion when I had a very serious discussion on videogame narratives in a Wetherspoons . Facing tremendous opposition from each other in a debate between James and myself that was moderated by Corrado and Richard, we came to an agreement about the need to redefine / understand what narrative means and to move towards an experiential model of narrative. Perception, affection and action - does that sound familiar at all (check Deleuze in Cinema 1)? The experiential notion of narrativity (if such a word exists) is something that I have highlighted extensively in my research and of course, it is sooo hard to disagree with a polite person like me. Anyway, Corrado has played STALKER (or valiantly tried to) and we both remembered having discussed the gameplay in relation to ludic agency about a year ago at DiGRA. We were dangerously close to another polemical discussion of agency when both the food and the drink had run out and it was time to leave.
Playgrounds
I've written about Keita Takahashi sometime ago. For those who don't know him, he's the designer for the ever popular Katamari Damarcy and Noby Noby Boy games. Very offbeat, very artistic and not at all like videogames as they are commonly understood.
Anyway, Keita's dream is to design playgrounds. And thanks to Iain Simons (GameCity Director) and the Nottingham City Council, he's re-designing Woodthorpe Park on the outskirts of Nottingham. As Keita demonstrated his transition from designing virtual worlds to physical spaces while retaining all the creativity, the talk on Keita's playground became for me the highlight of GameCity. Imagine having benches in parks that move on rails (which means you can't ask your gf to meet you at a certain bench at a certain time), a doughnut-shaped slide that lets you slide eternally (might sound like a punishment invented by the Greek gods but it seemed to be fun as it was described), a swing that is operated in a partnership with people on other swings and finally, a slide combined with a see-saw. Some of Keita's concepts might not pass muster with health and safety but I must say these are some of the wackiest ideas that I have ever come across for parks and playgrounds. It was interesting to see some very gamey creativity translated into more tangible play experiences. I wish Keita and the Woodthorpe Park project the very best. Finally, if he ever designs an entire city, I will go and live in it.
Networking Not working
The 'Notworking' event where I met the Newport guys among others was supposed to be a networking space for game professionals. Hosted in a hard-to-find bar called Nihon the not working title was quite apt for it. Nevertheless, the nature of the event meant that that despite the lack of any 'event' as such people did get to meet and chat so it turned out okay, I suppose.
Romantic Encounters
After a full 8.30 to 5 Thursday, I was in no mood for any encounter however romantic but curiosity got the better of me and I went to check out the only GameCity event by an NTU student. Doing her PhD on interactive media, Rebecca from the College of Art & Design organised a virtual meeting place within its real counterpart in Lee Rosy's Cafe in Nottingham. I was allowed to talk to some of the participants in the 'romantic encounter' to find out what they thought of the event. The environment looked very Second Life -ish ... it probably was an SL scenario. The event had participants adopt fictitious personae and interact with each other in the cafe in a sort of group chat. While initially interested, some of the participants I interviewed seemed to have been tired towards the end --- the need for virtual seats was strongly felt. Also people wanted to sit down in pairs and talk to their partners instead of talking to everyone in the cafe. Finally, there were some clamours for more freedom - people wanted to touch things, order coffee etc. Personally, although I've seen this done before in other places but such 'encounters' between the real and virtual worlds are always intriguing in the variety of responses that one can get.
What I missed ...
I missed a lot, sadly. My one big gripe against the festival is that it does not think of people who have to do a day job but are also interested in videogames. So what did I miss? I missed a great event on the soundtrack of Limbo, another one on the music for the forthcoming Harry Potter game, a very popular demo event for the Kinect and let's see ... yes, Jonathan Blow on game design. Quite a lot of misses considering that this might well be my last GameCity.
Newport and Narratives
Once again, on the top of the list will be my conversations with the academics and students from the Uni of Newport's game design department. For the last three years, busloads of students from Newport have come to GameCity and this time they showcased their games to hundreds of visitors. I didn't get to see the games themselves but managed to chat with some of the designers (now famous as Angry Mango Games) over a curry lunch. They are designing games about concepts that are offbeat in game design terms: Mush is a platform puzzler for Windows Mobile 7 where the player controls an orange fluffy character by tilting the phone. Even more unique is that by drawing a smiley or a sad face on the screen with your fingers makes the creature move. As the Blitz1UP website describes it:
The beauty of this system is that you really feel like you're affecting the little guy's emotions as you play, you find yourself smiling when you make him smile and growling when you make him angry - it really is fantastic fun.I think I'll love this game. Obviously, in terms of narrative the experience is rather ambiguous but as I've always said narrative is experiential and how we construct it around a series of potential events depends on us. I wish I could experience the game first-hand but meanwhile there's a video of the gameplay on Youtube:
From the pupils to their lecturers: the previous evening I met up with the Newport teaching team, namely Corrado, James and Richard. This was the first ever occasion when I had a very serious discussion on videogame narratives in a Wetherspoons . Facing tremendous opposition from each other in a debate between James and myself that was moderated by Corrado and Richard, we came to an agreement about the need to redefine / understand what narrative means and to move towards an experiential model of narrative. Perception, affection and action - does that sound familiar at all (check Deleuze in Cinema 1)? The experiential notion of narrativity (if such a word exists) is something that I have highlighted extensively in my research and of course, it is sooo hard to disagree with a polite person like me. Anyway, Corrado has played STALKER (or valiantly tried to) and we both remembered having discussed the gameplay in relation to ludic agency about a year ago at DiGRA. We were dangerously close to another polemical discussion of agency when both the food and the drink had run out and it was time to leave.
Playgrounds
I've written about Keita Takahashi sometime ago. For those who don't know him, he's the designer for the ever popular Katamari Damarcy and Noby Noby Boy games. Very offbeat, very artistic and not at all like videogames as they are commonly understood.
Anyway, Keita's dream is to design playgrounds. And thanks to Iain Simons (GameCity Director) and the Nottingham City Council, he's re-designing Woodthorpe Park on the outskirts of Nottingham. As Keita demonstrated his transition from designing virtual worlds to physical spaces while retaining all the creativity, the talk on Keita's playground became for me the highlight of GameCity. Imagine having benches in parks that move on rails (which means you can't ask your gf to meet you at a certain bench at a certain time), a doughnut-shaped slide that lets you slide eternally (might sound like a punishment invented by the Greek gods but it seemed to be fun as it was described), a swing that is operated in a partnership with people on other swings and finally, a slide combined with a see-saw. Some of Keita's concepts might not pass muster with health and safety but I must say these are some of the wackiest ideas that I have ever come across for parks and playgrounds. It was interesting to see some very gamey creativity translated into more tangible play experiences. I wish Keita and the Woodthorpe Park project the very best. Finally, if he ever designs an entire city, I will go and live in it.
One of the many fun things in Keita Takahashi's playground
Networking Not working
The 'Notworking' event where I met the Newport guys among others was supposed to be a networking space for game professionals. Hosted in a hard-to-find bar called Nihon the not working title was quite apt for it. Nevertheless, the nature of the event meant that that despite the lack of any 'event' as such people did get to meet and chat so it turned out okay, I suppose.
Romantic Encounters
After a full 8.30 to 5 Thursday, I was in no mood for any encounter however romantic but curiosity got the better of me and I went to check out the only GameCity event by an NTU student. Doing her PhD on interactive media, Rebecca from the College of Art & Design organised a virtual meeting place within its real counterpart in Lee Rosy's Cafe in Nottingham. I was allowed to talk to some of the participants in the 'romantic encounter' to find out what they thought of the event. The environment looked very Second Life -ish ... it probably was an SL scenario. The event had participants adopt fictitious personae and interact with each other in the cafe in a sort of group chat. While initially interested, some of the participants I interviewed seemed to have been tired towards the end --- the need for virtual seats was strongly felt. Also people wanted to sit down in pairs and talk to their partners instead of talking to everyone in the cafe. Finally, there were some clamours for more freedom - people wanted to touch things, order coffee etc. Personally, although I've seen this done before in other places but such 'encounters' between the real and virtual worlds are always intriguing in the variety of responses that one can get.
What I missed ...
I missed a lot, sadly. My one big gripe against the festival is that it does not think of people who have to do a day job but are also interested in videogames. So what did I miss? I missed a great event on the soundtrack of Limbo, another one on the music for the forthcoming Harry Potter game, a very popular demo event for the Kinect and let's see ... yes, Jonathan Blow on game design. Quite a lot of misses considering that this might well be my last GameCity.
CEDAR: After-action report
CEDAR
,
corpora
,
walkthroughs
,
web 2
No comments
Report on CEDAR. So much to say. Not sure how to say it best and what to leave out.
I'll start with Sonia Fizek's presentation. This was the first time I saw Sonia present - I missed her paper in the last Under the Mask. She spoke on how Second Life can work as an academic platform and after introducing us to virtual worlds via a preliminary typology, she pointed out how these, through their reliance on user experience, could be used to host lectures and seminars. I was much impressed with the Second Life Poly University Campus from which Sonia showed us snippets of her experience. Looking forward to experiencing this for myself. In my own practice as Technology Learning and Development Adviser at NTU, I think her videos can prove a very useful introduction for potential online learning and teaching. Sonia also introduced us to Tom Boellstoeff's Coming of Age in Second Life and it looks like a very promising read.
From Second Life to ship life. Avast ye landlubbers - did you know how many words in your day-to-day speech are borrowed from maritime jargon? Simon Isserlis enlightened us on this in his presentation. Words and phrases like 'skyscraper' and 'loose cannon' are some of the examples that he discussed. Simon is building corpora of maritime language that has made its way into English usage. In his talk he spoke about various repositories that he uses, such as Project Gutenberg for out-of-copyright texts, the mudcatcafe.com for traditional English songs, Hansard for British Parliamentary Proceedings' records dating back to 1640 and so on. He also gave us an overview of corpora building software such as Wordsmith tools.
Claire Warwick of UCL described her idea of Digital Humanities in her keynote presentation. The impetus of digital humanities is collaboration instead of the individual research that is sometimes the norm in Humanities research, she said. She insisted on the importance of interaction and consultation between Humanities and Computing researchers and also on the move towards project-based work as favoured by scientists. For those in their early academic careers, the good news is that the REF 2012 (this is a British research evaluation process - gives universities their money and academics their jobs) will also consider digital research as valid submissions.
After Claire's presentation, the unexpected happened. Lorenzo (my netbook) ran out of battery so I was left to jot down pen and paper notes, rather reluctantly. Can't be sure now if the new version of Jolicloud (my OS) is all that good. Anyway, the rest of the report will be rather short.
Anastasija Ropa described how she has built a google site to supplement her project on a comparative study of the Holy Grail motif where she compares L'Morte d'Arthur (Malory) with 20th c. Grail fiction (she did assure us that The Da Vinci Code is not in her list). Anastasija pointed out the pros and cons of using Google sites as well as the perennial problem that academic websites have of getting inputs from academia. She has also created a Renpy game to provide an easy access to her research. Renpy is a visual novel building software. An idea for us all to consider?
Following our Grail quest on Google, we had Isamar Carillo Masso and Lyle Skains presenting their separate versions of research toolkits. Isamar described how she would think using The Brain (the mind map tool), plan further using Mindomo and present using Prezi. I used a Prezi for my own presentation but am still dubious about how effectively I can use it for my purposes. In fact, most presenters at the sessions stayed with powerpoint - still Prezi's a tool to explore. Lyle's presentation was a virtual one - recorded rather than live (although maybe a quick skype appearance to take the questions would be great - blended learning at its best). She spoke about various websites for sharing your creative writing and critiques as well as tools like google docs and prezi. The presentation was on a video clip so maybe we'll get it on youtube Lyle?
The other presentation in this session was Maggie Parke's presentation on how fan websites affect the reception and development of films based on books such as Twilight, Harry Potter books etc. She described how her participation on blogs and fansites raised her 'fan capital'. Simon made an interesting comparison with the fansites for games and this linked back quite well to my own talk on walkthroughs and after-action reports.
After that, a five-hour journey back to Nottingham and eventually, bed. CEDAR is officially over but then all good things come to an end much too soon. I'm sure, however, that we will carry on talking about using web 2.0 tools for research. Finally, I hope my university (at least for a few months longer) will follow this course and make research easier and more fun.
I'll start with Sonia Fizek's presentation. This was the first time I saw Sonia present - I missed her paper in the last Under the Mask. She spoke on how Second Life can work as an academic platform and after introducing us to virtual worlds via a preliminary typology, she pointed out how these, through their reliance on user experience, could be used to host lectures and seminars. I was much impressed with the Second Life Poly University Campus from which Sonia showed us snippets of her experience. Looking forward to experiencing this for myself. In my own practice as Technology Learning and Development Adviser at NTU, I think her videos can prove a very useful introduction for potential online learning and teaching. Sonia also introduced us to Tom Boellstoeff's Coming of Age in Second Life and it looks like a very promising read.
From Second Life to ship life. Avast ye landlubbers - did you know how many words in your day-to-day speech are borrowed from maritime jargon? Simon Isserlis enlightened us on this in his presentation. Words and phrases like 'skyscraper' and 'loose cannon' are some of the examples that he discussed. Simon is building corpora of maritime language that has made its way into English usage. In his talk he spoke about various repositories that he uses, such as Project Gutenberg for out-of-copyright texts, the mudcatcafe.com for traditional English songs, Hansard for British Parliamentary Proceedings' records dating back to 1640 and so on. He also gave us an overview of corpora building software such as Wordsmith tools.
Claire Warwick of UCL described her idea of Digital Humanities in her keynote presentation. The impetus of digital humanities is collaboration instead of the individual research that is sometimes the norm in Humanities research, she said. She insisted on the importance of interaction and consultation between Humanities and Computing researchers and also on the move towards project-based work as favoured by scientists. For those in their early academic careers, the good news is that the REF 2012 (this is a British research evaluation process - gives universities their money and academics their jobs) will also consider digital research as valid submissions.
After Claire's presentation, the unexpected happened. Lorenzo (my netbook) ran out of battery so I was left to jot down pen and paper notes, rather reluctantly. Can't be sure now if the new version of Jolicloud (my OS) is all that good. Anyway, the rest of the report will be rather short.
Anastasija Ropa described how she has built a google site to supplement her project on a comparative study of the Holy Grail motif where she compares L'Morte d'Arthur (Malory) with 20th c. Grail fiction (she did assure us that The Da Vinci Code is not in her list). Anastasija pointed out the pros and cons of using Google sites as well as the perennial problem that academic websites have of getting inputs from academia. She has also created a Renpy game to provide an easy access to her research. Renpy is a visual novel building software. An idea for us all to consider?
Following our Grail quest on Google, we had Isamar Carillo Masso and Lyle Skains presenting their separate versions of research toolkits. Isamar described how she would think using The Brain (the mind map tool), plan further using Mindomo and present using Prezi. I used a Prezi for my own presentation but am still dubious about how effectively I can use it for my purposes. In fact, most presenters at the sessions stayed with powerpoint - still Prezi's a tool to explore. Lyle's presentation was a virtual one - recorded rather than live (although maybe a quick skype appearance to take the questions would be great - blended learning at its best). She spoke about various websites for sharing your creative writing and critiques as well as tools like google docs and prezi. The presentation was on a video clip so maybe we'll get it on youtube Lyle?
The other presentation in this session was Maggie Parke's presentation on how fan websites affect the reception and development of films based on books such as Twilight, Harry Potter books etc. She described how her participation on blogs and fansites raised her 'fan capital'. Simon made an interesting comparison with the fansites for games and this linked back quite well to my own talk on walkthroughs and after-action reports.
After that, a five-hour journey back to Nottingham and eventually, bed. CEDAR is officially over but then all good things come to an end much too soon. I'm sure, however, that we will carry on talking about using web 2.0 tools for research. Finally, I hope my university (at least for a few months longer) will follow this course and make research easier and more fun.
Of Bangor and the CEDAR mash
Back at CEDAR. This time in beautiful Bangor. I've arrived a day early because it takes aeons to get here from Nottingham (four changes on the train and an easy four and a half hours journey). I'm sitting in a hotel room and writing this while trying to focus on my presentation tomorrow and to forget about my day job. Research time is a luxury nowadays and I'm thoroughly grateful that I've been allowed this time by NTU.
So back to de-stressing and chillaxing. Also back to videogame theory - rusty as I am. The programme, however, encompasses the full breadth of web 2.0 and recent social media technology. Here's what it looks like:
Registration and coffee
Welcome
Participant presentations (10-15 minutes for presentation; 5-10
minutes for questions):
Sonia Fizek
Second Life as an Academic Platform: Experiencing Virtual Conferences.
Souvik Mukherjee
Writing the Disappearing Story: Wikis, Walkthroughs and the Digital Narrative.
Simon Isserlis
The MariTime Text Corpus (MariTeC): The construction of a specialised digital
text corpus of Maritime English.
Short coffee break
Guest lecture (Claire Warwick)
Lunch buffet
Participant presentations:
Anastasija Ropa
Bridging the Gap Between Medieval and Post-Modern Audiences of the Grail
Quest Literature with the Aid of Google Sites.
Isamar Carillo
Three Stages of a Research Project: Advantages of Using The Brain, Mindomo
and Prezi.
Maggie Parke
TBA
Lyle Skains (video presentation)
Exploring Multimodal Creativity: Writing Stories for the Printed Page and the
Digital Screen.
'Jam session' / hands-on activities (exchanging and test-running
software/online tools for humanities research)
Discussions over afternoon coffee
All of these topics are extremely interesting for me. Google sites and the Grail (Did Sir Galahad google?) and using Prezi and the Brain - fantastic. Even relates to my present job. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. As for my presentation, here's the abstract:
Writing the Disappearing Story: Wikis, Walkthroughs and the Digital Narrative
‘Do videogames tell stories?’ Although it might be possible now, after almost ten years of academic debate, to answer the question with a resounding ‘yes’, a seemingly innocuous query is bound to bring back the doubts: ‘so where’s the story?’. Digital narratives, especially some videogames, disrupt traditional expectations of the narrative. Operating in complex temporal planes, these digital stories do not lend themselves to standard endings or structures and their plurality makes it next to impossible for researchers to analyse the ephemeral narrative(s). Where older narratology (in the sense applied to the work of Gerard Genette and others) struggles to fathom such phenomena, philosophies of the multiple and the affective such as that of Gilles Deleuze engage quite well with the plurality of digital narratives viewing them as actualisations within a mesh of potentialities.
What might be otherwise construed as abstract philosophy can, however, be experienced in more accessible ways: player themselves have developed ways of recording and analysing the otherwise ephemeral narrative actualisations. The ‘walkthrough’, albeit mostly neglected by game research, has nevertheless established a niche for itself as a form of ludic ‘paratext’ that captures individual actualisations of the game narrative. However, walkthroughs can hardly exist as individual accounts: as they are created mainly as guides to resolving in-game difficulties, the need for player-collaboration and multiple responses is quite plain.
Players have therefore tapped into Web 2.0 and the transition from walkthroughs to rapidly growing and rhizomatic wikis has now begun. Player observations are now being recorded down to the minutiae of character description, narrative, quests, maps and individual experiences. These are constantly updated by the player community but at the same time they give us a narrative to analyse culled from various recorded actualisations. This paper will study the beginnings of this new type of response to videogames using the examples of ‘The Vault’ (the wiki on Fallout 3) and the ‘Call of Duty Wiki’.
In relation to this, it will also analyse a specific genre of game-related blogs which has been named ‘after-action report’ by fans. In these blogs, gamers keep a diary of their in-game experiences often making them resemble literary or historical accounts. ‘The Rise and Fall of the House of Jimius’, an after-action report blog created as a record of the gameplay of Rome:Total War by a player who calls himself Jim. Again the blog format allows more player responses that supplement the narrative created from Jim’s individual actualisations of the gameplay events.
These new types of digital responses to videogames indicate that the idea that videogames cannot tell stories is a myth. This paper will examine how they tell stories differently and how Web 2.0 technologies influence the way in which the stories are read/played.
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And here's my presentation.
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And here's my presentation.
Interview published on the Theory, Culture & Society Blog
I've been involved with TCS for over three years now. For those who don't know TCS , it is one of the leading journals in social theory, cultural studies , media studies and philosophy, with names like Baudrillard, Stiegler and Deleuze in its contributors' list. Besides the printed journal, TCS now offers a wealth of supplementary texts, interviews, podcasts and discussions on its website, blog and Facebook group. Over the last three years, I have been involved with redesigning the TCS website and setting up the blog. Now we welcome more input from the readers of TCS and people who are generally interested in the areas it covers.
Given the array of famous names who have interviewed by TCS, I felt extremely happy at being asked for an interview. On videogame theory, of course. I've always maintained the need for game studies to make stronger inroads into mainstream theory - so far, it's been the other way round. The TCS interview was, therefore, a very welcome opportunity.
Simon Dawes, editor of TCS webs, and I have a mini discussion on whether (for me it is 'why') game theorists should have some experience of playing videogames before theorising. This has been something I've maintained for a long time and Simon got me proselytising yet again on my pet topic. I also speak about how game studies has 'grown up' and how useful it is to see videogames as being a multiplicity rather than , essentially, just one entity. I also speak briefly about my thesis and how I find a Deleuzian framework useful in analysing games.
If you find any of this interesting, here's the full interview.
Given the array of famous names who have interviewed by TCS, I felt extremely happy at being asked for an interview. On videogame theory, of course. I've always maintained the need for game studies to make stronger inroads into mainstream theory - so far, it's been the other way round. The TCS interview was, therefore, a very welcome opportunity.
Simon Dawes, editor of TCS webs, and I have a mini discussion on whether (for me it is 'why') game theorists should have some experience of playing videogames before theorising. This has been something I've maintained for a long time and Simon got me proselytising yet again on my pet topic. I also speak about how game studies has 'grown up' and how useful it is to see videogames as being a multiplicity rather than , essentially, just one entity. I also speak briefly about my thesis and how I find a Deleuzian framework useful in analysing games.
If you find any of this interesting, here's the full interview.
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