Comments on: On Formalism (Darius Kazemi)

By: David T. Marchand

David T. Marchand — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:23:30 +0000

Same here. The “Fun” argument barely holds when it’s about a serious game about life choices and such, much less when it’s about a fun little thing that surprises you and you get to shoot little bullets at an incoming boss.

By: Rimbo

Rimbo — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:29:38 +0000

I thought it was fun and witty

By: Rimbo

Rimbo — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:28:33 +0000

Awesome

By: Echo_Hotel

Echo_Hotel — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 04:47:38 +0000

The argument is invalid since the point of a “game” is to entertain by some means, where as this is simply a bit of interactive “Art” meant to drive conversation.

Or to put it another way

It fails the “Fun” test.

By: basrbyl

basrbyl — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 02:13:07 +0000

By: LogicalDash

LogicalDash — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:17:20 +0000

No, the statement says choosing non-interactivity makes the game a monologue. It doesn’t necessarily imply that choosing interactivity makes the game a dialogue.

This here web browser that I am typing into is *very* interactive, but it isn’t really saying much to me. *You* are, and the browser is assisting with that, but I don’t think that makes the browser into a dialogue.

By: Phack

Phack — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 21:47:47 +0000

Oh god I love it. But I can’t seem to win…

By: zaratustra

zaratustra — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:21:21 +0000

Does choosing non-interactivity
Does choosing
Does

By: varun

varun — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:03:16 +0000

I do think most didactic, introspective, critical games, even games describing an experience, almost always do that violence to the player — the designer has a conceit in mind. The game is a veiled piece of rhetoric. As a player, I never instigate the things games make me do; it comes as a surprise (not my own idea) when it turns out finishing the game involves making THIS decision, inhabiting the game’s value system. This is why I still think most art games are more art than, I dunno, a world to inhabit and affect: like books or television shows, they don’t care about your agency any further than it makes their point.

The alternative I can think of is Increparean puzzle games and self-sufficient Unity landscapes, who don’t impose because they don’t care about you at all.

But, rhetoric is in the eye of the audience. If we don’t see rhetoric, this game starts looking like an easy flitter between static and interactive, a denizen of the border where interactivity starts dissolving into the atmosphere, and the interactivity vapour (html as games, platformers with pointed political intent) is what we will throw in the faces of the ‘this is not a game’ crowd.

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 08:13:31 +0000

I don’t know. Does it?