Content:
Read chapters 3 (“What Is a Game?”) from Understanding Video Games. This chapter approaches, in both philosophical and pragmatic ways, how we define games, and how that affects our consideration of video games as a whole.
Play Alba: A Wilderness Adventure (Links to an external site.). This game, as with many of the others we’ll play during the course of the semester, is a relatively lengthy narrative game that will require you to plan and pace yourself in order to finish on time. Alba will likely two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half hours to complete (Links to an external site.). You should plan on being finished in advance of your initial discussion post by Tuesday night.
Read Ian Bogost’s “Video Games Are Better Without Stories” (Links to an external site.) in the Atlantic. Quick note: do your very best to disregard the title of this article. As with most online publications, the author of the article rarely writes the title, and titles themselves are often written as provocations. The body of the text is a bit more nuanced. Notably, Bogost spends a lot of time discussing What Remains of Edith Finch, a game which I wanted to include in this class. Unfortunately, technical accessibility (it’s not available for Macs) forced me to exclude it from the course. The article should take you about 20 minutes or so to read.
Read Patrick Klepek’s response to Bogost’s polemic, “Video Games Don’t Have a Choice But to Tell Stories”. (Links to an external site.)It’s about a 15 minute read.
Introduction
remember the following directions when responding to prompts:
(1) identify a specific aspect or aspects of the text or media being discussed (you might, for instance, quote or summarize a small portion of the text),
(2) provide your personal analysis of the text/media you’ve identified, with special regard to the week’s prompt, and
(3) ask a question and/or state any curiosities you might have about the week’s material.
Lastly, when discussing Gone Home, please note what platform you played the game on. It may be of interest how the game plays differently between consoles and desktop computers.
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This week, in addition to reading opinion pieces on video games and a chapter from the textbook, you played ustwo’s Alba: A Wildlife Adventure. Before addressing the readings, I think it will be beneficial to consider your experience playing Alba. First, how would you describe your experience? How was Alba similar to other video games you have played? How was it different? Much of the chapter on defining video games in the textbook discussed the importance of rules: what are the rules in Alba? Did you find the game challenging? If so, in what way? If not, why? Playing the game as Alba, what does the game allow you to do? What actions does the game allow you to take? How do the physical interaction with physical controllers or a screen-based interface affect your in-game action?
Alba relies heavily on exploration and discovery. With that in mind, how does the game guide your exploration so that you don’t get certain details of the story too early? In what ways does the environment create a mystery and drive the narrative conflict? Was there anything surprising that you found as you explored the island? Was there anything that you were surprised that you couldn’t do? What do the boundaries of what you could and could not do say about the story and the character that you inhabit? Were there defining moments in the narrative that affected you? Would you describe the story as successful? If so, why? If not, why not?
After you have considered the game on its own terms, consider it within relation to the articles we read. First, considering the textbook, does Alba count as a game? If so, why? If not, why not? How would the authors of the textbook categorize Alba, in terms of genre?
In his opinion piece, “Video Games Are Better Without Stories,” Ian Bogost asks us to consider this question: “Why does this story need to be told as a video game?” Bogost makes frequent claims that film, television, and literature tell stories better. Can you imagine Albaas a film? What about a television series on Netflix, or a novel? What could the narrative gain from these other forms? What would it be missing?
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