Comments for Design Robot

Comment on Bare Life in the Wasteland: Biopolitics in Fallout: New Vegas by miguel

miguel — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 12:00:16 +0000

Hey,

I’ve really enjoyed reading this. It’s a bit rough around the edges, but you should work on that application of Foucault. I would be particularly interested to see it spread across different game worlds, just to see what happens – is NV similar to F3 (or even the older Fallouts?). How about Skyrim, or my favorite, STALKER?
If you focus your arguments in unwrapping your foucaultian understanding of these open worlds, and ask the question across worlds, you might consider submitting it for a Philosophy of Computer Games conference? Maybe 2013?
As said, there are plenty of good ideas here – if you trim the lit review and focus more on your reading of focault, it’ll be even better (oh, almost forgot: I like your use of Deveraux, but I find Booth much more interesting when it comes to the ethics of fiction).

cheers

Miguel

Comment on Conference Paper: Atemporality in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time by Karl Parakenings

Karl Parakenings — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 22:04:27 +0000

Thanks, Darius. Wish I could take credit – it’s the name of the conference I attended.

Comment on Conference Paper: Atemporality in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time by Darius K.

Darius K. — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 22:00:51 +0000

Nice Philip K. Dick reference there.

Comment on Musings on Game Writing by Karl Parakenings

Karl Parakenings — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 03:16:34 +0000

I’ve enjoyed the Rockstar releases as well, but they’re mostly genre pieces which rely on cutscenes to advance the story. I’m a pretty big fan of the scripted event or cutscene-less story; having a detective game where the impetus of gameplay is interpreting motion-captured facial expressions seems to be missing the point, to me. It’s not necessarily a question of writing quality, but of writing technique.

For me, the best writing in games uses the gameplay to advance/participate in the story. In Ico, you hold the companion character’s hand to lead her around. That tells a story in and of itself; the gameplay and the player’s participation are key to telling the story. With cutscenes, not so much. I’ll probably expand on these points in an upcoming post.

Comment on A Quick Inspirational Quote by Karl Parakenings

Karl Parakenings — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 03:11:35 +0000

I think there’s an increasing trend in anxiety about the history of games, now that we’re 25-ish years on. GDC especially seemed to really have an undercurrent of recognizing influences and historicization/periodization.

Comment on A Quick Inspirational Quote by Edward

Edward — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 03:09:40 +0000

Exactly why is it suddenly all the rage to “postmortem” decades old games?

Comment on Musings on Game Writing by Stewart M.

Stewart M. — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 02:03:30 +0000

I’m curious as to why you say the story of LA Noire will be lackluster. I have truly enjoyed the last couple of Rockstar releases, GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption. Do you feel the writing in those games is also lacking? Also, what would you suggest are the unique qualities of gaming as a medium for writers? I know there are the smaller things like writing hundreds of minor alts for random NPCs, but what is there on a grander scale?

Comment on Musings on Game Writing by Valerie

Valerie — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 22:51:13 +0000

On the plus side, the game should also last a lot longer than a two-hour film for the same amount of predictability. But this makes me wonder whether the game writers themselves think that they’re being derivative, and if not, who’s going to talk some sense into them? Or do they do it because they’re afraid to sink a ton of money and manpower into something that might be considered too experimental?

Comment on Musings on Game Writing by Clinton Sosnoski

Clinton Sosnoski — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 22:04:12 +0000

Well said, games aren’t so much written as they are cookie-cuttered nowadays. Too often you’re calling the twists and endings like you would in a summer blockbuster movie, except this movie cost you seventy five bucks.

Comment on What I learned from GDC: Ten Days Later by » GDC Vault debuts free content Design Robot

» GDC Vault debuts free content Design Robot — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 03:33:33 +0000

[...] of the few downsides of attending GDC was not getting to see all the talks I wanted to – some had already happened by the time I [...]