Blog - More Fun With Structures: Video Game Mashups
Monday, January 25, 2010While I'm already still in the swing of talking about DJ Hero...
That game has gotten me all the more interested in the idea of mashups (which I was already interested in, being a electronic music-y geek).
It's gotten me thinking about the video game equivalent to the musical trend... What would a video game mashup be like?
You could first consider that a lot of games are pitched with the "It's like a cross between Game A and Game B!" technique -- Age of Empires, for example, was pitched as "Warcraft meets Civilization." But while it's true that a mashup is a combination of two different songs mixed together, it's a much more literal crossing -- a song could be pitched that's LIKE a mix of Song A and Song B, but unless it literally is a mix of those two recordings, it's not a mashup.
So a game mashup would actually have to not just be similar to two games -- it has to actually be built out of something tangible from each of the two games.
A few games spring to mind as possible video game mashups already--
JoustPong is a game I've heard of (homebrew game for Atari 2600, and I think versions exist online as well in Java) that is basically Pong, only instead of paddles, each player controls one of the bird-riders from Joust. That certainly fits the mold of what I'm describing -- the art is literally ripped from both Pong and Joust... and mechanics as well (instead of simply moving your paddle up and down... you flap your bird's wings to travel up to hit the ball!) to make a game that uses very recognizable and tangible elements from each game to make a new experience.
I've also mentioned ROM CHECK FAIL before in previous entries, and that's another game you could call a video game mashup -- it mixes together more than just two games, but, again, both art assets and mechanics are borrowed and mashed together to form some really crazy stuff that's different than any one of the games by itself.
And both of those examples, as I can only assume, use the art assets from the games they draw from without permission -- which I feel is important to it's status as the video game equivalent of a mashup. The mashup phenomenon seems in part driven by anti-RIAA sentiments and some mashup artists have come under legal fire for their unlicensed use of samples, while others have somehow avoided the heat. Either way-- I feel that the frequent use of unlicensed samples is an important part of the phenomenon of mashups, and so find it interesting to see that tradition manifest in the video game equivalent with use of art assets as well as sound effects/music.
But-- one thing that struck me after I thought all of the above is that the only part of anything that I've said so far which is strictly relevant to video games is the mashing-up of game mechanics-- for example, the fact that JoustPong combines the flapping movement mechanic of Joust with the rules of Pong.
And that's fine-- I'm glad to see interactivity making it's way into video game mashup-ness, but couldn't it be pushed further? All of the mashing-up as it were was all done by the designers, not the players, after all...
So, I'm considering now the possibility of a game that lets players mashup the game(s) themselves! Just as a mashup artist may decide which element of what song to mix in when... the player might decide which element of what game to employ at one time... maybe just as a creative choice, but the choice could also be a strategic one as well!
What if the game in question was like ROM CHECK FAIL only the PLAYER got to decide when to change into one of the game avatars, and which one to change into -- not the game.
Enemy goombas approaching? Mario can step on their heads! But the ship from Defender can hover and ground level and shoot them in the face! ...and with those Asteroids coming down from the skies, being a space ship might be the better bet. Then again, if you could only reach that Power Pill in time, Pac Man could just eat everything on the screen... but can you take that risk? posted by Brian Shurtleff @ 8:24 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
