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
Blog - More Fun With Structures: Poetry Forms
Sunday, November 15, 2009Again, since I like thinking about adapting structures from other things and using it as a strange new template to possibly map a game onto...
There was a time where my best friend and writing long-time writing partner were working on a film that was a collection of vignettes... each based on a different poetry form. The premise of the film was thus: we'd take various forms of poetry and use their structures, only use filmic language rather than written language when applying the structure.
For example, where a poetry form dictates you'd repeat a word, we'd repeat a shot.
That sort of thing.
I'm wondering now what it'd be like to do the same premise with games?
Supposing it would even be possible...
It's a difficult challenge since it's much harder to 'structure' a game since the player can do whatever she wants.
But, I suppose you'd first have to, much like what we were doing with our film, decide what poetic elements would translate to game elements. What is the equivalent of a word -- a mechanic? An enemy? What about the repetition of rhyme-- what is the gameplay equivalent of that? Are stanzas the levels of the game?
I think it'd be an interesting challenge to explore sometime. ...you know, when I'm not crunching on a big project at work. posted by Brian Shurtleff @ 11:21 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
Blog - Borrowing Structure, Even in Games
Monday, August 11, 2008My best friend was in town for a little while and just before he left we decided to collaborate on another writing project.
I won't spill too much information on this one at the moment, although I will say I'm super excited by the project at the moment.
I'm at the stage of creation where I'm so excited by my own ideas that every time I sit down to write I'm so hyper that I have to get up and walk around or something until I calm down. I'll consider that a good place to be.
In any case, I'm going to talk today about structure.
The current piece I'm writing is a short story (currently taking the form of a one-act play) entirely taking place during a police interrogation of a suspect.
While trying to research a few things on how interrogations are done so I could get my details straight, I ended up finding a list of the steps actual investigators use for conducting interrogations. It's actually a meticulously structured ordeal designed to psychologically weaken the suspect at just the right times.
I'm attempting to use that sequence of stages as the plot structure for my scene.
For one thing, that seems the most natural thing to do. My scene is an interrogation, and so when I discover that interrogations themselves have an internal structure, why not use it?
More than that, I just love playing with structure, using all kinds of unconventional systems as the structure for plot. I guess that's the game designer in me, loving to play with systems. ;)
The first one-act play I wrote (coincidentally, the only serious piece I've written that has actually been produced and shown to an audience) used the stages of death as the base of it's plot structure, for example. For a time my best friend and I were considering writing film of short vignettes using the structure rules for various forms of poetry (villanelles, etc.) but using filmic language (shots, transitions) in place of literary ones. In other words, where you'd normally have a word repeat, we'd have a shot repeat, etc. But like the poetry forms, it'd have to be stitched together in a way that not only followed all the rules, but actually made sense and in fact had it's meaning deepened by the adherence of said rules.
I'm thinking though now that such play with story structure would be much harder to pull off with a video game. Story structure is a tricky matter in games, because the player is this rogue element that you can't control. The player is often the trickster god of chaos working to bring down the neat and tidy order that the story wants to lay down as its structure.
I considered this problem relative to the current use of borrowed structure: my example of the interrogation process as a plot structure.
I've been thinking of ways to make that work in a game.
And it seems to quite well. After all, games are pretty good at representing processes.
Just make interrogation itself as a game. It very nearly is already.
There's two sides with opposing goals. Either get the confession out of the suspect if you're the investigators, or if you're the suspect then your goal is to make it out of the situation the best you can. The psychological weakening techniques used by investigators leads to an intensely strategic game. It's a battle of wits, although an admittedly fairly one-sided battle. You'd have to admit that it is a pretty emotionally intense experience though, to a degree most games would kill to achieve.
Given as there's already a process laid down for what investigators say and at even at what time they say them depending on how psychologically weakened the suspect appears, an interrogation would make for a pretty amazing dialogue-tree puzzle. Especially if the game informs the player in advance of what the process is and how the system works.
For example, playing as police investigators, during some training portion the player is taught the techniques, then later in the game has to use them to say just the right lines at the right time to break down the convict and make him confess.
Or, playing a caught criminal, the player could have been warned by someone of what to expect, and the player has to try and use that information to avoid being psychologically weakened and being lead down the wrong path - the one that leads to you being caught in the trap of confessing.
By structuring the gameplay, you ARE structuring the story. Gameplay is perhaps our medium's most powerful means of conveying story anyway, and as the only medium that can use that means at all I'd say it's one we should continue to explore.
Consider another process easily turned into plot structure: a 12-step program.
The primary character ("player", in the case of a game) certainly has a clear goal: get through all the steps, and end up clean. The twelve steps are the roadblocks on the path, the trials she must prove she can pass. Twelve levels maybe?
This was just an example off the top of my head so I haven't exactly thought through how to make the twelve steps a fun game to play, but I won't say it couldn't be done.
Borrowing structure like I do can inspire and enrich writing, and I wish to both inspire and enrich writing in games.
Labels: game design, structure, writing
posted by Brian Shurtleff @ 3:06 AM 0 Comments Links to this post