Overcoming the Fate of the World

My latest PopMatters article is now live: Overcoming the Fate of the World.

I originally purchased Fate of the World because I thought it might prove an interesting case study for a potential paper. Not only is the game perfect for that reason, but I was genuinely surprised to find the game incredibly compelling. Time and again I have tried to defeat the second 'Oil Crisis' scenario without success. Bur rather than deter me, I have only become more committed to handling the world's problems. Can you really just walk away from the endangered pandas?

Believe me when I say Fate of the World is rich and complex. I have not nearly explored all the game has to offer, and somewhat intentionally. It is interesting to examine the sorts of decisions players choose not to make because of their own beliefs and valuables. For example, Fate of the World allows you to deploy a set of political policies to influence regions. At first I was very resistant to the idea of meddling in the affairs of other nations. Instability eventually ran rampant and led to a series of famines. Eventually, I began providing increased security to stabilize vulnerable regions. To some extent, the game forced me down an undesired path of political and military involvement internationally.

Of course the game is peddling its particular procedural rhetoric. In this case, seriously addressing development and climate change demands the capacity and willingness to make difficult political decisions. However, there are far more drastic measures you can take, including funding black ops or instituting regime change. Choosing to ignore those options without even knowing the effect the might have on the world is a personally meaningful ethical decision. The same goes for many of the policies and strategies you might use to employ or ignore. Some educational games exist solely to encourage personal exploration of the game's subject matter. Fate of the World manages to evoke the same introspection about a variety of issues while also fostering complex systems literacy. This dual achievement alone makes the game well worth out attention.

EXP Podcast #123: First in Line

When everyone else is nestled snugly in bed, the most die-hard fans are battling the elements, sleep deprivation, and mall security in hopes of being the first to procure a new console or game. This week, the tale of a man named Isaiah-Triforce Johnson came to our attention. After waiting in line for a week, he was one of the first Americans to buy a Nintendo 3DS. His quest got us thinking about the strange rituals surrounding console launches and game releases. It's a surprisingly broad topic, and we cover everything from the "first!" impulse to frostbite. As always, we'd love to hear your thoughts, as well as any of your release night stories in the comments!

Some discussion starters:

- Have you ever stood in line for the release of a console or game? What was your motivation?
- Why is it important to play something immediately upon release? Is it even important?
- Should developers incorporate release day bonuses into games?

To listen to the podcast:

- Subscribe to the EXP Podcast via iTunes here. Additionally, here is the stand-alone feed.
- Listen to the podcast in your browser by left-clicking here. Or, right-click and select "save as link" to download the show in MP3 format.
- Subscribe to this podcast and EXP's written content with the RSS link on the right.

Show notes:

Watching Dragon Age

With so many games and so few hours in the day, I often have to make tactical choices as to what to play and analyze. While I would like to wade into a sprawling RPG like Dragon Age II, I know I wouldn't be able to put the time or effort in to do it justice. Like its predecessor, I'm content to sit on the sidelines and watch both the game and the discussion surrounding it. With Dragon Age II, said discussion has been just as interesting than the game itself.

Grasping Inside a Star-filled Sky

In my latest post over at PopMatters, I delve into the depths of Inside a Star-filled Sky.

The more time I spend with it, the more I admire it. The game draws inspiration from traditional twin-stick shooters and marries it with procedural generated, recursive levels and an open-ended progression structure; elements that seem to be all the rage these days.

I find myself fighting with the controls from time to time and the game has made me appreciate the elegant simplicity and transparent rules of classic shooters like Robotron. Despite these issues, I appreciate the game's tactical feel. In addition to elements of bullet hell and pattern memorization, being able to reconfigure power-ups and enemy abilities ads a lot of strategy to a genre that is usually based on twitch-based skills.

As luck would have it, Jason Rohrer, Inside a Star-filled Sky's creator, released a major update just as this post was set to publish. The update has made the game much more social, which detracts from the sense of individuality and isolation I felt while playing it. Although my essay is now a bit outdated, I still think it's an interesting testament to the difficulty of writing about games. A simple update can drastically alter a game's message, which makes it even more important to document changes before they become lost in the ether.

In a way, it's poetic that Inside a Star-filled Sky has already grown beyond the game I wrote about. It's a game whose dynamics center around endless expansion, growth, and variation; it makes sense that the game itself would continue to change.

EXP Podcast #122: The Selfish Podcast

Are gamers selfish? That is the question Michelle Baldwin from Pioneer Project asks herself when confronted with "the look." When some unfamiliar with games hears about your small obsession or hobby, a curious glare not uncommon. Where does this look come from? How might social games address the divide between gamers and non-gamers? And how might we contemplate selfishness that makes us better thinkers, designers and players? Join us this week as Scott and I discuss all of these questions and more in the most selfish EXP Podcast to date. As always, we encourage you to leave your thoughts in the comments section and check out Michelle's original article in the show notes below.

Some discussion starters:

-What sort of reactions do you receive when you share your gaming interests with strangers?
- Can social/casual games bridge the gap between self-identified gamers and non-gamers?
- How do we handle concerns about the ethic of the hobby and the gaming industry?

To listen to the podcast:

- Subscribe to the EXP Podcast via iTunes here. Additionally, here is the stand-alone feed.
- Listen to the podcast in your browser by left-clicking here. Or, right-click and select "save as link" to download the show in MP3 format.
- Subscribe to this podcast and EXP's written content with the RSS link on the right.
Show notes:

Poké Huddle

I last put my Poké balls on the line with Pokémon Diamond, a game I simultaneously criticized for its unethical game design while cuddling it affectionately in the corner. Almost two years have passed since I made my attempt at catching them all, or at least a sizable chunk. I told myself I was clean, that I would not subject any more pokémon the horrors of confinement and myself to the horrors of slow and tedious gameplay - no matter how much I enjoyed it. Alas, my defenses have weakened. I am increasingly gravitating towards Pokémon Black and White. To be clear, the game is less to blame than its army of players.

The Fate of Documentary Games

My latest PopMatters article is now up: The Fate of Documentary Games.

I want to be clear that I believe there is a space for documentary games in the style of The Cat and the Coup and others, they can be valuable contributions to the medium while also addressing important historical events. The problem is the burden of documentary storytelling. As I see it, documentary games cannot satisfy player agency and present factual information about historical events without confining the game aspects from the documentary in critical ways. At which point, the entire experience becomes supplementary. Again, this is fine, but it relegates the genre to the outskirts of what games and documentaries can do alone.

As in the post, I differentiate between games about issues and games about actual events. Some experimental games might actually get us to a happy medium between the two perhaps. Simulations, if they can put enough pressure onto players to corral them through a documentary experience, can provide some interesting insight into the processes by which events actually occurred. Opera Omnia, a game Scott and I discussed during our 2011 GDC roundup, might offer a glimpse at some weird experimental design elements that can play with history in unique ways. Omnia is essentially a game about historical revisionism, in which players change the logic of the past to change the justification for why the present exists. If we were to plug real historical information into that process, it might commit the greatest historical sin and allow players to rewrite history as they wish. However, if we were to set the puzzle perimeters such that they demand a complex understanding of a historical process, if players had to correct history and therefore understand, then maybe a game like Omnia could overcome some of the burdens on documentary games.

All that aside, I am actually looking forward to playing The Cat and the Coup. Frankly, I am less interested in the gameplay than I am the very idea of the game. I may have put a glass ceiling on documentary games, but I still think there are not enough of them. I actually think a murder mystery style game could be really interesting enriched with documentary information. David Fincher's Zodiac, for example, is a dramatic retelling of historical events that takes a great deal of historical liberties while also drawing tons of information from actual case documents. With some factual fluidity, games can do amazing things with real world contexts. Zodiac is one of my favorite mystery films, and if games aimed as high as Fincher, I'm certain I would add documentary-game-ish experiences into my favorites list.