Hallow said:
Waffle_Man said:
While I do have complaints about the loneliness example, it is a defined set of player agencies within a system. How would you define mechanics exactly?
Mechanics is the "a + b = c" of a game, it's not the controls. Or, as wikipedia says "Game mechanics are constructs of rules intended to produce an enjoyable game or gameplay"
So by that logic, a game like VVVVVV [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VVVVVV] has no mechanics either, because your only means of agency is moving around. You could make the argument that adventure games aren't really games, because there is (usually) no failure state as with loneliness. Lastly, you could argue that any game isn't really a game if you personally don't like it. The wikipedia example given is neither objective or measurable.
And how exactly would you have simulated this or systematized it? Sure, it doesn't cover absolutely every facet of the concept of loneliness, but if you think it should, you've missed the point.
I think it should cover the essence of loneliness, since that's what the game was trying to present, in that regard I think they failed. As for what I'd do, I have no idea, there's a reason I try to watch these shows (but my inability doesn't make their points any more valid).
You have to understand that video games, by their very nature, are subjective. In other words, simply because you personally didn't find their example all that great doesn't invalidate their argument in it's entirety. If I wanted to talk about emotional pathos and used
Grave of the Fireflies as an example, it wouldn't dismantle my entire argument just because one person in this world happened to not find the movie sad in anyway. It just means that I didn't communicate as well to a particular person.
Then I guess this [http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs45/f/2009/118/0/4/8_bit_art_mario_bross_by_RavenHayden.png] has absolutely no significance to you. After all, it's just a bunch of dot's isn't it?
No, not really. I think pop art is pointless and stupid.
That wasn't supposed to be an example of pop art. I suppose it might have been a little off, but it was relatively close in pixel arrangement to the original sprite of mario as it appeared in game. I simply chose that particular image to illustrate a simply truth: Mario was a bunch of dots arranged in such a way that would encourage people to project an image onto him. This was the basis of all 8 bit sprites: Projection. I very much doubt that you see a face when I put a (, a -, a ^, or a :. in a sentence, so why are most people going to see a face when I write (^-^) or (-:?
Psychology isn't a hard science, but it's not just a bunch of shit because of the existence of outliers.
I'm pretty sure that the creation and projection of context is one of the things that most heavily defines what it is to have an imagination. I suppose I don't know you and can't say that you have none, but consider this. If absolutely the only thing someone said about something was "it's gehy" and "I'm smart, but I didn't understand it." What would you think? I'm not about to say that if you didn't get it, that you're somehow stupid or unimaginative, but you haven't done anything to impress me with your wit or insightfulness.
I'm saying that the game was a poor example to use for their debate and that "I didn't get it" even discredits their argument more when they start heaping loads of gooey metaphors and shit on it.
So does that mean that simply because homosexuality exists, we must rethink the biological function and origin of sex? No. Just because a single person doesn't "get" and illustration for one reason or another, it doesn't instantly make that example completely invalid. Hell, that's the whole point of using qualifiers. You can dislike the example, as I do, but that doesn't do a single thing to disprove the presented argument. Hell, even if you didn't agree with they example or the conclusions doesn't mean that they're argument had no consistency. I would say that I disagreed with the example as well, but I still agreed with the main point of the video.
I felt more alone in the wastes of Fallout than I did in Loneliness because I knew there were other people/factions out there, but the time I'd spend wandering the wastes fighting for survival was much more isolating.
First, that's entirely your prerogative. I never really felt all that lonely in Fallout 3 or New Vegas, which are the ones most people are likely familiar with. Second, Fallout 3 isn't exactly a game that viewer can be told to stop the video a play for five minutes to illustrate a point.
However in Loneliness there was no such projection of context, nor was there any asked of you.
The whole point of imagination is that no one should have to ask you. Would you expect a game with 8 bit sprites to point to everything with an explicit label because someone might not "get" what the sprite is suppose to represent?
You can understand immediately from the title and gameplay how it's "lonely" so it's not needed. And if it's not needed then I'm not going to do it. I thought "wow, shit's ghey" because it didn't actually impart what loneliness is, and instead was trying to be an artsy game (stained glass windows are magnificent in chapels, but can also be made by children, horrible analogy but that's all i got at 3am)
If you can find me a child that make this [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Heaton%2C_Butler_and_Bayne01.png], you probably have a prodigy on your hands. Hell, you'd have a hard time finding a child capable of coloring this [http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/519CWRBN6BL._SL500_AA300_.jpg] in and not making it look like shit. Simplicity doesn't necessitate shallowness.
