Close
When you subscribe to Furtherfield’s newsletter service you will receive occasional email newsletters from us plus invitations to our exhibitions and events. To opt out of the newsletter service at any time please click the unsubscribe link in the emails.
Close
All Content
Contributors
UFO Icon
Close
Irridescent cyber duck illustration with a bionic eye Irridescent cyber bear illustration with a bionic eye Irridescent cyber bee illustration
Visit People's Park Plinth

Directory.Linking 2: /The Immersive State of Reality[Game]Play

19/07/2005
Mez Breeze

/FPSs
[Cartesianscape Lusting]


/Summary:
#Acronym Unpack: First Person Shooters
#Primarily 1(st)P(erson)P(erspective) Gameplay
#F(ull)M(otion)V(ideo) Inserts
#C(orporeality)E(mulation)L(oading): High

1st person shoot-em-ups are pc/console-based games that evoke individualised player adrenaline spiking through a type of hierarchical reward-or-punish [kill-or-be-killed] system. Their design promotes pre-set directional interaction that provokes biological reactions based on fight-or-flight signallings. Most FPS gameplay begins with cardboard [pre-formulated] characterisation/narrative induction [via FMV inserts or limited avatar construction]. Character construction seem more about reflecting the competition edge induced via the gameplay template [ie Quake, Doom, HalfLife] than offering a a way of [albeit subtly] modifying the game trajectory as do many Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games or Real Time Strategy games.

The majority of FPS game-engineers present as being mired in a “more realism” desire loop – that is, that they deliberately construct games that closely as possible mimic a 3D Cartesianscape. The lure of the geophysical has lead hard-core FPS gamers to don Virtual Reality equipment such as Headsets or attempt a CAVE immersion; more contemporary conceptions centre around hardware shifts that make the game engines [and engineers] focused on accelerating game performance through software + hardware interplays. One FPS game component that illustrates this shift is High Dynamic Range or High Dynamic Range Rendering. The currently employed Dynamic Range is a ratio-based format that fails to account for uber-range values that effect the overall sense of realistic [ie 3D] game rendering. HDR tech attempts to mimic a 3Dimension reality perspective that accounts for light variants [ie when you move from an outside environment into an inside one and experience the phenomenon of light blindness]. This is just one instance where game engineers are displaying traces of _HyperDeveloper Mode: ON_ rather than striving to emphasise a radicalisation of time/space that doesn’t necessarily adhere to these strict 3D emulation strategies, such as playing and pushing through/exploding to [and potentially beyond] an n-dimensional perspective.

/Example:
F.E.A.R is a game heavily drenched in de rigueur 1st person shooter elements, displaying blatant military/operational rhetoric in terms of game narrative, characterisation, pacing + direction. These elements act to personalise the “narrative engine” through the display of trauma expectation reactions/indicators as the gameplay unfolds, such as rapid + shallow breathing, repeated swearing, deformation of timescapes through the adoption of the slo-mo matrix-popularised perspective shifting/Japanese_horror stylistic riffing/adrenaline simulated timelapsings. Ironically, this too is a type of hyper-realistic mimicking – the architectural gameplay responses that interlace disruptive narrative components [eg game story blips such as static displaying on character’s headset] act to enhance the interactive “playthrough” aspects [gamer responses designed to move the game forward].

/MMORPGs
Connecting…
downloading patch online_ gaming_101
please wait

/Summary:
#Acronym Unpack: M(assive)_or_M(assively)M(ultiplayer)O(nline) Games
#Primary Character Construction based on Avatar_Creation
#3(rd)P(erson)P(erspective) Gameplay with Potential to Toggle 1PP]
#C(orporeality)E(mulation)L(oading): Moderate [Projected]

Massive (or massively) multiplayer online role-playing games such as Ultima Online and Everquest echo Dungeon + Dragon game-templates. They are a specific version of Massive Multiplayer Online games such as The Matrix Online or World of Warcraft. Most MMORPGs traditionally follow a self-moderated or group[“clan”]-based goal oriented structure [“levelling”] with character construction, role-playing agendas and online character actions heavily influencing the narrative game components. The use of pre-set fantasy or sci-fi characterisations assists player synergism via collusive goal-setting through puzzles or quests embedded into the story-framework.

MMORPGs primarily adhere to a hierarchical game direction. These designated game-pathways [players may perceive them as manifest realities] are defined according to predicated structures, or via the intentions of the actual players [or self-generating gamer communities] as the game is let out of the pre-set corporate parameter-bag. Game trajectories can be altered or influenced via modifications of elements designed to enhance/further extend gameplay. Several of these can be used as techniques to truncate accepted game conventions, and hence, offer a non-intended gamepath that reflects a more curious/responsive player orientation. A game[r] response that illustrates how the trajectory of intentional game-play alteration can manifest is in Everquest:

/Example:
Everquest gamers have previously used/abused certain game factors constructed to enhance in-game aspects via a beneficial manipulation of levelling [ie progress rapidly in the goal-orientated/hierarchical structure of the game itself]. One spell in particular was initially co-opted to redefine the game pattern from its hero-mandated quest-seeking directive towards a hyper-acceleration of this levelling objective. The spell was titled Clarity [or “crack” in game slang] and its demand resulted in those in the 1st Everquest loop, and those advocates of competing MMORPGs, christening the game EverCrack.

This example of players realigning pre-set MMORPG constraints/constructs in line with their own objectives, irrespective of intentional gameplay contingencies, illustrates a type of morphing beyond the constructed game reality. This, as well as the injection of synthetic MMORG economies into the geophysical sphere + “easter egging” shows levels of enhanced game contact [with]in “rl” [real life]. This too, like the hyperaccelerated push for 3D mimicking in FPS, displays a concrete pull towards physical reality as the ultimate reality layer, irrespective of the underlying game push-potentials.

/ARGs
[Active Narrative Gathering, anyone?]


/Summary:
#Acronym Unpack: Alternative Reality Games
#Game architecture based on Active Narrative Gathering:
# + Data Search Capabilities
# + Information/Puzzle Solving
# + Players ability to Media Trawl
#Primarily I(nformation)G(athering)P(erspective) gameplay
#C(orporeality)E(mulation)L(oading): Low

Alternate Reality Gaming involves players responding/reacting to story cues projected through media not regularly associated with game construction, such as movies, websites, physical engagements and chat technologies [eg I Love Bees]. ARGs are constructed via interconnected narrative threads/cues beyond exclusive parent forms or individualised game parameters. ARGs make players step outside the restrictions of mono-genre game boundaries and narrative-seek through the use of webtrawling, email, phone/sms contact, real-time interactions and extensive online engagement to glean cues + puzzle pieces. These games work within a collusive reaction principle; that arousal, curiosity and search-behaviour will result if info-schooled gamers are offered teasing data as narrative tip offs, similar to the concept of viral marketing. [eg One of the 1st ARGS was designed as an advertising adjunct to the 2003 movie “AI“]. This anomalous or quirky game information embedded in alternative media [such as movie credits, faux online newspapers or animation shorts/spin offs] will lead to exploration that adds to the narrative unfolding of the game itself, a radically different tilt in terms game-reality-mimicking. This utilisation of game/story cross-genre threading in ARGs is what I term ANG [Active Narrative Gathering]:

/Example:
“The Animatrix” is comprised of 9 short animated movies which extend and reveal plot nuances of the second movie in the Matrix trilogy, Matrix Reloaded. 1 of the shorts [Kids Story] plugs a narrative hole evident in the movie structure – the gaping question of the origins/story point of the Neo-fawning-boy-child is essentially answered. This type of story cross-genre threading is an example of ANG that echos the type of search_+_blend jigsaw plot gathering used in ARGs. To attain a complete narrative unfolding [ie join-the-story-dots-campbellesqueness-hero-journey-style] you must connect with satellite media that enhance + complete the story jigsaw, such as playing the Enter the Matrix/The Matrix Online video games + viewing The Animatrix.
This type of ANG assembly could act to catapult the audience beyond their internalised story-parsing abilities and draw on other avenues of jig-sawing narrative production [ARGs, MUDs, or mobile-like txt plotlines that unravel + develop as a text or vlog-volley progresses, similar to PhotoShop Tennis].

/ART
[Question + (Construct Your Own) Answer]


/Summary:
#Acronym Unpack: Augmented Reality Tranposing
#Layered ART Architecture based on:
# + The projected Exploding of Campbellesque Narrative Neatness
# + A Reconceptualizing of the Constructs that Define Artistic Output
# + Reverse-Engineered Rethink of Contemporary Relevance of
# Digital/Networked Art in the Light of Contemporary Game-Popularity
# + Active Removal of the Monomedia Barriers that Load Artistic
Endeavours along an Individualised Canonist Line
#Primarily I(nformation)I(ntegration) + E(xpression) gameplay
#C(orporeality)E(mulation)L(oading): Unnecessary

/Does game + entertainment construction that utilises ANG portend a cultural tipping point of sorts for art itself [an antidote to commercial games acting increasingly as “reality” emulators]?

/Is the phenomenon of keeping games so completely embedded in consumer-strata via required/constant soft/hardware updates creating a gamer underclass? Upgrade envy is a gritty example of a dirty capitalism-induced curve where a user displays tendencies of needing [or desiring] constant upgrades in order to perpetuate the next gamer consumerist wave. This upgrade push is not exclusively restricted to game-heads – in terms of the latest networked art genres, are graphically-beefed projects enough to justify the constant software/plug-in consumer push + sensory/3D replication pandering? Do 3D sensory triggers [cf multimedia as opposed to text or code] dictate exclusive experiential fullness as opposed to those that utilize stripped-back contextual cues or simple search behaviours?

/Should art creation be shuttling towards the construction/discovery/investigation of information/media/data existing via [sociocultural or expressive] augmented builds that both enhance + project forms in ways that are unexpected + [hopefully] startlingly innovative?

/Should artists learn from ARGs ability to push genre-dimensionalities beyond the emptiness of forced sterile institutionalised [sanctioned] interactivity? Do many examples of electronic/digital/networked art encourage or epitomize such accessible seeking/searching behaviour or curiosity/blending-beyond-genre-boundaries? Does this [in part] also explain why art as a homogenised concept seems less potent [in our contemporary “globalised” mercurial/mismashed/colonised/hegemonic society] as a potential cultural modifier/constructor? The source point of interactivity is the imagination – is this growing trend of micro-economic assessment of our most basic cultural construction elements [ie imagination] reducing our ability to create artistic output that has corresponding contemporary relevancy equal to those products [ie games] that push a consumerist agenda? Does this in part explain why art seems so marginalised/undervalued in our contemporary setting and anything considered a consumerist artifact [ie games] isn’t? Could ARGs be illuminative here in terms of treading that line between art-reification + established information/data/genre enmeshment?