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You should read Las Narangas' document on Empathy and the Uber-Protagonist for and idea on emotion in games.

It's a damn good read.

dick strocking poofter fucks

lol
Who is this chump? DG?


--Snake

I'd at least put in a couple of '!11!!!' at the end.

As for Chis, stop watching me stroke my dick!

DG's private time is not Chis's spy time!

Ah, now we find a happy medium!

I notice you use "art", as in with quotation marks.

You'll notice that when I also describe the game as "art", I also use quotation marks.

Read my previous replies to Igor and you'll see what I mean -- I use the word "art" in a very loose sense (and without pretention).

But I never made the "game" (more quotation marks) to be something more than it is -- as far as I can see, it's just a good conversation piece and without any great life-affirming insights.

But please, don't label it as pretentious -- I'm not trying to pimp the "new wave" of adventure games here.

Yes also.

Which is ironic because I choose the songs that reminded me of death and depression -- I had more but they simply would have been overkill.

Ironic to be sure! The selection of those well-known pieces in itself, much like "Best of Classical", "Great Composers' Greatest Hits", "Classical Favourites", etc., is quite depressing, mainly because it trivializes great works of art and turns them into easy-listening.

I never set out to trivialise anything -- I was only inspired by a great art movement that I've studied before, and great classical music, which I've also studied before too.

And even great poetry too -- How come you never said anything about the trivialisation of Anne Sexton's poetry in my game?

I hope you concede to my use of the art, music, and poetry knowing that I've at least read widely on these subjects and written about them (and been paid for writing some of those articles too).

Also, I think the main problem with the game is not its originality, but its lack thereof. It's easy to make a piece of crap and call it "dada art", but without the historical context, the label does not really apply, as I hinted earlier. "Art" is not an excuse for something poorly made! Pretension does not replace content.

I can't help the fact that you think the game is crap, poorly made and without historical context -- as I said, I never made the game for the purpose of people liking it and thus your opinion here is fine.

However, I am BITTERLY opposed to you reducing a moment of my depression to the level of "pretension".

Las:

For the benefit of Igor http://www.sylpher.com/novomestro/blargh.htm

I am going to reference you plenty of times in my tutorial, Las!


Czar:
Thanks for the comments.

THe avatar is actually a scene of Jack Nicholson from the film FIVE EASY PIECES (Hence the quote below him).

I would have used a pic of him from THE LAST DETAIL but I lent my copy to some else (Doh!).

As for the reference, many people have asked the same things, so I guess I can only reply: "Who knows?"

Clerks was made for around $27,000 before post-production -- do an even lower budget film than that.

GG: Interesting you mention logical thinking puzzles -- Maybe I was trying to rationalise something admidst everything.

Then again, maybe my mind's just a mess.  

Next Dada game, I might just make the puzzles completely arbitrary.

But I'm glad you posted that paragraph -- In hindsight, that is kinda the state of the game!

It's about how well it does what it does. Simple as that.

Not really that simple and objective as you state -- there are some games that don't do interactivity well and still manage to be enjoyable (I found Seasons of the Sakura to be a very enjoyable game despite the low amount of interaction).

Meanwhile, there are some games I've played which provide amazing interactivity and still manage to be crap (Such as Escape from Monkey Island).

Dada on the other hand is trying to be "art" just for the sake of being "art" and it also means more to author than to audience.

I disagree with the first half of this sentence -- I never made it for the sake of being art.

And I also disagree with the second part -- Although I made it with the express purpose of a being a personal catharsis, it doesn't actually mean much to me on a conscious level (In a way, it's like when you sleep and have a dream).

Once again, I think you're expecting too much of Dada.

I think you are trying to find a life-affirming ideal (concept is the word you use later) in this game that simply doesn't exist and shouldn't exist, because I never would have made it in such circumstances as formulating a ideal or concept. (more on why later in this post)

That's my only grip with Dada- it doesn't have any developed concept (except, obviously, for Dada-style art) and it tries to be too similar to classic (static) abstract art: music is there, but it doesn't bring much to the atmosphere

Which is ironic because I choose the songs that reminded me of death and depression -- I had more but they simply would have been overkill.

You make some other points about atmosphere, but I can't really say much else of the same topic as I believe atmosphere is something subjective.

As for rushing the project, I admit to that, but I've already explained why I rushed it -- It's was a project based upon how I felt at the time, and labouring for an extra day on the finer points of plot, structure, and narrative would only lose the sense of how I'd feel about the project -- Thus, I'd become distanced from it and it wouldn't be as interesting to me.

In fact, if I laboured upon it I probably would have ended up deleting it.

In a sense, I look at it in the same way human beings think -- in uncomplete thoughts and most of the them scattered around our brain.

If I turned it into a completely structured and deeply interactive project, it wouldn't feel as human and simple as it is.

I could have put the degree of deep thought into the project as you would have liked, but at the time I wasn't thinking that way -- It's hard to think in a fully structured fashion when you go through a bout of depression.

Again, I don't think movies should be compared to games too much. Sure, they use similar mechanics at some points, but interactivity is what separate them appart so much. In other words- what work in movies won't necessarily work in games and vice versa.

You misunderstand my point here -- I'm using the film industry as a parallel to the gaming industry to show how sometimes people are not ready to accept a certain creative enterprise.

But I also disagree with the statement.

But if interactivity is the only thing that separates films and games, then the usage of narrative structures (and the deconstruction of such) can transpose between both mediums.

And narrative structure is important in adventure games, because (like your example of interaction separating games from film) narrative structure separates adventures (and not a lessor extent RPGs) from other games -- an adventure game needs a plot whereas other games do not (Space Invaders? Doom? Command and Conquer? You don't really need a plot for these games!)

And thus is why I think we can make many comparisions between films and games -- because they share similar techniques in narrative.

This was the theory I divised some time ago:

An adventure game needs two main things to be an adventure:

1. Interactivity
2. Narrative

Everything else is secondary (character, atmosphere, etc) to these two things -- though they do make the game more enjoyable.

Taking interativity from film is useless because they have no interactivity, as you demonstrate.

However, taking gaming narrative from film narrative techniques is useful, as is borrowing from books and plays.

Therefore, what will work in movies will work in an adventure game.

That's my theory.

And I can provide several examples of possible film to game narrative adaptations if you like (And they range from Pulp Ficition, Fargo, Memento, Gosford Park, etc).

Here's a question for you regarding film to game theories:

Play Grim Fandango and ask whether you shouldn't compare games to films even though:

a) The game is divided into a four-act structure like most Hollywood films (and contains similar plot points as most Hollywood films)
b) It borrows the basic archetypes of films (the hero, the villian, the sidekick, and the love interest)
c) It also uses film noir techniques in the mise-en-scene of certain scenes.
d) And it manages to spoof several films such as Casablanca, On The Waterfront, and Touch of Evil to name a few?

Sure, the only thing separating games and film is interactivity -- but if you remove the interactiviy from an adventure game, you have a film remaining.

Thus, games and film are very comparable.

This will all be in the adventure game story tutorial I'm writing.  

P.S. I hope you come back soon -- I find this discussion very interesting (In fact, I haven't enjoyed a discussion on adventure games this much for a long time).

Make a porno and become the next Ron Jeremy!

I disagree with that.

There was an article in an ST Format magazine years and years go (obviously, as it was an Atari ST magazine), and it quoted Godard with the following:

"Photography is the truth. Cinema is twenty four truths a second."

Then it cam back with:

"Multimedia is the truth at 12Mhz."

My point in using this quote is not to argue the point of truth (whether it's absolute or not), but to demonstrate the old McLuhan adage "The medium is the message."

Like other mediums (such as painting, photography, cinema, books, etc), multimedia is a form of relating a particular "truth", especially personal truths.

The reason why multimedia hasn't expanded greatly into "artistic" areas is because gamers are more used to conventional games.

The same thing happened to the film industry.

During the 20s, people would often go see fairly standard and conventional Hollywood films.

During this periomd, Salvador Dali wrote a film called Un chien andalou with Luis Bunuel in 1929.

People hated it -- And understandably, as a 1920s public would detest scenes of a eye being slit open, severed hands, rotting donkeys, etc.

Bunuel even brought stones with him to throw at the critics during the premiere.

However, flashforward to the 40s and you have Dali working in conjunction with Hitchcock on Spellbound -- although I'm not a Hitchcock fan I appreciate his ability to bend the "rules" of cinema, if not break them.

Spellbound was quite a success, partially due to Hitchcock, and paritallly because films of the 40s started to embrace psycho-analytical theories into stories.

Flashforward to the 60s and you have more great directors who really challenged the rules of cinema: Kubrick, Godard, Fellini, Norman Jewison, and John Schlesinger (who died yesterday   ).

These directrors (Hitchcock, Kubrick, Godard, Fellini) influenced a new breed of filmmaker in the 70s -- one who went all out in experimentation and artistic development, and people would go to see their films -- such directors include Dennis Hopper (Easy Rider), Robert Altman (MASH), Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now, The Conversation, The Godfather), Martin Scorsese (Mean Streets, Taxi Driver), Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show), William Friedkin (The French Connection), Woody Allen (Annie Hall), and my favourite Hal Ashby (The Last Detail, Harold and Maude, Shampoo, Coming Home).

These 70s directors broke the "rules" of cinema, only because their predecessors broke and bent some "rules" before them.

However, go back to Dali who used the surrealistic artistic movement he was famous for as part of his 17 minute film in 1929, and not many liked it.

It was because they weren't realy for it -- they prefered the conventional styles of cinema.

It's only when critics look back and see what a masterpiece it was and how ahead of its time it was -- even though people didn't appreciate it then.

However, I'm no Dali -- far from it.

But I believe the same thing is happening is the gaming industry: gamers today prefer conventional styles of games and don't jump at more personal "arty" games -- But, who knows what will happen in the future?

I also disagree that games shouldn't have influence from artistic styles -- there have been some successful commercial projects that include great amounts of artistic influnce.

For example, Grim Fandango wouldn't be the same game without influence from Incan and Mayan art styles.

Also, look up interactive projects from musicians such as Peter Gabriel -- His Xplora project from 1994 was very successful, won several awards, was very well designed and informative, and yet it was very personal and artistic too.

That is why I believe AGS creates a type of canvas for the artist to "pour" their heart/soul/feelings/message/truth/etc and it's much the same as any medium.

Artists are never limited by the tools they use -- they're only limited by themselves.




As a side point of interest, I was interested to read this:

Glad to hear about Dark Hero! I was playing the demo and loved it

To be fairly honest, the demo (and game) is fairly conventional in terms of AGS's usage.

However, you also state this about Dada:

but in my opinion, it shouldn't mimic already established rules of classic "art", but create some completely new mechanics, that would make an advantage of interactions.

It struck me as odd that you'd praise a fairly conventional game like Dark Hero, and yet say that a "game" like Dada should make better use of AGS's interactive environment, despite the fact it was an attempt as something unconventional.

I'm not too sure if you have too high of an expectation of Dada, but I'm interested to know why you'd praise something conventional and then say something unconventional should make better use of AGS's environment.

It seems like a contradiction.

I bring this up not as a smartarse point to criticise you, but I am keenly interested in why you make such a contradiction of expectation in an interactive environment.

To me it's similar to saying: "I don't drink Skim Milk because it contains fat, but I drink Full Cream Milk because I enjoy the taste."

I would sincerely like to hear an elaboration on this distinction and contradiction -- maybe you can explain it better to me (and this could also add to the whole Game Theory discussion in the Gen forum).

Speak to you soon.

It's also the winner of TWO AGS Awards from the very first ceremony!

So download it!

Vargtass, that was legendary!  

I'm bitterly against doing other things when I should be writing -- usually this just leads to more procrastination.

I sit down, start writing, and ignore all critical thought until I've finished.

Then I rewrite -- several times and until I'm happy.

Just start writing, even if you write complete garbage.

Aye, Larry was just a rehashed Softporn.

I appreciated your criticism greatly, Igor.

I can understand why you didn't like the game -- I never really made the game with the intention of anyone liking it, so it was expected.

As for the "game" and "puzzles" (and I use both words very loosely as you probably would too), I agree they do seem rushed -- but I didn't do that because of lack of time.

I think the game provided a catharsis for a moment of depression I had -- The Uni holidays are almost over and my accomplishments during the time are zero, which left me feeling a little saddened (expecially when I compared to my previous Uni holiday, where I accomplished a great deal).

Hence the title, "Stagnation in Blue".

I could have spent another day working on the exact specifics of interactions so that other people would enjoy the "game" -- but that would just labour how I feel and thus ruin my own satisfaction.

You're right -- I didn't really have anything to say in the "game", cause I didn't intend to.

It was interesting to read people's interpretations of it though.

However, I do want to make another Dada game (one prehaps a little more user-friendly and game-like) and your comments are very helpful in developing the next project.

Still got to finish Dark Hero first, though.

Or "biatch" if you're really nice to him!

I don't understnad why someone needs to tell everyone here they're going to be away for a week -- why not just leave for the week, not tell anyone, come back and resume life?

I could understand someone telling people they're away for a month or two, but a week? That's nothing!

That'd be a great comic, but why not rub-out the original characters (but keep the Q-Tip) before pasting Indy and Guybrush?

I see your point but...