Jane McGonigal's appearance on Colbert Report

I don't really have anything to add. This is just something else to think about.

Jane McGonigal - The Colbert Report - 02-03-2011

Take Chances, Make Mistakes - Cursed Mountain

While playing Cabela's Survival, I found myself reminded of another game called Cursed Mountain (which I had never finished). That game also created an aesthetic around surviving in the freezing wilderness, and it succeeded at giving the player a sense of urgency, of fighting for your life. While there is a lot of fun to be had with the game, its control flaws originally compelled me to put it down and forget about it.

Anyway, I decided to revisit Cursed Mountain for this journal, and I'm glad I did.

The game goes to great lengths to create it's aesthetic quality: a creepy mood that keeps the player on edge, and it usually succeeds. First of all, the player character moves pretty sluggishly. This seemed awkward at first, but somehow just feels right for the setting. Our hero is high up in the mountains wearing heavy climbing gear, after all. Secondly, while the graphics aren't stellar, there is a lot of careful detail in the environments. Every room in every building has character.

 

Third, there is the dynamic atmosphere. As you move into a dangerous area, the colors slowly bleach out to leave an eerie black-and-white image of your surroundings, and the ambient noise warps and changes. It really communicates a feeling of dread to the player.

The combat isn't perfect, but does at least provide an interesting example of giving players a choice instead of a problem. First, there is the option of fighting in melee or using ranged attacks. My strategy usually employs both depending on the situation, but it's possible to clear most encounters using only one or the other. (A few bosses require the ranged weapon to finish them off, but can still be fought with melee)

Second, the player acquires different ranged weapons throughout the game (and upgrades for them). At the level I reached so far, there are two options: one which fires a quick, powerful shot of energy but takes a little while to recharge, and one which fires a slower-moving blast, but recharges much faster allowing for rapid-fire. A few specific situations might encourage one strategy over the other, but they're both viable options.

Cursed Mountain's biggest flaw is shared with many Wii titles: unresponsive motion controls. Aiming your weapon with the pointer works quite well, but the gestures (which the game uses mainly for pointless quick-time events) will sometimes fail to register. Since you typically need to succeed at these events to defeat or evade an enemy, failure by the game to read your motions can spell the difference between victory and death.

"Press X to Not Die" becomes "Wildly flail the remote like a mental patient to Not Die."

In the end, Cursed Mountain is just another title whose developers thought the Wii would be the perfect engine for bold new ideas, but the reality of the game's execution fell far short of expectations. Lousy implementation of the motion technology ruined an otherwise great idea. It's something of a teachable moment: our dreams may be big, but technology ultimately determines the reality our dreams turn into, and the most powerful gaming tool in the industry is useless if developers (or players) don't know how to effectively use it.

Deja Vu All Over Again - Cabela's Survival

Not all game developers are looking to take chances with inventive new mechanics and bold new designs. Some are just out to make more money on what's tested and proven to work (or at least, proven to sell). It's how the same sports and shooting games get released and sold year after year, and it's at least in part why Cabela's Survival: Shadows of Katmai came to be.

I just got this game on a whim, hoping to get a little more use out of my Wii. I've played about an hour and a half into the story mode, and while I kind of enjoyed it so far, I have plenty of complaints. My chief complaints: lack of originality and immersion.

Climbing and exploring seem to be key to story mode, but the camera makes it clear that you can only "explore" along a very narrow linear path. What's more, the climbing mechanics, which make up the bulk of your time outside of shooting things, are blatantly copying more successful adventure games like Ico/Shadow of the Colossus. Even Logan's posture while climbing looks almost identical to Ico's. The trouble is that Ico's ledge-scaling mechanics made sense in a giant castle. Logan's on the side of a mountain in the Alaskan wilderness, so seeing all these perfectly horizontal grooves and ledges cut into the mountainside just looks unnatural.

Aside from that, the chief aesthetic is supposed to be the feeling that you're fighting to survive, but it doesn't feel like that at all. The constantly-regenerating health and abundance of checkpoints are part of the problem, but I blame the lack of immersion mainly on Logan's adventure-game-style movement. He runs through several feet of snow as fast as he would on a paved road, has near-perfect grip while climbing and jumping between ledges, and he has a running long-jump that would win Olympic gold medals. These things would make sense in fantasy-oriented games, but in this game they feel out of place and ruin any chance of immersion.

This isn't an outright bad game, but it's far from being really good. I was laughing more often than not, both at the gameplay and the characters, so it's nowhere near the aesthetic the developers were looking to create. The mechanics can be somewhat fun still, but seeing as both the climbing and the shooting elements have been done much better by other games, there's no real reason to play this one. It's just trying to cash in on the Cabela's brand recognition among fans of shooters, while at the same time hoping the survival gimmick will draw in other gamers. I guess they at least suckered in one.

Approaching Violence as Art

I'm sure entire books could be (and probably have been) written about the controversy of violence in media, or even just in games. So, I'll try to limit my discussion here: comparing two games which heavily feature violent imagery, and deciding which sends the better moral/cultural message.

For starters, there's MadWorld. I don't think it'll surprise anyone who so much as looked at the cover to hear this, but this game is a bloody mess. The gameplay approaches killing enemies with the same silliness and whimsy of a kitten merrily ripping apart a catnip toy. While I personally enjoyed the game, and would even argue it has many redeeming qualities, there is simply no denying that the game sends an overall bad message: violence is silly, fun, and has no repercussions.

Manhunt 2. Now I'm guessing this will surprise you, but I'm citing this game as an example of a positive, mature approach to violence in art. I recall this very game was once used as reason for some fanatical groups to boycott the Wii in an attempt to protect their children from violent imagery. However, the reality is that this game provides an experience that sends a much more responsible (albeit graphic) message about violence.

First, there are the kill sequences. All melee kills are largely obscured by a visual effect. It creates a hazy image that can sometimes completely hide what's going on until the kill is over. Some gamers hated this, calling it a stupid attempt at self-censoring, but I thought it wonderfully reflected the character's fuzzy, detached state of mind when killing someone, which brings me to the next point.

The character's reaction to his actions. At the start of the game, the main character makes it clear he does not want to hurt anyone, but is told he has no choice. After killing someone for the first time, he immediately says "I feel sick" and vomits all over the floor. (If you're interested in seeing this, I found a playthrough on youtube. I warn you it's fairly graphic, but click here if you want to see the scene)

The point here is that the player is really confronted with the morality (or lack thereof) of what they're doing. The character is disgusted and horrified by what he is doing, and rightly so. As the player transitions from killing criminals and sickos to killing cops and soldiers, the morality becomes more problematic. Is this really all just for survival? Does that even make it okay? Toward the end of the game, there are levels set inside the character's own mind where he is confronted with all the weight of his sins.

Manhunt 2 is appropriately called "mature," because it approaches the horrors of violence with the maturity and gravity that they deserve. There are tons of games where the player can kill characters in the game and never feel any remorse or have to pay any price for what they've done (insert popular first-person shooter here). Manhunt 2 aggressively confronts the player with what they're doing and forces them to think about it. If videogames are to be considered a legitimate form of art, they need to approach cultural taboos with some level of responsibility, and I think Manhunt 2 took a step in the right direction.

Doing it Wrong - Obscure: The Aftermath

I can't say this was the best $10 I ever spent. If nothing else, though, Obscure: The Aftermath (for the Wii) perfectly illustrates a concept we've discussed in class: the difference between giving players a choice and a problem.

I haven't played the original Obscure (or the other sequel I think it had), but The Aftermath is basically a decent survival horror/adventure concept that turned into a campy horror flop. It's not totally awful, but there is a lot wrong with it; too much to go on about here, so I'll cut to the chase.

One of the key mechanics in this game is its system of teamwork. You have a cast of characters at your disposal, each with unique abilities that can help you progress. The game's central campaign is more or less a single-player one, but it encourages you strongly to try 2-player co-op. Otherwise, you'll be playing one character while the second follows you, occasionally switching between them.

Here's the trouble: each of the 4 or so characters (I think you meet as many as 8 later in the game) has a unique ability that you need in order to pass certain obstacles or solve certain puzzles. So, whatever problem lies in your (completely linear) path determines what 2 characters you choose to be active characters. If you choose wrong, or more likely encounter a barrier you didn't expect, you'll have to go back to the group, pick a new 2-person party and retrace your steps. You know what's virtually never fun? Having to run through the same empty halls over and over.

Plus, that's the only thing that distinguishes how the different characters play. They all run the same speed. They all swing melee weapons the same awkward way. They all are awful shots with a gun. The only thing that might make a player want to choose one over another anyway would be personal preference (they all at least have some personality), but as I said, that gets trumped by whatever barrier or puzzle is in your path. Hence, teams in this game are not a choice; just a problem.

As much as I lament that mechanic, though, this game may yet be salvageable from the sea of crap games to the land of mediocre, or even decent. I'll probably revisit it in a future post after I've played through further.

Quicktime Events - Pros and Cons

Quicktime Events attempt a balancing act between creating good cinematics and giving the player control. Sometimes it results in a fun experience, but the approach is not without flaws.


God of War was hailed by many as something of a pioneer in Quicktime Events. The game actually utilized both QTE and traditional non-interactive cutscenes. The latter may or may not have been a good decision, as the dramatic difference in graphics quality between cutscenes and gameplay may have been great cinematically, but certainly broke immersion. 

The reason QTE worked in God of War is because it let the player act out brutal, visceral kill cinematics on in-game enemies while still feeling really involved in them. They not only watched it happen and heard the sound effects, they felt the vibration of the controller in their hands as they pressed the buttons that made it happen; direct feedback for their actions. This hit the player with the aesthetic impact of those over-the-top cinematics without breaking their sense of engagement in the action. It was a level of complex sensory experience most players had rarely seen before in games, and merely watching something can't compare to that.


Note my main point above was that QTE worked well in gameplay, not in a cutscene. As I mentioned in a previous post, players sometimes really want cutscenes to be a break in immersion, either because they need to stop and take a breather from the action, or else they are just used to not being quite as alert once the cutscene starts rolling. Enter Resident Evil 4:

This game presented cutscenes that looked exactly like traditional cutscenes, but would sometimes throw in a few Quicktime Events. The main problem with this is that the scenes caught most gamers off-guard, resulting in Leon dying and the player having to start the scene over. Having to start over again always breaks immersion, so if the makers of RE4 were hoping to keep the player fully engaged, they dropped the ball there.

Is there anything I can say that Yahtzee didn't already say better (and more quickly)?

Game developers generally want a game that has good cinematic quality while still keeping the player engaged, so in many cases a form of QTE may seem like a good idea. QTEs can be effective sometimes, but they don't carry the level of engagement of normal gameplay, and many players are just getting sick of seeing them, so developers would be well advised to start looking into alternatives.

Cutscenes vs. Active narrative

Storytelling in games in the past has apparently taken a page from other forms of media by utilizing "cutscenes," where control is taken away from the player in order to continue the story. This practice can break immersion for the player, though, and it's certainly not the only option game developers have for driving stories in their games.

For contrast, let's reexamine Portal for a minute. Portal doesn't use the cutscene technique for its storytelling. (The very ending after the final boss is one exception) The narrative is carried forward through the items and events the player encounters, as well as through the ever-present voice of GLaDOS. Direct control is never really taken away from the player until the game is over, and this makes the experience much more engaging, allowing the story to carry forward without breaking the "flow" of the game.

Just to play devil's advocate for a moment, though, it's worth noting that some players really do like cutscenes in games. If gameplay is fast-paced or frustrating, the opportunity to just sit back and enjoy watching a cutscene can seem like a welcome break from the action, or even a reward for conquering a challenge. (It's also part of the reason some players hate Quicktime Event scenes like in Resident Evil 4, but I'll revisit that later) It still breaks immersion, but sometimes gamers are okay with that. This is by no means an excuse to justify taking control away from the player, but it's something else to think about.

Games like Portal prove that narrative in a game need not be done purely through non-interactive cutscenes. For the most part, players want to be involved in a game, not casually observing it. Games are an interactive medium, and should usually be designed as such, whether they are narratively-driven or not.

On Flow - Dynamic vs. Chosen Difficulty

While I will be discussing the game FlOw, I want to discuss the larger concept of Flow in games more. This concept of Flow, as I understand it, is basically finding a perfect balance of difficulty that engages the player without being too difficult (frustrating) or too easy (boring). Many games struggle with this, as different gamers have different ability levels, and learn at different rates.

FlOw seems to be widely hailed as an addicting game that creates Flow well. It has dynamic difficulty adjustment, but even more than that creates an aesthetic quality that relaxes the player and immerses them in the experience. The evolution aspect was rather clever, because while evolving your creature could make it look cooler and stronger, which was usually pleasing to the player, it also made it a bigger, easier target for enemies to hit. Players who wanted an easier time of it may actually have been well advised to avoid eating much of anything and just race through the depths as fast as they could.

I would criticize a few things in FlOw. Despite striving for that perfect DDA that'll match the game to the player, it still occasionally causes frustration, especially in the lower depths. When you fail an encounter with an enemy, your creature gets sent back up to a previous level, but this didn't feel like going easier on the player so much as just creating a setback. If you ate all the creatures on the previous level, they don't come back, so there's really nothing to do there except pluck up the courage to dive back down again.

Other than that, I felt the minimalist, explain-nothing approach of the game may be something of a double-edged sword. It may help immerse the player early on, but it also meant the player had no direct control of the difficulty. The natural inclination of eating things and diving deeper would gradually increase the difficulty, and the player won't realize this until after they start getting roughed up by enemies.

In talking about DDA, I'm reminded of an old favorite game of mine called God Hand. The goal of this action/adventure game was simply to beat up every bad guy that crossed your path. Many gamers loved (or hated) God Hand for its difficulty, but this game not only offered a traditional choice of difficulty level to the player, it also made an attempt at DDA at a time when such a thing was uncommon in such combat-centric games. The dynamic difficulty changes and the player-chosen difficulty changes worked hand-in-hand, or at least tried to.

God Hand employed a difficulty level system, consisting of four levels: Level 1, 2, 3, and Level DIE (which for most people was appropriately named). For every blow the player dealt on enemies, they'd slowly increase a gauge on the left of the screen. That same gauge would decrease if the player took a hit. When the gauge filled, it would increase the level by one, or if it was emptied by the player taking a beating, the level would drop.

So what did this level do (besides awarding more gold per enemy defeated)? Quite a lot. When the level increased, enemies seemingly got smarter. They reacted and counter-attacked more frequently, moved more quickly, and even the animations of their attacks sped up, meaning the player had to act and react more quickly. At Level 1, enemies would square off against the player one at a time. At higher levels, they ganged up on the player all at once, and also attacked the player from behind (which you couldn't see coming because of the camera's fixed over-the-shoulder view).

Now, the system wasn't fully automatic. Aside from the choice of Easy, Normal or Hard when starting a new game, for Normal and Easy modes, there was a move the player could do where they'd grovel at the enemies' feet, forcing the difficulty down to Level 1. They could also taunt enemies to make them briefly faster and more aggressive.

My point: the system wasn't perfect, but we should really see more of this in gaming. The DDA is great, but giving the player some direct control over the difficulty allows them to steer gameplay in the direction they want in case the DDA fails to fully engage them. A truly perfect DDA would be nice, but it's usually unrealistic to hope for.

Defying Genre - Portal

So, we've discussed in class how the common genres used to classify games are not very well defined. This may be in large part because games themselves are often difficult to really define in terms of one another. You can identify common elements, but to strictly classify them is tricky.

For example, let's examine Portal, which I had the pleasure of playing for the first time last week. Technically, it would be accurate to describe as a first-person shooter. The game is played in first-person perspective, and the player has a gun they shoot with. It just so happens the gun shoot portals. The reason we shy away from the term "first-person shooter" in this case is that most games that fall under that banner are all about killing things, whereas Portal is about solving puzzles, getting past obstacles and reaching the exit.

There are the turrets which will try to kill you, but the strategy to defeat them is VERY different from what someone who plays a lot of first-person shooters would expect. You can't directly attack the turrets. Instead, the player has to sneakily use portals to knock the turrets over, drop things onto them, or otherwise disable them indirectly.

This discussion brought up the question in my mind: Why even bother with genres then? The ultimate reason seems to be that we as human beings feel more comfortable when we can define something, quantify it, and place it under a category. Things that defy definition bother us. Besides, grouping similar things together tends to be a good business model. That's why Amazon and others will suggest similar products after you look at or buy something.

While the concept of genre may be useful for gaming, it seems that games are too diverse to outright define in such a way. The same could be said of other forms of media, for that matter. It seems the right approach we should take is not to define the game as a whole, but rather identify elements it contains.

Portal is not a first-person shooter, but it contains first-person shooter elements.

This method of description is more accurate, and still allows us to group it with other games that have similar mechanics. It may not allow us to completely define the game inside and out, but given how games like Portal can surprise us with what they offer, we really shouldn't be doing that anyway.

Gender Roles - Super Paper Mario - Part 2

(Possible Spoilers Ahead)
(In case you care about that kind of thing)

So, we've talked a bit about how videogames seem to have a history of reinforcing gender role stereotypes (with a few notable exceptions). The question then in my mind is whether recent games are rectifying this mistake, or adding to it. Specifically, the discussion is about Super Paper Mario, and how its central female characters are portrayed. Given it's a game somewhat aimed at younger gamers, the message it sends about gender is kind of important.

For starters, there's the quintessential Mario heroine/perpetual damsel in distress, Princess Peach.

Peach seems to be the epitome of tired female stereotypes. She's always clad in pink. She looks and typically acts cute and girly and sweet. The only time she isn't being sweet is when she's being emotionally unstable. In Super Paper Mario, she gets kidnapped yet again, and after a failed attempt to escape, she has to be rescued.

In terms of positives, she does have unique abilities that help Mario's party once she joins. Her parasol lets her float through the air, letting her clear wide gaps that Mario can't jump across himself, and she uses it like a shield in combat which, aside from being ridiculous, does make her useful for some battles.

She does show more independence than might be expected. She was very gung-ho about helping Mario save the world, but seems to only regard him as a friend. Surprisingly, she's about the only female character in the game who isn't in love or infatuated with anybody else. In that small regard at least, the character Peach is breaking the mold.

Now, a character who is new to the series: Nastasia

This character did a lot more in the way of breaking expectations of gender role. Her looks are far more reserved. The most girly thing about her is her way of speaking, which sounds a bit like a teenage girl (if that teenage girl were plotting to destroy the world). She has the appearance and mannerisms of a secretary, but it's clear early in the game that she is in fact second-in-command of the evil army that Mario and company must eventually overcome. With her cruel personality and powerful mind-control ability, she makes the rest of the evil minions look comical by comparison.

However, the first-impression of her being a ruthless, cold-hearted force of evil proves to be incorrect later on. It's revealed through cutscenes that she may be the only evil minion who has a conscience. She expresses regret that the world must be destroyed, yet continues anyway because of her devotion (and perhaps unresolved romantic feelings) toward her master, the main villain of the game.

Overall, Nastasia seems to be the stronger female character. There are still some obvious stereotypes (the secretary look, and pining for the man she works for), but she is in many ways a polar opposite to Peach. She's not cutesy or sweet. She bottles her emotions, acting cold and cut-throat. She somewhat lacks independence, but only by choice. She's certainly not perfect, but that sort of makes her more memorable.

The ultimate question is whether Super Paper Mario is creating good female characters or just reinforcing stereotypes. Answer: sort of. Princess Peach's increased independence seems to be a mild improvement over previous incarnations, and while Nastasia does fall into a few familiar tropes, she does break some new ground as a villainess.

(Note: I am still not quite finished with the game yet. I may briefly revisit it, as I suspect the ending may interfere with some of my points here.)

Super Paper Mario - Part 1

I anticipate this being very long, so I'll try to spread the discussion out over at least 2 weeks. The game in question is Super Paper Mario, a game for a Wii which combines RPG elements and narrative with unique platformer-style mechanics.

Aside from following a linear RPG narrative (which I'll touch on more later), the gameplay initially is very similar to the original Super Mario Bros. games and other such 2-D side-scrolling platformers. The twist this game adds is the ability to switch between exploring in 2-D and 3-D. Using this ability obviously lets you see things you couldn't before, but also provides a different way to move through the world. 

The game mostly makes you use the 3-D ability as a way to find clues and solve spatial puzzles. The main goal is still to just find your way from Point A to Point B, but it's not as simple as walking to the right. Each level is a puzzle where you not only have to find the exit, but figure out how to get there. Some cliched "find-the-key-to-unlock-the-door" parts do exist in the game, but these are not the norm. Most of the time, the player must utilize their wits and all the special abilities available to them to find their way out of the level. There is a real sense of discovery in exploring the levels, especially when the player goes the extra mile to find hidden items and treasures as well.

There are enemies to battle along the way, but these seem mainly to just be a minor challenge aesthetic for players who enjoy combat or the feel of conquering bad-guys. You can technically just run past most enemies without engaging them, and the majority of them won't even give chase. As I said though, they can provide that challenge aesthetic, and there are a few areas (boss battles for example) where you can't continue through the level until you defeat them.

Sometimes, though, the enemies are not a challenge at all, just a source of sensation of triumph. While there is strategy to employ sometimes to defeat enemies, other times it's just a simple matter of jumping on their heads. There are even sections like the one pictured below where you just find a superstar power-up, transform into an 8-bit giant version of Mario and run through the area effortlessly stomping everything in his path. It's just a sensation, which is still fun, but leaves something to be desired from gamers who really want a challenge. 

Now, let's consider the narrative. On the surface, it's a very simplistic story rife with RPG cliches. An evil force threatens to destroy the universe, and to stop it, the hero of legend and his party must embark on an epic journey to collect 8 magical artifacts that will give them the power to stop the forces of evil. However, what Super Paper Mario's premise lacks in originality, it makes up for in style. The whole thing is approached in a very humorous way, making tongue-in-cheek jokes at the expense of other games, of gamers, and of itself sometimes. There are parts that parody TV game shows, dating simulators, computers and anime geeks. The cutesy colorful graphics obviously appeal to kids, but the humor can certainly appeal to older gamers.

(There is occasional foreshadowing that there is more to the story than meets the eye, but I'm only about 12 hours into the experience, so I may revisit that in a future post)

The problem I see with the narrative is the few times when it offers the player "choices" to make. Super Paper Mario falls into the familiar trap of giving the player the illusion of choices (mostly by talking to certain characters and choosing what to say), when the choices have no real impact on how the story unfolds. There are even some conversations where Mario's choices to respond are "Yeah" and "Okay", or something similarly identical. There are certainly some parts of branching dialogue that made me laugh out loud (the dating sim parody, for instance), but the way the game makes pretenses of choice then says "just kidding, nothing you do matters" is bothersome.

A linear narrative is not in itself a bad thing, though. The main problem is not that the dialogue never matters, but rather that it sometimes does matter. Dialogue in the game can occasionally be a part of a puzzle that needs solving, and that is hard to distinguish from regular chatter between characters. The trouble for the player then becomes, how does one know whether the choice matters or not? Should I just say whatever is funniest and enjoy the reaction, or will saying the wrong thing cause me to be set back in solving a puzzle?

(Another thing I hope to revisit later is this concept of choice not mattering in this game. It seems to be the case that choices don't matter most of the time, but as I play the game there is no way to go back and try a different choice to see what happens, so I don't even know which parts might have been puzzles and which weren't at all. One character in the game alluded to the idea that I might be able to go back and change my choices eventually, so we'll see.)

In conclusion (for now), Super Paper Mario seems like a fun game for a variety of reasons. In terms of our 8 Types of Fun, the story provides fantasy and narrative fun (even if it is linear), the gameplay provides discovery and some challenge (I have yet to see the Pit of 100 Trials, but it sounds challenging), and the presentation throughout the whole game provides great sensational fun. The main things it lacks are fellowship (it's a one-player only game), and expression (RPGs don't let you be yourself much). While I may revisit this game later (I plan to at least discuss Princess Peach and traditional gender roles), I can at least say from the perspective of a guy who likes both RPGs and puzzle-platformers, these two styles of game can be pretty fun together.

Scared or Confused? - Tabletop game "Betrayal at House on the Hill"

My (sort of long-winded) review here is for the tabletop game we played in class, called "Betrayal at House on the Hill."

This is quite a behemoth of a game, for more than one reason. On the one hand, it's a great blend of chance, strategy, and a mystery/horror narrative. On the other hand, the sheer mass of playing pieces to keep track of and rules to remember can be daunting to first-timers. I think the box said "Ages 10 and up," but that assumes the 10-year-olds in question are some kind of prodigies.

The game makes no pretenses of being normal or easy to learn. Hardly anything you know from other "board games" applies here. Imagine my surprise the first time I got a close look at the dice: two of the six sides of a die have one dot, two sides have two dots, and the remaining two sides are blank. Very strange. Likewise, there wasn't a real obvious board to play on. It took a minute to realize that, after starting, the little rectangle we placed our player tokens on would gradually expand by placing new rooms one at a time.

The game flies in the face of conventional boardgame wisdom, which has both good and bad impacts. First, I'll consider the bad. Aside from the initial confusion over how to start playing, the expanding nature of the board area means it's hard to know exactly how much table space is needed to play on. Myself and other people in the group kept having to move things around on the table to make more room, which obviously is tedious and interferes with enjoyment of the game.

As well, there are several events that cause a semi-permanent object or effect to be added to a room the player is in. The game rules state event cards are to be discarded after use, but we found we needed to hang on to these cards in a separate spot just so we wouldn't forget what these weird effects do if/when they were encountered by another player later. It's kind of a hassle.

Also, the game allows up to 6 players at once, which is how many people we played with, but to me the 6-player style seemed to move rather slowly. I think limiting the game to 3-5 players would've been a better choice, at least in terms of keeping things moving.

But, let's look at the positives now.

The game has a lot going for it, asthetically. The house the game is set in was quite interesting to explore, always full of surprises. The sheer variety of items, rooms and events there was a lot of new things to learn, and there was a definite sense of risk vs. reward with every move or choice made.

Likewise, the game's art was appealing to me. The board pieces, the cards and the character tokens all were beautifully colored and fascinating to look at. The narrative style of the story books and the cards was engaging as well. They felt at times like reading a real horror novel, which added greatly to my overall enjoyment of the experience.

Also, the sheer number of different Haunting scenarios, offering new twists and criteria for success with each one, creates great replay value for this game. As we've discussed, a game tends to get boring once you've learned everything there is to learn about it. Well, with the varied haunting scenarios, even if you play through the game a dozen times, learn the mechanics of every possible event, every item, every omen and every room, the nature of these different Hauntings ensures each new game you play will be interesting and unique from previous plays.

Bottom line: when our time in class was up, I found myself saying "I'd like to play this again sometime." That is the key point I take away from the experience. Sure, the mechanics of the game were complicated, and the sheer volume of different pieces were easy to lose track of, both in terms of what the pieces actually do and in the physical pieces themselves getting lost in the box somewhere. However, once I got a general feel for the flow of the game, I enjoyed exploring the house, uncovering new things and unraveling the mysteries held within. The game seems to keep you guessing about a lot of things, but the rule book helps make sure that new players aren't left completely in the dark.

From all I've seen, I'd say this game clearly has the makings of a cult classic, if not a universal best-seller.

Art vs. Fun - Indie game "Passage"

So, my first journal entry is about a quirky game called Passage.

In the game, you just walk around and look at the strange pixel landscape, occasionally finding a box thing that'll explode with confetti when you reach it. Early on you can also find a girl character who will then walk around with you for the rest of the game.

As you play, the characters visibly age, and will eventually disappear leaving behind a grave marker. The woman usually goes first, leaving your old man to wander aimlessly a little longer before he too disappears.

Okay, while I found the experience interesting on an artistic level, to call this a good game would be lying. I'm not even sure it can be called a game, in the strictest sense. The rules are left intentionally vague. You know how to move around the landscape, and that the passage of time ages the characters, but that's about it. It's totally unclear what the confetti boxes or the numbers in the top right represent, and that leads me to the next point: there is no clear goal here.

In my opinion, with the lack of structure and goals, this is more of a toy than a game. Moreso than that, though, I'm sorry to say there's an even more damning problem with Passage: it simply isn't fun. I realize this is subjective, but let's look at how it plays out. You learn everything you need to know to play, which is moving the character around, from the very start. From there, everything else is unclear and never gets any clearer. The game ends in five minutes, and subsequent playthroughs only reveal more about the details of the landscape, so it doesn't have much replay value. To top it all off, it serves as a chilling reminder of our own mortality, and seemingly makes a statement about the fleetingness, and perhaps even pointlessness, of life. I think it would be difficult to find a person who can honestly say such an experience is fun.

The most potential for fun in this game seems to be tied to collecting the confetti boxes, and maybe increasing the numbers in top right as much as possible. The confetti boxes lack the fun of collecting though because there is no keeping track of how many you found, or how many remain. The numbers on the other hand seem mainly to increase the further you walk to the right, so the "high score" would ultimately just result from holding the Right key down for five minutes. This hardly says fun to me.

I think Passage can barely be called a game. It's more accurately an indie art toy, and not a fun one either. I believe there is often a place for artistic expression in games, but not if it's at the expense of enjoyable gameplay. The mechanics of the game are what ultimately make or break its fun value for me. If I can't enjoy the gameplay, the art and story are hard to appreciate. Thousand-year games like chess, go, etc. don't even have a story, and there's not much artistic value to their simple design. It's the fun and engaging game mechanics that make them successful games, and that is why Passage ultimately fails.