Scott Rettberg » games

Two interesting locative gaming experiences

Scott — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:48:55 +0000

I’m at a seminar in Oslo focused on mixed reality narrative. A couple of interesting projects: Julianne Pierce from the UK artist group Blast Theory presented Ulrike and Eamon Compliant, in which the interactor is put in the role of one of two IRA terrorists, about to undergo interrogration, and Rider Spoke, an interactive performance piece for cyclists. Petr Svorovsky from the Oslo National Academy of the Art also presented Flirtman, a mobile phone game in which players control a human avatar. Petr had some interesting observations about how people related to social codes differently when controlling the actions of another human being than they did when controlling a virtual avatar.

Place and Space in New Media Writing

Scott — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 20:46:46 +0000

I guest-edited a just-released issue of the Iowa Review Web focused on the ways that different forms of new media writing reconfigure concepts of place and space. Another way of looking at the issue, however, is as a Grand Text Auto takeover of Iowa’s finest web journal. The issue features Jeremy Douglass’ interview with Nick Montfort on his interactive fiction Book and Volume and Brenda Bakker Harger’s interview with Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern on their interactive drama Façade. I also interview Shelley Jackson on the various manifestations of the human body in her corpus of work, and interview Jane McGonigal on alternate reality gaming. A short introduction contextualizes the various approaches that authors of electronic literature have used to conceptualize space and place. I hope that you’ll visit, read, and enjoy. Thanks to the authors and contributors and to Iowa Review Web Associate Editor Benjamin Basan for helping to put the issue together.

Ode to the Joystick

Scott — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 04:02:26 +0000

Today’s New York Times offers an article that investigates the origins of the joystick and credits it as one of the most overlooked acheivements of the last century.

MiT4: the work of stories

Scott — Thu, 12 May 2005 16:53:13 +0000

Drew Davidson passes along word of the recent fourth Media in Transition conference at MIT. From the list of abstracts and papers, it looks like the conference was indeed an interesting gathering, including quite a bit of work on nonlinearity in movies (e.g. “Run, Lola, Run: Film as a Narrative Database by Jim Bizzocchi), narrative in computer games (e.g. “Test-Driving Avatars: Max Payne, Ergodic Texts, and the Character-Vehicle” by Robert Buerkle), emergence in nonfiction film (e.g. “The Narratives of Nonfiction in New Media and the Concept of Emergence” by Rod Coover) and topics in hypertext literature (e.g. “Construction of Spatial Narratives in M.D. Coverley’s Califia” by Burcu S. Bakioglu). The abstracts suggest some interesting interdisciplinary fusions, and many of the abstracts are also linked to full papers.

“Interactive Drama” in Matrix Online

Scott — Sun, 06 Mar 2005 02:57:06 +0000

Gamespy reports that Warner Brothers has employed a full-time troupe of 20 actors who will interact live with players of Matrix Online. “These people will assume the roles of popular characters, interact with players, and generally move the stories in ways that only live “actors” can.”

This entry was originally published on Grand Text Auto.

Still More Scrabble

Scott — Mon, 20 Dec 2004 17:31:00 +0000

Alright, I guess I'm discovering that people do, in fact, use the internet for other things than reading interactive literature. I think I'm getting addicted to Games.com which has not only Scrabble but a fastpaced cross between Scrabble and Boggle, Scrabble Blitz, not to mention Monopoly, Centepide, Missile Command, Tempest. I could get lost in there for hours. I'm regressing. I'm rewarding myself for getting through stacks of papers with the games of my youth.

Newsgaming

Scott — Sat, 11 Sep 2004 03:14:00 +0000

Kind of cool — earlier in the week, I heard a comment from Stan Corkin, who used to be chair of graduate studies when I was at U of Cincinnati, on NPR's Morning Edition.

Tonight, listening to The World, I heard Gonzola Frasca and fellow GTxAer Noah Wardrip-Fruin commenting on newsgaming. Gonzola is the co-creator of September 12th and Madrid, online simulations which you should experience, and think about, if you haven't already.

Nice to hear voices I know contributing to the national/international debate on where We're headed.

Playboy’s Girls of Gaming

Scott — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 00:46:49 +0000

CNN is running a story on the upcoming October issue of Playboy, which will feature a photospread on the Women of Gaming — that is the virtual characters. Perhaps it won’t be too long before all of Playboy’s photospreads are CGI. The story also covers a slough of recent adults-only games, and discusses potential industry concerns that “female characters appearing topless could reinforce the outdated stereotype of gamers as shut-in losers who lack any sort of social skills.” It also notes, however that the gaming demographic is now generally older than it used to be, with the average gamer a crusty 29 years old, and the average game buyer 36 years old, making it a good match for Playboy’s (33 year-old median) demographic.

This post was originally published on Grand Text Auto

Language (Video) Games for the Military

Scott — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 23:50:43 +0000

In “Virtual Camp Trains Soldiers in Arabic,” the Times reports on a video game being developed at the University of Southern California’s School of Engineering as a tool for teaching soldiers to speak Arabic. The game also uses AI, giving characters such as patrons of a Lebanese cafe “arousal levels” to let soldiers in training see if their use of Arabic and non-verbal cues is effective or not. I think this type of military video game sounds much more useful (and less bigbrotherishly frightening) than first-person shooter recruiting games designed to turn mall rats into soldiers.

This post was originally published on Grand Text Auto.

One Word

Scott — Mon, 29 Mar 2004 19:23:00 +0000

Jill stumbled upon one word, a nifty little writing game. Each day the site features one word. Each participant gets 60 seconds to freewrite from that word, and after posting his or her response, gets to read the other responses.