Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
they are. For instance, we should point out the power of alien attractors to emphasize
particular features: a common and useful design feature. This analysis also highlights
the importance of understanding the connotative nature of even everyday objects
in games.
SUMMARY
Comparative content analysis is an excellent means of coming to understand games
in a more fundamental way. The underlying structure of games—as revealed by POs
and perceptual mapping—reinforces the insight we derived from the investigations
of Part I; but the examination of games in terms of genre, activity, and aesthetics
can, if we are not careful, mask the complexity and variety inherent in games that
may at fi rst appear similar.
In this chapter we have concentrated on the way POs reveal gameplay structure.
Perceptual mapping, Tables of Surprises in this case, make clear however just how
interconnected are POs and aesthetics, particularly agency. We have not gone on to
discuss the relationship between other aspects of aesthetics, such as narrative poten-
tial and transformation, although it should be clear from our discussions of Driver
that they defi nitely arise out of the exercise of the agency on offer. The mission-based
nature of the game, the fact that the missions all have names, and the breakdown of
many of these missions into a series of subgoals, emphasizes narrative potential.
The patterns of choice points, routes, challenge points, and retainers (mini-missions)
adds a further level of support by allowing us to complete our own version of the
narrative; we realize the level's narrative potential through our exercise of agency.
We already alluded to transformation earlier in this chapter. For our part, we fi nd
the possibility of playing a criminal driving, in whatever way we have, to be a major
transformative pleasure; particularly as we can walk away from it when we wish.
In many ways we have already discussed co-presence. It is a major aesthetic pleasure
of the game; Driver would not work without it. But consider for a moment the way
“others” are manifest in this world. The only people you actually see are the pedes-
trians and you do not effectively interact with them; you can make them jump out
of the way, but that is all. The people you can interact with are all inside cars and
you never see them. Would you be quite so happy to ram other cars and cause major
crashes if you could see frightened and injured people and the associated blood and
severed limbs? This was the case with Grand Theft Auto, but with Driver we are
very much in the world and not dislocated observers looking down from above.
Many of the important connotations we derive from the game's content and
which provide a vital context for its success have not actually been analyzed in this
chapter, although their importance has been noted. We are thinking particularly about
the way the criminal underworld is connoted. The relationships between such con-
notation and the intentions we form and prioritize have been discussed in some detail
but the way in which we arrive at such connotations has not. What we are actually
doing here is confronting the interface between the world of computer games and
the real world; the way in which we understand and make meanings in general. We
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