Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
we have a cartoon-like world with a 1930s private investigator setting without the
fi lm noir codes, puzzles that are by no means plot dependent, and so on.
Genre is one important code for computer games but any game will employ a
number of codes which help us to fi nd the necessary set of meanings in a game that
will allow us to play it and enjoy it. We might have, for instance:
• Genre
• Myth and back-story: What myths, in the semiotic sense, does the game draw
on as a basis for gameplay?
• Mode: Text, 2D projection, platform, 3D, etc.
• Agency: What do we actually have to do?
• Player representation: How is the player represented in the game (icon, fi rst/
third person, cursor, etc.)?
• Controls: How do we do put agency into practice?
• Symbolic level: Points, frags, lives, health, damage, and how these are inte-
grated with the mythical world which is the game's context. Is there a HUD,
for instance?
• Game state: How does the player know how well they are doing, what are
the current threats, where/what is the end?
All these are codes which the game player will be well aware of. They may be
manifest in different games in very different ways but a seasoned player will be
aware of these codes, however intuitively, and recognize and be able to make use
of them. In the next chapter we will explore the notion of semiotic codes in more
detail with particular respect to the nature of interaction.
Chandler (1994) puts forward a classifi cation of codes in general for all com-
munications media:
• Social Codes: In a broad sense, all semiotic codes are “ social codes. ”
•
Verbal language
(phonological, syntactical, lexical, prosodic, and paralin-
guistic subcodes)
•
Bodily codes
(bodily contact, proximity, physical orientation, appearance,
facial expression, gaze, head nods, gestures, and posture)
•
Commodity codes
(fashions, clothing, cars)
•
Behavioral codes
(protocols, rituals, role-playing, sports and games)
• Textual Codes: Codes of representation.
•
Scientifi c codes
, including mathematics
•
Aesthetic codes
within the various expressive arts (poetry, drama, painting,
sculpture, music, etc.), including classicism, romanticism, realism
•
Genre, rhetorical, and stylistic codes
, narrative (plot, character, action,
dialogue, setting), exposition, argument, and so on
•
Mass media codes
including photographic, tele-visual, fi lm, radio, newspa-
per, and magazine codes, and games of course: both technical and conven-
tional (including format)
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