All Work and Play - Game Invaders: The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games - page 175

computer game's program, hardware, and interface peripherals come to be so readily
understood and used by so many people, most of whom have little or no knowledge
or expertise with any of the technologies involved. It is a measure of the skill of
those involved in making computer games that this is so and that so many people
derive so much pleasure from them. The theory and analyses in this chapter have
tried to make clear these relationships along with trying to understand them more
objectively.
In the next and fi nal chapter we have set ourselves two tasks. First of all, we
are going to show how all the theories used throughout the topic are all semiotics-
based. The second task will be to use all this to answer the question that is the title
of Part II of this topic, “What Is a Game?”
FURTHER READING AND TASKS
For further reading there are really only the three authors already mentioned. Of
these, Peter Bogh Andersen's topic is not an easy read overall but part II of his topic
is quite readable and goes into CBS in far more detail (Andersen, 1997). Andersen
goes on to use such things as Petri nets to build up a more complete characterization
of signs in a variety of applications such as a drawing package and the platform
game Dark Castle. Another good introduction to Andersen's work is chapter 2 of
Espen J. Aarseth's topic Cybertext (Aarseth, 1997) which is also a good read for
those wishing to pursue the semiotics of games and other interactive media. Trons-
tad's paper on nonsemiotic acts is short and a good read, a very nice overview of
an important subject (Trondstad, 2001). Finally, Janet Murray's topic Hamlet on the
Holodeck is highly recommended in general and part II gives a very good discussion
of the emergence of new media (Murray, 1997).
Meanwhile, here are some tasks for you to try out your newfound know-
ledge on:
1. The ghosts in Pac-Man are not ghost signs: Why?
2. In Breakout you can just hit the ball anywhere or you can try and aim for a
specifi c brick. Is one IS enough to capture gameplay? Is a GIS possible for
such a simple game? How do your IS/GIS work with the CBS for the game
we identifi ed earlier?
3. Think about GIS, CBS, and the inside-out code and use them to continue
your analysis of OpenCity, looking in detail at the nature of interaction in
this RTS . It should be insightful to start with CBS and work your way up to
GIS and the inside-out code.
4. Choose a game or two that use traditional console interface technologies and
try and adapt them, on paper, to the row three and four technologies in Table
11.3 . What problems or anomalies arise?