Exploring ludodissonance

Readers of my previous post on ludonarrative dissonance may have noted that formal dissonance and moral/ethical dissonance didn't sound all that bad.  Defying genre expectations?  Putting two ethical systems into conflict?  It sounds more like art than bad game design, right?

To be quite clear, ludodissonance can be quite bad--bad meaning that it creates effects contrary to the desires of the game designer.  If the goal of the game designer is to make a serious game, but the mechanics of the game make the characters look ridiculous, the game designer has unequivocally failed.

However, "bad design" is not all ludodissonance has to offer.  Dissonance is a very useful tool in the creation of art, so I want to survey examples of dissonance outside games, within games, and then speculate on ways to think about ludodissonance going forward.

Schell School

To me, the most important part of the test is the final task: turning it in to the provost.  You have to look confident, almost dismissive, but not too much or they'll think you're fronting.  I don't know if they actually have a hidden score sheet somewhere grading my "attitude," but it's not really about the points at that moment.  It's a sense of propriety--an affirmation of what you are and what you stand for.  It's a test of who you are as a person: too arrogant and you're a bully; too timid and you're a coward, unfit for your position.

coupla links

This is why we make games.

And this is why we read the comments section.

Going deeper into dissonance

Way back in 2007, Clint Hocking proposed the term ludonarrative dissonance to describe the disparities that often occur between the "story" elements of a video game and the rules that govern its gameplay.  The example he used to put this idea forward was Bioshock, but it has since been applied to many games to understand where they fell short.

Violence, part 6: The spinning top

Like the rest of the multitudes, I enjoyed Inception very much.  Not only is it a intricately crafted work of cinema, it also creatively synthesized new findings in neurobiology, several strands of post-post-modern philosophy, and that familiar alien world known to all of us as dreams. 

And it was much to my chagrin to see that top spinning at the end of the film.  As soon as the credits began to roll, I knew what the conversation would be about on the way out of the theater, and sure enough, it was insipid debate over whether or not "It was all a dream."  I don't want to get too bogged down in the foolishness of wondering whether the events depicted in Inception really happened or not, but I do want to use this as a shining example of people getting caught up in the wrong debate.  And shame on Christopher Nolan for placating whatever studio boss who suggested that ending.

Violence, part 5: Its role in art

At least as far back as 1915, there has been concern over the graphic violence depicted in film, as evidenced by the "Plea for the art of the motion picture" that prefaces D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation.  It reads, in part, "We do demand, as a right, the liberty to show the dark side of wrong, that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue--the same liberty that is conceded to the art of the written word..."  D.W. Griffith, as video game enthusiasts would do around a hundred years later, was recognizing the double-standard his new medium was being held to.  While the clearly violent works of Shakespeare and Holy Scriptures were held in high esteem, his works were in jeopardy of state censorship merely because they were new.

Violence, part 4: Names for it

The main reason I believe it's important to view everything from riddles to your sense of sight as acts of violence is that I want to make a case that violence is a necessary part of art and expression.  But obviously, there's a difference between a conversation and someone being brutally murdered, and in this part of the series, I want to sketch out the beginnings of something like a taxonomy of violence.

Violence, part 3: Its usefulness

Defined as two or more objects attempting to exist in the same space at the same time, it is fairly easy to see why violence is bound to occur.  One of the laws of our physical universe is that two objects cannot exist in the same space at the same time.  Therefore, even if two objects both came to the same space honestly, there will be conflict between them if they reach it at the same time.

Violence, part 2: What it is

I want to make the case that no art can be successful without violence, but to do that I will have to address the obvious and countless counter-examples you already have floating around in your head.  Like many things I've talked about on this blog, a lot of confusion can be mitigated if we take a hard look at how we define violence.

Violence, part 1: Introduction

The video game industry is well-known for its controversial violence, with legislators attempting new ways to tamp down on the graphic violence in flagship games just as they were fifteen years ago.  Meanwhile, I'm starting to feel this swelling undercurrent of concern from video game sympathizers that perhaps, maybe, video games have to be violent to be successful.  Though the history of video games is certainly pockmarked with wildly successful titles such as The Sims that at the very least do not feature violence as the main focus of the game, these successes have been more difficult to replicate than those involving mass murder. 

Dimensional conflict: diversion vs. expression

While I mentioned in Three-dimensional games that games with the greatest magnitude in all three dimensions will be considered the best, this isn't to say that dimensions won't occasionally come into conflict with each other.  In other words, it is possible that attempting to increase the magnitude along one axis will decrease the magnitude along another axis.

I want to focus on a specific conflict that can arise when trying to maximize the magnitude along every dimension: the conflict between the demand of diversion to fill time and the demand of expression to reduce the time filled.

A worthy opponent

The video game universe is awash in heroes, but the noteworthy villains could likely be counted on two generous hands.  Often, the "main villain"--the hero's true adversary--feels more like an endnote than a palpable force in games.  Players rarely form a connection to their characters' ostensible opponent, most likely because they can recognize that the villain of the story is not their opponent.  Rather, villains are mostly MacGuffins--merely excuses to "go on the quest" or create a wake of corpses behind the titular character.

Difficulty: Slow it down, don't dumb it down

Sitting down to play Super Smash Bros. for the first time is an overwhelming proposition for the average adult.  The game is a flurry of action, a camera moves in and out constantly, and the winner appears to be randomly chosen at first.  To top it all off, all characters start out at 0% (you're not told of what), a percentage that is increased every time they are hit.  Without instruction, most adults would give up on this game fairly quick, resigned to the fact that it's something they'll never get.

Grokking in three dimensions

Even if you accept that the notion of grokking and grok-tests play an important role in understanding games, you may doubt that winning is an indication of grokking in light of games such as foot races and lotteries where grokking the rules is clearly not the sole requirement for victory.

Grokking and Games

The term "grok" comes from Robert Heinlein's book Stranger in a Strange Land, and is a Martian term that roughly translates into "to drink," which also describes the Martian's take on the act or state of understanding fully--"to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed."  If you haven't read the book yet, you probably should, as this idea of grokking alone is worth grokking.

Versus Series 5: Toys vs. Simulations

Chris Bateman recently concluded a series on game design as make-believe, kicking it off with an interesting view of games serving in part as props for imaginative play.  Of course, games aren't the only props that are used for the purpose of play, and Bateman lists different examples of items that can be used as representations during imaginative play.  At the top of his list is the first class of object we think about when it comes to props for imagination: the toy.

Choice-management in the aid of building tension

At present, the word "tension" is almost exclusively considered negative.  The quest of the modern man is to reduce tension, or stress, which are known causes of disease and emotional distress.  The desired state is one of complete relaxation.

However, in the artistic world, we find that many descriptions of good works imply tension: taut, solid, robust.  Likewise, many descriptions of poor works imply the opposite: loose, unfocused, flat.  It seems that while we prefer our bodies to be relaxed, we prefer our books, movies, music, and games full of tension¹.

The unimportance of writing

The idea of a writer as a “crafter of narrative” is an idea that is entrenched, understandable, and I think very misleading in our discussion of video games.

In most creative endeavors, when we talk about writers we are talking about storytellers.  They write the scripts and the books that have a beginning, middle, and end; with a protagonist and antagonist; an inciting incident and a climax—all the things a good narrative ought to have.

Comment round-up #1, 15 May 2010

One of the great things about blogs is that they allow people to voice their opinion of an idea in the exact same place where the idea is first given expression.  I've been very happy with the conversations I've had in the comments section of the posts, but I get the feeling that a lot of these gold nuggets are passed by because they occur in older posts and I imagine few of my readers obsessively check all of my old posts to see if any new comments have been written.  I figured it'd be worthwhile to an first Interactive Illuminatus comment round-up, where I collect my favorite discussions so far and put them up to give people a chance to review what's been said since they last read the post.

The importance of writing

It was recently announced that God of War writer Marianne Krawczyk will be lending her talents to the upcoming game Shank.  I thought the God of War games were above-average in the video game narrative department and Shank looks like a well-done update to one of my favorite games, Metal Slug.  However, instead of making me anticipate the game even more, the news has left me perplexed.  Why?  Because this game was announced last year and has already been previewed by game reviewers.  The game is done and now it's time to get a writer on board.  As a writer, this strikes me as odd.