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by
Troy Innocent
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Introduction Digital games are hybrid media built from a mix of simulation, experience design, rule systems, multimedia, and a fair proportion of the unknown. I play games. I make game art. I teach students how to make games. Digital games are everywhere. As we become increasingly versed in the ways of simulacra, these experiences are assimilated into our culture and they become a part of us. What are they made of? How do they work? How do they construct meaning? Digital games have been around since the first digital computers -- about fourty years. However, it has only been recently that they have been the subject of critical analysis with the emergence of conferences [10], symposia [11], journals [2], books [12,14], and research centres [1] that study games. This article sets out to articulate how the gaming experience is different, from a viewpoint of art practice that explores gameplay as an important component of the 'language of computers.' World making Making digital games can be seen as an extension of the practice of 'world-making.' Artists may take on the role of world builder -- creating coherent alternative worlds from patterns of information. Steven Holtzman describes this practice in terms of how in "a system of symbols to represent a view of reality, the artist shares his consciousness of aspects of that reality." [4] The representations of these worlds are made of meshes, geometric primitives, textures, materials, sound, music, text, graphics, animation and other media elements. However, they are also defined in terms of the relationships between these elements -- their behavior, spatial location, connection to parameters in the world, the meaning each representation is intended to signify and so on. The user / player is factored into this system through their agency and affect on the virtual world. This role may range from passive observer to active engagement. This multi-level system offers rich opportunities for new models of communication and expression. In the construction of a virtual world, a number of decisions need to be made so that it works as a simulation. It is impossible, from a computation and design point of view, to model every aspect of reality in a virtual world. So, particular aspects of reality need to be selected and simulated in the virtual world. The result is a subset of reality that emphasizes a particular experience or way of being. A driving game is focused on the experience of driving, a first person shooter on hunt-and-kill type behavior, and so on. Factoring gameplay into the practice of 'world-making' extends this practice by involving the player / user into the experience. Virtual worlds that set up situations and allow the player to act out scenarios are naturally quite different than static virtual worlds that enable the navigation of a single point of view through space. The rules of the game set up the potential for many different outcomes in the virtual world. I play games. I make game art. I teach students how to make games. Digital games are everywhere. As we become increasingly versed in the ways of simulacra, these experiences are assimilated into our culture and they become a part of us. What are they made of? How do they work? How do they construct meaning? A variety of strategies for using gameplay in art have emerged over the past decade. Games that involve play with abstract systems, modifications of 3D game engines, soundtoys, and retro games are some of the genres currently being explored. A recent symposium and exhibition entitled "plaything" [11] demonstrated the diversity of approaches to game art. Metapet is an online game by Natalie Bookchin that allows players to train transgenic office workers. domestic is a game modification that immerses the player in a story space from the childhood of its creator Mary Flanagan. Ah_Q from Feng Mengbo situates the artist as spectator and victim in a Quake 'fragfest.' Rez, designed by Tetsuya Mizuguchi, features flowing, synaesthetic gameplay with an electronica aesthetic. Arcadia from Eric Zimmerman's gameLab allows the simultaneous play of a number of Atari 2600-style classic games. Semiotic morphism and game spaces In my own practice, I have recently been working on the intersection of semiotic morphism with digital games. Virtual worlds have the innate ability to shift and change, mutate and transmutate, and layer multiple modes of representation. Semiotic morphism is a model for translating the same data between these different modes of representation through computation. Potentially, hybrid modes of representation may be computed by the system. It uses algebraic semiotics [3] to adapt semiotic structures into functions and theorems using algebra and set theory. Once defined in this way, "semiotic morphism allows the signified message to be mapped to various signifiers resulting in a system that generates different instances of semiosis. This strategy reflects the nature of the computer both as a manipulator of language and computational machine." [5] Semiomorph [5] explores this idea by connecting gameplay with shifts in representation based on Goguen's theory of semiotic morphism. [3] The gameplay is described as follows: The goal of the game is to collect enough energy points to create a semiomorph and move onto the next stage. The kind of energy you collect will shift your mode of representation between word, diagram, icon and simulation. This in turn will change the rules of play and your effect on the world. You must avoid opposing entities and blast icons. Power-ups make you invincible for a short period of time. Muticons switch your mode of representation instantaneously. What is the ontology of gameplay? If games create hybrid modes of being, new experiences, novel methods for the generation of meaning, then how is that perceived and assimilated by the player / user? The resulting space is one that is constantly shifting and changing, blending several forms of representation into one experience. Although the underlying structure of the space does not change, the different instances of the game objects may be simultaneously represented as text, diagram, iconographics, or simulated reality.
Different modes of representation in Semiomorph.
In terms of the practice of 'world-making,' the idea of a generative meaning system connected to a virtual world enables the generation of multiple realities through the manipulation of rules and the processing of feedback from the user / players of the system. lifeSigns [6] is an example of such as system where icons generated by a system interact with one another in an artificial life simulation. The meaning of each icon emerges through data collected from the players. As a result, the system produces many different iconic languages for the meanings defined within the system. Ontology of digital games What is the ontology of gameplay? If games create hybrid modes of being, new experiences, novel methods for the generation of meaning, then how is that perceived and assimilated by the player / user? Perhaps, digital games are different from other mediated experiences because of the intensity of experience often associated with them. The process of play itself creates a continuous stream of experience unlike something like web browsing, for example, which involves shifting focus from one thing to the next. Gameplay engages players with logic and rules of the system, requiring them to engage intellectually with the game -- develop strategies, analyze behavior, track scores etc. The simulation manipulates the players' perception by presenting what appears to be a realistic 3D space, so that the virtual world is perceived as a 'real' experience. Playing games for extended periods typically leaves aftereffects on your own experience. The player may catch him or her self thinking in terms of the gameplay or world navigation in day to day experience. The perception of other spaces and experiences is changed by having also played in simulations and models of similar spaces. In terms of perception, digital game experiences can be seen as being real, symbolic, or in-between. They may be seen as real in that they are represented through the use of all perceptual cues of real experience, such as perspectival viewpoint, spatialized sound, immediate feedback, light and other phenomena. However, they are constructed from code -- symbols and relationships between symbols -- that is represented by this realistic simulation. In this way, they could be described as the symbolic made real -- the world model / abstraction that forms the underlying system is experienced in a mode of perception usually activated by the real world. In this way, the idea of experiences and worlds that were only possible in theory, dreams, and the human imagination is actualized in the abstract space of the computer. Factoring the computer into the process of generating these spaces extends this to the potential expression of a 'non-human imagination' as well. This combination of elements results in a kind of hybrid way of being in the game space -- awareness that it is a simulation, but at the same time immersed and engaged as if it is a real experience. This could be described in terms of layers of being; the player is immersed in the simulation in that, perceptually, he or she is 'there,' but intellectually, the player is aware that it is a game and reads it as a mediated representation of the experience. Conclusion Clearly, the recent interest in the creative potential of digital games has opened up a range of opportunities. In the way that digital games blend the construction of alternative worlds, intense engagement through simulation, and networks of meaning resulting in unique instances of semiosis, they are rich environments for new types of communication and creative expression. Deeper understandings of these characteristics of game spaces -- combined with the integration of methods and techniques from artificial life and generative systems -- extends this potential in the manifestation of 'generative meaning systems.' References
1. Center for Computer Games Research
Copenhagen, IT University of Denmark.
http://game.itu.dk/.
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Semiotic morphism has the potential to
define this process in purely computational
terms. Once in this form, new blended
modes of representation may be generated
by the system.
The resulting process could be described
as a generative meaning system -- "a
simulated world made of signs that have
agency to change their own meaning,
relationships and environment." [6] The
key concept here is that this new 'cultural
logic' may be defined as a process that
can be used to compute and generate
new meanings. This may be compared to
the paradigm of genetic programming [8],
where a computer program writes and
tests other computer programs in relation
to their fitness to perform a particular
task. A graphic example of this can be
seen in the evolution of walking and
swimming behavior by Karl Sims Evolved
Virtual Creatures [13], who evolve novel
methods of moving about a virtual world.