Concluding 2014: My Experience in the World of Gaming

As many of you experience during this festive time of year, it can get rather busy roaming around the land visiting family and friends to exchange gifts, eat a lot and have a hangover.  Naturally, this has affected my ability to put time aside for writing which I’m getting around to fixing while trying to figure out what’s happening for the upcoming New Year’s celebrations and watch the Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2014 (I know, a glamorous life I must live…)

That being said, I can’t put it all down to extenuating circumstances as I have had the last couple days available to write; with the intention of creating a small piece on man-made mountains and their appearance as antagonists in games coinciding with previous posts on a similar fashion.  As it is the end of the year one can find themselves in the mind-set of ‘I’ll wait until January to start anew’ alongside the range of resolutions many people make, so to give the above topic a proper post alongside actually writing something, I’m going to write about some games I liked playing this year.  This isn't going to be a quantified list as I don’t think that this will be more of a streaming conscious than anything, but I hope you find the explanations interesting at least.  I should also say that these games aren't all releases of 2014 but more of a retrospective on my time spent gaming over the past 12 months. 

 *Images are from a collection of screenshots I've taken over the last 12 months*

Path of Exile

I had briefly played this game through a number of betas, but with its entry onto Steam and Torchlight 2 elite hardcore mode getting a bit annoying to achieve I saw a chance to return to the title.  I played roughly during the months of January-May and got a great deal of enjoyment from the mechanics of the game from start to finish.  The skill gem system was a totally new experience for me, as I naturally built up an array of spells, abilities and auras to use across my cohort of exiles in a number of different ways.  This was further expanded through links and augments that mutated said skills to explode, split, fear, stun and more to the point where a skill could look considerably different on use.  The bartering system was enjoyable to partake in as well, as I didn't look up guides for it and naturally experimented with items to see what would come of them.  If I was to level a complaint, I’d say that the armour sets felt a little bit too samey during my playtime (which could be down to the aesthetic choice of the exile environment) but regardless it was a really enjoyable free to play game that doesn't look to nickel-and-dime you to have an enjoyable experience. 

 Firefall

One of my first posts was about this title and since then I haven’t gone back to it.  Now I've had time to look back on it I can say I still hold the idea that it’s an enjoyable game and would be great if it wasn't so repetitive in the gameplay through the mission board system.  The big events grabbed me alongside the smaller ones that scattered the landscape and if it focused more on these akin to something like Guild Wars 2 I feel like it would have kept my interest for much longer.  That being said, it was a game that was developed for a very long time and maybe it was never going to truly work as they had envisaged.  To end on a good point thou, getting around the environment was really fun especially the glider / kite system. 

Wolf Among Us

This game came out in October 2013 but I didn't pick it up until the Summer sale of this year which by then was in its finished state with all episodes available of season one.  I had briefly played Telltale’s The Walking Dead on my phone in the spring and liked my first try of a visual text-adventure (I’m not 100% of its genre but that’s a close approximation) so as it was cheap I thought I’d give this one a go.  I instantly played through episode one and loved the gameplay, playing through the rest of it over a period of a week in the late evenings so that I wouldn't be disturbed.  I wanted to figure out where each fable came from and what sort of life they were living, alongside the possible outcomes of my actions as Bigby Wolf.  I tried to answer dialog options how I think I would act in the situations presented alongside remembering to use the ‘silence is an option’ mechanic from time to time.  Alongside the gameplay, I really love the aesthetics of the Wolf Among Us particularly in the options menu and title/credits of each episode.  The running title of Bibgy walking through the streets of New York with its purples blues and blacks looks brilliant and a particular frame of this became my pc wallpaper from July to October of this year.  This game may not have the direct human connection of the previous Walking Dead for some, but for me the Wolf Among Us was a greatly enjoyable experience for me that have me more open to narrative games in the future. 

Game of the Year 420 BLAZE IT

This year I’ve looked to try new games whenever possible to try and broaden my horizons in the medium.  Sometimes I end up in some weird places and this is one of them.  I won’t put an image up, but just download it and embrace the crazy that this is. 

Civilization V: Brave New World

I originally bought Civ V on release and got a lot of enjoyment from it; harking back to the series’ second installment I use to play on the PlayStation as a much younger self.  That being said, picking up Brave New World during the summer sale filled me with renewed interest in the game.  The addition of trade routes, religion (I skipped Gods and Kings), spies, ideologies and the revamped cultural victory added so much depth for my play style as I prefer to go for non-combatant victory conditions.  Recently, I’ve got more and more interested in the finer details as I attempt to play on the higher difficulties of immortal / deity and I’m not being put off by the losses.  There are 4x’s that are much more in-depth, but Civ (like many others) has that personal connection and I hope that this series continues to remain strong into the future.

The Stanley Parable

Very few games have made me genuinely laugh in my life, but the Stanley Parable’s standalone release this year was brilliant in being mundane on the surface but hilarious underneath.  I played the earlier source mod for this during my time at university thanks to it being featured on Extra Credits “games you may not have tried” many times, but the recent release added a bunch of new possible ‘endings’ to the parable.  To those who aren’t aware, it’s a first-person narrative-driven game where a narrator takes you through a story.  What that story maybe, is pretty much up to you and I hope more people get to experience this fascinating and enjoyable experience. 

Warframe

I've played this for around two years and this year it’s clocked up a sizeable amount of my time gaming, but somehow Warframe remains to be a game I enjoy playing nearly every day.  Being involved in the game for this length of time, it’s great to see how far they've come from when I started playing; from around 6 game modes to 20 with improvements to the former as a means to continue to make the experience varied.  Alongside being my most played game this year, it is also a free to play title that allows the player to decide what level of investment they want to take.  Like I’ve mentioned in previous posts, as its free give it a try and you may enjoy what you see. 

Transistor 

Although I did dismiss the list idea at the beginning of this post, if I was to quantify the games I played this year Transistor would probably take the top spot.  This has been the only game since Skyrim that I’ve bought on release and I completed it in two short bursts of playtime; but the time I had with this game was both an aesthetically wonderful game and narratively fascinating experience.  On the surface, Transistor follows Super Giant Games previous title (Bastion) in terms of the narrative progression of an isometric combat game where a smooth-voiced narrator takes you through the world.  Upon playing Transistor, you can see how the combat has some more dynamic rpg-like mechanics and through this get a greater understanding to people who exist in this world.  Even thou I’ll admit I’m not 100% sure on the story; the journey itself was interesting enough to keep me wanting to find out more with some particular sections of the game getting a genuine response from me.  With all that being said, it is backed up by an amazing soundtrack which features a mixture of slow beats, calming melodies, high-octane melees and chilling songs; in particular The Spine and Smoke Signals somewhat fall into this last category in my opinion.  I’m looking to play through the game again next month and I know it’ll draw me back in.

To bring this all to a somewhat conclusion, I think that 2014 has been a year for me where narrative driven games have raised higher up on my interest level.  I briefly talked about my shift of gaming habits in the ‘monogaming vs. polygaming’ post but my general media habits have changed quite a bit.  These days I watch very little TV or films because I don’t feel invested in the story or potential plot.  What these narrative games have given me is a way to enjoy stories in a medium which I feel has the potential to go further than is conceived generally.  I hope that going into 2015, I get to enjoy a larger mix of narratives in games and in turn find some interesting connections to architecture that I can write about.  Other than that, have a great New Year’s and amazing 2015.  

Free to play, PC gaming habits and general thoughts on money

*Sorry for the lateness of this post I wanted to post this last week but life has a way to happen.  hope you like this*

As the holiday season comes into vision, one naturally draws their attention to the custom of giving and receiving gifts in the spirit of Christmas.  This experience can be met with a number of different emotions; from having the best idea for a trove of wonderful gifts accustomed to each person to having no idea and finding yourself mass buying a selection of DVD’s and other media.  I kind of sit in a mix of these mind-sets where I have an idea of some nice gifts I’d like to get for people, but limited funds to truly make it happen.  This has been the case for a couple years, but the gifts in question have been able to add a little something special to the occasion; like a nostalgic piece from childhood or framed photo to immortalise a moment in history.  I've gotten a certain joy out of these experiences and I've noticed a similar action when it comes to my spending in the PC gaming space. 

I have wanted to build a new PC for a number of years now but due to financial commitments this has been pushed to the side.  My current build is a mix of year one university parts and year two upgrades, putting the general age of the machine at around 6-7 years.  As you may imagine, it has a long start-up time of ~3 minutes and there are many, many games that cannot be played well let alone even run.  The most ‘intensive’ games that I've played on this machine have been Witcher 2 (minimal spec ~15-20 fps) or Far Cry 3 (minimal spec 25-30fps), but I’m still getting a lot of enjoyment out of my time spent gaming.  Utilising a number of power options from software like Game booster (which is called something else now in its new update I can’t remember), tweaking the config files (with thanks to pcgamingwiki for some of that) alongside the collection of new titles not being graphically intensive, I've been able to continue to broaden my gaming scope while not breaking the bank with a new build. 

On the subject of costs, these tiles in question have generally been in the £15 or under bracket (with some of the cheapest being like 89p!) which has allowed me to avoid the £40 new releases from the AAA developers which in the past I would be buying up on release.  Of course, I have the massive sales given by online storefronts like Steam, GoG and Humble store; but it’s surprising how far you can get on little or no money.  On top of this, there is the wide range of free to play titles that offer gameplay with no upfront cost, allowing the consumer to try and consider whether they’d like to play more and possibly invest money into the experience.  Over the past two years, my most played games have been dominated by the free to play space, with Dota 2 and Warframe taking the second and first spot respectively.  Both these titles have clocked around 1000 hours from myself (well, according to steam stats but in game losses about 10%) which in the past games which have hit this ‘milestone’ come under the mmo genre like World of Warcraft or Guild Wars 2. 

This section of my gaming time has been an interesting review into the price vs. amount of content on offer which is of course highly subjective.  £15 for a 4-6 hour game like Transistor can be good for some and inadequate for others; alongside a full price yearly release like Call of Duty can be justified via its multiplayer content to some and for others holds little interest from an innovation stance.  For me currently I have a rather tight budget on gaming expenses so expensive titles aren't really viable, but from this it’s allowed me to be more ‘investigative’ in finding interesting gaming experiences for little or no cost.  One could consider this an ‘invention brought out of necessity’ kind of mentality, but of course in a more relevant manner. 

One last thing I want to discuss on the subject of gaming habits via spending is that of a very small, but useful self-generated income for games particularly via Steam.  I have taken time to sell trading cards for the games I own as well as items from free to play games I don’t have an interest in keeping.  Although most items sell for an extremely minute sum of 10p or less, they can add up overtime and give you a nice little wallet on the side to pick-up a couple games when they go on sale.  Being able to sell Dota 2 cosmetics for £1 to £10 has been a nice maker and as such paid for this passing year’s summer sale purchases, which in turn got new cards to recoup some losses (and so on and so forth…)

I hope you find this an interesting perspective into the thoughts of gaming on a budget and that maybe someone finds this useful to get a couple more games from this season’s sale.  

Boundaries, Edges, Maps and Dungeon Keeper 2

The last couple weeks have been a measurement in both being busy and apathetic pushing this down on my priorities.  Having commissions and talks to do is an understandable task to prioritise, but apathy (or quasi-laziness depending on your perspective) is something that gets in the way.  I know that I’m still trying to figure out the most suitable day to schedule writing these posts, but I should make sure that I get it going at least once a week.  Regardless let’s get onto talking about a classic I’ve been playing over the past couple weeks. 

Dungeon Keeper is a part of Bullfrog’s classic collection of games from the 1990s that featured a combination of traditional real time strategy (RTS) and management elements in a dark aesthetic.  For many people, its original from 1997 will be the better game with its range of sprite-based creatures presenting a more varied design beyond typical bipedal, humanoid body types; but for me the second entry will always hold a greater impression in shaping my early pc gaming years alongside such titles as Total Annihilation or Unreal Tournament. 

Dungeon Keeper 2 released in 1999 with myself buying in at the turn of the century, which if I remember correctly it was bought with Populous: The Beginning as a bundle.  Being someone who was used to playing TA and CnC styled RTS games, my first experience of Dungeon Keeper 2 was a confusing one as I didn’t understand the tile system for rooms.  This was probably down to me picking skirmish rather than new campaign and thinking that one temple tile for 3000 gold must be good (and that couldn’t be further from the truth).  Once I took a step back, I understood the tile system and started to really enjoy the game, particularly the My Pet Dungeon mode which was part-tutorial part-challenge mode.  To this day, I install DK2 ever so often and power through the content over a week or so much like marathon’ing an old TV / film series.  Since going to University, I’ve played through DK2 three times and recently I started to think about how the tunnels and tile systems align with some architectural theory; in particular boundaries and how we map our space in correspondence to others.

To those who aren’t aware of these systems, DK2 takes place in an ‘underworld’ where the area needs to be mapped out through the tunnelling of rock by small worker creatures called imps.  Rather than tunnelling free-form through the landscape, the rock is carved into cubes where each piece of rock needs to be tagged to create paths and rooms.  As you do this, your worker imps can also claim the land (as long as you own the land next to it) turning it to your dominion as well as generating mana (one of the game’s resources).  Each of these tiles can then have a number of things placed on them to augment their usage; with room tiles to provide content for your creates like sleeping accommodation (lair) or traps and doors to defend against potential enemies of both the evil and goodly kind.  The rooms in question have a minimal size requirement ranging from 1 tile to 5x5 (25) tiles.  Because of this, tunnelling through rocks to create rooms requires a combination of pathways alongside rooms with designated spaces to facilitate certain activities which in turn entice different kinds of creatures into your domain.  With this tile system taking into consideration, one can see there’s a nod to cartography in how we construct an image of our surroundings alongside the spatial awareness of architectural theory and how we consider ourselves in the built environment.  Adam Sharr’s book “Heidegger for Architects” takes this example and uses the Lake District of northern England (a reinterpretation of the Black Forest in Germany) and considers the play between the small market towns, car parks, mountain paths and treelines together creating an overall map of the area to which millions of people visit every year.  All these actions feature a range of tasks that are both important and mundane, but they all come together and create a picture of the area and the actions they took place inside of it (or their map).  Much like DK2 and its tunnelling, players will create their dungeons in specific ways for both mundane and important decisions, but in turn they all have mapped out the land in their own way. 

Another factor in DK2 I briefly mentioned was that of boundaries.  As you progress in the game, you start to encounter other keepers and goodly heroes who all have their own territory specific to a certain colour (white, blue, green, yellow and purple alongside the player’s own red).  There will be a number of situations when you’ll have unclaimed land in between two or more players; where the corresponding imps will move closer and closer to each other until they interact with each other only to attempt to overtake the oppositions land.  At this point, the only factor is the number of imps each player has available to the action, but like in any conflict, the victory can be stacked towards you through a use of aggressive tactics like grabbing your militant creatures to scare the enemy imps.  Naturally, the enemy then may use their own creatures and a conflict is born.  In architecture is conflict can be a mixture of this physical aggression (invasion) or ideological indifference; but it can also be a factor of form and aesthetics in how two pieces contrast each other or functional application like heavy industry being next to a residential area.  In the past, we have discussed the idea of ‘voids’ in architecture and this concept of boundaries comes nicely into the fray when we consider how fog of war is used, not just in DK2 but generally in the RTS genre. 

Overall, Dungeon Keeper’s system of tiles presents an interesting concept behind the creation of space and how we interact with others in both a physical and theoretical manner.  As a side note, the series “Thinkers for Architects” which is authored by a number of architectural historians is a nice resource to have.  It gives a nice bridge between basic thoughts on architecture and the denser essay collections that get into the finer details behind the subject.  I hope you find this post interesting and I hope to be back on track in the next week. 

Resources:

·         Sharr, A (2007). Heidegger for Architects. Routledge. London

·         Dungeon Keeper (1997). Bullfrog Productions. Electronic Arts

·         Dungeon Keeper 2 (1999). Bullfrog Productions. Electronic Arts

Warframe, Futurism, and Archigram

As I have mentioned on a couple posts, I have been playing Warframe for around two years on and off.  It has been a surprising choice for me as before playing Warframe, I was never really interested by third person shooters and the initial experience felt a bit limp.  As updates have been applied, the range of content and the general user experience has been improved greatly (with some minor hiccups along the way) and these days it’s the closest I get to a ‘monogame’ while keeping to my ‘try something new every day’ ethos.  I’ve wanted to write something about this game for a while, but I wasn’t sure how to go about it.  Do I write a traditional review with my time spent playing this game; create a reinterpretation of my ‘Japanese Architecture and Roguelikes’ piece and discuss the nature of the construction of levels; or do I try to look at the aesthetics and what they mean to me?  This last question came up recently and it’s the basis of the discussion today. 

People of many different professions and ideologies throughout history have considered what the future holds for us as a species.  Much like a scientist looking forward to new technologies and forms of energy, an architect may consider how we’ll reside or a sociologist in how we interact with each other.  This can be invoked by a single action / inspiration and in turn spark a cultural shift for example; Modernism of the 1920s and its white-cubists structures was a significant change from the earlier Arts and Crafts movement of the Victorian age with an intention to create a style to unify people through architecture (aka the international style). 

Villa Savoye a Poissy, 1928-31, Le Corbusier.  Photo taken February 2009

A little bit earlier than this movement, Futurism took the lead in the ideology of ‘looking forward’ towards new technologies and design choices that could be produced.  Originally starting in 1909 Italy, a group of writers and artists (later adding architects) felt like the current trends in design where outmoded by the fast pace of change; with such things as cars and aircraft greatly improving one’s ability to traverse the world and experience more ideas.  They were also influenced by materials, particularly glass concrete, and steel which in turn can be considered as a significant influence for the design eras that followed, like Modernism, Brutalism and Deconstructionism. 

With this taken into context, there is a certain comparison that one can make when it comes to the aesthetics of Warframe’s environments alongside a range of architecture eras which prominently revolve around this evolution of futurism (futurism as an on-going design rather than directly the era itself). 

Grineer

(Grineer Ship interior with Volt Warframe.  Screenshot taken October 2014)

With the heavy industry aesthetics and reduction of the ‘frailty of flesh’ ethos presented by such people like Ruk, their tile sets do a great deal to present this to the player.  The Grineer tile set design features exposed piping; machinery whirling as steam rises; and filtered lighting with a generally darker materiality.  At a first glance, this could be tribute to a dystopian civilization which makes sense due to the nature of Grineer Hierarchy, but I feel like there’s a nice mix of 19^th and 20^th century influences.  There’s the Victorian industrial revolution mentality of wanting to ‘show off’ the engineering (akin to Paddington station or Crystal Palace); 1940-60s Brutalism with its harsh materiality and strong presence aesthetically; and 1970-80s Deconstructionism shifting the Victorian ideology into Spartan art (such as the Lloyds building in London or Pompidou centre in Paris). 

Corpus

(Corpus Ship Interior with Volt Warframe.  Screenshot taken October 2014)

Corpus, in my opinion, has a more traditional future aesthetic with a ‘sci-fi’ feeling akin to books/TV/movies.  Its colour pallet revolving around the blue / green hue mostly reinforces this aesthetic giving a clean, clerical mood behind the techno-religious cult it presents.  I’ve not been too sure about which particular architectural styles it reminds me of, but if I was to settle on something I’d say that the modern day glazed spires of the world (such as The Shard of Glass or Gherkin in London) present this design; alongside a high-art monument ideology akin to Neil Leach’s “Nest and the Pillar of Fire” where architecture is closer to art, giving reason to its existence by existing. 

Orokin

(Orokin tile set with Volt Warframe.  Screenshot taken October 2014)

The mysterious Orokin at first glance gives the impression of a church or similar holy structure; with its vast light levels and open spaces coinciding with flying archways.  Even thou it is clearly in the vast future, to me this feels a bit like Gothic architecture and its strong play of light to reinforce a feeling of piousness and grandeur.  I briefly did a post on the consideration of gothic in the past which you may want to look over, but this style resonates with me while I interact with this particular environment

With all this being said, when it comes to the future of architecture, there is one area I feel could be experimented with on both a visual and theoretical level.  This is the world of Archigram and its take on what the future holds. 

Archigram (or architectural comics sometimes referred to as) was an architectural movement started during the 1960s which discussed the medium in relation to its connection with popular culture.  Its ideas were for the majority created on paper via conventional methods (pencil to paper) or collage / montage which followed an ideology of being modular and adaptable.  In its early years, it was influenced heavily by pop-art, which gave way to strong, bright colours and unconventional design which look striking even today.  One particular example (A Walking City, 1964) features large, bug-like structures carrying its population around connected to others via a series of tubes for transport against a backdrop of a conventional city like New York, producing a nice contrast between the two. 

In summary, the future is always an interesting thing to consider from both a technological/scientific and artistic/aesthetic manner as they naturally seep into each other.  Many people have considered what the future will look like and Warframe presents an interesting range of architectural design choices across the ages.  That being said, I would be interested to see what could be accomplished taking a page from Archigram and marrying culture with technology.  I hope that this piece has been an interesting look into the world of architectural futurism and I shall see you next week


Links / further reading
* Warframe Digital Extremes (2012-ongoing), PC, PS4, Xbox One
* Archigram Not a great website, but gives examples of Archigram.  Otherwise, a quick google search will present many examples
* Leach, N.  Dark Side of the Domus.  This maybe slightly abstract in this context, but you may find it interesting 

Being 25 (self-reflection)

*I've been playing a hell of a load of the new Warframe update and that has kinda disrupted my usual pace of playing something new everyday.  It'll probably be a topic to discuss soon, but in the mean time here's a piece on a significant event that recently happened*

This past Saturday I turned 25 to a mix of thoughts and emotions as one may do when it comes to increasing in age.  Although I wouldn't say that 25 is a particularly old age, it’s more of the case of considering your place in the world past the world of education (as in my current experience).  At the turning of age; I could have been cynical towards getting older, moving away from the typical ‘youth’ age-group into designated adulthood; unhappy with my default living arrangements or generally apathetic towards the progress in my desired vocation, but this thankfully wasn't the case. 

The weekend was the start of the school half-term holidays and with a large group of my friends being involved in the school system, I found myself having time to myself and my immediate family.  It is in this time that I got to thinking of the progress I have made, but of a positive nature and a factor of resilience to make it work.  I've been a volunteer for a museum, part-time intern and freelance worker for commissions in the sector over the past year with minimal pay and many unanswered job applications; but as time’s gone on I've taken on each experience to try and improve myself.  One year on I’m still going at it and happier than before to try and make it in this sector of work, which to be honest I’m kinda surprised by it. 

There have been times (like with most people) where this past year has been greatly frustrating.  The biggest factor in this frustration has been the limited feedback available from my job applications; as those who have done so have been a wealth of information into my strengths and weaknesses from an alternative viewpoint.  I can understand that with some jobs having many applicants it is realistically unlikely to give that personal attention, it’s just that it can put a downer on a day. 

Overall, I’d say that I have a positive outlook on my future and I don’t feel any resentment towards the aging process.  Alongside this optimistic view, I've created a couple thoughts I would like to achieve in this upcoming year:

1.      To attain full-time employment within the culture and heritage sector, with a specific desire for the museum research at most.  To do this I want to increase my range of jobs I apply for as well as reaching out to specific organisations for advice.  I briefly did this upon finishing university, but I want to get back into doing this now with my relevant experience. 

2.      By gaining full-time employment, I want to return to having my own living arrangements either by a shared house or individual flat.  In correlation to my previous post on ‘space’ having this is important as a means of generating personal space in an environment I own. 

3.      By generating an income, I want to have the ability to travel as a means to learn more about cultures around the world.  It would allow me to give physical context to a lot of essays / journals I've read over the past 7 years. 

These points do kinda revolve around the factor of employment, but in modern society what doesn't revolve around work eh? :-P
What I would say about this experience is that my desire to be involved in a career that I enjoy greatly has been met with a sacrifice of money and social pursuits with the intention of making it worth it.  What I would recommend to those who may have a similar quandary is planning is key; to see if such an action is financially viable and for how long in comparison to the estimated time to achieve.  On top of this, give time for alternative strategies and take advice on your pursuit, considering whether it’s in your best interests.  If you can keep at it and at the end of it be in a career that you love, I wish you all the best of luck and the strength to go on and continue this desire and resilience. 

Writing this had made me happy and I hope and soon enough I can talk of my expanding prospects and in turn make this a more interesting place for my thoughts.  I’m in the process of thinking of what to write about architecturally for next week’s post (back to normal on a Monday) and I hope our see you then.  

Antichamber - Perspectives, Viewpoints and Voids

This week has brought up some unexpected events that have kept me rather busy.  Although I like to push for the beginning of the week publishing, I do take priority on IRL tasks.  I’m looking into organising a staggered topic next week (as in mid-week release) to make sure they aren't too closely published.  With that out of the way, onto a game I started playing again this week…

*This will feature minor spoilers regarding the progression of Antichamber from a mechanic PoV.  Avoid the subject on Block Manipulation if you’re looking to read with spoilers in mind.*

Antichamber by Alexander Bruce is a first person puzzle game which conveys a totally new way to consider mechanics via viewpoints and perspectives in my opinion.  Its ability to confuse and mind-bend is fantastic; taking concepts you would be accustomed to in traditional puzzlers and juxtaposing it within its ‘modernist’ aesthetics (Modernist as in architectural imo).  I originally picked up this title in early 2013 putting around 4 hours into the title making slow progress; to a certain point where my thoughts couldn't comprehend any direction of specific mechanic to act on.

To briefly define the types of mechanics, I would say there are two main forms it takes on; room viewpoints and block manipulation.  The rooms as a puzzle work in terms of how you enter / look/ move/ leave a space, creating a multitude of possibilities to the user.  For example, an early room features a ‘gallery’ space with cube exhibition pieces in a 3x3 manner with gaps between them.  As you look around the exhibitions, the objects change from faces; to abstract sculptures and paintings; to moving pieces and a hidden passage.  The great thing about this passage is that logically, it pushes you into the middle of the gallery space, but in truth it’s an entirely new space with a multi-coloured maze.
The second mechanic (blocks) comes into play when the player receives a block manipulator a short while into the game.  This originally has simple applications akin to something like portal (taking object from point A to B) with blue blocks; evolving into a mix of geometric creation and multiplication in the green phase; and extruding blocks into shapes / passageways with yellow.  There is one later stage (red) which I haven’t got it yet, however at the time of writing I am very close to attaining the power and may add an addendum to this piece.
By bringing together these two forms of mechanics, it allows the player to experience a new way of thinking and put focus on the finer details rather than the larger pictures (possibly macro vs. micro in some roundabout way).  One can naturally do this in architecture and many have when it comes to judging our spaces and the play of interaction between them.  This can be represented in a couple ways in architecture, in particularly perspectives and voids.

Perspective can be thought in both a theoretical and practical way, but naturally they come together to form a similar understanding.  On one hand we have the tools of architecture (Sections, Plans, Elevations, Isometric, and Axonometric) which give us clear understanding of what they intend to be e.g. a front elevation shows of the façade of a building.  The other hand presents the idea of feeling / emotion / general thoughts when we look at an object from a number of different viewpoints.  A couple examples of this would be the English country garden and its folly’s or the Holocaust memorial site in Berlin, Germany.  The latter example I feel has a particular corroboration with Antichamber; as the Spartan, blocky pathways present a number of different viewpoints and perspectives creating a number of different thoughts for the user.  With this being said, if I was to add to Antichamber, I would like to play with the idea of light as the memorial does to possibly add a new layer of mechanics.  Although perspective is at the forefront of this experience, the minor details granted through the play of voids makes it brilliant to study.

One may naturally see voids as ‘non-space’ that does not dictate design or consideration and to some extent they would be correct.  In our everyday lives, we interact with voids as a means to get from point A to B.  Such examples like underpasses, alleyways, corridors, etc typically fall into this category where the edges of ‘places’ intersect with each other.  However, we interact with these voids and as such create spaces from them, whether it is interactions with other people or the area around you.  Graffiti (although generally given a negative social impact) is a great example of the interactions of voids and places like London’s South Bank have benefitted greatly from the user of this art form.  Theorists like Michel Foucault discuss this matter as a means of ‘other spaces’ in which he states:

“We are in the age of the simultaneous, of juxtaposition, the near and the far, the side by side and the scattered.  A period in which, in my view, the world is putting itself to the test, not so much as a great way of life destined to grow in time but as a net that links points together and creates its own muddle.”

If we are to take a theory like this, one can see a connection to Antichamber with its rooms and connections between them.  On the surface the connections are a mix of stairwells, elevators and corridors; but on reflection expand into multi-layered sections where walking creates one outcome and jumping creates another.  Antichamber is of course a very abstract example, but it can be something to study in the architectural and gaming world to produce interesting ideas with areas which may not get a lot of attention.  To use an even more up-to-date example, P.T (Silent Hills Playable Teaser) I feel plays with the idea of voids and perspective to create its eerie horror that brings the player into a world of uncertainty and fear.

Like with many things in our subconscious we don’t give them a second thought, but the practice of non-space can be something to open a world of new design possibilities in both the real and digital world.  In your own journeys, take a moment to consider these places between buildings and think about what it means and how it interacts with its surroundings.  I hope you enjoyed this piece and please feel free to discuss theories / suggestions.

References
Antichamber – Alexander Bruce (2013)
Foucault, M. (1967) Of Other Space: Utopias and Heterotopias

Semiology / Semiotics (signs and how we define them)

The subject of signs and iconography is something that appears in our everyday lives to point where it gets an automatic response from us.  Whether its road-signs as we drive along dictating the speed to go; public transport and its colour co-ordinated route system; or an office building and its designation of floor space, each has its own set of parameters defined for its users.  The subject of Semiology (the study of signs) is something that has a depth beyond anything I could comprehend in this brief discussion, but I hope to give an insight in relation to my previous experience. 

To begin with, this is a subject that has been on my peripheral since the later parts of my second year at university.  I remember Extra Credits doing a Halloween episode on the subject in correlation to horror (quite appropriate in relation to the current time of the year) which perked my interest.  As I have developed my own thoughts over the years through such viewpoints as Heidegger, Lyotard, Baudrillard, etc I’ve only briefly noticed how close semiology comes into the fray.  Defining ‘place’ and ‘space’ is somewhat similar to defining items like ‘chair’, ‘door’ and ‘wall’ which brings us to the architectural context of this piece.

For this piece, I’ve looked at Roland Barthes ‘Semiology and the Urban’ and Umberto Eco’s ‘Function and Sign: The Semiotics of Architecture’ which in turn present some nice examples in game design.  Barthes is the essay I would align closer to my personal architectural theory with the discussion of how towns and cities develop over time and define their areas; such as neighbourhoods, commercial and industrial districts of varying importance.  As you may be aware, the traditional progression of a settlement is a progressive growth into villages-towns-cities depending on a number of factors like geography, economics and social growth.  As a settlement crosses one of these thresholds, there is a certain difficulty in creating new space while appeasing the issues of change.  For example, a village being developed into a small market town may feature new dwellings and more widely recognised retail outlets.  However, the current population may desire a small settlement and dislikes the look of the new developments out of this desire to stay a village.  It is at this point the architect / town planner has to be careful to consider the thoughts of each party as they create this new settlement. 
Personally, I feel a strong connection between this and the idea of particular IP’s (intellectual property) and the interpretation from different studios.  Take the Warhammer 40k IP and see the range of game genres handled by its developers (RTS, FPS, 3^rd person action, etc).  The mechanics are different but they each follow a particular aesthetic (to a lesser or greater degree) of this ‘grim dark’ future where there is a fight for survival in a somewhat brutal manner.  Another example would be the recent Devil May Cry (DMC: Devil May Cry) where a reboot change the story’s main character (Dante) from a ‘jokey’ fun-loving character into a more ‘brooding’ kinda nihilistic person, much to the disapproval of the series fans. 

Eco’s essay is more concerned with the semiology of objects and the correlation we find to create patterns in space.  One of the examples given by Eco is that of a cave and early man; as they use a hole in a mountain as shelter, over time it will be defined by the person as a place of settlement in which they dwell.  Rock formations along the edges can also be defined as walls and the opening itself is effectively a transition from dwelling to not dwelling (aka door).  As the person goes forth and explores, they may see similar rock formations with a transitional ‘hole’ which one could imagine they define as another ‘cave’.  More modern examples can be things like viewports (windows, glazing, platforms, etc) or a chair (pile of rocks, a fallen tree, a chair, a sofa, a throne, etc) but they come under the idea of how we define what something is and the connotations with it.  The range of items that can come under a single definition is somewhat infinite from a broad spectrum, but there’s an example from a game I enjoy greatly which I feel takes on this idea greatly.
Ratchet and Clank on the PS2 was a platformer which featured an anthropomorphic main character (Ratchet) and his robot sidekick (Clank).  Initially, Clank is a means to bring the call of ‘a hero’s journey’ to Ratchet, but over time Clank develops some motor actions to help the player progress the game.  These features include a helicopter / jetpack / waterjet transformation from Clank which gives us the ability to jump higher, glide, swim faster and other tertiary functions.  Clank is defined as a robot; but he features AI of a robot, customisation of a mechanical object, and the companionship of a sidekick character.  I haven’t played it, but those of you from the Nintendo console side will probably see a similar light with Banjo Kazooie and the range of involvement Kazooie has in the game. 

To summarise, the subject of signs and semiology is a vast subject which bleeds into our everyday lives on both a conscious and sub-conscious manner.  Taking time to consider these factors gives us the potential to view games in a new depth when we corroborate it with exterior schools of thought.  I would highly recommend reading further into the subject with people like Young (psychology) or the examples I’ve presented in this post. 

I hope you’ve found this piece interesting. 

References

*Barthes, R. Semiology and the Urban
*Eco, U. Function and Sign: The Semiotics of Architecture
*Ratchet and Clank.(2002). Insomniac Games
*Banjo Kazooie. (1998). Rare

My last week (a mix of stuff)

Hello there.  This is gonna be a bit of a mish-mash of traditional ‘bloggy’ content alongside a brief delve into my usual architectural musing so that will explain the potential irrelevance against my previous content.  Regardless, here is my last week and what went on:

I got a cold kinda sums it up :-\

Elaborating on that point; in the later part of last week I got a rather painful throat, drippy nose and the occasional headache that put a damper on my previous plans of travelling and doing some research.  Now I know that the common cold isn’t a particular debilitating thing to happen, it’s just I like to ‘get it over with’ and not do much for the brief day or two so that I can get back on track faster in the long run.  Unfortunately, this was hampered by the fact it decided not to clear after one or two days and that I had a busy weekend / early weekday coming up.  In this time of ailment, there were events I was involved in which I met with varying circumstance and they go along as follows:

• 1.      Field research visit on Sunday morning (5^th October 2014).  This was a rather early start to the morning which was met with a bite in the air and my throat on the mend.  The walk was pleasant but coarseness of the wild was annoying as I was looking to be involved in meetings for the visit later on.  The site itself was an old manor house in my town’s communal parkland and with its age and current restoration in progress was a den of dust; particularly its basement / cellar in which the dust created a short term skirmish with me.  Talking in the later meeting was a case of directed coughs away from the others as we discussed the current research deadlines and potential output.  Other than the respiratory side of me making itself known frequently, it was a nice morning met with some good progress made with the project related to the site. 

• 2.      Architectural talk on Tuesday afternoon (7^th October 2014).  The day before had been an aggravating grab of tissue paper every 5-10 minutes to clear my nose which followed right into the night.  This night / morning in particular I got asleep around the 7-8am mark, giving me at max 2-2 ½ hours of sleep to work on.  This would have been fine any other day, but this was the day I was giving a talk to a group of adults with an interest in art and design.  It was a group I advertised my interests and research to and by that action was hired to give a talk on architecture and its history; so giving a brilliant first impression and enjoyable talk was paramount to me expressing this world that I am involved in.  The venue was packed to some 50-odd attendees and now I had to inform, entertain and intrigue them with some 4000 years of architecture in the space of an hour or so; alongside being very tired and blowing my nose every 5 minutes.  Much to my delight, I charged head on with the talk and in the space of a couple minutes found my stride into the fundamentals of pre-historic concepts of architecture.  As of today, I called it my “academics adrenalin” in a random off-topic chat on skype which I’ll look to put into the vernacular onward.  Anyway, The talk ended to a very happy crowd to stayed around for ½ hour or so to ask questions and thank me, which in the end kept me going right back to my home where I crashed and caught up on sleep.

As of last night / today I’m now feeling very well and hoping to get fully back on track over the upcoming weekend which should be nice.  I’m kinda hoping that I ‘got in early’ so to speak with getting a cold so that any potential bug going around closer to the Christmas holiday period should be suitably avoidable and not affect one of my favourite times of the year.  I’m involved in some fun locally based pub crawls and the likes around Christmas and you can’t be on form with flu meds in your system eh!

During all this time, I didn't really look to play a lot of games which may seem odd to some of you.  With more time dedicated to lounging about, one may image that you want to kick back and not think while you command an army or further a story.  However, I kinda didn’t do too much other than keeping up with my youtube subscriptions and watching a lot of twitch.  In my usual gaming time, I like to have twitch / youtube running on my phone as a peripheral screen with audio but I wasn’t really feeling the mild multitasking it involves.  The games I watched were mostly Dota 2 and Hearthstone but it also involved Heroes of Newerth, Path of Exile and a couple random games that one sometimes browses out of curiosity.  Whenever I watch the more competitive games, I always think back to the vision of when watching competitive games will be more widespread in the entertainment industry with pubs and bars showcasing it alongside traditional sports like Football and Rugby (UK references but of course replace relevant to own culture).  I have been to a couple ‘barcraft’ events and they were enjoyable for the most part. 

As my thoughts were with my IRL work mostly this week, I haven’t really thought about any particular games / architecture crossovers this week.  That being said, while looking through my old university notes, I did feel like I should make a small note on one of my previous posts.  On my post regarding Kitsch Architecture and paint by numbers game design, I do feel that there is a possibility that one could find higher relevance in the term “Vernacular Architecture” over “Kitsch” as it’s a term regarding the everyday.  That could be up to the reader in question, but you may want to personally review whether either term is more appropriate.  However, I may do another piece which tries to address the potential differences / similarities so we shall see.

Other than that, it leaves me with thinking what I want to talk about in the coming week.  I was thinking either ‘signs and semiology’ or regionalism concepts but I’m not sure.  Assume one of them and I hope you found this view into my current life interesting at least.

Self-Reflection: Finding Space Within Place

Over the past week, I have had my house to myself much to my own happiness.  After leaving university and going through the process of getting employment beyond small-scale commissions, I haven’t been able to fund my own flat which has moved me back into the parental home.  For those of you who have experience such circumstances, you will probably understand the shortcomings with such a situation, especially if you were rather happy in the previous living setup.  It’s a factor of the little things like sleep schedules, privacy, points of discussions, etc. which can build up into a recognised negative. 

The most recognisable thing for me correlates to my hobbies and interests, particularly gaming and a desire to learn more from the medium.  To be immersed in a world where your eyes envelope the monitor and ears hear nothing but the ambience is a truly wonderful experience; until people either disrupt with juxtaposed prose or a contrasting piece of radio / TV.  I don’t hold such a desire to be sociable against them naturally, but this event can make one less interested in either side of the spectrum and possibly come across as dismissive.  In the end, both parties get a fragment of what they wanted. 

So back to this past week, I had a couple events to attend to, but the majority of my time was set to creating an environment of immersive gameplay to rekindle some of that time I had in my previous university residence.  The stage was set and the first day went well, with a mixture of RPGs, shooters, a couple Indies to try out and some Dota.  I enjoyed my time greatly because it was disrupted by factors outside of the immersion.  However, as a couple days went on, I was unsure about how to fulfil my time which I had been looking forward to.  All my thoughts on this desire for personal space were (in a roundabout way) possibly unwarranted beyond small chunks of time.  As the week went on, I found a happy medium of social interactions and immersive gameplay (most likely due to my work commitments) which pushed me to consider a self-reflective experiment; with the return to the status quo how long would it be until I desired personal space and to what extent. 

Sunday came around and by 3 in the afternoon the parameters were in place to analyse my little personal experiment.  The return to normality was met with the conventional catching up and discussing how the past week went alongside a brief agreement on what to eat for dinner.  The day continued on with me replaying some tower defence games I had got back into over the weekend (Defense Grid and Sol Survivor).  I had particularly enjoyed replaying Sol because of the new modes and discovering the soundtrack again (Oil and Sweat my particular favourite track atm) which combined with the hectic decisions within higher difficulties held my enjoyment and interest.  It was in this timeframe that my experiment came into place; with myself being asked about an advert for hair care products while easy-watching TV droned on in the background around the 7-8pm mark.  The flow of conflict on screen was out of sync with my disinterest in the product of the advert it was most likely clear that I felt that way (although I accept I could have acted in a more amicable manner). 

Many hours later, I took a moment to understand this experiment referring back to my previous living situation trying to find any similarities.  What I considered that although I enjoyed my time in immersive gameplay and academic theory, I purposely took time to talk and discuss things with my housemates.  As I mentioned in one of my introduction posts, having hour long conversions at 3am about architectural theory, games or anything in-between was something I enjoyed a great deal.  So, on the surface I could deduce that I desired social interactions but only of particular subject matter with people of similar interest.  This made sense, but I felt that the range of my housemates and their interests ranged greatly of both the academic and general converse of life.  My second point was one brought from an architectural point of view being that I looked for both personal space and communal space within my environment; something that would seem rather obvious to everyone who is ever lived as we all have pigments of introverted and extroverted characteristics.  Beyond this although, it got me consider Heidegger’s ‘poetically man dwells’ alongside a few minor points. 

We live within places (houses, flats, etc.) but create space within them.  This space is an expression of self and as such becomes architecture.  This architecture can be created by a number of items of both physical and mental application; colour schemes and furniture to whether one converses within said space or not.  We also do this outside of the home, for example in public green space; we outline our space with jumpers for goalposts or towels for picnic; even though you don’t hold ownership of the area.  On the other side of the spectrum, it may me think of my previous mmo experiences where a person may lay claim to an area for farming (as in particular monsters or resource nodes) regardless of free ownership or the camping of spawn points for particular rare monsters.  One of the examples that Heidegger presents is a long distance lorry driver who may have a sleeper cab; this is their space with place but their journey still features interactions with exterior factors e.g. other people. 

With this reflection underway, it got me to think about the desire to return to the previous standard of living in a new way, because that kind of wouldn’t exist in my future.  To move is more of a case of self and defining self in his residence alongside their interactions.  To charge on with the possibly superficial ‘find my own place and get away’ would do a disservice to myself and those I interact with and I need to make sure I do it properly.

So yeah, this was a bit of an odd reflection for me because of what came about from this past week, but I hope you found it interesting or possibly similar to your own experience.  On the subject of employment mentioned above, I’ve built up a larger set of contacts so I hope to become a bit more established in the heritage / gallery space and I can look to make this a bit more than just words on a page.  In the mean-time, I’ve had some really enjoyable commissions recently and it’s keeping me going slowly but steadily.  If you can make a job out of something you enjoy, try it but be ready to accept some frustration; but in the end you can make it worth it.

= )

Ryan

Receiver and the Discussion of Combative Design Theory (form:function)

These past couple weeks have been rather busy with ‘IRL’ stuff so naturally things like this have been pushed to the side.  That being said, I enjoyed a little game over the weekend that I want to talk about in regards to a relatively modern architectural design choice. 

Receiver is a very small indie-fps title from Wolfire Games created as part of a 7 day fps game challenge which looks to create quasi-realistic gun mechanics.  Whereas in a conventional fps the reloading mechanics are a single button press; receiver includes individual bullets, magazine loading, checking the chamber and releasing the hammer to name a few.  It’s a rather confusing experience when you initially load in, but after around 15-20minutes the gunplay was making sense and it becoming rather enjoyable. 

Alongside these mechanics there is RNG based level design, item placement and enemy locations that keep you on your toes as you navigate your surroundings.  One may call this a ‘roguelike’ in terms of its permadeath and random starting loot, but I feel it’s more towards a tactical shooter by its combat mechanics. 

While playing this game, I got a feeling of a couple schools of thought in design and play on the concept apparent in Receiver.  Firstly there was the age old ‘form vs. function’ theory that discusses the relationship between aesthetics (form) and mechanics (function).  In architecture, this can sometimes be the nature between an engineer and an architect but certain eras in architecture have gone one way or another e.g. Brutalism tends to be on the side of ‘function’.  Receiver is a game of pure mechanics in its gunplay while its aesthetics are rather spartan in its night time city-scape and plain rooms.  Not to say that this is a bad thing as one should remember this was made in 7 days…

The other feeling I got from this game was a kind of Deconstructionism / Victorian industrial ideology that turns the ‘function’ side of the debate into its own aesthetic.  A couple examples of these traits include London Paddington Station; Lloyds building in London and the Pompidou Centre in Paris.  Each of these examples uses the structure, the framework and the stuff that is usually hidden away behind walls in conventional buildings to create their own pieces of art and design through architecture.  Looking at these examples, one can see a correlation of Receiver and typical fps games through the use of the reloading mechanic; as the simple press of a button (usually R) is now a fully-fledged mechanic to take into consideration.  There are games that have played around with the reload mechanics in the past (one of the more famous examples being Gears of War) but I feel this is the most literal and by proxy the closest to the above architectural theory. 

To be honest, I grabbed this game on the Humble Store end of summer sale for free, but you may find it interesting to review in how minor aspects of design can be created into a new format.  Outline theories you may want to look at include symbolism, discussion of ‘space’ and usage of signs in culture but overall I hope you found this discussion interesting. 

References / further reading

*Receiver, Wolfire Games (2012)

*Eco, U. Function and Sign: The Semiotics of Architecture

*Barthes, R. Semiology and the Urban

*Bachelard, G. Poetics of Space

Gothic Architecture and Gaming: A Duality of Sorts

Over the past couple weeks; I’ve been putting together a talk on architecture for an event next month.  Although the subject matter is primary on history, it’s got me thinking about certain eras and how they fit into popular culture and gaming.  Today, in a roundabout way, we discuss the matter of Gothic and its duality within theory and design.  (I’ll admit thou, I’m not too clued up on these cultures so the writing may seem sporadic….)

Generally speaking, when you mention the term ‘Gothic’ it conjures thoughts of the darkness; unworldly mythical beings which revolve around imposing architecture with a sense of ritualistic actions.  Looking into the pop-culture of ‘Gothic’ one can see many influences from the Victorian age in regards to fashion and mentality.  Vampires are regarded as a manifestation of sexual uncertainty for the more elaborate acts (although some Victorian historians would imply the opposite) and their dress sense involves similar connotations.  Gothic architecture corroborates this view because of the way it’s presented.  The grand structures of places like Notre Dame give an imposing feeling; with its sheer height, mass and aesthetics correlating with acts of ritual. 

That being said, when looking at Gothic from an architectural point of view, there is a very different impression given to its design.  Gothic architecture is one of pious sentiments; use of light and colour in their interiors; and the omnipresence of a higher being within its surroundings.  Compared with earlier eras of medieval and classic design, Gothic looked to play a bit more with softer edges on larger, airy rooms making it more welcome.  Even something like gargoyles (or grotesques depending on singular or plural) are aesthetic pieces to make the facades more interesting; similar to the ‘storyboard’ statuettes on some cathedrals like Exeter.  Of course, the popular culture connotations didn't come until much later (architecture focused on the 1200-1500s roughly and pop culture more towards 17-1800s+) but it’s interesting to see the duality of the term and how it’s used in gaming. 

In my own experience of playing games, it’s the horror genre (and games that use horror elements) that generally show up Gothic.  The Devil May Cry series (particularly the first game) features large, imposing, cathedral-like structures which are usually traversed physically or visually alongside fighting demons from the evil depths.  Although a lot of the game is relativity dark, there are points where light is used to different effects.  Here are two examples that I feel are relevant:

• ·       The cathedral-like structure where you fight Phantom (lava-spider boss) initially features a lot of light radiating from the ceiling and windows.  However, as the game goes on and you visit this place later, it is much darker; with a more monstrous being awaiting you called Nightmare.  One could say that this is due to the time-span of the game going from day to night, but I feel that it takes on the idea of Gothic in a nice way in both sides of the spectrum.
• ·       The meet with Mundas in the underworld features a large room with a large amount of light beaming into the interior, making the room somewhat bright.  This is contrasted by the darkness and demons of the previous area that saw the player go through.  Although this shows the ideas behind Gothic architecture, I believe that it’s kind of a troupe to have a grand, contrasted setting for the antagonists’ arena. 
• 
  

Thinking beyond this example, there are games that follow one or the other ideology when it comes to Gothic architecture, but it’s an interesting concept to view.  Religious / ritual sites are common examples of architecture in the early – mid eras of civilizations.  When looking at a game that has these sorts of structures, take a moment to see how the piece uses light and the size of its interior and maybe it’ll be influenced by the origins of Gothic architecture.  If you don’t get much out of this post, I hope you find the idea of the duality of Gothic a little bit interesting…

Kitsch and the Gaming World

So over the past weekend I went away with friends to celebrate (well, anti-celebrate) the end of summer and start of the academic year.  Currently this isn’t a significant time for me, but a number of the revellers for the weekend work in the educational system.  On our way back home in the car, I ended up looking out the window thinking about how to discuss this topic in a state of quiet contemplation.  After some miles had passed, my friends commented on my quietness to which I replied “Just thinking about how to connect Kitsch and gaming through the medium of architecture.  Got a couple ideas running around my head…”  This was met with a confused ‘rrrright..’ so I took a little time to think how to word it better.  With that said, I came up with a hypothesis of “Toys R us is like Call of Duty”. 

So, here we are today.

Kitsch has a number of different definitions depending on who you talk to and what subject it’s relevant to.  In product design, it usually refers to ‘tacky’ objects that don’t seem to have much purpose but itself (similarly art is sometimes defined by having no purpose but itself).  In architecture it’s referred to buildings that are ‘built not designed’ where a structure could be placed anywhere and the considerations of place aren’t observed.  With this, one may that it’s not particularly architecture and just buildings, but it has its place for this discussion.  Here are a couple examples of kitsch in architecture:

• ·         Out of town shopping centre/mall: Generally speaking a large concentrated area of shops / services accessible by a central concourse away from the Central Business District (CBD).  The shops will have a large array of stands, displays, corridors and the sorts but the building will generally be a warehouse-style shell of the building. 
• ·         Modern housing estate / mass-produced estates: Due to the nature of modern housing construction, a large amount of housing estates follow a ‘paint by numbers’ design choice. In short, estates kind of find themselves built like ‘terrace1.1 here and 2 terrace 1.2 here’ fitting together. 

The overall concept from these examples is a base foundation to work on from which personalisation can be produced.  I feel there are two ways this can be compared with in gaming; genre definitions and game engine use. 

• ·         Genres naturally follow particular trends to be defined into the said genre.  For example, FPS’s will always have you in a first-person view; an RTS may involve base building; and an RPG will usually have xp and levelled combat.  To follow these traits religiously, one can consider it similar to building not designing a product.  Even within genres, sub-genres like modern military shooters (like MoH and CoD) can have their own trends like shops vs. houses vs. office blocks. 
• ·         A game engine (like Unity or the Unreal Engine) has an appeal to be used ‘out of the box’ to create a game.  The by-product of this is that the default textures and colours maybe used; giving the commonly used ‘grit’ colour scheme of browns, metals and washed-out pallets.  This could be considered similar to the shopping centre idea with a warehouse giving a shell for the shop to build on. 

This comparison may paint a picture of bad / lazy design, but I feel that it’s interesting to review the undertones of popular culture in gaming.  Just because you follow the kitsch design, doesn’t mean you can make the most of the environment to personalise.  Architecture can go beyond bricks and mortar, becoming something beyond its foundations.  For example, Spec-ops: the Line does everything a ‘paint by numbers’ third-person shooter would do, alongside being a complete deconstruction of the genre and military shooter sub-genre. 

So, in a roundabout way, that’s how Toys R Us and Call of Duty can be compared.  Kitsch design, building vs. designing something, and the fundamentals of what is design can find itself traversing art mediums.  I hope you find this interesting and look to find comparisons in your local built environment. 

Extra resources:

*Spec-ops the line (2012). Yager Development, 2K Games (deconstruction of genre kitsch)

*Venturi, R. Scott Brown, D. Izenour, S. (1977). Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form.  MIT Press. USA.  (not directly kitsch but interesting discussion building vs. design)

Historiography, Critical Thinking and Gaming Discussions

Over the past couple weeks; discussions surrounding gaming have been rather heated involving certain people and their practice.  Gaming, like other forms of leisure and art, finds itself having very strong opinions one way or the other with a limited central representation.  As it has been discussed for many generations; we associate by what we exclude and this carries onto hot-button topics not just in gaming; but in politics and social status, economics and welfare, artistic forms and interpretation, and so on and so forth.  That being said, I’m not too interested in this debate and it would do this blog a disservice to ‘pick a side’.  Because of this, we’re going to review why people may have a particular opinion and the potential weight to said opinion.  In history, this comes under the discussion of Historiography. 

Historiography is the discussion of the opinions behind an event and the correlation between them.  Historians naturally find themselves writing about important events (wars, political premierships, etc.) and over time a group of people will have similar opinions.  This is known as a school of thought and there are a number of factors behind this.  To give an example we’re going to briefly review the Cold War and its Historiography.

The Cold War was a significant event after WW2 that shaped world events for a course of 40-50 years (that to some extent still do) between Russia and the USA.  Throughout the Cold War there were 3-4 schools of thought that changed for a number of reasons:

1 – Traditional / Orthodox.  Coming from American historians starting in the 1950s, this view was naturally a pro-American viewpoint.  It discussed how America was in the right and it was protecting the world against the Russians and communism.  Such things discussed are the domino theory and the iron curtain. 

2 – Soviet / Socialist.  The opposite view coming from Russian historians of the same era, this was a pro-Russia viewpoint.  It discussed how Russia was treated unfairly and was a country on defence, looking out for its people.  Such things discussed are the capitalist vs. communist conflict and America’s missile bases in Europe. 

3 – Revisionist.  The alternative view coming from American historians in the 1960s.  This decade brought the ‘peace not war’ mentality and the Vietnam War; a conflict that caused a split opinion on the home front.  It looks to critique the traditional view and consider America’s own mishaps.  Historians of this school of thought tended to have a ‘left-wing’ mind-set although not exclusively. 

4 – Post Revisionist.  There are some differences of opinion to this school of thought, but for this I’ll be looking at the later soviet period and its policies.  Gorbachev, known as the reformer, created the policy of Glasnost (openness) in the 1980s to allow greater freedom of information and less censorship.  Historians of many backgrounds (not just American / Russian) now had a wealth of information to review and produce new interpretations. 

So as you can see, many different factors can come into play when we see someone’s opinion.  We can pair this with Critical Thinking to hypothetically break apart someone’s viewpoint to see what weight we can give them.  In Critical Thinking, we want to analyse things like corroboration, vested interests (bias), data, tone, body language, etc.  The last two are a bit more difficult to discuss on the internet but it’s something to consider.  So, let’s try and create a hypothetical example:

“Are you pro or anti <insert topic here>”

Person X is pro-topic

Person Y is also pro-topic

Person Z is anti-topic

Person X’s previous posts on the subject have been pro-topic as well as their friends.  They fit into a school of thought that believes in said topic.  They may also be other factors like agreeing in association (the friends are together because of this); personal background (parents / community may have this opinion); or dissociation (person X disagrees with someone of the anti-topic viewpoint).

Person Y’s post on the matter mentions a number of resources to back up their viewpoint.  This person is using corroboration to give weight to their view.  That being said, it depends on the validity of said resources and whether they have any particular vested interests.  Like with X, Y may also have some of the traits mentioned above. 

Person Z’s post originally discusses the topic but moves to challenge X and Y.  This person can look to critique the resources or the association concept between them to try and review why they may have the same opinion.  The challenge moves away from the topic so at this point the subjects of tone and body language come into play to see what language they use and what particular viewpoint they’re trying to refer to. 

This of course is a limited example and I’d ask that you do some further reading into the subject of critical thinking.  I should stress that this doesn’t intend to pursue anything but the discussion of ‘why’ which interests me most.  You could see this as a personal reflection and consider where you sit on certain topics and why.  Was it because of a particular news story on the matter, a friend’s mention of it, your own morals related to your upbringing, etc?  

I hope you find this discussion interesting.  Next time, I want to take fragments of this subject into the world of Architecture as we debate ‘form vs. function’ and the concept of Kitsch.  

Self-assessment: mono-gaming vs. 'multi'-gaming and general thoughts

A couple months ago I attempted to start a new rule for my gaming time; to allow time to play something new every day regardless of platform for at least 15 minutes.  The reason behind this was a personal drive to try new games coming out, try genres that I wouldn’t usually touch and break the mono-game mentality. 

For those that aren’t aware of the term, mono-gamer/ing relates to the focus of your gaming time on a single game.  Usual examples of this include competitive games (like Dota, LoL, Starcraft 2, CounterStrike, Call of Duty) and social games like MMO’s (World of Warcraft, Eve online, Guild Wars 2) or Facebook games (Farmville).  My experience of mono-gaming has featured most of these titles (in short wow->hon->dota2->gw2) and my time was really enjoyable.  The thing is everyone has a point (which they may have not experienced yet) where they start to consider the amount of time one has invested into a game and what other things you could be doing.  People have different reactions to it, some will go to the polar opposite type of game / hobby whereas others will find something similar, but the sentiment is usually the same. 

So, a couple months ago I stopped playing Guild Wars 2 (MMORPG) and found myself not really knowing what to do with my free time.  What I ended up doing was going back to Warframe (F2P shooter) and this started to fulfil the allotted time.  The thing is, playing one single game over all others has become less of an enticing action to take as more varied games have come out and I’ve got the financial backing to try out games.  The steam summer sale was kind of a catalyst for this, but since then I’ve been playing lots of different games.  These games include Don’t Starve (survival), Path of Exile (dungeon crawler), Electronic Superjoy (platformer), Hawken (mech shooter), Rogue Legacy (rogue-like), Sanctum TD (tower defence), Transistor (action-RPG), The Stanley Parable (non-specific), and many more.  As well as this, I’ve been trying more mobile games and seeing what the platform can create unique to the tech. 

While I’ve been doing this, there has been only short bursts of time where I’ve stuck to my ‘try something new every day’, but I feel that I’ve fit into a nice happy medium of new-to-old game time investment.  For example, today I tried Max Gentlemen for 20 minutes but played Warframe for 5 hours.  Trying new experiences is all good in getting you thinking about new experiences and the sorts, but it’s reasonable to have a core-set of titles that you can enjoy irrelevant to context.  That being said, this is a mentality I’ve tried to take on in other interests I have both on and offline. 

In Architecture, I was aligned to a specific mind-set for a long period of time which dictated my thoughts on the medium.  Heidegger theory, Brutalism design era and the architect Tadao Ando were my go-to topics for 2-3 years during university; but moving from architecture to history allowing me to express my thoughts in lots of different ways (see intro to this blog) and improve my own knowledge and interest.  My career path possibilities have expanded due to being more open to different areas of the heritage sector beyond archiving / curating even to the point of considering the possibility of freelance / self-employed status. 

Anyway, I was just thinking this over after finishing my Warframe session tonight and wanted to write it down.  It can sometimes be good to write about your thoughts to allow you to make more sense of what you think / how you want to implement something.  Take the time to think about your own gaming habits and how it fits into other facets of your life.  You may find it interesting = )