Is the illusion of player agency as good as real player agency? Isn’t a video game just a simulated game master? Is the Chinese Room a good game? If the author is dead, what about the algorithm?
The music for this episode is “The Acorns. Seedin Time in The Oak Room.” by Loveshadow, and is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 license.
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Death in games is usually a mistake. In these four indie games, it’s an intended part of the experience.
The music for this episode is “Make You Cry” by Jonathan Coulton, and is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 license.
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60 years of video games. How are we doing?
The music for this episode is “Brilliant Day (fourstones.net mix)” by fourstones and DeBenedictis, and is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 license.
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The next episode will be about four games that inspired each other in an inbred tale of exploration.
Amnesia. Can anyone remember why it’s so common in interactive entertainment?
The music for this episode is “Forgettin My Identity” by Jane His Wife, and is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 license.
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The next episode will be about the progress and state of the art of the video game industry, as compared to another form of entertainment.
The game Walking Away: In what ways does it succeed at what it attempts?
The music for this episode is “Criminal” by Peter Toh, used with permission.
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The next episode will be about amnesia, the video game trope we all love to hate. If you have comments or anecdotes about amnesia, please leave a comment here or at
gregory@ludusnovus.net.
Note: If you would like to sign up for GameTap and indicate to them that you are doing so because of Uru Live, you can use this link and click on “join now”. For a limited time, you can get a year’s worth of GameTap (including Uru Live, when it comes out) for $60, which is about 50% off of the monthly price.
Length of works: is a given game most like a short story or a novel, and how can length affect content?
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The next episode will be a new segment called False Narrativism.
Difficulty and completeness: Why do games have to be hard, and how is finishing a game separate from completing it?
The music for this episode is “Big Bad World One” by Jonathan Coulton, and is available under a cc by-nc-sa 2.5 license.
This episode, unlike most, is available under a cc by-nc-sa 2.5 license.
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The next episode will be about the length of games and how that relates to game classification. Is there a distinction between an interactive “short story” and an interactive “novel”? If you have comments or ideas, contact me at gregory@ludusnovus.net.
Variable player experience: What do we mean by interaction, and how can two players have different experiences with the same work?
The music for this episode is Enrique Granados’s “Spanish Dance n. 2” performed by Mario Mattioli, and is available under a cc by-nc 2.5 license.
This is the first episode in which I’ve talked much about table-top roleplaying games.
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(Note: I’m going to start putting the titles of IF pieces from the IF Comp in quotes, as that competition is intended for short works, so participants presumably intended their pieces to be analogous to short stories.)
The unreliable narrator: how do you use this technique when the narrator is usually the player character?
The music for this episode is “Noite de Carnaval” by Code, and is available under a cc by-nc 2.5 license.
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I will be out of town for a week, so the next full episode should appear on August 19, 2006. There may be something put up between now and then, though.
Cutscenes: when are they appropriate, and when do they take away from the game?
Correction: In the original version of this episode, I attribute Nothing But Mazes to Stephen Granade, but it is actually by Greg Boettcher. Stephen Granade wrote Child’s Play, which is also part of IntroComp 2006 (and does some interesting things with the voice of the narrator). I should have a corrected version up shortly.
The music for this episode is “Babylon Bring Me Down,” by spinningmerkaba, and is available under a cc by-nc 2.5 license.
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