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Space,time
and body in action games. "Max Payne"
[German]
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The essay
examines genre discourses in the action game
"Max Payne" (2001). It draws attention to
notions of space, time, and bodies by
positioning the game in relation to Hollywood
action movies. This entails an examination of
the technological specificity of the cinematic
and game apparatus respectively.
Gunzenhäuser argues that gaming
technologies mediate presence in historically
and culturally specific ways, allowing male
users to experience their subject function in
distinct ways. Therefore, an intertextual
examination of the computer gaze allows a
reappraisal of computer-generated environments
in terms of cultural constructions of
identity.
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/03-22-Gunzenhaeuser.htm
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Lev
Manovich: "Language of New Media"
[German]
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Heiko
Idensen reviews Lev Manovich's work which was
announced as "the first systematic and rigorous
theory of new media" and has enthusiastically
been taken on board by several critics. Idensen
questions why is it worthwhile reading Lev
Manovich's book in the printed version or indeed
read it at all? He also questions if Manovich's
collection of texts really is a book about the
'language of new media'.
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/03-22-Idensen.htm
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Schmidt-Bergmann/Liesegang
(Hgg.): "Liter@tur. Computer-Literatur-Internet"
[German]
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The book
aims at highlighting consistency and symbiotic
potential of computer technology, the
endlessness of the net and and an open
definition of literature. Christian Bachmann
calls this digital dragon slaying: a very
honorable goal which claims nothing less than to
carve out the "aesthetical dimension of digital
literature".
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/03-22-Bachmann.htm
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Game
worlds. Relation of space and time in computer
games [German]
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Game- and
web designer Kai Thomsen describes space as
fundamental ground for each game. Rules of a
game are the natural law for this game world.
While as a game-designer has almost complete
control over appearance of the space of his game
world, he has to part with some of the temporal
control in favor of the player. If a game recurs
on narrative elements the world has to fulfill
narrative needs as well.
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/03-20-Thomsen.htm
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Stephan
Porombka: "Hypertext. Zur Kritik eines digitalen
Mythos" [German]
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Heiko
Idensen's review of the book "Hypertext" by
Stephan Porombka demystifies the therein
attempted demystification of digital
hyper-myths. He critics the way Porombka
methodically tries to root the hyperfictions of
the 80ies in the totalitarian science fiction
worlds of the 50ies. He criticizes how Porombka
values text adventures as the only successful
media format in terms of a text-reader-transfer
and the way Porombka calls any attempts of
exteriorizing thinking in software structure a
cultural negligence.
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/03-20-Idensen.htm
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Experiencing
hyperfictional readings. Reader response aspects of
narrative online-texts
[German]
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How do we
experience the reading of a hyperfiction? On
every journey through literary worlds of
online-readings lurks the question of how to
respond to the readings. Christian Bachmann
analyzes the experiences made in online-readings
and shows two components which are very much
intertwined: the narrative and its functions of
understanding.
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/03-20-Bachmann.htm
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Adventures
as happening and "ac-counting"
[German]
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Despite
all talk of open art, interactive literature or
cinematisation it is adventure games which
describe those problems of graphic theory and
organization of databases of which they
historically originate from. Claus Pias is doing
research on the first adventure games,
introduces us to their ontology of data and
topology and asks what can be counted or
accounted as a (narrative) happening under these
circumstances
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/03-15-Pias.htm
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Diving
into the Otherworld. Immersion and virtuality
[German]
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In books,
movies and computer games you often find stories
of fantastic happenings and immersions. A
protagonist follows a white bunny, is swept away
by a storm, swallows a colourful pill ... and
finds him- or herself all of a sudden in a
parallel world of which he had no knowledge.
Daniel Ammann uses a few very illustrative
examples in his search for central constituents
of immersive experience.
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/03-15-Ammann.htm
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"Unreality":
Space as subtraction of world. Games between
reality and possibility
[German]
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What kind
of concepts are used to build games? A
comparison of concepts for building spaces in
the games "Myst III Exile" and "Unreal
Tournament" shows some basic differences: an
additive and constructed world, in which
topographical borders are a conceptual part of
the game. On the other side a world full of
(narrative) possibilities of which levels can be
cut out. The ego-shooter and multiplayer game
Unreal turns fundamental (game) aesthetics and
formalities upside down.
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/03-08-Suter.htm
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Object
oriented gaming [German]
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I am that
what I can control! or why Gregor Samsa would
wake up as PacMan in our computer age ... -
Starting up a new game who doesn't know the
feeling, suddenly not knowing anymore who or
what you are, what to do and how to move. That
is how Gregor Samsa must have felt when he woke
up as a bug in Franz Kafka's story... Mirjam
Weder shares some thoughts with us on the fact,
that computer games are made from objects which
can be controlled and manipulated by the player
to different degrees.
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/03-06-Weder.htm
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Genettes
mode of "Ordnung". Is it the central problem of
narrative for children on CD-ROM?
[German]
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Children
stories which were adapted for computer games
try to unite narrative and ludic structures.
These connections have to overcome the gap
between fixed temporal organization of narrative
and free choice of ludic structures.
Bünger's contribution analyzes the problem
with methods of narrative theory and outlines
prototypical models
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/03-06-Buenger.htm
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"Wiggles"
- Uncertain space and cyclic time
[German]
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The
categories of "uncertain space", which
originates in film science and "cyclic time" are
very typical for strategy games. Karin Wenz
analyzes the strategy adventure Wiggles in
respect to these typical categories of space and
time. The cyclic experience of time can be lead
back to loops typical for computer programming
and appears in the game itself as
recursions.
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/03-01-Wenz.htm
 Comments
by Wiggles-Programer Axel Hylla
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Interactive
media for children and young adults. A
report [German]
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Judith
Mathez introduces the research project of the
Swiss Institute for media for children and young
adults in Zürich and its major topics on
interactive and digital media.
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/03-01-Mathez.htm
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Game
worlds. Pixel-books make (hi)story
[German]
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Compared
with a fictional print-text narrative structures
and marks of fictionality (if ... then) in the
games "Myst", "Riven" and "Myst III: Exile" are
deeply interrelated with the paradigm of the
image. Mela Kocher analyzes the diaries of these
games, focuses on the procedures of experiencing
games and text via the magic linking books and
the prison notes the player has to immerse
herself into while exploring the island
worlds.
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/03-01-Kocher.htm
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using
and developing the collaborative writing-tool
Nicholas and its extensions
[German]
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"user use
media - media use user - new media need a
culture": joachim maier and rené bauer
have been working and experimenting with their
writing- and media-tool Nicholas for some time.
Nicholas offers a so-called "schwebendes
schreiben", hovering writing and has been tested
in different seminars at universities. in their
unique style maier and bauer describe those
tests and the specific characteristics of the
new tool as well as its cultural and media
embedding.
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/03-01-Bauer-Maier.htm
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Game
structure and narrative structure in graphic
adventure games [German]
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Nothing
new under the sun. - Klaus Walter analyzes the
specific potential of "interactive narrative" in
adventure games. He separates game-play and
narrative and describes "interactive narrative"
as an additive chain of selections which
generate nothing more than simple changes
between playful and narrative units.
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/02-25-Walter.htm
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Jane
Yellowlees Douglas: "The End of Books - or Books
without End?" [German]
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Beat Suter
reviews "The End of Books - or Books without
End?" by Jane Yellowlees Douglas. The central
question of the book is how to read a
hyperfiction. How do I approach digital
literature? Besides the well-known textual
hypertexts by Moulthrop and Joyce Douglas
considers a few so-called "digital narratives"
(selected games) in her thorough research. And
Douglas outlines something called "New Realism",
a phenomenon which will shape the future of
reading.
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/02-25-Suter.htm
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Website
www.game-culture.com -
a
Website-Review [German]
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A center
of information for game studies or a private
collection of resources? Anja Rau tries to find
out if the editor Sue Morris reaches the
indicated aims with her website
www.game-culture.com. Are the presented
information really significant for the gaming
community? Rau's contribution starts with the
fundamental question of how to review a
collection of online resources, it is the
followed by a review of the details of
game-culture.com.
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/02-25-Rau.htm
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Concreativity
as a category of digital literature
[German]
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Please
continue writing yourself right here! - The
scientific research of projects by several
authors finds itself not only in a jungle of
definitions but in need of thorough research.
Judith Mathez takes a critical look at some
definitions and introduces us to the category of
"Concreativity". She places multiple authoring
in a literary and sociological environment. And
she analyzes some central characteristics of
this literary category of "Concreativity" with
examples of digital media for children and young
adults.
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/02-25-Mathez.htm
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Narrative
structures of screen games. "Riven" versus
"Pokémon" [German]
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"Riven"
and "Pokémon" are two classic screen
games which use two different narrative
concepts. In Riven the player is immersed by
narrative density and a first-person
perspective, in Pokémon the immersive
aspect is to be found in the dialog structure of
the game. Mela Kocher draws parallels to
face-to-face-communication and reading of
literary print-texts with means of speech act
theory and iser's reader response theory.
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/02-25-Kocher.htm
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can
we run games on the human game-console? play or
eject? [German]
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the
provocative question is the starting point for
the two-sided essay by rené bauer and
joachim maier - which again is part of their
amazing project of collaborative writing
experiments. the central subject is
"zusammenzüge", merging objects in gaming
worlds. is your screen starting to flicker? are
we still playing? how much should a game
designer earn? can be be played on? play or
eject?
http://www.dichtung-digital.com/2002/02-25-Bauer-Maier.htm
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