Games Britannia Part 2,3

Games Britannia Part 2

In this episode of Games Britannia Woolley follows the political and social impact that board games have had in Britain over the last 200 years. Britain was the first nation to come up with the concept of board games as a means of education, these ideas later found themselves exported to America where it saw thriving success economically. 

This episode also looks deeply into Monopoly and its success, he also links the games origins to a game called Communism, the irony is quite entertaining when you discover it was in fact based on a Communist game but focuses itself on a Capitalist overview of the world. It also shows how games like this, while distasteful in the eyes of some, are still incredibly popular to this day. 

Wooley also surveys the way board games have evolved, how they can move beyond the tangible pieces and into the realms of fantasy and imagination. A perfect example of this is Dungeons and Dragons . These sorts games have become just as popular thanks to their ability to free the player of the physical shackles and many constraints presented by a board game.


Games Britannia Part 3

Part 3 focused mainly on video games and how they've progressed over the years.

The first game of note that is covered is Elite; Elite is an old retro space exploration-trading game in which the player uses a ship to try and reach elite status through either trade or combat. Many mechanics from this game are present then to this day. Even though the game hasn't survived the test of time, the ideals, features and mechanics it introduced have.

Lara Croft also featured in the documentary; she was described as the real revolutionary point in game characters; finally we were starting to focus on the character and the importance of their story. Games were beginning to structure them self around the character, not the adventure. This was the beginning of the change. Some people opposed to Lara's appearance however. She had the body of a supermodel and was simply thought of as a 'Pamela Anderson solving problems'.

Narrative and Games

the main parts of the narrative in a game can be broken down into five main sections as shown below:

A protagonist
A conflict
A struggle
A moral
A resolution

These are all necessary components that are required in order to establish a well structured narrative. This teaches the first lesson that is to follow the requirements for a story structure.

The second point is that people are the most interesting thing in stories so focus upon this. However this reference does not have to be absolute. There are films that apparently 'revolve' around items but instead they are about the story of the person holding the thing, such as Frodo and the ring in Lord of the Rings.

There is always a conflict in a story, whether it is a major conflict such as a war or a minor conflict such as being late for a bus.

Games also involve puzzles, however the third lesson is that puzzles are not necessary to a story.

Choices are an important and often a story is built up around the idea of the protagonist making the single key choice.

Spectacle is another method of telling the narrative, utilising exotic imagery to allow the viewers to enjoy the sight. Lesson number four is learned from here and that is how spectacles do not make a story this is more noticeable in modern day first person shooters.

games Brittania episode 1

This is the first part of the series of three with Benjamin Woolley

In this first part of the series he focuses on the history of modern board games and their evolutionary path from ancient board games.

is is shown that many of the early game where influenced by war and religion. It was a way in which ancient civilisations could play out war strategies which they could not do in real life.

the games shown in the documentry where:

The Stanway Game
The stanway game was discovered in Colchester, Essex and is the earliest known discovery of a complete game set found. As no dice were with the game it was thought to have been a game of strategy like Chess.

Alea Evangeli
In this game each player had different roles, One player had to escort the king piece to the corner while the other player attempted to stop him. The game was played on a grid however unlike modern games you played on the lines rather than within the grid spaces.

Gyan Chaupar
This game was very interesting and it gave birth to the bland and derivative game of snakes and ladders. It was the Hindi game of knowledge and enlightenment. It plays just like snake and ladders except different parts of the board had different and deep meanings

Pervasive Games and La decima vittima

A pervasive game is primarily a location based game where either by ariving at location or completing a task there will allow you to progress in the game there are some of the popular and well known genres such as: Treasure Hunting, LARPs (Live Action Roleplays), AUGS (augmented reality) and Assassination. Out of all pervasive games the one that has got the most media attention has to be the game of assassination/killers this would be mainly down to police misinterpreting the game when seeing people with a plastic gun and thinking it was real.

All pervasive games are played outside of a console or artificial environment and instead are played in what could be considered the real world. Often they involve tools that relate to the game such as a GPS for treasure hunting, 'weapons' for assassination or maps and instructions in sports and adventures.

In the movie, 'La Decima Vittima'. it gives an example of how a publicly known pervasive game could potentially act out. In the movie the world is full of killers and targets. The 'game' of sorts is common knowledge to the point where outright murder is allowed as long as a player can identify that they are taking part.

New vs Old Games Journalism

Old Games Journalism:

This form of journalism is the type I expected to find regarding games, this method focuses and analyses the separate parts that form the video game such as graphics, gameplay, interface and control. This would be seen as a more factual style article. You would normally see this type of article written as a 'pro's and con's list' or in paragraphs of text in an overview.

New Games Journalism:

This would be best described as an article written by the writer/player responding to the thing they have experienced in the game world including interacting with other players online. this primarily shows the personal opinion of the game and can often be heavily biased depending on the  players preference/ability to enjoy that genre of game this sort of journalism can often be found on areas of youtube.

Remediation

Remediation, it is to use one form of media for another purpose and that remediation is the defining characteristic created from that new purpose.

Forms of Remediation:

Immediacy - The aim to make a viewer be wholly drawn into the experience making them forget seeing or watching. Examples could be immersive virtual reality or photo realistic images.

Hypermediacy - Items/media that purposely calls attention to their own constructed nature all the time. Examples of this could be video game HUD's.

 Why Remediation is Used:

There are multiple reasons. It can take a long time for a new medium to develop new forms of content.

Another reason is to improve upon an existing media, an example of which could again be computer games. Computer gaming is a relatively new form of media when compared to music or film. They stared out as 2D simplistic games on a screen but have since become 3D and increasing more complex. Companies are still taking computer games further and further examples of this can be seen in devices currently in production such as the oculus rift this is a virtual reality headset.

Technoludic Films:

Technoludic films are a mix of Technology and Ludus (Latin for Play).

Technoludic Film as Commentary - Video games are subordinated to the film. Example movies would be 'The Lawnmower Man' (1991), 'Existenz' (1999), 'The Matrix Triology' (1999ff).

Technoludic Film as Quotation - Games appear in the film for illustrative purposes. They are not central to the theme of the film but form part of the fictional world the film is trying to create. Example movies would be 'Blade Runner' (1982), 'Clockers' (1997), 'Inception' (2010).

Technoludic Films as Remediation (1) Adaption - Films using a direct adaption of games as a source of text for the film. Example movies would be 'Super Mario Brothers' (1993), 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider' (2001), 'Dead or Alive' (2006).

Technoludic Films as Remediation (2) Incorporation - Films that incorporate the narratives and/or style traditionally found within computer games. Example movies would be 'Groundhog Day' (1993), 'Toy Story' (1995), 'Run Lola Run' (1998).

Paida, Ludus, Agon, Mimicry, Alea and Ilinx

Paida or the idea of 'Free Play'. This can range through different games that do not require set up rules to be played,. A good example of a game is minecraft as there may be physical restraints however there is no real end goal or rules for winning.


Ludus is the opposite, it is the 'Rule oriented play'. This is any game that has a pre-arranged rule set that must be followed to play the game. This differs from Paida because the rules are changeable in Paida and do not affect the outcome of the game, whereas if the rules are changed in Ludus games then it becomes a different game entirely. 


The above are two general terms for describing games that can be further broken down. expand  upon these terms with the further classification of Agon, Mimicry, Alea and Linux.


Agon is the idea of a game based around competition and would apply to the competitive sports or any score based game, 


Mimicry is the idea of a game based around simulating a real life environment. This includes the obvious simulator games, such as train, plane, farm etc.


Alea is the idea of a game based around chance. This can include games such as tetris, which would offer you random pieces from a pool or even games that are centered around gambling, such as blackjack or roulette.


Ilinx is the final topic and is related to games based around the idea of movement, horizontal and vertical. This can also apply to a game such as racing, because it involves moving but can be extended to most sports.

a game does not have to be limited to one or even two of these aspects but can often incorporate nearly all of the above for example tetris would apply to ludus, agon, alea and llinx.