Tool Builders

I am, for a number of reason, very often reminded of the proverb:

If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you give a man a fishing rod, you feed him for a lifetime.

…or one of the many incarnations of it. Largely, I think, down to the fact that I am forever learning and discovering new tools: programming, drawing, physical computing. I am gradually working my way through the many videos of speakers of the recent Eyeo festival (of which there are many) and was taken by what Amit Pitaru had to say with regards to the proverb [near the end]:

 

 

Pitaru talks of the privileged position we are in. By we I am talking about the generation of multidisciplinary emergent workers who have skills and tools at our finger tips (I have prematurely added myself to this category). Particularly in reference to those which use programming as a means to design or produce art. If there is something we like the look of, we no longer have to wait for the passer-by to give us the fishing rod or show us how to use it; we take what we want and learn how to use it, free-of-charge*. Now it is up to us to decide what it is we want to do with these new tools.

Pitaru has dedicated a lot of his work to helping others. He has used his newfound skills to help produce new tools to help the disabled interact with the world, for example. I have been in an enveloping world of learning and practicing varying languages and forms of programming for about 2 years now and I am just getting to the stage where I feel I can make tools for others to use. My first venture being Ideas-Bank; led by my fascination and fondness of Open Source culture. It is not exactly popular, but I am finding myself using it really quite often. Now I know that I can create tools that I find useful, very soon I should be looking at what I can make that really will benefit others—particularly those who are not as privileged as I am.

Josh

*This is a point in itself which I am sure to return to; mostly regarding education.

Doing Everything

When I approach a new project, whatever it may be, I approach it with the assumption that I will be doing it alone and therefore doing everything. But recently, I’ve been thinking about projects which will ultimately require another person who is particularly skilled in an area of practice different to mine, to do the stuff I can’t do. Normally, I would slave away learning a new skill-set to get to the point where I can do everything, but I am finally starting to learn that that is a bad work ethic. One such skill-set is programming.

It’s quickly becoming apparent that to make really interesting and exciting new interactive applications that are computer driven programmed pieces of software, you have to really know how to code — by that I mean studied computer science and devoted a large amount of time to just learning how to program, often in more that one language. This talk by Jonathan Blow points out all the things that make up a video game and just how much code there is. Braid had over 90,000 lines of code in it. That’s crazy considering it is just a 2D platformer.

I also recently found out that Marc ten Bosch, the creator of a game that looks very interesting and experimental, has a undergraduate degree in Computer Science and further two Masters in the subject. That is why he can make games like Miegakure which is a platformer that has a fourth dimension:

(But is probably also why he gives his games Japanese names when he is definitely not which is really gay – but still the game looks good)

So what do I do now? I’m gonna carry on learning some code, but I think I may go back to the non-programmer way of coding and stop kidding myself into thinking “Maybe will learn at least one programming language, it can’t be that hard and surely it’ll help me.” Well maybe it isn’t helping me — maybe I am wasting my time. That said though I am nearly done with all the exercises on Code Academy which is a great site that teaches you JavaScript in a series of exercises. And funnily enough it employs techniques used by game developers such as a points based system and achievements which you gain upon each exercise completion — but, you know, there’s no foolin’ me any more. Any way, I’ll do that, go back to using Processing and make crappy programmes. But, in good time I intend to contact a programmer, maybe someone still at university in a similar position to me. Someone who can make programmes but they’re really boring and look crap. That’s the dream any way.

Doing it for the dreamers.

Josh

Ian Bogost — On Serious Games

I just watched this quite interesting lecture by Ian Bogost talking about ‘Serious Games’. I don’t think the term is completely appropriate, and neither does he. But essentially he talks about games which have the intention of teaching the user something by immersing them in a constructed model — a model which may be representative of the world we live in, or of a world we perhaps do not.

That concept in itself is what intrigues me. Through watching a number of lectures on game design, I think I am coming to the conclusion that I’m not interested in making games as such, but more so in the idea that games provide an experience for the user whereby they make decisions in a separate world on behalf of a character or avatar which they control.

The first example he provides of Animal Crossing is perhaps the most interesting in the whole talk. The fact that Bogost’s five-year-old son, left to his own devices and playing the game unsupervised has got to a point where he is having to make real-world decisions about real-world problems which are really quite mature – such as debt and how to budget to lead a well rounded life (albeit a virtual one). I find this astounding.

At first I thought this may only be prevalent in the mind of a naive five-year-old who is more susceptible to immersion into another world and would genuinely worry about their virtual counterpart. But this is not the case when you just look at examples which do exactly the same thing to an older audience; game’s like World of Warcraft, The Sims and even games like Farmville. All these games set you up with a virtual avatar, under your control, who lives in a world of their own and can live and die just like you can, but the avatar relies on you to make their decisions – which leads to the same mindset of Bogost’s son.

In the talk below, Jonathan Blow talks about games like Farmville and the effect they have on the users. How such a simple mundane game which requires absolutely no skill or tactical thinking and evokes no level of thinking in any sense, can become so addicting to even a mature user.

This is not one of Blow’s best talks and it seems quite messy – he tends to stray from a topic with the intention of returning, but never does. Never-the-less, some interesting points made.

Josh

Games as a Medium

I’ve re-entered the world of programming as of late (I’ve tried a number of times in the past, but didn’t get very far) and it has led me quite naturally to the world of video games. For one thing, I’ve always wanted to make some kind of video game. I don’t really know why. But I do know I want to control it at every level though, from design, to programming, to animating and so on (this is what I’ve tried in the past, but it hasn’t worked out) – at least for one, small game any way.

I don’t want to enter the video game industry as, perhaps, I would have quite liked to when I was younger, but I have come across some interesting ideas in the video game world. There are some designers who are seeking to progress video games as a medium, just as film, music, literature and so on have progressed from mere entertainment, to something which has an intrinsic ability to carry meaning which has the power to affect the ‘user’ in some way. One such game designer is Jonathan Blow.

Jonathan Blow has a number of lectures on YouTube in which he repeatedly puts forward his ideas that current video games are shit – he touches of a few of the things he’s interested in, in the short interview above. AAA Games (blockbuster games) of today are games which rely on very simple interactive premises and hand-holding progression techniques which guide the user very easily through the game rewarding the user along the way. This, according to Blow, is bad because it does not progress video games as a medium. For that to happen the games that need to be produced need to let the user think for themselves and interact with the game in such a way that they can discover and learn at their own pace — like an interactive piece of fine art, in a way.

Personally I find this interesting, I’m not quite sold on the idea and I’m definitely not convinced that video games are or will be in the arena as film, music and literature, but I do agree that games can become something else. But that, in my mind, inherits new problems. To what extent can a game “become something else” but still be considered a game. Maybe that’s a good thing? Maybe the umbrella title of video game detracts from it’s viability to become something deeper and meaningful and so needs a new title? A meaningful video game, could easily become an interactive piece of art in a gallery setting? Does it only become a video game in a teenagers bedroom setting?

I’ll come back to this.

Josh