Super Mario Bros. Not In The MoMA?!

Super Mario Bros.

Super Mario Bros. is a classic Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game that was developed and published by Nintendo Co.. It is a platform game that came

Box Cover Art

out for the NES on September 13, 1985. The purpose of the game is for the main character, Mario to go through Mushroom Kingdom to try to rescue his love interest. His love interest is Princess Toadstool (or Princess Peach as most know her as) who was stolen from the villain that goes by the name of Bowser. The game has a multiplayer mode, where the second player has the ability to play Mario’s brother, Luigi. The game consists of  8 different worlds with each world containing 4 different levels. The game play consists of only being able to go left and right and jump up and down. There is no 3-d representation of space, however as Mario moves, so does the space. You can jump into tubes that lead to different spaces. While traveling, there is enemies that pop up that try to kill you. If you touch any one of them, then you have to restart the level. There is also a time limit that constricts the players from staying in a certain level for unlimited amount of time. You start with 3 lives and you slowly keep progressing through worlds trying to save the princess. Mario has the ability jump on the enemies to defeat them, however as you progress through the varying levels, you have the ability to get items that enable Mario to kill the enemies with a projectile.  The items that Mario can get are coins, super mushrooms, fire flowers, super stars and 1-up mushrooms. Super Mario Bros. there is no tutorial on how the game mechanics work, the players have to learn through experience since they are forced to. Progressively the levels get much more difficult and there are more obstacles. On the final level, the player has to solve puzzles and they encounter almost all of the enemies all in one level. You are able to defeat the real Bowser and once you do, you save the Princess. However, she posses a challenge called Hard mode where there are modifications added to the game. When the game was released, it boomed and everyone wanted the game. The game sold millions of copies. This game created many successors to the point that it created a Mario Franchise. Even now, Nintendo is continuously creating new content for their platforms. Just in 2016, they released Super Mario Run on iOS and Android devices. However, as much as Super Mario Bros. has a legacy, it has not been able to be put in any museum.

An artist by the name of Cory Arcangel modified the cartridge of Super Mario Bros. to erase everything but only showcase the clouds. Since creating this art piece, Super Mario Clouds has been in 9 different museums from 2004 to 2015. This is as close as Super Mario Bros. has made it to any kind of museum. However, it made it into that museum since it was a form of modification which made it Video Game Art.  Super Mario Clouds is considered video game art since video game art is “art produced with or influenced by video games” (Clark and Mitchell, p.7). If a form of Super Mario Bros. can make it into a museum, then why can’t it be put into the MoMA?

MoMa and Video Games

The Museum of Modern Art is one of the most influential and aspiring museums for modern art. It s currently located in Manhattan in New York City. In November 29, 2012, Paola Antonelli, the Senior Curator of Architecture and Design, announced that the MoMA acquired 14 different games to their collection. She included these 14 games in the Applied Design exhibition.

• Pac-Man (1980)
• Tetris (1984)
• Another World (1991)
• Myst (1993)
• SimCity 2000 (1994)
• vib-ribbon (1999)
• The Sims (2000)
• Katamari Damacy (2004)
• EVE Online (2003)
• Dwarf Fortress (2006)
• Portal (2007)
• flOw (2006)
• Passage (2008)
• Canabalt (2009)

Before this installation of the 14 games mentioned above. From December 12, 2010 to April 10, 2011. The MoMA PS1 (focuses on contemporary art) included a large scale-interactive video-game installation called Long March:Restart (2008). It was created by Feng Mengbo and it uses a wireless controller to play. This game has strikingly similarities to Super Mario Bros. with identical gaming mechanisms. However, MoMA has yet to actually include Super Mario Bros. in there gallery.

After, she talked in a Ted Talk where she explained why she included games into the MoMA. Her guidelines will be used to try to argue why Super Mario Bros. should be put into the MoMA. Her guidelines were a criteria of selection, exhibition and preservation.

Paola Antonelli strongly believes in design, specifically interactive design. She states that she put video games into the MoMA not because she sees them as art but because she sees them as interactive design (which itself is an art form).

“Video games aren’t art because they are quite thoroughly something else: code” Paola Antonelli (2013)

Code. Code according to Antonelli is what a video game is defined as. However, John Sharp states that “[art games] uses innate properties of games— among them interactivity, player goals, and obstacles providing challenge for the player—to create revealing and reflective experiences” (p.12).

“So when I talk about it [interaction], I don’t talk only about video games, which are in a way the purest form of interaction, unadulterated by any kind of function or finality.” Paola Antonelli (2013)

Paola Antonelli’s Guidelines for getting into the MoMA:

Aesthetics

“As in other forms of design, formal elegance has different manifestations that vary according to the technology available.” Paola Antonelli (2012)

According to Antonelli, it is important for a game to have aesthetics. There are many ways you can see as Super Mario Bros. as being aesthetic. For example if you trail each jump he does, it can be seen as a melody that is controlled by the player. Simon Niedenthal (p.2) defines aesthetic as three major things:

1. The sensory phenomena that the player encounters in the game.

2. Aspects of digital games that are shared with other art forms.

3. An expression of the game experienced as pleasure, emotion, sociability, formgiving etc.

Considering Niedenthal’s definition, Super Mario Bros. conveys the a good portion of the senses. You are able to see, hear and touch aspects of the game. You see the screen, you hear the music in the game, and you touch the controller that controls the virtual world of the game. The aspect that this game shares with art forms is the color scheme of the game. The designers of the game, designed the game to have a variety of colors that please the eyes. Pleasure is an expression the game experiences since when you finally rescue the princess, the player feels pleasure in finally finishing and accomplishing the ultimate goal.

Space

“The space in which the game exists and evolves—built with code rather than brick and mortar—is an architecture that is planned, designed, and constructed according to a precise program, sometimes pushing technology to its limits in order to create brand new degrees of expressive and spatial freedom.” Paola Antonelli (2012)

According to Antonelli’s definition of space, Super Mario Bros. contains a specific kind of space. The game is 2-D with varying color schemes. Mario is able to move forward, back and up. An interesting concept of space is when Mario goes into the tubes, he disappears from the visual representation of space and comes back in a different space. The mechanics are the same but the environment has changed. The coding of the game enables the player to teleport into varying different spaces. The game consisted of only 32 kilobytes of memory, so it was definitely pushing technology to its limits by having such complex spatial orientations in compact memory storage.

Time

“Interaction design is quintessentially dynamic, and the way in which the dimension of time is expressed and incorporated into the game—through linear or multi-level progressions, burning time crushing obstacles and seeking rewards and goals, or simply wasting it—is a crucial design choice.” Paola Antonelli (2012)

Time is essentially something very important in games. Without time, there is no pressure to finish the game or to compete against anyone. In Super Mario Bros. there is concept of time on the top corner. This lets the individuals fight their way to the finishing flag. Especially since the game does not include any kind of manual, individuals are forced to learn the game while trying to beat the clock. There are many individuals who have devoted their lives to a concept called speed running. This concept consists of players trying to finish a level as quickly as possible. There are tournaments hosted for people trying to get world records and these tournaments are focused around time and the concept of competition.

Behavior

“The scenarios, rules, stimuli, incentives, and narratives envisioned by the designers come alive in the behaviors they encourage and elicit from the players, whether individual or social.” Paola Antonelli (2012)

According to Antonelli, Behavior is the most important in the criteria for the MoMA. Super Mario Bros., has scenarios, rules, stimuli, incentives and narratives. It has scenarios since there are multiple worlds and modifications of the core game that makes each level and world a different experiences. Whether you are playing for fun, for achievements, or for speed, the game has variation. There are clear rules in the game, you have the rule of time, the rule of your interactions with the obstacles, and the rule of gravity. Time is an important rule that keeps the player playing. The rule with obstacles, says that you can’t touch certain ones but you can others. If you touch the bad ones, you lose a life which essentially makes you restart. Gravity is a rule that focuses the players on how to jump and when so they do not hit certain obstacles or fall to their death. The stimuli and incentive that this game conveys is the satisfaction of passing each level. You feel pleasure by passing a level, finishing a level quicker than your friends or finishing a level with the most points. The narrative of Super Mario Bros. is simple, you go and save the princess from the big bad villain. Of course, the villain has minions that he has sent to stop you, however the good guys always win at the end.

Conclusion

Ultimately, Super Mario Bros. is a revolutionary game in the gaming industry. Individuals who might not play the game, know of the game. There has been so many successors to this landmark in history that it would be nearly impossible for someone to not know of this game. Considering other games that have been included in the MoMA, there is no reason why Super Mario Bros. isn’t in the collection. It contains all of the criteria that Paola Antonelli asks for plus it contains such a huge legacy that it is absolutely ridiculous that its not in the gallery. This game is a timeless classic.

As John Sharp states;

“Super Mario Bros. provides a useful baseline for what a video game is.  All the core components of a game are present: a goal for the player to achieve, actions with which the player can pursue the goal, and resistance thwarting the player’s progress toward the goal, all contain within a play space” (p.8).

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References:

Antonelli, Paola. “Video Games: 14 in the Collection, for Starters.” InsideOut. The Museum of Modern Art, 29 Nov. 2012. Web. 09 May 2017. Retrieved from https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2012/11/29/video-games-14-in-the-collection-for-starters/.

Antonelli, Paola. (2013). “Why I Brought Pac-Man to MoMA.” TEDSalon NY2013. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/paola_antonelli_why_i_brought_pacman_to_moma?language=en

Clarke, Andy and Mitchell, Grethe . (2007). “Introduction.” In Videogames and Art. Bristol; Chicago: Intellect. pp. 7-22.

John Sharp. (2015). “Artgames.” In Works of Game.

Niedenthal (2009). What we Talk About When we Talk About Game Aesthetics. http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/09287.17350.pdf

It’s Culling Time!

The Culling is a unique game.

It was developed by Xaviant and it was released for early access in March 04, 2016.

Is it a Game?

Unlike many Battle Royal games with similar attributes (like crafting), The Culling has a close combat fighting style. Unlike games like H1Z1 King of the Kill, where the game play depends solely on gunfire combat with little bits of crafting, The Culling has a game currency system (F.U.N.C), particular perks, and air drops with weapons.

The Culling itself is a lot like The Hunger Games where you can call packages that give you weapons or tools that can shape how you battle. Also there are teams in The Culling, however there is no dramatic final fight against your partner, when you win together the victory is shared and so are the rewards. The Culling sets place in an island where there is no place to escape.

“A game is a rule-based system with a variable and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels emotionally attached to the outcome and the consequences of the activity are negotiable” -Jasper Juul

According to the quote above, The Culling fits into Jasper Juul’s definition of what a game is. For example The Culling fits the six game features that Jasper Juul mentions in Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds.

1. Rules: For the game to end and have a winner, players must kill each other at any cost. They must attack each other, whether with a weapon or their fists. If they refuse to and decide to hide on the outskirt of the island, Acid fog comes in phases to kill those who do not participate.
2. Variable: Winning and losing. You die and it has a negative connotation, you win and it had a positive connotation.
3. Valorization of outcome: Winning the game and being the last one (or team) standing, gives the players more value than when they lose
4. Player Effort: The players have to decide what they use their F.U.N.C. for, whether they decide to save it for a better weapon or use it immediately to craft a weapon. Those who invest their time in strategizing on using their F.U.N.C. are the ones who win games
5. Player attached to outcome: Player wins and gets the satisfaction of surviving the massacre even if they killed nobody the whole game and killed the last person.
6. Negotiable consequences: Tournaments exists that enable players to win money.

Is it Art?

The Culling is art because it is an experience tailored by the developers in the same way an art piece has an underlying meaning behind it put there by the artist, although some art has no meaning and that’s the point in this case, The Culling is the type of art with a specific message.

In Playing Politics in Understanding Machinima As Live performance and Document Joseph DeLappe says “There were multiple instances of slippage between my physical being and my virtual presence”(p. 156). This quote relates to The Culling because just like the game Second Life, we are meant to see ourselves inside this world where we are put to fight each other to the death, and see from the perspective of our avatars just as if they were ourselves. By playing this game in such a way that the developers wanted and by association putting ourselves into this dark world we are seeing the message of the game. A message that speaks of a world that is not too different from our own with a few less morals, of a world that has people getting enjoyment from seeing others suffer and fight for their own freedom. In a sense, it calls back to when gladiators used to fight in the Colosseum. They fought in a similar situation, the only thing that has changed between that and this game is the setting and time. Perhaps the message the game is trying to get across is that we live in a world that is not too far off from the future and this reality. It has already happened in the past, there just needs to be the right circumstances and we can have the world we are playing in.

Perception of Rules as Art:

In The Definition of Play and The Classification of Games by Roger Caillois, he states that “rules are inseparable from play as soon as the latter becomes institutionalized. From this moment on they become part of its nature”(p. 141). The idea of rules in a game like The Culling does not make sense since it’s a game that is portraying a darker reality where there are no rules during battling, however because there are, it helps to ground the player into the world and helps them dive into something that is not reality. Most people live their lives following rules, whether it be laws or rules of conduct, most people are grounded by rules and expect them to be there, even in a world where you are forced to kill other people for entertainment. If The Culling were to have no rules in regards to fighting and coordinating, then this would be a deterrent. There needs to be rules to the game because without rules there is no game, but also without rules the player would fail to immerse themselves in such a reality because it would be harder to imagine themselves in it. Rules aid in immersion and in getting the games message across.
In The Culling’s case the message only adds on to the fuel of what makes the game so great. Since we are immersed in this world we become self-aware of how close this type of reality is to our own but it’s just different enough to hold our interests. As a result of that, we want to explore and learn more about this world, and learn how this type of organization was created. Essentially The Culling gives us the tools to reach out and learn more information. Likewise it lets us see our own world in a different way because of the immersion we had in the virtual one, and just like art, the game changes our perception of things.

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References:

Roger Caillois. (2006 [1959]). “The Definition of Play and The Classification of Games” in Game Design Reader. Edited by K. Salen and E. Zimmerman: pp. 122-155.

Jesper Juul. (2005). “Video Games and the Classic Game Model” in Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. Cambridge: MIT Press: pp. 23-54.

Joseph DeLappe. (2013). “Playing Politics: Machinima as Live Performance and Document.” In Understanding Machinima: Essays on Filmmaking in Virtual Worlds, edited by J. Ng. Bloomsbury Academic.

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A-mei-zing!

The artist of a game can come from very different backgrounds and stories, however Overwatch is unique and can only have one real artist.

Overwatch is created by Blizzard Entertainment, where the gameplay is team based and multiplayer. It was released in May 2016 and with 21 heroes and 3 more heroes were later released. A new hero is currently in the process of being released this March 23rd. Unlike Blizzard’s other games like World Of Warcraft, Overwatch is a first person shooter game. Since the released of the game Overwatch’s player count has reach 20 million players.

Overwatch is a very simple game to play. Each individual hero has different abilities and ultimates that they can use throughout the games. Each game consists of 6 players per team. One team tries to attack while the other defends or both teams are trying to capture the point. The game requires a lot of teamwork and strategies to be able to play well. There are 4 categories of heroes that include Defense, Offense, Support and Tank. My personal favorite hero and my main is Pharah. There is competitive seasons where you can play and get ranked in a ranking system. By participating, you are able to get points for golden guns in the game. The ranking ranges from bronze to grand master.

“We really do want to create a Blizzard universe that is worthy of standing alongside Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo” – Jeff Kaplan

The true artist of Overwatch is, Jeff Kaplan, the Vice President of Blizzard and game director of Overwatch. Him and his team were working on a big project called Titan but it got cancelled and Blizzard released Overwatch instead. However he was not the only contributing member that came up with the idea of Overwatch. Howard S. Becker states, “To begin (an art masterpiece), someone must have an idea of what kind of work is to be made and of its specific form”. Arnold Tsang and Geoff Goodman both helped design some class settings and draw amazing characters.

Kaplan earned a Bachelor of Arts degree one english with an emphasis  on creative writing from the University of Southern California then later earned a Masters in Fine Arts degree in creative writing. Before becoming the game director and leader of Overwatch he worked on World of Warcraft’s designs. The reason I believe he is the artist is because he is the leader of the development and creation of Overwatch. Like Roland Barthes states in The Death of the Author, “the explanation of the work is always sought in the man who has produced it, as if, through the more or less transparent allegory of fiction, it was always finally the voice of one and the same person, the author, which delivered his “confidence” (p.2). I see Jeff Kaplan as the author, creator, of Overwatch, however I try to do the opposite of what Barthes is saying and try to focus on the work that Kaplan has done for Overwatch.

It is important to attribute the label of artist to this game because it gives the game a sense of ownership to a particular person. Whenever there is an update or something big to be released, Jeff Kaplan is the person that states it and shares the information to the huge community. This reddit AMA is an example of Jeff Kaplan interacting with the community whilst giving out information about the future of Overwatch. Without Jeff Kaplan being the face of Overwatch, then there wouldn’t be one person that we could go to ask questions, say suggestions or give input that could benefit the game. With these community suggestions we as players become apart of the games creation and evolution because of this we become the artists along side Jeff Kaplan. This not only gives people incentive to be apart of the Overwatch community, because their opinions about the things they love matter, but it also creates a lasting player base, because people are more likely to stick  with a game that they feel they have contributed to. It also sets a path that changes a game that will get lost in obscurity to a game that will stand the test of time. Like countries need presidents, we need artists that become leaders of our favorite games.

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References:

Howard Becker. (1982). “Art Worlds and Collective Activity” in Art Worlds. Berkeley: University of California Press: pp. 1-39.

Roland Barthes. (1977 [1967]). “The Death of the Author.” In Image, Music, Text. New York:Hill and Wang.

The Art in Theft

Art is term that has been defined in many various ways. However a few individuals have connected art into games. The game I played included aspects of Idea, Form, and Ideal all characteristics of art, at least according to G. W. F. Hegel.

The game I decided to play is Grand Theft Auto V, made by Rockstar Games. I chose this game specifically because it has one of the most beautiful graphics that I have ever seen. The game consists of a story mode and an online mode, however both modes live in the same map just different servers. In the story mode, you follow the lives of 3 different characters as they join together to do illegal things. In the online mode (the one I played most of), you have the ability to have your own character and personalize it. In the both modes you are free to explore anywhere in the massive map but in online you can play with your friends. Time exists in the game since there is a night and day no matter who is on a session, Rockstars servers are on 24/7. In both modes, you have missions in which you’d up doing illegal things to earn money that you can spend on outfits, houses, and cars. In the online mode you are able to do races and death-matches with your friends or random people online.  While playing the game, I was just fully blown away at how gorgeous the graphics looked (I had everything on Ultra on my PC) and I am amazed at how much work the graphic designers took into the little details.

Not only is it the most recent game in the Grand Theft Auto series, it is also the most graphically designed game. According to this article,  Rockstar North President, Leslie Benzies states that over 1,000 people worked on the details of Grand Theft Auto V. To me this shows some hard ass dedication for a game. Imagine the effort it took for Vincent van Gogh to paint Starry Night in each stroke. Now think that but magnified by 1000 people working together to design a whole virtual world.

Behind the Scenes of creating GTA V

How is it art? According to  G.W.F. Hegel in Philosophy of Fine Art, Ideal art is a mixture of Idea and Form which creates good art (p.80). For Hegel, idea consists of content of art and Form being a configuration of sensous material. With these definitions in mind, Grand Theft Auto V is ideal art. It includes Idea because of its essence of game and its dynamics. What makes Grand Theft Auto 5, a Grand Theft Auto is the specific way you can play. It is an open world game which lets you travel in an immense amount of space, it lets you do illegal things without any of the consequences and it lets you customize your character to personify your own identity without losing its own identity. This game also includes form in its playability with a couple senses. The senses it includes are, hearing, sight and touch. You hear the game’s music, and all the little details like non-player characters that speak to you when you bump into them. With GTA Online, you are able to interact with other players through voice and you can interact with them even if they are across the world. You see the graphics of the game and you might not actually touch the virtual world but you are able to correspond movements with your controller/keyboard and the world. Every movement you do with your hands and the controller/keyboard, is shown in this virtual reality. There is also VR headsets that lets you have a full virtual reality experience, as if you were inside the game.

The biggest proof for me that Grand Theft Auto is art is the graphical design/aesthetics of the game. William Raymond defines aesthetics as being now in common use to refer to questions of visual appearance and effect (p. 25). The visual appearance of GTA V is appalling and breathtaking, the graphics almost make it seem like a real life picture. Not just the graphics are improved but the designers were able to completely build the city of Los Angeles in the game almost exactly the same. The ability to be able to fully replicate one of the biggest cities in California is art all in itself. It is a matter of connecting a reality into another reality that makes it so beautiful. Not only do you create it but you enable it to be explored without actually being there. Overall, I enjoyed my experience with this game and still think that it is one of the most beautiful games I have ever played.

I give this game 8 stolen dollar bills out of 10.

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References:

G. W. E. Hegel. (1998 [1826]). “Philosophy of Fine Art.” In The Art of Art History: A CriticalAnthology, edited by D. Preziosi. Oxford: Oxford University Press: pp. 80-88.

Raymond Williams. (1985 [1976]). “Aesthetic,” “Art,” “Culture,” and “Dialectic.” In Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Revised Edition. New York: Oxford University Press.

I’m Not Lovin’ It

Is it a game?

When you search “McDonalds Game”, the first search result that pops up is a game made by Molleindustria. According to Molleindustria, this McDonalds game is a anti-advertisement game based on the fast food industry.

Without this knowledge, this game simply does not seem to have any kind of purpose other than cause frustration. The dynamics of the game are very rigid and simple but it can be classified as a game.

According to Bernard Suits, “To play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs [prelusory goal], using only means permitted by rules [lusory means], where the rules prohibit use of more efficient in favour of less efficient means [constitutive rules], and where the rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity [lusory attitude]” (Suits 1967, p. 156). Considering this definition of game, this McDonalds game is considered to be a game since there are certain rules you need to follow and theres no way to cheat the game. Nevertheless this game can be considered a game despite whether it is fun or not.

The classification of this game can be seen a simulation of the McDonalds empire since you are simulating as the owner of McDonalds by managing money with selling food and bribing officials to keep the public from outraging. You promote the food industry with advertisements to get more people to purchase more and you purchase land for your crops. Keep that in mind when you see figure 1. Figure 1 is a depiction of the classification of games according to Jesper Juul. As seen, Open-ended simulations are considered games in the sense of a borderline case.

Figure 1

The whole time I played the game, there was not a single inclination that there is an end goal to the game. I believe the main goal is to not go into bankruptcy and last as many years as possible.

The game starts off with a tutorial that explains how the game works and then you start in the year 2000. The simple design requires you to switch between 4 different options that include an agricultural section, feedlot, restaurant and corporates. The purpose of the game is to maintain your empire of fast food chain without going bankrupt. You have to switch between each 4 options whilst changing things in each to earn money. In my first try, I lasted for a pretty good while until the year 2039.

Bribe some people to calm the people

Although I came to the realization that after a while the fertility of the pastures that the cows were in, would slowly degrade and if you didn’t pay attention, they would become infertile and you would be unable to have cows there or any kind of plantation for your cows. After, you’d purchase land around and that made environmentalists angry since you were cutting trees. Since I had skimmed the tutorial, I did not know this information and kept trying to fix these issues. It took a couple of frustrating tried to finally figure out how to keep the land fertile without angering the environmentalists. Even then, other issues would arise that kept me frustrated rather than entertained. For example, some workers in the restaurant would start getting angry and spit in the food, if you didn’t keep them happy the customers would get sick from their spit and blame you. However, if you fired the employees, their union would file a lawsuit on you and you’d lose money and customers. It was an endless cycle of problems and issues that kept happening and kept making the game unpleasant.

A reason that I might’ve not liked this game as much as others can be explained with Ludica. Ludica states that, “Today’s hegemonic game industry has infused both individuals’ and societies’ experiences of games with values and norms that reinforce that industry’s technological, commercial and cultural investments in a particular definition of games and play, creating a cyclical system of supply and demand in which alternate products of play are marginalized and devalued”. I am one of those that can be considered “heavy gamers” and according to Ludica’s quote, I had an unpleasant experience with this game simply because of the game industry trying to supply games that I am demanding which is not simulation games.

In conclusion, according to Jesper Juul and Bernard Suits, this game is a game. To me this game is not fun at all. It is not fun to me because of Ludica’s explanation of the game industry trying to supply games which in turn devalues other games like this one.

Upon further research, I came upon this article that gives you hints for mastering the game. I wish I could’ve found it while I was playing the game so it could’ve been a much more enjoyable experience for me. I strongly believe that once fully understood,  the game has potential to be fun.

I give this game 3 cups of fries out of 10.

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References:

Fron, J., Fullerton, T., Morie, J. F., & Pearce, C. (2007, September). The hegemony of play. In Situated Play: Proceedings of Digital Games Research Association 2007 Conference. Tokyo, Japan (pp. 1-10).

Raging Piece of Meat!

Oh my! Game is a word that cannot easily be defined since there are many contexts within the word game. However Raph Koster, a game designer and entrepreneur, states in  A Theory of Fun for Game Design, that games are, “puzzles to solve, just like everything else we encounter in life” (34). Later he defines fun from games as “solving a puzzle” which lets us learn the game and keep playing it since it makes the brain feel good (40). In conclusion, playing games is solving puzzles that make you feel good.

“Games aren’t just a diversion; they’re something valuable and important” – Raph Koster

Raph Koster- Definer of Fun

 

However, Super Meat Boy was not a game that always made me feel good.

The game I chose to play is: Super Meat Boy which was developed by Team Meat. The main reason I chose this game was simply because I had heard of the game but had not played it and wanted to use this opportunity to try it out. Raph Koster’s definition of games fits perfectly with this game since the main goal of the game is to save a damsel in distress by solving a unique type of puzzle to save her. The puzzle consists of jumping/avoiding fatal obstacles. If you touch any of the obstacles even remotely, the level is restarted and you have to do everything again. The main villain of this game is Dr. Fetus, who abducts Bandage Girl because for some reason, he hates Meat Boy and wants to take his lover from him. Each time you solve these puzzling obstacles, you reach Bandage girl but Dr. Fetus comes and teleport her to a new place. Then you go to a new level with new obstacles. The game requires fine tuning and good timing because as you pass levels, the difficulty starts increasing.

Overall, I’d like to say that I enjoyed myself playing this game because when you would do a level for 50 times and finally finish, you would receive a piece joy for being done. However, there were many times that I thought I would quit playing in the 2 weeks that I played this game for. Raph Koster explains that the brain, “craves new data, new data is all it needs to flesh out a pattern”(42). This can be applied to my experience of certain levels in the game. I would play one level so many times that I would get bored and want a new level to play because I would get so tired of the one I was on. I did realize that if you are persistent and keep trying, you eventually finish the level and feel accomplished afterwards. Then your brain gets new data in the form of a new level. In accordance to Raph Koster’s definition of fun, I did have fun with this game up until I would get stuck on a level which in turn would be unjoyable for me and I would rage multiple times.

When people tell you to play Super Meat Boy

The game consists of over 300 levels and I do not think I would ever finish this game. I strongly believe that I would get too frustrated, get bored and stop playing. Raph Koster states, “the definition of a good game is one that teaches everything it has to offer before the player stops playing”(46). In accordance to this definition, I do not consider Super Meat Boy a good game since there are too many levels and extras to do for my patience. For example, in almost every level there is bandage that needs to be acquired and you have to finish the level after you acquire it or you lose it if you die. During the whole time I played, I tried my hardest not to get these bandages because I would’ve stayed stuck in a level for much longer than I needed to, and eventually get bored. However, as a goal for myself in the future, I would reach as far as my friends have reached, just to have a type of small win for myself. The game includes chapters and when I first played the game, I finished the first chapter in the first 20 minutes that I played. I thought, “this is way too easy, give me more!”, so I moved to the next chapter where things started getting a lot more difficult and some might say, too difficult for my taste.

In conclusion, Raph Koster defines fun as, “fun is just another word for learning”(46). I believe that I learned throughout playing the game. Every time a new obstacle or monster would pop up, I would learn how to avoid it. In each level I would have a set path that I would take to reach my final destination. As the difficulty increased, I would learn new paths and eventually evolve my way of thinking that I had previously. I learned when to jump and how to slide at the right time. There is portals that take you to other dimensions where you play different characters. I learned how to play those characters and learned their perks and their cons for my benefit. Whilst I was learning, I was also having a fun and I was enjoying myself. When I would finish a level really quickly, I would be proud of myself and the same goes to all the levels that took me ages to finish. As I would get challenged by new obstacles, I kept learning. This game might not be a game I finish completely, or get all of the achievements but it is a game I will play when I am bored and are in the need of a challenge. I give this game a 7/10 pieces of meat.

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References:

Koster, R. (2013). Theory of fun for game design. ” O’Reilly Media, Inc.”.