[-empyre-] Mods I like, games that move me and indy games as hopeful futures

[micha cárdenas]

Hi all,

This is an exciting topic, but in my late night tiredness the most I
can do is throw out a few brief things that came to mind...

2010/11/29 Julian Raul Kücklich <julian at kuecklich.de>:
> 2. Subcultural Networks
> Another mythological foundation of computer game culture can be found in the
> development of "Colossal Cave / Advent", which was allegedly only possible
> because Don Woods got in touch with Will Crowther through the new medium of
> email, sending messages to every server on the net in the mid-1970s (see
> http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/a_history.html). True or not, this story
> draws attention to the fact that computer gaming was relegated to an
> academic elite for a long time.

At a recent event at UCSD/Calit2 called CRCA Exchange, Jeremy Douglass
talked about his research into interactive fiction and the film Get
Lamp. In that discussion I was reminded of how early text adventures
also paralleled early online communities like MOO's, which of course
prefigure today's virtual worlds like WoW and SL. In my discussions
with philosopher Sandy Stone during Becoming Dragon, she criticized
graphical MMO-worlds of today for their limited offerings of
embodiment. While it's feasible to spend time and money to be a dragon
in Second Life or a night elf in Wow, in a MOO it's only a matter of
creativity of language to embody a cloud of smoke or a body of fire or
have a character that is a beam of light.

> 4. Skins, Maps, and Mods
> It seems almost ironic that early 3D games like Doom and Quake managed to
> start a revolution in fan-created game modifications, while at the same time
> sounding the death knell for bedroom coders. The complexity and size of 3D
> games required much larger teams, so it was no longer feasible to create
> games by yourself. At the same time, however, id's laissez-faire approach
> allowed gamers to create their own maps, skins and mods for their games.

some personal favorites:

everything by Anne Marie Schleiner:

http://www.opensorcery.net/velvet-strike/

and the PMS skins for Quake II by PMS’ Georgina from "Parasitic
Interventions: Game Patches and Hacker Art"
http://www.opensorcery.net/patchnew.html

and Adam Killer by Brody Condon is one of the most elegant and moving
game mods I've ever seen:

https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/display/mcm1700n/Game+Mods+-+A+Different+Sort+of+Play

Also, I still think that Simon's comment is very relevant. Personally,
what's interesting to me is the ways that games reflect larger social
dynamics, the ease with which people replace the mythopoetic rules
that govern their daily interactions in society with the new rules of
video games. I'm also very interested in non-competitive games, such
as those of Boal and Theater of the Oppressed, and the ways that they
can be so infinitely interesting to people despite the presence of
violence and competition. Hopefully game cultures such as Independent
Games can represent a rise in new possibilities of games outside of
the male/military/capitalist drives that motivate commercial game
development today. I personally find developments such as OpenSim to
be much more exciting and hold the potential for us to move beyond the
corporate confines of worlds like Second Life.

Here's an independent game that i find fascinating:

http://tale-of-tales.com/TheEndlessForest/

and here's something to make you smile, and an interesting example of
gamer created content that is highly political:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/zemoo/5245993333/


-- 
micha cárdenas
Associate Director of Art and Technology, Sixth College, UCSD
Culture, Art, and Technology Program

Co-Author, Trans Desire / Affective Cyborgs, Atropos Press, http://is.gd/daO00
Artist/Researcher, UCSD School of Medicine
Artist/Theorist, bang.lab, http://bang.calit2.net

blog: http://transreal.org

gpg: http://is.gd/ebWx9