Shadowplay: Simulated Illumination in Game Worlds

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Niedenthal Simon
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

Despite the fact that there are currently a number of enjoyable digital games in which light plays a key role, we lack a vocabulary with which to discuss simulated illumination in game worlds. An understanding of lighting practices in other media, such as 3d computer-generated animation and film, must be supplemented with an awareness of real-space disciplines such as architectural lighting if we are to grasp the complexity of the game lighting design task. But game design is more than a repository for existing lighting practices; the interactive nature of games allows for self-reflexive sensitivity to light to emerge, most clearly manifested in games described as “first person sneakers” and “survival-horror” games.

 

What We Talk About When We Talk About Game Aesthetics

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Niedenthal Simon
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

Digital games are commonly described as phenomena that combine aesthetic, social and technological elements, yet our understanding of the aesthetic element of games and play is perhaps the least developed of all. All too often, an aesthetics perspective within game studies and design discourses is relegated to a marginal role, by conflating game aesthetics with graphics and “eye candy,” or by limiting aesthetic discussion to graphic style analysis or debates on the question “are games art?” Changing game technologies, as well as arguments from within philosophy, psychology, interaction design theory and cultural theory, call for us to examine the implicit and explicit assumptions we make when we write about aesthetics within game studies research, as a prelude to reclaiming a perspective that will allow us to better understand the way in which games function as sites for sensory and embodied play, creative activity and aesthetic experience.

 

Making Sense of Game Aesthetics [Panel Abstracts]

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Canossa Alessandro Kirkpatrick Graeme Niedenthal Simon Poremba Cindy
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

In recent years, game studies scholars have brought an expanded conception of aesthetics to bear in the study of digital games. Far from being limited to speaking about the visual presentation of games and graphic styles (with the negative associations of “eye candy”), game aesthetics has become a perspective that allows us to examine the overarching principles and qualities of the gameplay experience. Our aim is to contribute to a fuller picture of what games can hope to become. Although some of us root our work in a consideration of aesthetics as practiced historically, our perspective draws upon a range of critical and creative practices drawn from cultural theory, art history and fine art practice, visual semiotics, psychology and interaction design, We hope to supplement aesthetics’ traditional strengths in discussing the senses, emotion, pleasure and the aesthetic experience, with arguments that allow us to consider embodied play, tangible interfaces, and creative player activity. Game studies is an emerging discipline that draws upon many scholarly practices, but one thing we share is taking pleasure in play. This panel will accordingly seek to demonstrate the breadth, power and relevance of current approaches to game aesthetics by inviting scholars whose work engages aesthetics to examine a single game of their choice in depth. The games we have chosen for analysis are dot.hack, Flower, Hitman and Okami.

 

Real-Time Sweetspot: The Multiple Meanings of Game Company Playtests

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Niedenthal Simon
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

Game design, like gameplay, is situated. Though we find ourselves in a period of global growth and consolidation in the games industry, marked by broad changes in how design work is organized, our understanding of game design as it is currently practiced needs to be rooted in local contexts of production. One useful way to explore the situated-ness of game development is by tracing the implementation of playtesting of prototypes in game companies. The implementation of playtesting serves as an acknowledgement of the complexity of designing for the emergent properties of games, and also reveals attitudes towards the player. This case study of playtesting a real-time strategy (RTS) game under development at a Swedish game company is based upon observations of test sessions and interviews with employees from March 2006-February 2007. Specifically, this study will trace the various outcomes of a single game-balancing (“Sweetspot”) playtest conducted in March of 2006. This test serves as a locus of playtest meaning, and demonstrates that playtesting at the company is used to achieving clarity in the game design process, to support an evolutionary design methodology, and as a means of communicating the state of the game to outside actors. In short, playtesting has meaning in several contexts, both within and beyond the immediate design task at hand. Whether the results of a playtest session take the form of a numerical figure, a written report, or a fast scrawl in the lead designer’s notebook, they need to be interpreted carefully in the light of their complex nature.