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The very first post I ever made on this blog was on March 19 2011. It was called “Electric Cartilage and the Games That Don’t Exist: The Beginning”.
That’s over 9 years ago. I’ve had this blog so long that I watched the fall of Digg, the rise of reddit, the shift to mobile devices, and the rise of youtube video essays and twitter threads.
Nevertheless, all things have to end sometime.
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Once again, despite “ending” this blog, I am back on my bullshit. I genuinely didn’t intend to add anything anymore and have been thinking about deleting this blog. Then I had a conversation with someone online about why I hate the term “ludonarrative dissonance” and why I think the term actually is counterproductive to improving digital games as an artistic and storytelling medium. I was really happy with my explanation because even though I think the person I was talking to didn’t totally agree with me, I felt they at least understood where I was coming from.
So, I decided to just copy/paste it into this blog; I’ve already written it, so might as well share it (with some editing to make it fit a blogpost rather than a conversation). Here’s my explanation for why the term Ludonarrative Dissonance is a lie (I’m going to save time and assume you’re already familiar with the term and some of the discourse surrounding it):
The term ludonarrative dissonance is a product of the industry and the mindset around games; it is not a product of the medium itself nor of anything inherent to the artform.
Let me you use an alternate history universe as an analogy. You can imagine what it would be like if works of literature, let’s say novels, ended up being produced the way games are produced in our real world.
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Lately I’ve been really into playing puzzle games the last several months.19
So, I’ve put together a list of puzzle games on itch.io that I recommend. I try not to post on this blog anymore, but I realized that I had played a lot of these games and probably could write a few sentences on each. So, might as well. These are free and can be played in your browser, although some have the option to download and/or ask for a choose-your-price payment.
These are loosely organized from least puzzle game to maximum puzzle game.
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A while back I replayed all the games in the Myst series including Uru, Cyan’s attempt to create a Myst mmo. A multiplayer version of Uru is currently being maintained by fans and I played that with some friends as well. (I really wish I had time to write an essay about Uru, because I have some THOUGHTS, but I just don’t have the time.)
Afterwards I came up with a couple of ideas for demaking some of the puzzles in Uru and to make a larger portion of the game.
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(I recently found this mostly finished article in a file from a year or two ago. I figured I might as well edit it and then post it.)
In the Great Discourse on narrative in games, I find it frustrating when people seem to treat narrative/story as fundamentally separate from game mechanics/gameplay, because they’re not.
Narrative design is game design, and game design is narrative design. All gameplay and game mechanics communicate a story, even if they don’t intend to. The narrative embedded inside gameplay might not be big or meaningful, but it’s there. (I could even argue that all narrative communicates the mechanics of the world, as well.)
For a while now I’ve been using a particular example to illustrate my perspective that creating game mechanics inherently creates narrative. It’s a chart that breaks down the mechanics of some video game guns.
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Way back in the day I made some custom single player levels for the old 2.5D shooter, Marathon Infinity.
Many years after that I wrote a couple analysis documents talking about some of my design philosophy behind the levels. I talked mostly about level and encounter design, but I think I also got into some weapon and enemy design, as well.
I wrote them on this blog, but never posted them, and then I forgot about them until recently.
So, I figured, why let all that work go to waste? Might as well post it in case anyone is interested.
So, here you go.
The first one, ironically, looks at the design of the third level.
The second one looks at the design of the second level.
If you get some value out of this, then let me hear about it!
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I know that I said this blog was over. I said I wasn’t going to add anymore posts unless they were about my own creative work.
Well, going back on that and writing one more post (a second “one more post” actually) is very “on brand” for me. That’s all I can say.
Anyway, this was an article I wanted to write for a long time about a subject I really like. I just never got around to it.
And I wasn’t going to get around to it until I watched a youtube video by Vzedshows where he talks about his love of Myst and Riven. A kindred spirit. After watching his video on Myst I decided I to write out this article, after all.
Continue readingI was going through some of the games I have on itch.io and created some short recommendations on my Twitter. I figured I’d also share on here. These are all indie games that came with the bundle for racial justice they had a while back.
Go check out the tweets for my very short recommendation.
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Electric Cartilage And The Games That Don't Exist 