Games and something about Cinema

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Games (and something about Cinema)

• Bo Kampmann Walther
• University of Southern Denmark
• UK, January 2004

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Topics

• 1) Initial remarks about play and games (what is
  a game what about time and space, etc.)
• 2) Games and cinema in search of a lucidography

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Play and games

• Play and games are about transgressing boundaries
  and setting up worlds
• Play transgression of the border between play
  and non-play
• Games transgression of the border between play
  and non-play AND the border between open space
  and rule-bound structure

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Play-mode Game-mode

• Play and games are fragile confines they entail
  an in-built danger
• Play the risk of falling into non-play (reality
  knocking on the door)
• Games confusion about rules clinging to a
  strategy turns into confusion about the intention
  of playing (why am I doing this when I cant
  figure it out?)
• GAMEPLAY
• To be able to move (relatively) freely around
  (play) while experiencing a structural
  attachment to the game world (game)
• Trusting in the laws of the fictional world by
• Non-negationable rules
• Emergent strategy evolving

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• Play and games require
• Presence
• A certain detachment
• The believe in an agency that is both there and
  not there

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Emergence

• Games are complex dynamic systems
• They have rules
• They demand strategies or tactics
• The relation between the two are asymmetrical,
  hence interesting
• Without this asymmetry there is no game!

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The triangular circuit of (succesful) gameplay
GAMEPLAY
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Play and Game Time and Space
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Children PLAY tic-tac-toe adults GAME it

• A child its all about exploration and whats
  going to happen
• Hope evolving best strategy
• An adult its all about structuring turns
• No game predominant strategy
• All logic and no play makes tic-tac-toe a dull
  boy!

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Games formal definition

• Games are emergent, rule-based interaction
  systems with an internal competition code
• Sports are basically the same however, with the
  added feature, that they are mostly physical

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figuratively
PLAY
Spontaneous play
Organized play (GAMES)
Non-competitive games (but is that possible?)
Competitive games (CONTESTS)
Physical contests (SPORTS)
Intellectual contests
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• PLAY THE FILM BE THE HERO
• (EA Games Lord of the Rings III)

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Why games and cinema

• In terms of
• Visual fascination
• Events happening on screen, hyper-realism
• Story telling
• How do I go to next level?
• World building
• Exploration, winning
• World and story agency
• I am a part of a story/a fictional world

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• or pure commercialism!
• (New) transmedia
• Harry Potter
• Lord of the Rings
• James Bond
• Minority Report
• Enter the Matrix
• etc.

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By the way

• Games ARE not film and films ARE not games
  however
• They can both draw from a cultural entertainment-
  and story praxis
• They can inspire one another
• They increasingly use the same special effect-
  and mocap systems
• But this easily gets messy so, we need a system
  !

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Four angles

• Interface
• Games and films increasingly look the same
• The Matrix Kill Bill ( 24 Hours)
• Structure
• Is the sequential structure of a film derived
  from game universes?
• Vin Diesel films Lola Rennt (perhaps Mulholland
  Drive)
• Thematics
• Does a film thematize the way we play (games)?
• The Game Existentz Memento
• Culture
• We all live in a game submarine .. (the age of
  ludology)
• The Beach

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Film elements in the game

• Interaction
• Focalisation
• Montage
• Non-interaction
• Trailer
• Cut-scene
• In-game film
• Automatic transport
• Automatic replay
• User movie

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Interaction mode Focalisation

• Focalisation is used (and modified from cinema)
  in games in order to provide the best
• visualisation
• interaction option
• Focalisation is strictly speaking always
  outer in gaming

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however

• - we can distinguish between the following types
  of focalisation in games

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Interaction mode Montage

• Comes in basically three shapes in games
• 1. montage (derived from films discrete
  transitions the Eisenstein logic, ex Myst,
  Uru, etc.)
• 2. anti-montage (most games features seamless
  succession frictionless motion optic freedom
  of sight and motion, ex Quake, Unreal, etc.)
• 3. macro-montage (the completeness of a world
  the camera pans from a cloud or zooms in on a
  depicted isometric world ex Civilization, The
  Sims, etc.)

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Non-interaction modes

• Trailer
• Cut-scene
• Conversation scenes
• (Barney friends in Half-Life)
• Scene and mood creator
• (Omicron prepare for reincarnation Diablo II
  youre entering a gothic mystery)
• Introduction to plot or gameplay elements
• (briefing at headquarters. Deus Ex)
• Foreshadowing
• (the image of main enemy Sephiroth in Final
  Fantasy VII)
• Show effects on action
• (wild crowds in Fifa)
• In-game film
• Let the engine do the jumping and hazardous
  climbing for you (ex Hitman, tutorial level)
• Automatic transport
• Are you running in circles? the system will take
  you to the next level (or branchpoint or node)
• Automatic replay
• The wow! effect, ex Need for Speed Hot
  Pursuit 2 (Look dad, I survived a cliffhanger )
• User movie

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Game elements in the film
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The micro level (game elements in the film)

• Motion pattern
• The coreography of events (the intro in The
  Matrix)
• Visual expression
• The architecture of a scene (a world of paths and
  nodes, rather than subjects and stories the
  interfacing of visual drama. Hint make it look
  big, but keep the budget small!)
• Space
• Lev Manovich spatialization is THE trend in the
  age of the computer

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The macro level (game elements in the film)

• Structural disposition
• The Pearl Model
• Narrative construction
• Working with story telling
• Time

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Lucidographic table