CRITERIA FOR ANALYZING GAME EXPERIENCES

This is an assignment due later this week. First we have the blog entry about play and building in Second Life, and then this one. I post this to ask if anyone out there has a comment on ways of talking about gaming experiences. I am trying to get at the subjective experience of playing the game, rather than looking for a review of the game (although we will also look at those, too).

Assignment 7: CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF YOUR SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE PLAYING 2 GAMES

This assignment asks you to reflect on and discuss your subjective experience of playing at least 2 games.

As a way of giving you some structure, think through the aspects of virtual subjectivity I suggest in the “Kino-Eye” essay:

1) Point of view

2) Self-design

3) Social relationships/interactions

4) Space and place

5) Agency

Also think about the INTERFACE, and how the game uses elements of text, cinema, and computer forms in it. (Manovich)

Finally, consider the kinds of immersion and interactivity that you experience in the game.

Interface

As we move from thinking primarily about narrative to focusing on what is specific to digital narrative, we are reading Lev Manovich's book The Language of New Media, and thinking through some of the multitude of ideas he offers. As this quotation (p. 71) highlights, cinema, the printed word, and computer interfaces are three major cultural forms of new media. But are there other possibilities, metaphors for cultural interface that go beyond the familiar forms and objects that we already know?

Also, let's ponder what Manovich suggests when he writes: "Thus, the old dichotomies content---form and content---medium can be rewritten as content---interface" (p. 66).