Digital: A Love Story

Neito

If you're one of those people who reads Textfiles.com and wishes you could get a little taste of that, play Digital: A Love Story. The technology is a bit "lol this makes no sense" sometimes (I think as a result of being written in RenPy, an engine for making Visual Novel type games), but it makes enough sense, and is self consistent enough, that it works.

As for the story, well... It worked well enough that, let's just say I had trouble hitting the last enter button needed to do the thing that does the thing and ends the story.

Walker

I played this a couple days after it came out. It's a very nice example of interactive storytelling.

Neito

I played this a couple days after it came out. It's a very nice example of interactive storytelling.

Yeah. I really wouldn't call it a game, honestly. It's a story where you have to do things other than turn pages to make it go forward.

Rym

Yeah. I really wouldn't call it a game, honestly. It's a story where you have to do things other than turn pages to make it go forward.

Well, it depends.

For these purposes, I only consider there to be two useful definitions. A game is either:

1. A series of interesting player decisions.

or

2. A multi-player comparative test of specific skills.

Does it meet one of those two?

Neito

Yeah. I really wouldn't call it a game, honestly. It's a story where you have to do things other than turn pages to make it go forward.

Well, it depends.

For these purposes, I only consider there to be two useful definitions. A game is either:

1. A series of interesting player decisions.

or

2. A multi-player comparative test of specific skills.

Does it meet one of those two?

Ehhhhh..... It's certainly not 2. It could be 1, but it's more like an adventure game where there's no lose condition: the game doesn't move forward until you do the one thing that punches the plot ticket to the next thing, and the next, and so on. You're not really deciding anything; you're finding the thing that the writer wanted you to find to hit the next plot point. There's exactly one path through the story, with little side bits, and your decisions don't really matter. It doesn't matter if you do side bit A first, second, or not at all; it will always move on one specific point in one direction.

Apreche

Ehhhhh..... It's certainly not 2. It could be 1, but it's more like an adventure game where there's no lose condition: the game doesn't move forward until you do the one thing that punches the plot ticket to the next thing, and the next, and so on. You're not really deciding anything; you're finding the thing that the writer wanted you to find to hit the next plot point. There's exactly one path through the story, with little side bits, and your decisions don't really matter. It doesn't matter if you do side bit A first, second, or not at all; it will always move on one specific point in one direction.

Exactly what we were just discussing in the old school FPS thread.

Rym

There is, I would argue, a third useful definition of game, though it's only useful in certain discussions.

3. A pre-determined path where the only significant decision the player makes is whether to actively continue.

This covers games like "Covetous." They're not really games, but more like stories where you, the consumer, are forced to consciously choose to progress them to the end. In a way, they're just like books or movies (you have to choose to keep reading/watching), but they have the added factor that you actually do make the active decision to make it continue, as opposed to the passive one of letting it continue.

This is useful as an art piece or to prove a point. Force a player to actively commit some horrible act, rather than showing them the act. Interesting and distinct from just stories, but not really games, we really need a separate word for this sort of thing. A "Choose Your Own Adventure" is a game, as it fits the first definition. But if there are no alternate paths, then suddenly it's one of these "third types."

Apreche

What you're talking about there is interactive artwork. A kinetic sculpture falls into the same category.

Andrew

1. Any situation in which the success of a player's decision is predicated by the choices of other competitors.

For the purpose of single player games, AI are considered competitors.

Rym

What you're talking about there is interactive artwork. A kinetic sculpture falls into the same category.

Sort of. I want to be a little more specific. It's interactive artwork that requires some action on the part of the viewer to "complete" the art. It leaves the choice to not complete it intact and, hopefully, poignant.

Imagine a kinetic sculpture where the observer is invited to stab and kill the artist. Or where the observer is invited to knock it over and destroy it. Where the work is not complete for a viewer until they take a specific action. Most kinetic art can be interacted with, but the state of the art is rarely truly affected. Spin the cube, it eventually stops spinning.

It's a subcategory of interactive art, but important to distinguish I think.

Apreche

Does a kinetic sculpture become a non-kinetic sculpture if nobody ever touches it or looks at it while it moves? Is a tree falling in the woods a kinetic sculpture?

lackofcheese

That depends on your definition of "kinetic sculpture", and, subsequently, "art". Once you have a definition, the question disappears.