This is my entry to the March Round Table discussion hosted by Man Bytes Blog. This piece was initially influenced by Brain Rubinow’s (The Select Button) entry.
This month’s topic turns the literary focus from the medium, to the author. If you submitted a post to either the January or February topics, feel free to write about the process you underwent in converting literary themes into gameplay. Did you struggle with anything in particular? Are you satisfied that your game design(s) communicated what you intended? Have subsequent comments or idea made you wish you could go back and start he process over? And how much does your design say about you and your own interpretation of the themes of the source material?
Alternately feel free to turn your focus to another game designer, or to game designers in general. In literature we frequently “hear” the author’s voice in their work. Stephen King, Margaret Atwood, and Tom Robbins–these are excellent examples of authors whose voices are quite recognizable. Through reading their works, we feel we come to feel we know them, to understand their philosophies. There are a handful of games where the “author” can clearly be heard through the work. How closely tied is this to the thematic content of the games and how exactly did they communicate these themes to their audience? And should they have, or should video game designer try to remain out of their work, allowing the player to establish their own themes through gameplay?
When I created Gamer Quest, one of my aspirations was (and still is) to pull the nature of videogame writing up a notch, beyond game reviews that were intended to be buyer's recommendations and into the level of critical analysis; optimistically, joining the ranks of my fellow authors that have pioneered this exciting new venue. In other words, to treat games as an art form that could be dissected and evaluated in the same ways that music, painting, literature, film, and even fashion are treated. Perhaps, this seems to raise game design to a level that isn't warranted, but we should keep in mind that there were times when dance and film were regarded as merely recreation and entertainment. As game design has become more ambitious, so should its criticism.
The Auteur Theory -usually constrained to academic thoughts on aesthetics in film criticism- has been gaining quite a visibility within the gaming industry lately, at least more than it did thirty years ago. Kojima, Miyamoto, and Molyneux, among many others, have become parts of our daily vocabulary. The fact that we get extremely ecstatic when we are informed they are working on a new game project -while being completely clueless on what that new work is- reveals that they have obtained an outstanding blind faith from us, their loyalists. Not only they have created and tinkered countless of game genres, but they also altered our critical perception of videogames.
Granted, we need to be extremely cautious before we elevate any game designer from being an artisan (an aspect we are still trying to validate) to being an auteur. To do so, one must really look at the body of work of a game designer and try to make out a distinctive style or consistent theme, to the extent that it is possible on any consequence regardless of genre and gameplay. Essentially, the real value of the auteur theory can be often revealed when the games of any auteur candidate are analyzed, using a critical perspective with the participation of critiques.
Perhaps, it is quite easy to select one of the prominent and vocal game auteurs such as Hideo Kojima, Atsushi Inaba, Suda 51, or the recent Jonathan Blow. However, I resorted to discuss the work of Gonzalo Frasca, an Uruguayan game developer, researcher and entrepreneur, and proven to be less celebrated game designer by mainstream standards. Frasca’s body of work is usually fixated on 2D Flash games, and as a professional game designer, he has several games in his inventory that can be analyzed, in which we find repetitions and similar uses of game elements that indicate his individual style and his worldwide political views.
I believe he is a fitting candidate as an auteur game designer as he demonstrates the basic perquisites that validate this position. His games are individually designed and programmed while being technically competent, and his body of work exhibits a distinct style that isn’t customary in videogames. He can be considered as one of the founders of news games, serious games, and ludology. His works on “war on terror” influenced not only game circles, but also newspapers and magazines that carried his comments to the public such as New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Guardian and Wired.com, etc. The response of his players can be confusing and mixed, as pleasure and frustration are two faces of the picture.
His games, Madrid and September 12th are examples of the Newsgames genre, the transformation of political cartoons to the field of games. They are considered responses to political events than the process of retelling the actual events. Their focus is on quickly delivering a personal comment or a message. Thus, the games have to be designed in short time, in certain size and length, with easy playability and clear messages on the surface; after all, using advanced programming techniques, 3D models and engines are too protracted for this purpose. To maneuver such obstacles, Frasca prefers to design his games in 2D graphics on single background image with simple controls. In the case of Kabul Kaboom!, we learn that the game is programmed in one day in an airplane trip. Astonishingly, he is technically competent enough to program and design his own games with certain aspects.
Another familiar signature in Frasca’s simply programmed flash games is the utilization of dichotomy to convey the message and symbolism. For example, In Kabul Kaboom!, the dichotomy was guised as food and bombs. In the game, we control a mother figure that is only restrained to move left and right to catch the food and help packages (symbolized as McDonald’s hamburgers) while trying to avoid contacting the bombs, both are being thrown from US airplanes. This simply process of dodging the bombs and collecting the hamburgers can only result in the death or survival of the player, a blatant dichotomy of wars and conflicts. However, in September 12th, we obtain the role of a jet pilot and fly over a Middle Eastern city in order to carry out a simple mission: kill terrorist while avoiding the deaths of civilians. Interestingly, the distinction between terrorist and civilian becomes blurred when we fire our missiles as some of the civilians are converted to terrorists. Here, dichotomies such as win/lose, despair/hope and player/activist perpetuate the general context of the game and the dangers of war on terror declared by the US after 9/11.
It also seems that Frasca is a fan of using game primitives, a central aspect that was discussed in his work “Videogames of the Oppressed”. He proposes to use templates of old games to represent complex social situations and oppressions of people. Kabul Kaboom! uses a primitive of Space Invaders to represent the oppression of a mother in a city that is target of bombardment. In September 12th and Madrid, Frasca use a primitive similar to Cabal, an old shooting game. In September 12th the oppression is the moral question of killing innocent civilians, while Madrid represents the oppression of a citizen who is living in a city that is a target of a terror attack. Frasca’s game primitives are definitely an important part of his style, and even making him more favorable candidate to maintain his stance as an auteur.
This leads to conclude that The Auteur Theory -when applied as a critical method to analyze aesthetic dimensions of games- can reveal different styles and world views of game designers, while enriching our understanding of videogames as representational mediums. This development could also lead the game industry to produce different games and genres to supply the increasing demand of mature game players. The analysis of Gonzalo Frasca’s portfolio demonstrates not only his status as auteur compared to other game designers, but also reveals his own style of using dichotomies while criticizing the prevalent ideological trends, particularly in US politics. Undoubtedly, It is a bold message and a bold use of interactive entertainment but perhaps this is the primary reason that makes the whole process more compelling, both in videogame criticism and design.