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Originally Posted by TimovieMan
Nobody was judging the QUALITY of Dear Esther. All the discussions were about whether or not it is a game, or whether or not it is interactive. Quality has nothing to do with that, so nobody was judging Dear Esther itself...  |
Ignoring the extremely judgmental use of the word 'disappointment' a lot.
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Originally Posted by ozzie
WARNING! WARNING! MUCH INCOHERENT RAMBLING FOLLOWS!
Well, your toaster is also interactive. As is your washing machine.
I know that some years back a few visual novels were released that could be played with the DVD player. Sometimes DVDs come with mini-games, like a variation on memory.
Games usually have an equivalent to a dvd menu, a game menu. I'd compare it to paratext in literature. It's not part of the experience, the text, but it's part of the work. But no, pure paratext is no literature, just as much as a game menu is not enough to make a game.
We have words to distinct between text and literature. We don't have the same thing for video games. Would you call a virtual long corridor that has walls decorated with family pictures a game? It'd be the equivalent to a family photo album or to a letter from a relative. We wouldn't call the latter literature. Or as Peter254 pointed out, security camera footage doesn't make a movie (though movies can consist of it).
But Dear Esther, as a book, I'd call literature. So why wouldn't I call Dear Esther, a game, a game? Maybe artistic intention comes into play...
I don't know if you agree with Shuyin, but he said that home design software could never be thought to be something like a game because it was never intended to be a game. But if that's true, wouldn't the opposite be equally true as well? That if something was thought to be a game, then it is a game?
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The first part was pointless. The is a reason why we string two words together to make a specific term. Interactive Media == Interactive Medium. Not Toasters or washing machines. Games are not an equivalent to a DVD Menu. Two destinct separate uses. They are interactive to a point where you can make a very arbretary form of a game, but its usually never used to make a game.
What you're saying is that 'reading a restaurant menu' is just like reading a 'scifi steampunk novel'. They are two completely different things.
A game is formed up with win/lose and goals/rules. Dear Ether has no win/lose conditions, nor does it have any goals/rules that break out of the realm of Interactive Art.
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Originally Posted by ozzie
That's interesting. Are you saying that choose-your-own-adventure books resemble games more than Dear Esther does?
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Well isn't it obvious since Adventure games was the product of choose-your-own-adventures? Dear Esther isn't a choose your own adventure.
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Originally Posted by ozzie
BTW, what's an interactive painting?
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You don't get out much? Generally seen as an 'interactive piece'. Artists nowadays and for decades experiment with interaction from the viewer with their artistic scene/piece. Its to provoke an idea, feeling, perspective. Art isn't specifically defined to one idea, like Dear Esther. Interactive Art.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_art
