Well Played 2.0: Video Games, Value and Meaning - OpenLibra

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dialogue that runs throughout this game, even minor NPC’s get their shining moments. For example, at some other point during the first Day of the Dead, Manny will have to visit a street fair (The first time I played I went there as soon as I left the DOD, drawn by the music). The fair features a balloon-twisting clown. This NPC’s purpose is to provide you with both fully-realized sculptures (animals or a balloon portrait of Robert Frost) and un-inflated balloons (“worms”) that are key pieces in solving critical puzzles. The character itself could be a simple, run of the mill NPC but instead it’s got a Jack Nicholson-like voice and bad attitude. Interaction between Manny and the clown offers numerous gems, but this is one of my favorites. Manny: “Some festival, huh?” Balloon Twister: “Yeah, pretty busy. My Carpal Tunnel Syndrome’s acting up.” Manny: “But you don’t have any… tendons.” Balloon Twister: “Yeah, well you don’t have a tongue, but that doesn’t seem to shut you up, now does it?” Or take the coroner Membrillo, who Manny must trick into declaring the death of a sailor so Manny can take his place aboard a ship. One moment philosophical, as he searches a corpse for identifying information… Manny: What exactly are you looking for? Membrillo: I am digging for a treasure that part of me does not wish to find. For when I discover that sad doubloon that tells me who this poor soul is, my reward is not riches but the chance to make a phone call and break somebody’s heart. At another moment, not so philosophical: Manny: How do you do this job? Membrillo: Without becoming jaded you mean? My secret to happiness is that I have the heart of a 12 year-old boy. I keep it over here in a jar. Would you like to see it? Manny: NO! Membrillo: Sorry. Old coroner joke. Puzzles in Grim Fandango Puzzles in Grim Fandango are multi-part and extremely challenging. For the game’s 10th anniversary, Schaeffer released one of the original game design docs (titled a “puzzle document” and dated April 30th, 1996) to the Internet. The document describes eighty puzzles and numerous cut scenes. Several pieces of the game described in the document 128
weren’t completed due to budget and release pressures, others were altered in production. Mechanics in adventure games haven’t changed much from the time of text adventures, to 2D point-and-clicks to the early 3D point-andclicks like GF (and perhaps, some would argue, even to today’s adventure games). Exploration of environments and collection of darn near anything clickable are two of the primary mechanics in GF, especially as there’s no inventory limit. In GF the player drives Manny around the space and navigates a dialogue tree to talk to NPC’s , so it’s pretty straightforward. It’s this kind of limited interaction that gives some gamers a bad taste in their mouths when it comes to adventure games. But with deep dialogue trees that can be skimmed the first time and mined in later play sessions, along with some Easter eggs and other hidden content that can emerge, GF stands up to replay. What’s more, after Manny meets Sal Limones, “Non-linearity rears it’s repulsive, but fascinating head!” (according to the puzzle doc) The rest of the stages will have two or three chains of puzzles that can be worked on simultaneously, part by part, until the end of Day of the Dead four when the game closes in on its conclusion. Just because there‘s a limited mechanics set doesn’t mean that the puzzles are easy. The sequence described below is listed as three separate puzzles (“Open Tube Room,” “Jam Door Open” and “Intercept Message”) in the puzzle doc, but I tend to think of them as one large puzzle. They illustrate the kind of “off-the-beaten-track” thinking needed to survive a Schaffer-written adventure game. Once Manny has resolved to steal a lead, he must hack a pneumatic message system that delivers the client assignments to the agent’s offices. To do so he must fill the “worms” acquired from the clown with two different packing solutions that create a solid foam. You’ve seen these solutions used earlier in the game and they’ll be of use during the fourth Day of the Dead as well. The solution filled balloon must be sent down the pneumatic tube message system, forcing the janitor to open it. Manny then has to flip the deadbolt to keep the tube room open and then block the tube with a playing card from his office deck that must be perforated with Eva’s hole punch so that it won’t blow away. This will allow him to jam the tube long enough to read a message meant for Domino. To have collected the items needed to accomplish this goal of stealing, the player will have to have collected the cards from Manny’s office at 129
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Well Played 2.0: Video Games, Value
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Table of Contents Thank You. Well P
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Introduction Well Played 2.0 More P
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Cloudmaker Days: A Memoir of the A.
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abbreviations from the Periodic Tab
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that curtain was. This decision was
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experience. The ambivalence I felt
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special treat: in very faint text w
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storytelling where the topic is act
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16 It’s striking that an experien
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57 http://www.argn.com 58 http://ww
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the level of interactive engagement
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he wants the honor and glory for hi
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cinematics are units that go beyond
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differs from the first checkpoint).
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oom that you just saw in the vision
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Figure 10. Screenshot of the Castle
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fight, the space is large enough th
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scenes have more of a pounding elem
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going to have a successful ending (
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Interestingly, it doesn’t rewind
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note, I actually let myself get kil
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an attempt to inject it into gamepl
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Team XBox. Prince of Persia: Sands
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Gray discs require two adjacent bre
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my own music,[72] or more often, I
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allows five discs before a new row
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Chain Factor functioned as the “t
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I think, what well-designed virtual
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The genius of this system is that t
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haunting (and haunted) games I’ve
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Compared to “Sabre Wulf” and
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altitude) depending on the moment o
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Aside from that thread that explora
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would make anyone feel eager to pla
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learn on how to jump and take the o
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DREW DAVIDSON et al. (2008). Beyond
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her picture. When opening the locke
Page 77 and 78: The story advances with the explora
Page 79 and 80: Favorite moments Nothing would stop
Page 81 and 82: than yourself. Your character is re
Page 83 and 84: on presence, flow, and learning. Ho
Page 85 and 86: oach did not serve as a distraction
Page 87 and 88: game. However, some players felt pr
Page 89 and 90: sugary sweets from the picnic blank
Page 91 and 92: Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Findin
Page 93 and 94: 30 square kilometers around the Che
Page 95 and 96: Deus Ex and System Shock to set the
Page 97 and 98: the dreams,” muses this nameless
Page 99 and 100: fails to realize that the Zone is n
Page 101 and 102: leak, empty land-scape highlights t
Page 103 and 104: The storyline, characters, and even
Page 105 and 106: enough. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warf
Page 107 and 108: developers utilize environmental es
Page 109 and 110: The title of the novel is a referen
Page 111 and 112: And yet the same sun, the same moon
Page 113 and 114: (www.perimeterpartners.com), Bill H
Page 115 and 116: Actraiser Andy Jih While many other
Page 117 and 118: simple to dive into: run left and r
Page 119 and 120: the only task left is to go to the
Page 121 and 122: have ended the game simply with an
Page 123 and 124: For an adventure game to succeed, i
Page 125 and 126: cinematic, Manny despairs of his lo
Page 127: normal day-to-day life to reach new
Page 131 and 132: mechanic Elementals that look like
Page 133 and 134: gameplay mechanics in Fallout 3. Th
Page 135 and 136: with moral dilemmas is done with th
Page 137 and 138: contained vignette will also make m
Page 139 and 140: One of the most discussed Quests in
Page 141 and 142: the grove to help the Wasteland whi
Page 143 and 144: weapons lost will change playing st
Page 145 and 146: nonexistent, and few gamers I talk
Page 147 and 148: Cyan is notorious for baffling play
Page 149 and 150: Figure 2: The Cleft in the desert,
Page 151 and 152: “writing” Ages, housed in “li
Page 153 and 154: ook, that book appears in your Relt
Page 155 and 156: visits to solve, each player needs
Page 157 and 158: them prideful and greedy. The impli
Page 159 and 160: midst and walking down the path. If
Page 161 and 162: Figure 17: Decoding the door in Ede
Page 163 and 164: As mentioned earlier, central to Ur
Page 165 and 166: Immersive Game Design: Indigo Proph
Page 167 and 168: compartmentalizes all of the conten
Page 169 and 170: immediate connection between player
Page 171 and 172: initiating a similar game-ending ev
Page 173 and 174: interactions have even greater sign
Page 175 and 176: was trying to concentrate on inputt
Page 177 and 178: Lions & Jackals: The Politics of Fa
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Banga, meaning “the all-powerful
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ealization of what he turned into.
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Maybe 80% of our players are just l
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Jeffries, L.B. “Far Cry 2: The He
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Looking beyond the moments, it is i
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prowess. There is some level of apt
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solid short-term goal, much like fi
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time or exploring the same game lev
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and seamless; the player is whisked
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Rasmus: I have an absolute love for
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feeling that there is something int
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sessions make it easy to get into t
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the game sometimes. Isn’t this a
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Jesper: I would argue that the disc
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incredibly exciting and rewarding,
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playing games — ironic, I suppose
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Sutton-Smith, Brian. 2008. Play The
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dilemma itself. Should I, the playe
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Pool of Radiance Sam Roberts Pool o
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play experience of Pool of Radiance
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probably at what might be called th
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containing a moment of choice, is a
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interpreted, without remaining hide
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Making and Unmaking Place in The Da
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technical accomplishments, the play
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understanding.”[160] Time of day
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ears).[167] Videogames take advanta
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the orphanage, church, warehouses,
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Golden Arm and His Girl Friday, tel
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directions except toward the goal.
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This dynamic is played out in a sho
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169 Celia Pearce, “Narrative Envi
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ilovebees: Playing and Designing in
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Curious parties falling through the
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Columns of paired numbers appear, l
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may be, they may still need to be n
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strength of its developers and its
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Resident Evil 4: The Mercenaries Mi
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skills at RE4 have earned you the p
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Another important factor that adds
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The strongest pressure on the playe
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• Do I have enough health left to
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New Section Francisco Souki It was
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the game stayed true throughout the
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a reflective Mamma mia! You only ne
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point it all took shape in my head.
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neutral planet, the attacking ships
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want to attempt to play at an exper
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abusive language. Most importantly,
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Stephen Jacobs is an Associate Prof
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granted by the EPSON Ibérica’s
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and Second Person. He is cited in m
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of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Sim
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designing and developing cross-medi
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