Theme 6: Intelligibility in video games

How can we make sense of a video game? In his essay, Manic Miner under the Shadow of the Colussus: a Semiotic Analysis of the Spatial Dimension in Platform Video Games, Joaquin Siabra-Fraile argues it is thanks to “pragmatic net of objects”. What can be done with objects of a video game determine the logical space of actions. The regularity of that logical space, or system, enables meaning. Immersion is the acceptation by the player of that net of logical conditions; it is the only way for him to make sense of the goal and to complete the video game.

The real-time audio/video Mountain (2009), made by the artist duo Depart at the occasion of their Chukwa’s Approach performance, feels like a video game. Time is counted and flying objects are targeted. The comparison with video games might be far stretched, but they both share an obsession of the targeting. It is the cognitive process that most video games use to engage players with the objects of the game.

The Chukwa’s Approach 1 – The Mountain, artist duo Depart, 2009

The Carmageddon data-bending (2005) by Tim Drage (Cementimental) is a journey to chaos, where objectification and pragmatic net of objects can’t exist anymore. The machinima messes with the objects of the Carmageddon video game, “the player car is mutated into a jagged mass of mangled polygons which fill almost the whole screen, and becomes a moving virtual abstract sculpture.” The experiment is accompanied by the harsh noise of Cementimental, the combination give us a feel of what virtual worlds could look like if their creators didn’t restrict game representations to what we humans can apprehend.

Carmageddon data-bending, Tim Drage (Cementimental), 2005

Are pragmatic nets of object the only conditions of intelligibility in video games? What else do you need to make sense of a game?

See also the annex discussion by Dario Compagno What is a game world? Doors, keys and… good legs.

Next theme: Rules in video games

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