comparitive experiencing of Newsgames with critical literature, films

Ian Bogost and his studio Persuasive Games took their take on Newsgames and started steadily being published in the OP-ED section of the NY times during May of last year. Bogost's jottings on the same and the first game called Food Import Folly are a classic precedent. Some others like Points of Entry have followed leading to crudely polemical and candidly refreshing long discussions on various aspects of 'games' and 'serious games' at Kotaku. Starting from a discussion of whether games need to provide fun or not, the discussion steadily diverges and forks into various concerns like how does one understand 'fun'? Can 'engagement' be concerned 'fun'? Gamers also seem to be acknowledging how subjective that 'fun ' derived from playing a game can turn out to be. While extreme positions definitely exist on both sides - some saying serious games are only for stupid pseudo-intellectuals while the other side at times coming close to being condescending as regards people who play violent games by terming them as largely unsophisticated.

Various other pondering(s) find their place - Do such games betray too much of a political message from their producers?, What does it mean now for them to be freely accessible to a large number of Internet users? What happens when one no longer requires specific set of skills to engage with games?

Perhaps the question which is really at stake is ...Do such games help in developing informed critical thinking? Does reading a comprehensive article in NY times about the immigration problem and playing a game over allocating merit-based green cards develop similar consciousness about challenging and probing issues? Maybe the question needs to be worded differently. Obviously, different media forms are experienced differently and one is certainly not asking for superficial effects-oriented studies. Yet, one could very well interrogate the comparative experiencing of these new set of serious games with say critical literature, or film on similar subjects. Certainly questions worth pondering upon as one thinks of persuasive games/serious games/edutainment/critical simulation/ideological videogames...

cracking pass-word(s), yes

In 2146, an historian found an archived entry in some media form which used to be called a blog. It was dated from 8th March, 2008...

"I got up from my bed, and looked at the mirror, to look at myself. This act of mine is not much different from my experience of writing this blog today. I felt old today looking myself in the mirror and the same feeling stays with me as I write this blog. When I die, to write my biography, people shall look at my blogs I guess. People won't look for those diaries in stacked corners, in labyrinth cellars, or behind pillows. No diaries but blogs. Also, no correspondence through letters but they would be analyzing my emails, cracking passwords;cracking pass-word(s), yes."

Inspired by a reading of Javier Marias' "All souls"

much like an editorial response...

The question again and again asked is whether these are 'simplistic videogames' or indeed even 'videogames'. One does not find a story/narrative/plot nor immersion. While September 12 seems to be a reaction at the collateral damage happening as a result of the war on terror, Madrid is an expression of 'empathy for /solidarity with' the victims of 2004 Madrid bomb blasts . There is no sense of victory in either games. No adversaries, no heroes in sight. Frasca's games are unconventional if at all considered games. Frasca has at times categorically mentioned September 12 is a simulation, not a game.

Both the games certainly are critical simulations of situations, adding more meaning into them by reconstructing say the 'war' and/or 'bombings', however, it would be safe to presume that one cannot be expected to play the game more than ten times. It does not have repeat value for the same person playing it. However, it is a credible response against a position, an ideology...much like an editorial response...

derrida, lights, aesthetic, comma,,,

blur, dim, perceptible, passwords, signifier, derrida, lights, aesthetic, comma, hyphen, cine-ma, referent, enigma, coke, classified, sip, muffle, crackle, dawn, dusk, excrescence, sim,,,

what is poetry but the joy of

Ironical to have not seen everyday life in normal curves

our statistics teacher gives us an opportunity

to write about a thing which gives us joy;

she must have had a hundred answers by now

and she must be exclaiming differently to each

the joy of visiting bolivia

the joy of sitting on a beach

the joy of imagination

the joy of sleeping for eight hours without an alarm

the joy of scoring a hundred out of hundred

the joy of getting to see a child smile

the joy of having done something for someone

the joy of having a cup of coffee after a walk on snow

the joy of teeth touch with ice-coffee

what is poetry but the joy of putting a misplaced metaphor amidst the order of language

what is music but the joy of putting a dissonant note in the sea of consonance

what is life but ...

Nintendo Gamecube

From the flash game mentioned in last class, I progressed to Nintendo Gamecube. Thanks to first seeing two young players Jojo (7 yrs) and Lala (6 yrs) play it, and then with their help finding my way through the some games in ‘Sonic Adventure Two Battles’ like ‘Metal Harbor’, ‘Emerald Finding Race’, and ‘City Escape’. While I tended to enjoy the more slower analytical game of finding the emerald, Jojo and Lala yearned to play the racier ‘Metal Harbor’. The former is a treasure hunt, probing for the treasure in oceans and caves; the latter is a dizzying race in a harbor with many obstacles on the way. With the control in ones’ hands vibrating giving a tactile sensation, when one was hit helped because an inexperienced player like me could not always be sure of where and what I was on the screen. Also, though there was violence involved, the visuals were rather calm and soothing, and not gory.

I especially liked the ‘story’, which came in as a kind of ‘cut-in’ between two games when the Sonic or Metal Sonic (player character in the game) can go to Chao garden where eggs are kept. The story for the same goes like this – you can either choose to be Hero Chao (in which case you will be saving the world) or a Dark Chao (in which case you will be destroying the world). You get to have a hand in the Chao selection if you can make your way to the Chao garden where the eggs are reared. You have the Hero Garden and the Dark Garden for the respective kind of eggs. What was funny as well as clearly palpable and that drew laughs from both my young fellow players were the contrasting scenes of the two gardens. The Hero garden with flowers, butterflies, greenery and blue streams resembled ‘Heaven’ and the Dark garden with red black flowing streams and caricatures of devils dancing resembled ‘Hell’.

For my next Gamecube experience, I have decided to photoshoot Jojo and Lala playing, and improve my motor hand and finger skills with the control if I have to beat Jojo in the games.

Jhadoo Maro flash game

‘Jhadoo Maro’ flash game takes place in a situation, which takes its context from the larger narrative of protests and negotiations that have taken place between Dow Chemical officials and activists involved with protests surrounding Bhopal Gas tragedy. The game is rather simple to play with the game player being a woman hitting with a broom an official of Dow Chemicals. Dow Chemicals took over Union Carbide whose industrial plant in Bhopal had led to the disaster. One tends to get points based on the timing of the broom hit as well as the force with which the hit is affected.

It is interesting to observe that the player is impersonating a woman and there is an identification that is being asked for from the player/audience because a majority of the survivors/victims of the Bhopal Gas tragedy have been women. One can also find pictures of women with Jhadoo in their hand protesting outside Dow Chemical office buildings in the earlier demonstrations undertaken by the Bhopal activists. Thus, while playing the game, one could experience oneself being an activist. In addition to that, I did experience a certain thrill in perfecting the art of hitting with the broom.

However, if it was meant to be a complete resemblance, one would have expected the woman in the game to be wearing a sari or a more authentic indigenous Indian costume. That is not the case. Though, one should be cautious of reading too much into this, the fact that the women is wearing an improvised ambiguous costume, it could mean that the character has been kept open and the player could fill in his/her own interpretation. It is also possible that with the local movement in Bhopal getting allied with transnational advocacy networks throughout the world, the representation of the woman is left ambiguous in the hope that more multiple fluid identities of the character can be formed, thus reaffirming that local disasters could have global answers and people in developed countries as global citizens can play their part in speaking against MNCs like Dow.

and the book we could not read together

She came to me

so that we could read a book together

She wrapped us around a shawl

We had returned from mountains

Somehow we could never read the book together

Her hands traced the alphabets in black slower than mine

I would end up wanting to talk about what I saw in them

She would put a finger to my lips

and then she went to sleep

A deep sleep and I could not go to sleep

So I sat and looked at her

and the book we could not read together

interpreting punctuations of snow in the sentence of a road

I take the daily walks to the main university library, called the Jerome Library. I do not regret it the least;having got a Javier Marias and Paul Auster, I can take rest in the cosy comfort of some delightfully inventive fiction.

After my first semester here, the inactivity of vacation is endearing...and that reminds me I still have a couple of activities for tomorrow - doing the laundry, cleaning the kitchen, shopping for groceries, attending a lunch invitation, seeing a film and thinking up my research proposal

And I might not just do any of these for the Auster novel that I have picked up and hope to get wrangled with...long walks in the snow are very much bearable for now as one finds oneself looking for and interpreting the punctuations of snow in the sentence of a road

For now it is poetic, then it shall turn melancholic, and then after five months depressing

It is almost there everywhere

When they ask me 'Aren't you not overwhelmed coming from a hot and wet country'

Some of my other PIGS (Poor Indian Graduate Students) friends have quite often gestured

A bit derisive about my lack of reaction

It takes sometime for me to see and remember some of the pictures from my favorite American movies

And then connect them together...

For now it is poetic, then it shall turn melancholic, and then after five months depressing

mixture would remain just a memory

The autumn came and by the time it left,

bared the tree...

When it was not winter and the sun still used to come

With my back to the sun facing the laptop

I could see the shadow of the tree on my laptop screen

This sight would fill me with a mixture of melancholy and joy

For the time of the winter I guess,

that mixture would remain just a memory...

a trip to Walmart today

on a broken-pedaled cycle seemed an adventure

what with rain coming and the wind blowing

all at the odd coincidental time

waiting at a traffic signal,

i looked at more fortunate people in cars

moments of self-pity left me soon

when a 60 year old sweetly wrinkly lady

passed me by

saying a hello

riding a tricycle,

smoking merrily a cigarette

a 60-year old lady

will that lady be another memory

or shall i meet her the next time

in Walmart, smoking merrily and saying

Have a Good Day

on a windy, chilly, rainy day!!

the link with the body and the mind could not be more poetic

some events, which help one to breathe out of the cooking, eating, sleeping, studying routine

actually too many of them for a week

and yet this week one also got to mull about evolution and human society...

about relationships and what forgetting them means at the moment of remembrance...

not to say the least that a lot of good food and bad talk is always difficult digesting

Tahader Katha came up as a film which builds around the theme of 'digestion' - both mental and physical

it also hints how if dreams for which one struggled seem still far afar ,

one's ability to digest other people's shit talk lessens...

the link with the body and the mind could not be more poetic

I want to walk with that girl for whom I started reading my first story book

Why does rituporno put a rabindrasangeet in certain scenes of his film

Why is one inclined to sleep more as temperatures come down...

Why do I want to walk with that girl for whom I started reading my first story book, once again today

Why do I remember each day now that the puja countdown has begun

All of these questions have easy answers, but are they the only answers!!!!

in a trimmed ohio field with a cemented pitch

a really really long weekend passed by

four days of length it was

spent in dis-engaged activities

reading, cooking, sleeping

and oh yes a haircut -- really really short

and actually cricket - a couple of indians and desis getting together

in a trimmed ohio field with a cemented pitch

for a ten overs match with drinks, served by local farmer households

american countryside is an experience, a warm one

should reality be represented?

any representation of reality is not the correct representation

so, should reality be represented?

reality should be represented in a way so that social change is possible

i do not know which way to concur!!

happy to hear stories, deep wonderful stories that religion has endowed us with

myths of religion - these stories, these beautiful stories....

narrated images into my eyes

finally with the laptop in university library

but with the tactile pleasure of holding a NY Times this morning too

some good old Japanese fictional novels came my way

and they narrated images into my eyes

stacks and stacks of books and journals,

people laboring on....wish i could snap a photograph

Can we make characters talk to each other , in the way they talk to themselves!

Highlights of this Week

Two quickly written papers, not very satisfying...

Reading Swartz and understanding power and resistance to it

Seeing Goddard's 'Breathless', I came to the question - is the intra-personal communication at any point of time excluded from the inter-personal communication?

Can we make characters talk to each other , in the way they talk to themselves!

Consumerism seems to be the 'act' or 'activity' in SL, all my peers were trying new clothes, new hair, new skin and I as a newbee just looked around...completely lost as I do if a shopping mall does not have a bookstore

The pictures one gets to snap in SL sometimes remind of a pastiche-ness of Cubism and Neo-constructivism, i could be mistaken but then i am not an art historian :)

haven’t I drooled over expressions like ‘sunny rainfall'

This week has been a week of readings. So, I have read and intend to READ throughout the weekend. There is an exasperation and a certain feeling of seductiveness accompanying the process of ‘reading’ and the reason I cannot write more on it is because of my inability to find reasons for why this READING process is the way it is……..wonderfully ambiguous and oxymoronish…haven’t I drooled over expressions like ‘sunny rainfall' and ‘optimistically pessimist’, partly an explanation…certainly and certainly not... before I actually get my hands at a camera here, lets have some SL pics of BG

all cash starved, all looking for cheap meals

Well the weekend was long, really long

three trips to Walmart and meeting fellow students there - all cash starved, all looking for cheap meals

and then i am home listening to tapes about people discussing how to stop this incessant consumerism

its a pain listening to them, it really is, and the fact that i have to write them down

i surely like the philosophical bent of it

written in despair by the greats

the adornos, the gramscis, the marcuses

but but but... can they be the alternative?

the fact that i am even making this question

suggests there is a possibility

So, from now on, it is going to be like this.

Coffee, and biscuits (if you are lucky)...writing papers, finding related text and putting them together, constructing meaning by putting words together, deconstructing also in the process.

Coffee in tongue, I am beginning to hate it. Its utilitarian purpose, stops you from going asleep.

Well if that was the week, the weekend was better. S

some good papers to go through,

some wonderful beer and smoked salmon,

and Wong Kar Wai. sometimes it is good to have fetishes - his fetish for smoke coming from boilers, cups, kettles, cigarette stubs sunk in ashtrays, fog lifting itself as lovers are in the mood for love.....