Horror Video Games - Essays On The Fusion Of Fear And Play - Review

This book was a fantastic read. I pretty much read the whole thing as so much of it was relevant to my coursework. Some essays were of a different subject but this is exactly the kind of book I would recommend to anyone looking into horror video games. I gathered lot's of quotes which may or may not help me but I am sure most will be of some use:


Match Made in Hell: The Inevitable Success of the Horror Genre in Video Games
Richard Rouse III

Game Storytelling works best when the plot is fairly simple...but the plot is something that needs to be immediately understood and which propels the player through the whole game experience...Since horror works best the less that is explained and the more that is left up to the imagination, it maps well to game storytelling. - p16

...back-story in subtle storytelling sections involving dialog over game-play, graffiti written on the walls, very quick semi-animated flashbacks, and cryptic journal entries...This enabled us to keep the story mysterious enough that the player would be left with numerous unanswered questions. - p17

In horror, the way the audience fills in the blanks will be far more disturbing than anything a writer could possibly come up with. - p17

Horror is also ideal for games because it presents a familiar world but with enough of a twist to make it seem fantastic and special. Horror stories are typically set in highly recognizable locations that players can identify but which have been invaded by some evil force. - p17

A horror game can introduce a supernatural element which justifies...Yet the familiar setting of horror fiction keeps the player grounded. - p17

A popular game design device is to give players some information about their surroundings, while leaving a lot out. - p18

In an immersive game, the player actually projects himself into the experience...With the player fully immersing himself in the world, fear becomes much more intense. - p20

...it's important to keep in mind that almost all narrative video games are power fantasies of one kind or another. If too much of the player's feeling of power is taken away, in comparison to what they're accustomed to experiencing in other games, they're going to feel frustrated and hence pulled out of the experience. - p23

...the most cinematic device, the cut-scene, surely one of the most jarring immersion breakers in a game's toolbox...it tends to pull players out of the experience. - p23

Gothic Bloodlines In Survival Horror Gaming
Laurie N. Taylor

In Gothic literature, lost histories are often uncovered through the castle or haunted house in which the narrative takes place, with frequent remarks on the past inhabitants through decorations, paintings, and other elements. In survival horror games...the same elements remain. - p53

Storytelling In Survival Horror Video Games
Ewan Kirkland

...littered with narrative fragments in the form of newspaper articles, lab reports, photographs, diaries, audio cassettes, painted portraits and computer logs, accessible through both game-space and what Aylish Wood labels "info-space"...As Ryan notes, such techniques produce two narratives running in parallel: "the story to be discovered, and the story of their discovery". - p67

Written documents, an audio file, graffiti, all contribute to the foreshadowing of the level's conclusion. - p68

The design of spaces in survival horror games and the manner in which players are encouraged or permitted to interact within them are central to the genre's management of the interactive experience to fit a determined narrative patterm. - p68

To use Ryan's terminology, in survival horror video games spaces constitute the material signs or discourse through which the player mentally constructs the game's story. - p71

Just as a reader or viewer might not necessarily interpret their respective texts in accordance with the ideal interpretation, so players are unlikely to complete a video game in its initial play. - p73

In survival horror, the necessary actions which make up the "ideal sequence" of play are imbued with narrative significance: through the design and organization of avatars, spaces, puzzles, objects, adversaries, and the scattering of info space documents. Games elicit a story produced through game-play by requiring that certain narratively-loaded objects be picked up and correctly used... - p73

Storytelling in survival horror, in common with many qualities of video game narrative, is a process of uncovering not narrating (Grieb 2003: 166), solution rather than creation (Egenfeldt-Nielsen et al., 2008: 182) .  - p75

...in survival horror buildings and spaces tell stories, much like the documents which litter them. - p75

The ultimate horror of survival horror is the suggestion that, despite our strongest feelings to the contrary, we are not the masters of our own fate. - p77

Haunting Backgrounds: Transnationality And Intermediality In Japaneses Survival Horror Video Games
Martin Picard

Silent Hill is considered to be more psychological, more about characters and atmosphere, and more about giving a sense of dread, anxiety and helplessness [Perron, 2006: 8-8]. - p96

...psychological horror, a type of horror akin to Japanese horror...In order to build tension, psychological horror relies on the characters' fear, guilt, beliefs, and emotional instability... - p111

Psychological horror is terrifying to gamers due to the tension built up around the story and characters' actions. It creates discomfort by exposing common and universal psychological fears, such as the fear of the unknown...  - p111

I believed that our method to invoke the fear in the player's own imagination maximizes the recipient's fear. We do not simply show scary things, but provide fragmental information and create a situation that forces the player to imagine these horrors. I personally call it, "Subtracting horror" [Stuart, 2006]  - p111

In Japanese horror, fear is not simply generated through suprise; the silence and suspense in-between the action is important too. This silence makes the player's fear build in his or her mind. Japanese horror is always designed this way [Stuart, 2006]. - p112

The Survival Horror: The Extended Body Genre
Bernard Perron

"the horror genre can easily do away with character and plot; it is the detail of the monsters, the rhythm of the tension and shocks that matter. Plot and characters are things video-games find very difficult to deal with"  - p132

...the third [-] person perspective added to the dramatic tension by allowing the player to see things that would otherwise be lost in a first [-] person perspective, such as monsters chasing the player character... - p132

Agency is the second unavoidable concept at stake. Janet Murray has influentially defined it as "the satisfying power to take meaningful action and see the result of our decisions and choices" (1997:126). - p138

Plunged Alone Into Darkness: Evolution In The Staging Of Fear In The Alone In The Dark Series
Guillaume Roux-Girard

It isn't what you see, but what you can't see. It's the suggestion; the subtle teasing of the subconscious; the lonely creaking of the floorboard resonating throughout an empty hallway; the slow advance around the corner; the swelling sense of dread as the ever-present evil that looms near refuses to reveal itself. Fear is not the adrenaline rush. It's the helpless feeling of beign alone in the dark [Fahs, 2008] - p145

The acousmatic sounds - defined as a "sound one hears without seeing its originating cause" (Chion, 1983: 19, freely translated) - populating the off-screen, induce fear because they create anticipation. - p152

As is the case with horror films, the silence...puts the player on edge rather than reassuring him that there is no danger in the immediate environment, increasing the expectation that danger will soon appear. The appearance of the danger is, therefore, heightened in intensity by way of its sudden intrusion into silence [2004]. - p153

To trigger sudden events is undoubtedly one of the basic techniques used to scare someone. However, because the effect is considered easy to achieve, it is often labelled as a cheap approach and compared with another more valuable one: suspense" (2004). - p159

Patterns Of Obscurity: Gothic Setting And Light In Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill 2
Simon Niedenthal

The emotions resulting from enforced player vulnerability - a hallmark of the survival horror genre - as experienced within the narrative themes, player tasks, and virtual architecture of the game worlds, offer a new venue for exploring the depths of fear, terror, and the sublime that were first plumbed by writers such as Anne Radcliffe, Edgar Allen Poe, Matthew Lewis and H.P. Lovercraft. - p168

One key way in which survival horror games create tehir emotional effect is by maintaining a state of player vulnerability. - p170

...obscurity is one means by which the appraisal period is extended, and the player is frozen in a state of uncertainty, in which action is considered but not yet possible...Often this is accomplished through strategies of visual obscurity related to darkness, atmosphere, and spatial occlusion. - p173

Dark environments are a cliche within the horror genre. Therefore, it is important to reiterate that darkness is only one means of creating obscurity that lends itself to the sublime terror of the survival horror genre. - p176

Hair-Raising Entertainment: Emotions, Sounds, And Structure In Silent Hill 2 And Fatal Frame
Inger Ekman and Petri Lankoski

Regarding the early horror film, Whittington mentions how sound became one of the main tools for maintaining narrative cohesion in films that otherwise would have lacked tension and suspense... - p181

The emphasis on sound has remained important even as the genre has matured. We suggest a reason for this resides in sound's ability to tap into emotional responses in a way that is extremely powerful, yet subtle enough to escape our conscious attention. - p181

They aid story comprehension by selectively attracting attention to events which are important for understanding the story... - p185

Power and Dalgleish suggest that fear relates to situations in which a person perceives that their personal survival, or their objectives are in danger. - p190

...the games further create anxiety by playing noisy and unpredictable environment ambient sounds. - 193

Daniel Kromand (2008) points out that horror games also tend to use "false alarms." Thus, when the usefulness of a certain sound has been established, it is sometimes used in vain, just to make the player more alert. This uncertainty of the functionality and role of sounds contributes to the deeply disturbing effect of sounds. - p194

Our analysis suggests that sounds are essential in shaping fear through goal-related evaluations...A particular sense of unease is created with sounds that cause contradictory evaluations: loud sounds accompany actions that would best be silent... - p197

Complete Horror In Fatal Frame
Michael Nitsche

Upon completion of the game, the player is left with no increased understanding or reward; it is unclear whether survival or a "happy ending" was achieved. The avatar could possibly be dead. Instead, finishing the game provides relief from responsibility and escape from its horrors [Hoeger and Huber, 2007: 156]. - p216

Gaming's Hauntology: Dead Media In Dead Rising, Siren And Michigan: Report From Hell
Christian McCrea

"Horror video games' emulation of white noise, photographic blurring, and celluloid imperfections, produces the uncanny impression of an older, ghostly or undead analog media seeping into, contaminating and enveloping the digital" (Kirkland, 2009). - p222

The Rules Of Horror: Procedural Adaptation In Clock Tower, Resident Evil, And Dead Rising
Matthew Weise

...the process of which I'm speaking is creative, not prescriptive. It is an authored process, by which conscious choices are made in how to change, manipulate, and re-arrange elements of an existing media text so that it conforms to an author's interpretation. - p239

...process of abstraction, by which certain elements are chosen to be modeled in a game system while others are omitted (Juul, 2007). - p239

Procedural adaptation is the term that I feel best encapsulates what video games do when they codify the conventions of horror texts. - p239

Watching someone run from a serial killer and running from a serial killer oneself are not the same experience... - p241

Reanimating Lovecraft: The Ludic Paradox Of Call Of Cthulhu: Dark Corners Of The Earth
Tanya Krywinska

The "cookie-crumb trail" device, as I will call it, provides game designers with a means of controlling the order in which a player encounters events, the predictability of which can mean that that cinema-style shock tactics can be more easily employed. - p274

The trail...can be played with to create shocks, surprises, work up a strong sense of trepidation and in many cases function as a means of acting as both environmental story-telling and warning of terrors to come... - p274

While the sound or other cues in cinema prompt the spectator to imagine they have to act, in games it is incumbent on the player to act on what they hear and see. - p275

...its interiors, is exceedingly dingy and run-down, the overall effect of the decaying-chewed-toffee colours is to give the player a sense of claustrophobia, underpinned by the presence of many boundaries that restrict the player's explorations. - p280

Personal Notes

This book has been fantastic help. A major influence (maybe) was the discussion of 'Procedural Adaptation' which means taking a book/film and adapting it into some sort of game. This is something I have done and may use this within my research or project title. The first page of this particular chapter had some nice descriptions.

Level Design

'Beginning Game Level Design' by John Feil and MarcScattergood

I am using the book 'Beginning Game Level Design' by John Feil and Marc Scattergood to help me with the initial stages of game design. Using the hints and tips to begin my level design for my environment, I aim to have a thorough visual image in my head and on paper, ready to be converted to a 3D environment.

Know Your Audience and Know Your Genre

Genre: Psychological Horror (Story)

Audience: Anyone who is a fan of this genre and story based games (12 years and up)

Example Games (That I have Played)

Alan Wake

This game had a lot of potential however for me, I found it quite repetitve. It seemed that all the enemies were the same and each time you were being chased, it felt the same, apart from the environment. As for the experience I look to create, I won't be having enemies of any kind as it will be a story. I do however aim to have the different 'parts' of the story, as different and unique to each other as possible in order for each one to be as interesting and creepy as the other.

Project Zero II - Crimson Butterfly

This is one of if not the most scariest game I have ever played. As you explore the map you are constantly in fear of something happening. The atmosphere has been captured fantastically in order to keep the player on their toes. I will look to accomplish this in the later part of my own interactive experience.

I am looking to create an interactive experience that uses subtle horror techniques to have the user on edge whilst understanding the story. Personally I find sudden loud/surprising scenes in horror games ineffective and only scary due to the 'jump' - caused by the noise. I hope to enhance this technique in a more original manner. (If I decided to use this technique). As for creating the rest of the horror atmosphere, I shall be using traditional horror methods focusing heavily on lighting and sound.

First Impressions - The beginning

The first part of my game will be set in a hotel. This is merely and introduction part so there is no major events that happen here. Instead, it will be used to communicate subtly the story of who you are and why you are there, as well as give the player a chance for the feel of the game and how it works before moving on the the next part of the game. I must be careful to make this as enticing as possible otherwise, the player will loose interest before even attempting the main section of the game.

The Middle

The main bulk of my game is being set in a mental asylum. Many different events will happen here in order to convey the story. I will begin developing this once the hotel is around 80% complete. I am not sure how but I hope I can create it so that once you start the asylum level - everything from the hotel 'disappears' in order to reduce processing power needed. I will need to look into this.

The Ending

At this point I am not fully sure on how to end it effectively. It is important I do this right. I need to have the whole story told and understood by the player. I have a few ideas but they could all change depending on how the project develops so I have decided to plan this when the asylum part is around 60-70% complete. I will be looking into a climax as well as a denouement for an effective ending.

'Beginning Game Level Design' by John Feil and Marc Scattergood - Quotes

'Beginning Game Level Design' by John Feil and Marc Scattergood

Useful and helpful quotes from this book:

'The further you get from the accepted genres, the harder it will be to find your audience.' - p3

'Once you find your audience, pay attention to what they like and what don't like.' - p3

'...you need to know the games that your own game will be competing with...to learn what players expect from your genre.' - p4

'Manipulative power is the most subtle power...Giving the player the power to manipulate also allows the player to immerse himself in your game, as your game characters become his extensions into your game world.' - p7/8

'The designer may start forgetting that the player doesn't know as much about the game world as he does, so he starts leaving out small bits of information that the player needs in order to make sense of it all.' - p13

'The most important part of any game is the first 10 minutes. Unless you make them so compelling that the player can't put down the controls, he'll find it very easy to quit...' - p14

'...the end needs to be satisfying....The finale needs to wrap up any plot hooks that might be laying about...' - p17

'There are two parts to an ending: the climax and the denouement (pronounced day-new-ma). The climax is the height of excitement, where the plot comes together and resolves itself in a way that's entertaining to the audience. The denouement is the part after the climax, where any hanging plot points or clarifications are given.' - p17/18

'Wide open spaces are inviting to people, drawing them in. Closed spaces and pinched corners push people away, making them feel trapped.' - p65

'By alternating spaces that pull and spaces that push in their structures, architects create a flow that keeps people moving from space to space, looking at the things the architects want them to look at...' - p65

'Architects are also masters of using different textures and colors to enhance flavor of an environment...A large part of the architect's art is creating mood and immersion, and the same goes for game designers.' - p65

'Architecture has a benefit over open terrain because you can direct the player's movement much more easily.' - p72

'...you want to avoid creating environments that frustrate the player...The player should be able to get around your halls and rooms easily.' - p72

'Another way to frustrate a player is to make it hard for him to figure out where he is. Getting lost in a game is horribly unappealing...' - p72

'...linear gameplay means less choice and less freedom for the player, which can mean more frustration as the player must adjust to what you think is the best path for him to take...' - p73

'having levels that allow for circular movement...makes for much better gameplay.' - p74

'The problem with non-linear levels is that every possible choice and action that the player might want to make has to be planned for, creating more and more work as you build in reactions for every possible action. Because of this, most non-linear games are actually partially linear.' - p74

'The game DOOM 3 by id Software uses lack of light to intensify the player's feelings of vulnerability and horror.' - p87

'Players become nervous when they can't see as far as they're used to...' - p89

'Using correct sounds for environments tremendously increases the amount of immersion a player feels.' - p90

'We unconsciously prioritize and filter out all the noise we don't want to listen to and pay attention only to noises that are unexpected or that call out to us specifically...' - p91

'...ambient audio is expected but isn't necessarily wanted. It has to be subtle and quiet. It also has to fit the environment perfectly, or players will notice it and hate it almost immediately.' - p91

'...important thing to consider about ambient audio is that it needs to be consistent without becoming repetitive.' - p91

'If you're placing encounters that give out information, remember that players need time to understand the information. This means that the knowledge you are giving must be presented in a way in which the player can take whatever time he needs to absorb it.' - p96

'...you'll want to set up the knowledge so that the player can repeat it at any time in case he forgets it or feels he needs to clarify something.' - p96

'If the information you want the player to know is vital to his success in the game, it is better to placer this information where the player can't avoid it.' - p96

'If some information is important but not vital for the player to know, try to put that information in bottlenecks, where it will be hard for the player to miss.' - p96

'...The more aggressive you make this type of thing, the more the player will try to avoid it.' - p96

'Beginning Game Level Design' by John Feil and Marc Scattergood - Review

'Beginning Game Level Design' by John Feil and Marc Scattergood

My project is more of an interactive story than a game as such, however, this book had a fantastic insight into designing levels and games. I will be using this book to develop the level design of my environment in order to grasp a more professional direction in creating my final piece. This book's chapters consecutively describe the procedures for creating a story, designing and planning the game and then implementing it within a game engine. I will follow this book step by step to create my initial plan and design of my environment before going on and making it.

I have decided to take my environment in steps (levels). The beginning (first level) will be held in the hotel. I will first design and draw out my level design for this setting, gather visual research and sketch out ideas before taking it to a 3D package and creating the game assets. Once I have the hotel environment to a standard I am pleased with I will then move on and repeat the same process for the next environment - the asylum.

'Psycho Paths' by Philip L. Simpson - Quotes

'Psycho Paths' by Philip L. Simpson

Quotes I found interesting or relatively useful for my project:

'Urban legends belong to the subclass of folk narratives, legends, that-unlike fairy tiles-are believed, or at least believable, and that-unlike myths-are set in the recent past and involve normal human beings rather than ancient Gods or demigods. Legends are folk history, or rather quasi-history. As with any folk legends, urban legends gain credibility from specific details of time and place or from references to source authorities. (3)' p6

'...the film's strengths: "But being left with such a question [about the killer's past] is much more satisfactory than being given the answer...' p52



                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

'Psycho Paths' by Philip L. Simpson - Review

'Psycho Paths' by Philip L. Simpson

I got this book a while ago hoping it would help when it came to the story writing of my environment. However I then discovered 'The Secret Scripture' by Sebastian Barry and that book has helped a great deal in my story ideas. I am going to base my environment on events that happened within this book. As for 'Psycho Paths' I decided to give it a read anyway and see what I could get from it.

It turned out it was nothing like I had imagined. I got about half way through before realizing it was wasting my time and I was getting nothing from it. It does appear to be a very good book for those who divulge in the topic but for me it's a little too far from what I was looking for. Especially as my story is not going to involve serial killing or anything as concrete as that.

'The Secret Scripture' by Sebastian Barry - Quotes

'The Secret Scripture' by Sebastian Barry

Here is many of the quotes I found interesting or may prove useful in my project story outcome - SPOILER ALERT

'My hand is good and I have a beautiful biro full of blue ink...and I have a bundle of paper that  I found in a store cupboard...and I have a floorboard loosened where I hide these treasures.' p4

'I write out my life on unwanted paper...I start with a clean sheet - with many clean sheets. For dearly I would love now to leave an account, some kind of brittle and honest-minded history of myself, and if God gives me the strength, I will tell this story, and imprison it under the floor-board, and then with joy enough I will go to my own rest under the Roscommon sod.' p5

'The piano had possibly never been worth a great sum, but it had a most beautiful tone for all that, and had never been played before it reached us, in as much as one could surmise that history from the state of the keys, which were pristine.' p12

'There were scenes painted on the side panels, of places which were not Sligo as much, most likely being scenes of an imaginary Italy or the like, but might have been all the same, being of mountains and rivers, with shepherds and shepherdesses standing about with patient sheep.' p12

'My father...was able to play this lovely instrument...there was room for me beside him on the stool...' p13

'Is she a hundred now? She used to play the piano down in the recreation room, really very expert songs, jazz tunes of the twenties and thirties.' p18

Roseannes father shows her the laws of gravity - p19-23

Three young men ask Roseanne's father to bury their dead friend. Fr Gaunt absolves the dead boy. p38-44

The fire at the orphanage - p76-79

''Yes, And you came here I believe from Sligo Mental Hospital.'
'Lunatic Asylum.'
'Yes, yes. An interesting old phrase.'' p81

''I wonder how long you were in Sligo? Do you remember the year you entered there?
'No. Sometime during the war,' I said. That I knew.
'The Second World War, you mean?'
'Yes.'
'I was only a baby then,' he said.' p82

''I have not heard good accounts of the old hospital in SLigo, in that time. I am sure it was a horrendous place. I am quite sure it was.' p83

'My father leapt up, because my mother had inadvertently struck herself on the leg with the shovel...She had opened a little inch of herself and there were a few jewels of dark blood glistering there.' p87

Roseanne's mother purchases an expensive clock, which she then smashes. p88 -90

Roseanne's father dies. p90

Roseanne's fathers wake. p91-92

'I do remember terrible dark things, and loss, and noise, but it is like one of those terrible dark pictures that hang in churches, God knows why, because you cannot see a thing in them.' p106

Finding the guns in the grave - p159

Fr Gaunt's account of Rosanne's father at the top of the tower, regarding hammers and feathers. P187-188

'It was a book called Religio Medici in that very old battered copy I have often as I passed. She said it was her father's favourite book, had she ever told me that, and I said, yes, I thought so. I said I thought she might even have showed me her father's name in it once, yes.' p255

Roseanne pleads to reader - p257

Dr. Grene begins to understand everything - p289-291

Letter to John Kane from Dr. Grene - p292

Letter to Roseanne McNulty from Jack McNulty - p294

Everything becomes clear - p299-301

Letter to Dr. Grene from Seanin Keane Lavelle (John Kane)

'The Secret Scripture' by Sebastian Barry - Review

'The Secret Scripture' by Sebastian Barry

Through researching St. Columbas Lunatic Asylum and The Clarion Hotel, Sligo, I discovered that a film director was staying at the hotel in order to gain a feel of what it felt like when it used to be the asylum. He was doing this as part of research for his upcoming film which is based on a book, 'The Secret Scripture' by Sebastian Barry. The book itself is based upon harsh yet tru Irish history. Basing the story on his own aunt, from which he knew very little about, the story was about elderly lady - a patient of Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital - who is writing diary style extracts of her life and hiding them under the floor boards. The narrative of the whole novel is set through these diary extracts and that of her doctor's, Dr. William Grene.

SPOILER ALERT - this post and the next will describe certain events that someone planning on reading the book may wish to avoid so this is my warning!

I did a quick read up on the book and thought it could help me decipher some sort of story for my environment which the main character, Roseanne McNulty had actually stayed in at one point in her life - The St. Columbas Lunatic Asylum, now known as The Clarion Hotel, Sligo. With such a rare opportunity I managed to get a hold of the book which my grandparents ended up owning and began to read it.

At first I was a little disappointed to discover she was in fact, staying at another mental hospital and thought my research must of been wrong, however, I then, upon further reading, discovered that Roseanne did stay at St. Columbas Lunatic Asylum prior to her now home, Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital. So even with this I still managed to figure out a rough story idea that for now, I can use too plan my actual final piece

Example From Book

This book involves lots of memories - as it is narrated through characters diary extracts/ notes - hence memories. Throughout the book you discover different versions of stories which question who is telling the truth however further on - you discover that both stories are truthful but just happened at different times. It is remarkably done. Here is an example:

As a child, Roseanne remembered her father going to the top of a tower in the graveyard to show her the laws of gravity - by dropping hammers and feathers at the same time - the ideal result, they land together. She waited at the bottom while he went up to the top and dropped the said items. This whole scene is described beautifully by Roseanne and is a very sweet and wonderful memory. She had great admiration for her father and loved him ever so much.

However, another account of this event was from the local Priest, who in his notes explained that the father was abducted and taken to the top of this tower, in which Roseanne followed. She watched from the bottom - struggling to see what was going on at the top, in which the group of men had stuffed her fathers mouth with feathers, and beaten him with a hammer - the priest believed they initially planned to through him off the tower. At some point he blurted out the feathers and the group of men through the hammers over the edge in which one hit and knocked out Roseanne.

Now what is interesting is the difference but yet eerie similarity in these two stories - who do you believe? The Priest who would have no reason to lie, however does have a dark side too him and did not get on with Roseanne or the father, or do you believe Roseanne, who after all, was in a mental asylum.

You eventually discover that both events actually happened. First was Roseanne's father showing her the gravity law then years later, him being brought too the top of the tower and beaten with hammers. There were no feathers at this point, Dr. Grene had just mis-wrote his 'diary extract'. So obviously, with the blow to the read, Roseanne forgot this memory or choose not too remember or write about it. 

This book is full of interesting/disturbing memories which I can perhaps use and showcase in my story.

'What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy' by James Paul Gee - Book Review

'What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy' by James Paul Gee

My last post has all the quotes I noted down for this book that I found interesting or useful for my project. However, since my project has changed some of these are not important anymore but there are still some I can relate my project too:

'... I predict that shooting will be less important and talking more important in many games, even shooter games. Even now, many shooting games stress stealth, story, and even social interaction more than they used to.' - p10

'Such teaching and learning is, in my view, a matter of three things:

1. The learner must be enticed to try, even if he or she already has good grounds to be afraid to try.
2. The learner must be enticed to put in lots of effort even if he or she begins with little motivation to do so
3. The learner must achieve some meaningful success when he or she has expended this effort.

There are three principles here because people will not put in effort if they are not even willing to try in a domain; success without effort is not rewarding; and effort with little success is equally unrewarding.' - p61

'a very powerful learning principle, a principle we can call the "amplification of input principle"... they give, for a little input, a lot of output. In a video game, you press some buttons in the real world and a whole interactive virtual world comes to life. Amplification of input is highly motivating for learning.' - p64

'The story line in a video game is a mixture of four things:

1. The game designers' ("author's") choices
2. How you, the player, have caused these choices to unfold in your specific case by order in which you have found things.
3. The actions you as one of the central characters in the story carry out (since in good video games there is a good deal of choice as to what to do, when to do it, and in what order to do it)
4. Your own imaginative projections about the characters, plot, and world of story.' - p81

'Playing a good video game like Deus Ex well requires the player to engage in the following four-step process:

1. The player must probe the virtual world (which involves looking around the current environment, clicking on something, or engaging in a certain action).
2. Based on reflection while probing and afterword, the player must form a hypothesis about what something (a text, object, artifact, event, or action) might mean in a usefully situated way.
3. The player reprobes the world with that hypothesis in mind, seeing what effect he or she gets.
4. The player treats this effect as feedback from the world and accepts or rethinks his or her original hypothesis.' - p90

'A game like Deus Ex has a great many texts inside the virtual world it creates, texts you find along the way, like notes, e-mail, diaries, and messages you have hacked from various computers. These texts help you not only to piece together the ongoing story but to make decisions about actions you will or will not take' - p100

'In video games players soon learn how to "read" the physical environments they are in to gain clues about how to proceed through them. The shapes and contours of the physical environment, and the objects lying around, come to guide the player...in making good guesses about how to proceed.' - p109

'...a point I am trying to make quite generally in this book; Good video games incorporate good learning principles, because otherwise there would be no video games, because too few people would have purchased them.' - p114

As I have mentioned this book - now - is not as important too my project as initally thought, however, I have still managed to find some really nice quotes and information that can help towards my progression of this project.

Useful information it has given me is examples of games that focus on story and environment e.g Half Life 2  and Deus Ex. Many of the quotes noted above have help give an insight into the types of things I need to look into in order to help create a story via the environment in my interactive experience.

This book's main focus was on teaching through games and comparing these techniques with school techniques. Throughout the book Gee stated and explained 36 different learning principles. I am not going to write them all here but here is a few I thought would be useful for my project; Create a 3D environment which, through exploration, tells a story.

10. Amplification of Input Principle

For a little input, learners get a lot of output.

15. Probing Principle

Learning is a cycle of probing the world (doing something); reflecting in and on this action and, on this basis, forming a hypothesis; reprobing the world to test this hypothesis; and then accepting or rethinking the hypothesis.

16. Multiple Routes Principle

There are multiple ways to make progress or move ahead. This allows learners to make choices, rely on their own strengths and styles of learning and problem solving, while also exploring alternative styles.

20. Multimodal Principle

Meaning and knowledge are built up through various modalities (images, texts, symbols, interactions, abstract design, sound, etc.) not just words.

21. "Material Intelligence" Principle

Thinking, problem solving, and knowledge are "stored" in material objects and the environment. This frees learners to engage their minds with other things while combining the results of their own thinking with the knowledge stored in material objects and the environment to achieve yet more powerful effects.

28. Discovery Principle

Overt telling is kept to a well-thought-out minimum, allowing ample opportunity for the learner to experiment and make discoveries.

'What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy' by James Paul Gee - Book Quotes

'What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy' by James Paul Gee

Sadly this book is not as useful too my project as it was at the beginning due to my change of direction, however I still continued with it, highlighting interesting features and noting down interesting expressions.

I am first going to highlight all the quotes and page numbers before writing a short overview of the book and how it has related to my project.

'...you can think about people who kill themselves to set off a bomb, in pursuit of some cause they believe in, as suicide bombers, murderers, terrorists, freedom fighters, heroes, psychotics, or in many other different ways. Different people can read the world differently just as they can read different types of texts differently.' - p2

'...I predict that shooting will be less important and talking more important in many games, even shooter games. Even now, many shooting games stress stealth, story, and even social interaction more than they used to.' - p10

'When people learn to play video games they are learning a new literacy. Of course, this is not the way the word "literacy" is normally used. Traditionally, people think of literacy as the ability to read and write.' - p13

'Three things, then, are involved in active learning: experiencing the world in new ways, forming new affiliations, and preparation for future learning.
This is "active learning." However, such learning is not yet what I call "critical learning." For learning to be critical...The learner needs to learn not only how to understand and produce meanings in a particular semiotic domain that are recognizable to those affiliated with the domain, but, in addition, how to think about the domain at a "meta" level as a complex system of interrelated parts.' - p23

'...video games are potentially particularly good places where people can learn to situate meanings through embodied experiences in a complex domain and meditate on the process.' - p26

'It is important to realize that meanings are no more general - they are just as situated - in lifeworld domains as they are in any other semiotic domain...think of the different situated meanings of the word "light" in everyday interactions in these sentences: Turn the light on. This light isn't giving much light. I can see a far off light. I am just bathing in this light.' - p 37

'In the modern world, we are used to having to face the fact that children, including our own, are specialists when and where we are not. Many children are adept at the semiotic domain of computers - sometimes because they play video games and that interest has led them to learn more about computers - when the adults in the house are intimidated by computers.' - p38

'...thinking about the (internal) design of the game, about the game as a complex system of interrelated parts meant to engage and even manipulate the player in certain ways. This is metalevel thinking, thinking about the game as a system and a designed space, and not just playing within the game moment by moment. Such thinking can open up critique of the game. It can also lead to novel moves and strategies, sometimes ones that the game makers never anticipated. This is what I meant by critical learning and thinking' - p42

'...while some young people will let a superhero first-person shooter character kill "civilians" and not just enemies, a good many others will not, since they feel that it just isn't fitting for such a superperson - that is, the person they are projecting into the world - to do such a thing...Players are projecting an identity onto their virtual character based both on their own values and on what the game has taught them about what such a character should or might be and become' - p58

'Such teaching and learning is, in my view, a matter of three things:

1. The Learner must be enticed to try, even if he or she already has good grounds to be afriad to try.
2. The learner must be enticed to put in lots of effort even if he or she begins with little motivation to do so.
3. The learner must achieve some meaningful success when he or she has expended this effort.

There are three principles here because people will not put in effort if they are not even willing to try in a domain; success without effort is not rewarding; and effort with little success is equally unrewarding.' - p 61

'...a very powerful learning principle, a principle we can call the "amplification of input principle."...they give, for a little input, a lot of output. In a video game, you press some buttons in the real world and a whole interactive virtual world comes to life. Amplification of input is highly motivating for learning.' - p64

'The story line in a video game is a mixture of four things:

1. The game designers' ("author's") choices
2. How you, the player, have caused these choices to unfold in your specific case by order in which you have found things.
3. The actions you as one of the central characters in the story carry out (since in good video games there is a good deal of choice as to what to do, when to do it, and in what order to do it)
4. Your own imaginative projections about the characters, plot, and world of story.' - p81

'Playing a good video game like Deus Ex well requires the player to engage in the following four-step process:

1. The player must probe the virtual world (which involves looking around the current environment, clicking on something, or engaging in a certain action).
2. Based on reflection while probing and afterward, the player must form a hypothesis about what something (a text, object, artifact, event, or action) might mean in a usefully situated way.
3. The player reprobes the world with that hypothesis in mind, seeing what effect he or she gets.
4. The player treats this effect as feedback from the world and accepts or rethinks his or her original hypothesis.' - p90

'A game like Deus Ex has a great many texts inside the virtual world it creates, texts you find along the way, like notes, e-mail, diaries, and messages you have hacked from various computers. These texts help you not only to piece together the ongoing story but to make decisions about actions you will or will not take' - p100

'In video games players soon learn how to "read" the physical environments they are in to gain clues about how to proceed through them. The shapes and contours of the physical environment, and the objects lying around, come to guide the player...in making good guesses about how to proceed.' p109

'...a point I am trying to make quite generally in this book: Good video games incorporate good learning principles, because otherwise there would be no video games, because too few people would have purchased them.' - p114

'Playing With Fire - How Do Computer Games Influence The Player'

'Playing With Fire - How Do Computer Games Influence The Player' 

by Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen & Jonas Heide Smith

(2004)

The reason I picked up this book was due to the previous research I had carried out - relating to the stigmatizing use of Mental Illness in games. This book is a report that highlights how computer games influence the player. The researched that is carried out and delivered in this report was split into two sections:

1) Research which poses the basic question 'What do people do to media?'

2) Research which poses the basic question 'What do media do to people?'

In all honesty this book was not exactly what I was looking for. I was wanting to find out how to influence a player in order to find out a way to entice someone to play through the whole interactive experience I create and not get bored and stop half way through. I did however read the book and found out some interesting points that does distantly link into my project.

Interesting points were raised such as the idea that video games are destroying children's imaginations and not helping with there development however this theory has been proved wrong:

Contrary to what has previously been believed, children's imaginations are destroyed by popular video games. However, international research shows that they adopt a far more strategic way of thinking. (Carstensen & Vestergard, 2003; our translation) - p09

Sadly this research was carried out by a Danish newspaper - 'Berlingske Tidende' which is difficult for me to find and understand however this report has translated it and given us the translation above. If I'm honest I always thought that video games were not healthy for children too play however now I think about it, I would only find this the case if it was excessive play. With this report of a more strategic thinking being developed I can see how this could be the case as when playing these games a lot of thought is involved on how to simultaneously play, plan, think ahead as well as many other factors to consider.

What this report primarily focuses on is how computer games influence players especially when dealing with violent games. It is well known that some serious crimes committed have been blamed on violent and therefore influential computer games:

Negative effects of computer games have become the centre of renewed attention, however, primarily because of tragic incidences of violence, especially the tragedies in Littleton, Colorado (1999) and Erfurt, Germany (2002), in which school pupils shot and killed a large number of their fellow pupils. Violent computer games of the time were explicitly accused, both in the media coverage and in subsequent legal proceedings. During the Littleton case, the perpetrators' fascination with the 3D shooting game 'Doom' was regularly referred to as a contributory factor. - p10

These are only a few examples of games that were influential to perpetrator's; as in recent years, there has been many more. This report looks into whether or not it's actually the games that are causing the violent behavior. What the report heavily states and keeps proving is that this is not easy to research. It gives evidence and examples of different research methods that have been carried out over the years looking into this idea however none of them actually have concrete evidence that computer games influence the player.

There is plenty evidence that suggests that computer games do not cause violence - in fact, it's hard to prove otherwise, you see in all honesty, there are an abundance of factors that need to be considered and simply just cannot be tested and proved accurately:

A computer game does not do any harm per se and is only problematic for some children and young people in certain circumstances (Gauntlett, 2001; Liestol & Liestol, 2001; Sorensen & Jessen, 2000a). -p13

This is a very valid point and this report gives plenty of examples into how this is true. My favourite example is a simple yet effective one which is easy too understand and easy to picture. This example is explaining how certain activities may appear and seem different depending on which persepective you look at it:

For example, if two boys are playing Star Wars in a backyard with wooden swords and tree stumps as props, it may resemble aggressive behaviour to an outsider. From the boy's perspective, however, it is a game, and it would be wrong to consider it violence. - p14

In relation to a video game, this example merely means that from afar and with a glance, a certain game may appear violent and inappropriate however it depends on the mind-frame of the person playing the game. Contrary to this point, there are games that have excessive violence however that does not mean that by playing them you are going to be violent yourself.

Through observations and interviews (in after-school clubs, kindergartens, etc.) conducted over a 10-year period, Jessen has found that children use computer games as toys in the same way they use other types of toys, and that the nature of their play cannot, therefor, be said to be dictated by the machine. Jessen stresses that children use the games in a different manner that that which outside critics might imagine - children are imaginative and creative. - p15

Again, this is raising the point that children use their imagination for nearly everything. What goes on in their head is completely different to what an outsider thinks. Hence that playing games is just like playing with their ordinary toys; they could be violent or not, depending on how their imagination works. It is fair too say that certain things may affect how we think however due to the difficulty of proving otherwise. American psychologist Sherry Turkle believes; 'technology may well have an effect, but that this effect cannot be classified as predominantly positive or negative.' - p17. This was made clear when Turkle wrote, in relation to people and technology:

.....that they are getting an instrumentally useful product, and there is little question that they are. But now, it is in their home and they interact with it every day. And it turns out they are also gettign an object that teaches them a new way of thinking and encourages them to develop new expectations about the kinds of relationships they and their children will have with machines. (Turkle, 1995 49). - p17

With all this in mind however, there has been research by recognizable groups that prove that video games do have an effect on aggression level. In 2000, several associations issued a joint statement to the US Congressional Public Health Summit stating:

The conclusion of the public health community, based on over 30 years of research, is that viewing entertainment violence can lead to increases in aggressive attitudes, values and behavior, particularly in children. Its effects are measurable and long-lasting. Moreover, prolonged viewing of media violence can lead to emotional desensitization toward violence in real life. (ACoP, 2000) - p19

The associations that contributed to this statement were:

American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American Psychiatric Association.

As you can see these are respectable professions which have clearly done plenty of research however I still feel that it really depends on the individual and the environment.

On page 21 & 22, the report discusses in depth about certain study's that suggested a more realistic result and shows that violent games to increase aggression etc.

Overall I still feel it truly depends on the individual and the environment. Obviously some games should not be played until you are at a suitable age to understand the difference between what you can do in a game and what can be done in real life. This report has given me great insight on the matter even though it is not directly what I plan on studying. This report will be useful for some aspects of my study.