Shallow Depths

I'm not big on absolutes, so my brain hates trying to determine 'favourites'. So, no 'Cha's Game of the Year', just a bunch of interesting games that were part of my year (including some older stuff). In alphabetical order.

Dinner Date

I'm not sure what it says about me that I was excited about a game involving being stood up for a date. I've been stood up in real life, and it isn't something I recommend, generally. Well, apparently in my case he did eventually show up five hours late, but I wasn't prepared to wait in the rain for quite that long.

I think I've changed since then: now I would stand around in the rain five hours or longer for a few minutes of his perspective. Some people are like trying to catch water with a butterfly net, but it's pretty as it flows past and I can't resist the attempt.

Dinner Date isn't like my overly-flowery melancholy. It's about extreme self-pity and the inner thoughts of someone with messed up priorities. I worry when someone latches onto sex as their hope for happiness and contentment. Sex and romance are cool and all, but there is more to life than a love story – those 'Happy Ever After' fairy tales have a lot to answer for. If someone is permanently unsatisfied without someone what makes them think they will be satisfied with them?

Dinner Date is an uncomfortable game, mostly because it feels true. I recognised at least one person I know while sitting inside Julian's subconscious. I squirmed and wondered if that's really what it feels like. I've done lonely, but not in quite such a bleak and entitled way.

Games are not about fun. They can be, sure. Like my boss, who uses entertainment to switch off from seriousness and favours watching comedies. But in my case I either want to feel something or learn something, whatever that may be. I used to think forgetting the fun aspect of games was a weakness, but it's worth looking at other things. It sells the spectrum of game experience rather short to just slap a fun label on it and be done.

Dragon Age: Origins
My human rogue's beginning was ridiculous, but in some ways it worked. My Warden gladly ran away from the affectations of nobility, but eventually found herself having to return to that life, take responsibility and handle it. That was my story, and involved some genuinely difficult decisions and character development.

I liked many things about Dragon Age: Origins, but it overstayed its welcome. It's very tempting to cloud everything I say about it with negativity, which is probably unjustified. I suppose I always feel like these games could be doing more. Less plasticky faces and Lord of the Rings battles. I get cynical as soon as something tries to be too epic. I do get my preferred small-scale personal stories and at least some shades of grey, but it always comes back to the big bad invading army of inhuman thingies.

(Tangent: I am childishly excited about The Witcher 2. I uncharacteristically pre-ordered the crazy collector's edition. Now, back to being a sensible consumer and not doing anything like that again for the rest of my life.)

That might not actually be much of a tangent. I'm getting used to having unpopular opinions, and preferring The Witcher to Dragon Age is one of them. The Witcher achieves choice and grey morality without the contrived placement of binary options favoured by Dragon Age. Geralt is far more my sort of protagonist, with his unwillingness to get involved in politics or play the great hero, but always getting caught up in shitty situations.

Speaking of, I received a Christmas Card in my email from the Witcher people wishing me a non-linear Christmas. I think I can safely say no one has ever wished me that before, and I was suitably impressed. Actually, it happened too, since my family had a Doctor Who themed Christmas with time travel, and my Dad regenerated – true story.

Okay, that was a tangent after all. Short version: I like Dragon Age, it's hard not to really. But it's not The Witcher, and didn't wish me any kind of Christmas at all.


Endless Ocean 2: Adventures of the Deep

My surprise hit of the year. Endless Ocean is evidence that family-friendly games about animals and such are not all shovelware aimed at people who don't know any better.

Games can be many things, but relaxing is rarely one of them for me, except in a take-mind-off-something sort of way. Endless Ocean is an exception, and lasts much longer than, say, Flower.

My time management (or, perhaps more accurately, my energy management) has been a mess this year. I try to do everything at once, and then fall in a heap and can't do much more than lie around worrying about how much I'm not doing. The value of switching off is not to be underestimated. So, I'm planning to struggle less and remember how to sink under the waves.


Flower, Sun and Rain

This year I finally joined the hordes of DS users, giving me plenty of catching up to do. Flower, Sun and Rain is the stand out so far. I adore this game, but can't recommend it to anyone else because it's actually terrible and my opinion is dead wrong. It's about running an ugly set of polygons back and forward about the place repetitively, looking up numbers in a guide book, and something about exploding aeroplanes and pink crocodiles. I love you, Suda 51.

I like weird. I don't quite understand the fear some people seem to have of not understanding. Possibly because I never claim to understand things, really. When understanding is acknowledged as a process without an end point it doesn't matter how strange whatever you are trying to understand is, and it's possible to relax and accept.

Besides, pink crocodiles aren't actually as weird as many things I see people doing every day.


Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon

This turned out pretty much as expected. It's a beautiful game. I adore the landscapes and abandoned buildings, the use of colour, and the emotions it plays with. I liked collecting little pieces of memory and trying to fit them together.

I particularly appreciated the little details in Fragile Dreams. Not every dead-end contained an item to pick up – although often they did – but there was usually some other reason to visit: a bone which looks disturbingly human, or invisible ink on the wall from someone who loves doughnuts. I took longer than most people to finish because I spent so much time exploring.

I find there's a big risk with post-apocalyptic games in explaining how the current situation came to be. But in this case it was compelling and felt right, rather than destroying the magic.

Fragile Dreams also gets the ending right. A touch bittersweet, and leaving the details up to the imagination. Perfect for me, probably a little dissatisfying for some.

But, damn the annoying inventory shuffling, constantly breaking weapons, and simplistic fighting. Also, walking down an empty corridor for how long, now? Some parts create an incredible sense of scale, but also an incredible sense of tedium.

So, I suppose, as a computer game Fragile Dreams is a great anime. If I'm to find a suitable year-ending message here, it's the mix of good and bad in everything. I think I'm becoming increasingly okay with that.


Heavy Rain


Ah look, another unpopular opinion. Time to stand up for Heavy Rain again.

It's a game experienced in-the-moment rather than handling later dissection. As I've said previously, it paints an emotional picture rather than a logical one. So, the plot holes aren't my problem.

I've been watching Dexter recently. Season 1 that is, I don't watch television, so I'm behind on just about everything, but after multiple recommendations from people who know what a creep I can be I was bound to give in eventually. (Aww, the serial killer made them think of me, how sweet).

I have a point here. Dexter seems to be partly about bringing emotion to the unemotional. So is Heavy Rain. Sure, Heavy Rain is (at least by theoretical design) full of emotion. But it's in a medium so starved for real connection it might as well be targeting sociopaths. But I'm not sure that's a completely hopeless case - it did get through to at least some people in some ways, and I think that's worth noting.

Still, whatever flaws Heavy Rain has (and yes, there are plenty), they are irrelevant if people aren't in the right place to receive whatever it did have going for it.

I think games have a long way to go, but I'm suggesting players do too. That probably sounds a bit mean, but it's also exciting. I want to be challenged and shaped by what's around me.


Kana: Little Sister

Long non-interactive sections in action games are annoying because, well, I'm there because I want to do stuff, not sit around twiddling my thumbs. But that's a problem of working against expectations rather than long sections of text or cut-scenes necessarily being problematic.

This year, I began to appreciate visual novels. Another Code: Two Memories, Hotel Dusk and the Ace Attorney games were like my gateway drugs before moving on to visual novels proper.

So, Kana: Little Sister. An old visual novel, but it got some attention this year thanks to a (censored) PSP port. I don't know about the PSP version (though I think it would still be good without the sex), but highly recommended if you can deal with incest themes. The story shaped itself to my choices far more than I expected. It also left me a blubbering mess in parts, which even though I'm a highly emotional sort doesn't happen often in games. If I ever see that much feeling in something more interactive I'll be a happy Cha.

My to-play pile (and my to-read pile) is huge, and that's stopped me from seeking out a lot more visual novels. But I am taking recommendations on particularly good ones.


Mass Effect 2

I much preferred the original, but Mass Effect 2 still rates a mention.

My Shepard started off mildly Renegade. Not harsh for no reason, just very uncompromising and willing to make sacrifices for the sake of the mission. Mass Effect 2 shaped my Shepard into something much crueler. Brought back from the dead and forced into working with people she didn't want to, she began to care less and act out more against, well, everything.

In games with a good-evil axis I usually come out mildly evil. Not because I'm a bastard, just because I'm most enamoured of neutrality on the Dungeons & Dragons good-neutral-evil axis. The closest I can get to neutral alignment in most games is acting self-interested, hence usually turning out mildly evil but not baby-murdering insane.

So, Mass Effect 2 is where I gave in and started shooting people just because it was funny. That's the kind of desperation and mental instability my Shepard has reached. Somehow, people still seem to respect her, and not just in a scared of getting shot way. I suppose there is power in strength, even blunt, crudely wielded strength.

It's pretty far away from my usual playstyle. But what I actually like most about Mass Effect is that it reminds me I have a quad. I can hopefully use strength a little more sensibly than my Shepard, but it's nice to remember I have it.


Nier

It's difficult to write something short about Nier (in other words, this probably will be short before I let myself get carried away into a longer discussion). From the moment I turned it on and Kainé started swearing at me I was hooked. Hooked enough to forgive the grind, which is the major downside.

It doesn't take an awful lot to create something new. Nier borrows from an awful lot of places. But throw in a forty-something man trying to look after his daughter, a foul-mouthed intersex swordswoman and an arrogant, wonderfully voiced spellbook.

Yeah, that will pretty much do.  Everything has been done before, but everything is new too. And that is basically why life's worth it.


Honourable mentions

Borderlands - Enough said.

Braid - I'm proud of myself for finally finishing it (even with a little bit of cheating to get the last puzzle pieces). I wrote more about it over on Game People which was good fun.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep - Surprised at how much I like it, but don't have much more to say right now.

Minecraft - Something I plan to play a lot more of, in that mystical future where I have time.

Monster Hunter tri - I'm horribly behind, but haven't given up on myself as a hunter just yet.

The Path - More to say on this when I've finished. Why didn't I play this earlier? It's perfect for me.

Sleep is Death - Freaked me the fuck out, actually - too much stress and effort. But I can't help but admire it.

The hardest games to discuss are probably those that are good but not great. I recently finished Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, and yeah, it was okay.

It's tempting to stop there, but 'meh' is a very inadequate reaction to a game with so much good in it. My lukewarm core reaction is honest but misleading.

There are definite high points to Enslaved, starting with the power dynamics between Trip and Monkey. Control swaps back and forth at various points, complicating the master-slave relationship. How happy they are in those roles also varies. Although Trip's vulnerability is over-emphasised at times, I still found it a relatively well-handled, deliciously ill-defined relationship.

I have a bit of a crush on Monkey actually, which has been weirding me out. As much as I love masculinity, this is not my usual reaction to another shirtless, ridiculously-muscular game hero. Am I really that easily manipulated, just by adding in a few moments of ambiguous tenderness?

Ambiguity is probably the key here, with enough character to latch onto, but still with quite a bit of wiggle room. Possibly, as my partner suggested, it's also that Monkey's strength isn't predominantly physical, despite what his physique might suggest.

Monkey is incredibly matter-of-fact about things. I get the feeling being enslaved is just the latest in a series of shitty situations and he's learnt to take them as they come. Sometimes it seems too unemotional, at other times I get it. I guess I'm also a bit of a sucker for held-back emotion - so much anticipation of the flood when the dam finally breaks.

All of this is quite valuable, I think. I want to see games with more nuanced character interaction like this. But it still wasn't enough to make me love the overall package.

Enslaved's other obvious selling point is the scenery, mostly traversing the overgrown ruins of New York. It's very green -- too consistently verdant and oversaturated for my believability-meter, but certainly very pretty.

The ruins are full of little details from the people who used to live and work there, and the landscape tells a story about what happened here.

One detail I wonder about, though: there are a few too many tattered American flags lying around, which probably should have disintegrated by now based on the level of decay of other things. I always find the level of patriotism in games and movies slightly bizarre. I'm not sure if that's just because I'm Australian - are there really that many flags lying around in the US?

Confusing flags aside, it's an interesting landscape, mixing nature, ruins and modern technology. But this is also where the game starts to fight against the player.

The environment invites exploration, and there are even shiny orbs to collect from poking around all the hidden corners. Not always a popular decision, but I happen to enjoy collecting things while I sniff about. Yeah, I know it's silly but I don't care.

The camera is the first barrier to following through on this exploration. It has very definite ideas about where it wants you to go. To be fair, there really is always a very specific way you're supposed to go, but I wanted to look around anyway. There are also fairly frequent points of no return, which cut off exploration options if you happen to select the correct path first try, or perhaps if you try to take out the enemies first and look around more thoroughly later. Sometimes it works out, but fighting first can be a risk.

The scenes tend to be far more restrictive than they look, and it doesn't take much to start banging up against the edges of the path. I longed for either more open exploration within a section, or clearer edges designating where I couldn't go. I understand not wanting to ruin the natural look, but it can be frustrating.

Games like Enslaved create a 3D space with its own rules. They don't function like the real world (e.g., if I could just push those leaves aside I could go another way), and different games set the boundaries in different ways. That means there's a learning process to go through before it starts feeling at all natural, and I guess this just wasn't my usual style. I felt cramped, within what superficially looked like huge and rambling surroundings.

(Tangent: Climbing around in Enslaved made me miss climbing around in the more open world of Assassin's Creed... plus, Altair could actually make mistakes and fall occasionally. Maybe it's time to reconsider my DRM-induced boycott of Assassin's Creed 2?)

Finally, if you explore too far in the wrong direction, the slave headband activates and Monkey dies. It feels quite arbitrary, with travelling a similar distance in a different direction being just fine.

So, I'm left with a game simultaneously encouraging me to explore, while restricting and sometimes even punishing me for it. That's rather cruel. I could pretend it's deliberate and clever -- that this variable balancing out of freedom and control is exactly what it feels like to be in Monkey's shoes. But honestly, it's just a bit awkward. Not game-breakingly awkward, but many little things add up to produce that good but not great vibe for me. The combat's also pretty shallow.

Enslaved isn't a complete waste of time or money, just a bit disappointing. Clearly some people love it, which is always nice. Possibly they didn't fight the game for control as much as I did, or at least they were less bothered by that.

Border House recently posted a piece about the insults players of Facebook games are subjected to.  I don't play games on Facebook myself (well, I clicked my cow a couple of times before forgetting about it, if that counts), but I appreciated the sentiment.  I don't like it when people are judgemental about the recreational choices of others. Or, when all Facebook gamers are lumped in with the ones who neglected to feed their children (clearly a bit more going on there than just FarmVille).

After people who play Facebook games, the most maligned gamers are probably World of Warcraft players.  Although "Go and play a real instrument!" must be up there somewhere, too.

WoW no longer does too much for me, and stopping playing was a catalyst for doing a whole lot of cool things.  I developed positive associations about leaving, and suddenly being able to write more, look after my house better, discover new forms of play and imagination, and so on.  But WoW wasn't stopping me from doing those things previously -- I was lacking in those areas before I started playing, too.  If anything the game just left me restless to do and be more things.

Anything that takes up a lot of time leaves a hole to fill afterwards, and I'd just spent a couple of years killing furbogs training up in focus, exploration, and how life can be more exciting.  Continuing those things in other ways was very natural.  I sort of want to say continuing those things in better ways, but it's not better in an objective way, just further along in a process for me.

So, I've tried not to let leaving WoW turn me into an insulting WoW-hater, laughing at all the lab rats still clicking the button for food pellets.  It's also worth acknowledging the process my WoW days were part of, and how much I needed that safer, more controllable form of human interaction at the time (as a supplement to other interactions, anyway).

An imaginary heckler in the background stands up and shouts that I'm just proving their point: WoW's a game for socially maladjusted losers like me.  They are missing the point, of course.  I have the same social issues with or without a game -- hell, I've had the same social issues for as long as I have memory, the only part that changes is my perception of myself.  And I could still have enjoyed the game without my eccentricities.  The heckler might want to consider their own inadequacies before having a go at mine.  I'm not the one who is broken.

If WoW is enriching your life, providing moments of fun, reducing stress, building more co-operation, or whatever it is you're looking for then good for you.

So... when my partner reactivated his account why did I tense up, get upset, and almost explode?  Why did I even make it my business?  Am I bullshitting about still thinking it's okay to play WoW?  And when did I become a nagging, worrying girlfriend?

Maybe I am bullshitting a little bit.  I speak a basic truth, but I'm leaving out a lot of the complexity.  WoW does have a darker side, though it isn't really black and white, either.  Sometimes it's less enriching, and more a place to hide.  I should know.

Sometimes hiding and escape are important -- taking some time out to recharge, build yourself up again, take yourself away from a problem.  But the longer you hide away the harder it can be to re-emerge, and live openly again.  Small problems can grow bigger -- monsters cast eerie shadows on life when you leave them to grow unchecked.

So, maybe I worry that someone I love might have a reason to hide, and what his secret motivations are.  WoW was once part of a difficult phase in his life, so returning to it triggers my fears about his current self-esteem and state-of-mind.  It's about meeting people, relaxing, and exploring a vast environment.  But it's also been about the pain of long-term unemployment, and similarly problematic things.

I want to help, and even more I want to understand (now, and in the past).  But if my path moves away from something, while someone else's path is circling back again, that doesn't have to mean they are going backwards.  Only they can tell me, really, and I just have to learn more trust.  Trusting that other people can make their own choices without getting horribly lost -- that seems like quite an ask.  All things are processes.

It's Cataclysm week -- the first real test of my trust-building and acceptance.  It's too early to say much about that, beyond fingers crossed.


Postscript:

I wrote this post earlier in the week, and since then there has been more discussion floating around, thanks to a new documentary on game addition.  I think using the same term for psychological compulsion and chemical dependency is problematic, but that doesn't mean problem gaming doesn't exist, of course it does and it's worth trying to understand better.

I have no experience of the extremes, where people go without food and sleep, or otherwise seriously neglect important elements of their life.  It's not something I'm qualified to say much about, but I do want to defend those individuals against being called losers, as Leigh Alexander does.  That's just being flippant and arrogant.

These are still real people we're talking about.  Having problems and vulnerabilities doesn't make someone a loser.  So tempting, perhaps, to look down on those who currently have more blatant issues to overcome and feel superior.  Easier than being supportive.  And certainly easier than admitting that those people aren't actually so different.  Anyone can end up in a bad place.

But I do agree it's no good sticking our fingers in our ears and being unwilling to talk about any possible harm games might cause.  There's a lot of sensationalist stuff out there, but that doesn't mean it's all rainbows, either.

I stopped playing World of Warcraft years ago, and always feel a bit strange when I hear about it now.  On a more emotional day I end up shaking my head in disbelief.  What do you mean they are killing off my chieftain?  And they are trying to make the game easier?  Just how stupid do they want their player base to be, anyway?

And then I remember something important.  So, story time then, in which I am partially an old tauren woman sitting by the campfire and talking about the past to anyone who will listen.

Back in my day I had to walk ten miles through the raid dungeon, and then run a damage simulation programme just to work out my gear upgrades.  In some ways, I wish I were joking about running statistical simulations -- it honestly got to the point where it was the only way to work out if I wanted any particular loot drop.

Other elements of my class were complicated too, and sometimes really not intuitive.  In one case it was possible to decrease damage by using a damage-buffing spell if you didn't understand how the game mechanics worked.  This was all fairly ridiculous.  But it's also a badge of honour, to have been one of those rare Enhancement Shaman who actually knew what she was doing in those days.

My own class/spec was the most extreme example of complexity in World of Warcraft I ever encountered, and I gather it has since become much simpler -- it needed to be.  I get the impression it wasn't really intended complexity, more the result of continually building on things.  Rather like how evolution creates complexity, now I come to think about it.

It got silly, but for Chakwaina sitting by the fire, that's just the way things work.  Honestly, I thrived on being part of a system where knowledge was such a powerful currency.  After spending most of my spare time on the game (or reading up on the game) I became an expert on a lot of things, and Chakwaina became someone worthy of fear.

I used to complain to myself about people who asked for help instead of using the abundant internet resources available.  I used to complain even more about people who did not read up on how to play their class well.  I didn't want a group I was part of to be dragged down by idiots.

Yeah, I never said this was a story about me being nice.  As Chakwaina I had overcome pain and adversity, and become powerful in many ways, but I still lacked wisdom.

Despite my mean streak, I did spend some time helping other people.  I had a guild to help run, and could answer just about any question put to me (and if I couldn't, I could find out quickly).  In my own small tribe, then, I did become a respected elder.

I raided on weekends for quite some time, with another, bigger guild.  Progression raiding happened through the week while I was at work, but I spent a lot of time running the lower tiered raids.  At first this was an honour -- to be allowed a raid spot at all was a big deal, especially as an outsider to their guild.  But over time it became more of a service to others, as different raid members cycled through, and we taught them the fights and helped them gear up for the bigger raids.

It was kind of nifty actually, to watch people come in fresh, benefit from the group's experience, and leave better equipped and more skilled players.  My own guild tried to provide a similar experience for players still leveling.

One day a new Enhancement Shaman joined our raid group.  The raid leader whispered at me that her damage wasn't up to scratch and could I help her out?  I certainly should have been able to help her, right?  I was an expert on Shaman ways.  Just from looking at her gear and choice of talents I had a lot to suggest to her.  Too much to get across in the middle of a raid, and afterwards time-zone differences were a problem, but we exchanged e-mail adresses and I began to put together some information for her.  She seemed eager to learn rather than getting defensive about advice, which helps a lot.

Putting together the relevant knowledge took several pages, but I was rather proud of my efforts.  I happily sent it off.  But in the end it didn't go as well as I had hoped.  I hadn't counted on what I assume was a form of intellectual disability.  I'd had no sense of that from our limited conversation beforehand, and I'd piled on far too much information too fast.  Some elements had been latched onto, many had been missed, and some were misinterpreted.  So much for my communication skills.

I tried to make up for this as much as I could, and keep things slower and simpler.  But in many ways I had already lost my chance to help.  Everything was now extra confusing.  I have a tendency to provide the options, weigh things up and leave people room for individual style and choices.  It is great if you can understand it, but it probably reads like gibberish to some.

So, one of my biggest regrets, as a Shaman and a Warcraft player, is that I let my tribes (and an individual) down thanks to my crappy assumptions.  And when I complain about changes to the game, that's me basking in my own arrogance again and forgetting what I could have learnt by now.

I'm a self-motivated learner.  I'm also highly visual and text-based person, so sometimes I struggle a bit with lectures or group discussion, but give me an essay or a decent instruction booklet and I'll be happy.  Probably part of the reason I still read game manuals.

WoW has been well set up for my kind.  It let me find my own way, and didn't treat me like an idiot.  But if you expected the game to hand you all the information you needed then, yes, you were out of luck.  Without thinking about it, I have been scoffing at all the people with different learning styles, and the people who, for whatever reason, were not capable of what I personally expected from a skilled player.

I have heard a lot recently about WoW being made more accessible for new players.  I regret complaining about this, because really it did need better tooltips and tutorials, even if I didn't need them for myself.

Chakwaina has always been a bit variable, as she deals with demons considerably worse than my own.  As an old woman she has become quite melancholy, and weighs up her choices in life.  We could have been a better leader, and a better friend in many cases.  We were the best fighter we could be, and the best knowledge base, but it doesn't count for as much any more.

Labeling a blog post 'Part 1' was really asking for trouble. My brain likes to rebel at anything resembling an obligation. I've also had a bit of time to reflect on writing, and I get frustrated at how much time it takes to get better. I want to write faster, more playfully and prettier. And while we're at it, I'll have a dancing pony, thanks.

In the end I settle down and just get on with things again.

So, in Part 1 of my unstructured play journey I wrote about bringing a little bit of unstructured play to many things I do, including highly structured computer games. It's taken me a while to work out how important that is, and to stop fighting myself about it.

There is a second journey to explore, as I search for how games explore and facilitate unstructured play in a more deliberate way.

The first game to really make me consider designed unstructured play was Noby Noby Boy. It does have achievements and goals, mostly stretching and amassing extra length as the worm-like BOY, and using those distances to help GIRL grow to new planets. Despite this core objective, mostly I was just messing about, eating things and seeing how many objects I could curl around. And that really seemed to be the point for a change, not just me being unusual.

I can use the term 'sandbox game' about Noby Noby Boy without feeling silly. It's a colourful playground full of effectively toy people, animals and objects. It's hard to explain why I might want to spend time on that, but somehow it's easy to look up and realise I've just wasted a couple of hours trying to wrangle two ends of a long worm-body, and terrorising chickens.

Intriguing (and I think important) though that was, Noby Noby Boy had no staying power. It's possible to get lost for a while in the playground, there isn't much to keep me coming back. The weirdness wasn't a problem, but the severe limitations on what I could do were. Simplicity is fine, but feeling a lack of agency is not.

I came out of that rather unsatisfied, but I couldn't stop squirming. Squirming means exciting ideas, but also worry that they might not ever really come to exist in a realistic form. I wanted my worries to be proved wrong.

Eventually, my excitement proved to be more correct than my worry. Minecraft proves it. Minecraft alpha involves popular unstructured play, and this is incredibly heartening. I would like to have more to say about unstructured games. But for now, this is all about Minecraft. I hope it's not the end of the journey, but for now it's a long stopover.

I have to admit to my own inadequacy here. I haven't played much Minecraft really. Hell, I haven't even touched it since the Halloween patch. Suddenly I might have to consider other people's journeys instead of my own. I'm not cool enough to put myself properly among the Minecraft players. A bit like when I get the urge to listen to trashy pop music for no good reason.

But, even if I'm not currently part of it, it's still exciting. I get to see lots of different kinds of players doing their own things. The builders get a lot of press, at least the ones with the ridiculously impressive and time-consuming projects. But I'm just as interested to hear about the smaller projects, like my friend building a lighthouse. It's all very tempting. I want to build cross-sections of giant invertebrates as a kind of strange Minecraft museum, but I don't really have time. If I ever find someone willing to support me financially to waste time I'll do that :)

Then there are the explorers. Most notably Brendan Keogh's Towards Dawn project. I began as a different kind of explorer, which I mention in my Game People write up. Although I began trying to carve out the shape of my surroundings, the most important thing ended up being to (symbolically) conquer and explore a scary mineshaft from my childhood. In other words, I ended up exploring something from myself.

Of course, simplifying Minecraft players into builders and explorers is horribly inadequate, and I don't think adding more categories would really fix the problem. Such as, the survivalists who feed off fear, the roleplayers (nothing good to point to that I know of, but I'm sure it will come), and the board gamers.

The truth is, I am not qualified to talk about other people's unstructured (or, perhaps more accurately, self-structured) play. I need to go out and discover more of my own.

Possibly to prove that November has not entirely been my downfall, I wrote an article about Gameful, the new secret headquarters for world-changing gamers and game developers: Your Turn: Creating a More Gameful World on Screen Play.

November is a busy month for me this year.  I've been slaving away over NaNoWriMo as well as keeping up with my usual day job and other commitments.  I expect things to pick up again on the blogging front in December -- I have a heap of ideas clawing at the inside of my brain.

For now, here are some links to my Game People discussions from October:

• The Curfew
• Echoshift
• Minecraft

It's generally assumed that computer games are playful, yet highly structured experiences.  That's certainly fair comment -- there are set rules, mission structures, or goals to achieve.  Games are won or lost, and rules can rarely be changed.  Stories and events are often highly scripted and pre-determined, with at least partly set pacing.

Googling unstructured play brings up a lot of articles about the importance of a freeform style of play for kids, and the need to have time away from structured play like video games.  I don't disagree, but of course it's not really that simple.  Structured vs. unstructured play isn't a true binary option, it's just one way of looking at a wide spectrum of play.  Still, I'll run with the distinction for now, because I think it leads some interesting places.

I suppose I grew up with a fairly high proportion of unstructured play in my life.  Television hours were at least partly restricted, and computer games were rare.  There were trees to climb, thoughts to write, and many creative attempts to avoid practising piano.

When there was actually access to computer games it seemed very natural to bring more unstructured play to the game.  I drew some unnecessarily elaborate and pretty maps of the mazes in Return to Zork.  Rather than being platforming zombies staring at the screen, we made up lyrics to songs on Sonic the Hedgehog 2.  (The 'we' is important here, it was also very often a social activity, regardless of whether the game itself was designed to facilitate that.)

Games always seemed part of a broader idea of play and creativity.  I don't draw lines between these things in the way some might -- if I dress up based on a game character is that fun part of the game itself, or something else?  It didn't (and doesn't) matter to me.  It's all connected.  Note: not having a firm line between gameplay and real-world play does not limit my ability to see the difference between fantasy and reality, that would be a very different thing.

(Tangent:  Michael Abbott (The Brainy Gamer) a few months ago attempted a first draft catalogue of fun in games.  One or two of my thoughts are in the list, but my idea of costuming or other spin-off activities as part of the fun were not included.  I wasn't surprised.  I could have better clarified that I do consider those activities to increase fun within the game itself as well as outside it, but I might need to put that down as one of my own oddities.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  I enjoy having those lines blurred in my own life, but I don't expect it to be a common point of view.  If you do agree I'd love to hear more about your experiences.)

Later, I created story and roleplaying in game worlds.  Intentionally blank protagonists, such as the hero of Baldur's Gate, were inadequate without my input.  I populated the world with my own imagination, at times complete with extra dialogue and character development not present in the game itself.  Some people create mods to weave their own stories and romances, where I already had an imaginative extra layer without blatant manipulation.

Sometimes there is a fight for control between the game structure, and how I would like to play.  In Final Fantasy XII it might look like I'm playing the journey from street urchin to hero, and the attempt to put Princess Ashe back on the throne.  But really I'm a biologist cataloguing the land's creatures (and trying to ignore those long cut-scenes which sometimes try to side-track me from my important scientific mission).  I like Biologist Fantasy much better than Final Fantasy, so why wouldn't I play like that?

As games become more elaborate there is less room for my imagination, it seems.  It can become a fight between my will and the game structure.  My Biologist Fantasy game is pushing the limits.  I couldn't really maintain the illusion, though it remains my major motivation for possibly going back and finishing the game one day.

I do think there are still a lot of unstructured elements to games.  Often, they lie off the beaten path and away from a core mission structure.  It's moments like driving off jumps because the rules of the world have scope for it, rather than because of any related achievement.

I have to wonder -- why am I fighting the game presented to me, and cherishing any hidden corners where I can do whatever I like?  Structure isn't such a bad thing, is it?  That's what allows games to tell stories, and so on.

I seem to keep encountering people asking this core question recently: are games the problem, or is it that games just aren't for me?  Then I remember I'm working with multiple false binaries here, and life is actually far more interesting and complicated.  I don't want to sell things short with such a limited question.

I'm closer to what I want to say when I consider that although games have rules and limitations, that isn't the same as having a right and wrong way to play.  If I want to run around setting fire to things instead of completing missions in Brütal Legend that's still valid, as is my Final Fantasy biologist.  At least to some extent, following the obvious structure is a choice.

Some games give me more room to move than others, but either way I don't have to see it as a fight between my imagination and playful tendencies, and the game structure.  Remembering that the unstructured play I bring to a game is just an extension of the play I have inherently in everything I do.  Suddenly it starts to feel a lot more natural, and isn't really in conflict with accepting the more structured elements of a game.

-----
This post deals with the unstructured play within myself, which colours game experiences.  Part 2 will focus more on unstructured play as intended design.

Gaming communities are not well known for their inclusiveness, but how bad are they really?  Which of the major sites are doing better or worse?  Those are big questions to fully tackle, so I can only scratch the surface a little.  You might call this a (very) rough pilot study about non-inclusive language in mainstream game blogs.

I looked through posts from this year at Joystiq and Kotaku.  I was planning to analyse Destructoid too, but their search functions are inadequate for the purpose.  From what I could see Destructoid are a pretty bad offender though.  They sometimes excuse language in the name of satire (e.g., Gears of War is Gay).  Satire can be used to reclaim language and highlight the ridiculousness of its use, but in these cases I don't think it's very clever or effective.

Posts from this year at Kotaku and Joystiq were searched for any instances of 'gay', 'retard/ed', or 'lame' used as insults or indicators of inferior quality.  Post content, title, and image captions were all considered.  Comments were not searched, though I would expect them to paint a much worse picture.  Double-up posts were also excluded.

I found no instances of pejorative use of 'gay' or 'retarded' at Joystiq this year, but did find two articles using 'lame' problematically.

Kotaku avoided blatant misuse of 'gay', but did skirt the surface of correctness a couple of times with their continued interest in the letters to "Ur Mr. Gay" visible on the Mario Galaxy cover art, as well as a dubious reference to Brokeback Mountain in their discussion of racial diversity in the Prince of Persia movie.  That article will leave a bad taste in the mouth for a few reasons.

When it comes to 'lame', Kotaku is far less restrained.  Twenty-five articles from this year were identified containing clear instances of lame used as a pejorative.  Some were reader reviews, but these by no means dominated the list.  An additional two articles included lame within quotes, which I don't attribute to the authors, but I do still consider them borderline cases.

I found 3.5 instances of retard/ed as an insult from Kotaku this year.  One of these was from a reader review from someone blatantly trying to be Yahtzee by describing the AI in Battlefield Bad Company 2 as "pants-on-head retarded".  The 0.5 comes from an article where it was unclear whether the author was referring to an actual retarded man, or just a man they wanted to insult.

This is a very limited look at the issue.  I've a larger-than-intended focus on Kotaku, and only looked at a couple of commonly-used exclusionary terms.  Probably rather obviously, I began this time-wasting little exercise with a certain idea in mind which I wanted to confirm.  That is, that there has been at least some progress towards communities rejecting homophobic language, but there is a much longer way to go for something like the ableist use of 'lame'.  Retarded probably falls somewhere in the middle in terms of community acceptance vs. rejecting it as inappropriate.

Words are powerful and important.  They are also wonderfully diverse, making these non-inclusive phrases blatantly unnecessary.  We can do better.

----
Further reading:
Addressing ableist language (Feministe)
Another reason to avoid exclusionary language (This Ain't Livin')

'Roleplaying Game' is one of those awkward genre labels meaning different things to different people.  I don't have a good personal definition, but one element I consider to be at the core of RPGs is questing.

It's a little contrived, but somehow I love being bossed around and completing tasks for people.  Preferably something more involved than being asked to kill ten wolves, but World of Warcraft is the only game I've played where grinding quests were quite so ridiculously blatant and over-used.  Usually quests are a bit more interesting, and reveal pieces of the world and its inhabitants I wouldn't see otherwise.

I'll usually happily do whatever characters ask, even when it gets silly.  I'm supposed to be on a critical mission, but apparently still have time to rescue someone's cat, or run an errand.  I don't usually question it much.  There's a time to question game conventions and motivations, and a time to just be satisfied that I'm enjoying myself.

Honestly, the core stories of many RPGs are generic and silly anyway.  I adore Baldur's Gate, but I don't remember much about the main story.  I do remember meeting mad wizards in the forest, reuniting lovers, the personalities of my companions, and a lot of other small moments.  I find the real stories tucked away in sidequests and hidden corners of the game.

It is very unusual for me to find a quest and decide not to complete it, but it has happened.  The main example I can think of was from Mass Effect 1.

The quest is known as Family Matter, and involves a couple found arguing on the Citadel streets.  A pregnant woman is concerned about the risks involved in obtaining gene therapy for her unborn child, while her brother-in-law argues for how important that therapy is to avoid a possible genetic heart defect which had recently killed the baby's father.  There is no clear advantage or disadvantage to taking one side over the other – the game itself is neutral with regard to right and wrong on this issue.

I'm prepared to accept that my Shepard is an unusually influential person.  I'm not controlling just any old peon here.  I am happy to believe she could say something about choices and genetics, and actually have it taken to heart.  But that doesn't necessarily mean she would.

As Shepard I made life and death decisions constantly.  The fate of entire species was regularly in my hands, and I was willing to take on that responsibility.  I helped shaped the beliefs of my crew in addition to earning their respect.

But when faced with this particular choice I recoiled, and gaped at the choice in front of me. Advancements in genetic technology do come with more than their share of ethical questions, and weighting up benefits and disadvantages.  I'm happy to see that tackled in a science fiction game, but not in such a throw-away scenario.  I would never tell someone how to make a decision like that.  I wouldn't advise a close friend, let alone a stranger on the street.  It's not my place, and it's not my Shepard's place.

I went with the only other option available to me.  Shepard threw her hands in the air, said 'To hell with this' and left them to it.  In the process I knowingly sacrificed some easy Paragon or Renegade points, but there is no way I was willing to make that call.

I'm insecure about works-in-progress. Whenever I'm working on something, part of me is constantly waiting for someone to tell me it's crap, or that I'm going about it the wrong way. It seems safer to put finished products up for judgement, and leave the procesesses and failed attempts a mystery.

I honestly like constructive criticism (I struggle with praise far more, because I can't learn much from it and it's hard to see the point). But in the past I've received a lot of the other kind of cricicism. Harsh, thoughtless words, often targeting unfinished elements rather than genuine mistakes. I didn't like being attacked, so I built defence mechanisms, and hid many ideas.

Yes, it's a silly thing to worry about and I could often benefit from feedback at an earlier stage, but some habits are ridiculously hard to break.  I'm working on it.  In the meantime, this can cause unexpected issues.

One of the interesting things about play is that it's always a work-in-progress.  Defining play is probably a little bit silly (although plenty of people try).  But I think it's usually about doing something more than it's about end results.  Even though there is no way to 'do it wrong' I am still inclined to keep play private, working through my own exploration and experiments.  I only give myself free reign when I'm not being watched.

I think my secretive tendencies do play a disservice, but that's very much where I'm stuck at the moment.

When I was in high school they once booked out a Timezone arcade during camp (a fairly exotic outing for us country kids). It was an opportunity to play whatever I wanted, provided I didn't mind being surrounded by classmates, as well as having to ask the staff to unlock the machine I wanted to play.

As you can possibly imagine, it was an opportunity largely wasted on me, and created a lot of discomfort.

The issue also came up strongly during this year's Freeplay festival. Getting hands-on with some of the independent games on display is an important element for many people. For me, it's a small nightmare. I cope with interactive displays by latching onto someone and following them around – I do at least enjoy watching other people interact publically.

(My partner seems to hate being followed like this, by the way, he deals with it by pretending I'm not there. I probably need to find others more comfortable with my stategy if I want to check out these kinds of displays. That or, you know, deal with it well enough not to need someone to follow.)

Computer games usually have end-points, but the journey is far more important than the destination.  I'm not comfortable with anyone else watching me while I go through the process of experimentation and learning what the game demands of me.

If I'm willing to play a game with someone it's a huge sign of trust, and even then I'll probably put in enough solo-time first that I'm confident of my ability to be an asset. That avoids other people having to witness quite as much of my learning process.

So, I have some things to work on there.  What is possibly more interesting is that it forced me to consider the kind of process play might be, and why it's important.  It's not serious, but that doesn't make it unimportant.

This is well-worn ground, perhaps, but something I plan to think about some more.

I have an article up on Screen Play today. It was fun to write, and looks at playing games with my parents.

There always seem to be more layers to uncover where family is concerned. There is another half to the story. It involved me becoming traumatised, and I haven't played Uncharted since for fear of association. Shame really, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the beginning.

But I'm sure no one wants to hear the details of my Mum's knack for pushing buttons, or the kinds of things that can happen when I'm hormonally unbalanced.

Such is life, and it doesn't invalidate anything I wrote in that article. And when I say I'll take any victories I can find, I really mean it.

Okay, that's just about enough messing about with things (and possibly losing the few followers I did have). Time to be getting on with things. I haven't said much about my 'reviews' recently. Since my last post about this I have tackled:

• 3D Dot Game Heroes
• Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Tag Force 4
• Demon's Souls
• Flower, Sun and Rain
• Faceez
  
• Pinball Pulse: the Ancients Beckon
• Shank

I've been learning more about how to approach games (and applications) that aren't my usual thing. I don't mind, because it's a challenge and I might discover something interesting I wouldn't otherwise. But it also means suffering through some things.

3D Dot Game Heroes relies heavily on nostalgia for old Zelda games. Since I haven't played those games it was never likely to work for me. Twilight Princess is the only Zelda game I've played. It was interesting, since it was all so new to me, but didn't make me urgently want to play any other Zelda games, let alone the 2D ones.

I did really like collecting the glowing bugs in Twilight Princess, though. Maybe 3D Dot should have catered to my inner entomologist, then I might have appreciated it more.

Tackling Yu-Gi-Oh! was a scary prospect, and Faceez was even scarier. The less said about Faceez the better, I think.

In the case of Yu-Gi-Oh! you can tell I'm stretching because I resorted to lazy reviewing strategies, like beginning with a quick history of the series and its spin-offs. I'll have improved noticeably when I no longer have to fall back on that sort of thing. I know for a lot of people that's just part of the standard review formula, but it isn't the way I usually operate.

I wasn't planning to write about Flower, Sun and Rain but I was asked and it's an interesting one. It's yet another example for the list of games-Cha-likes-which-a-lot-of-people-hate, but that's okay. It's also a Suda 51 game I actually finished, which makes me feel a lot better. I have an unreasonable amount of guilt about killer7 and No More Heroes. I didn't even make it past the tutorial in killer7 *sigh*. Pretty embarrassing.

I also wasn't planning to review Demon's Souls, but after criticising 3D Dot I felt like giving From Software credit where it's due. The Demon's Souls review took me ages. I re-did the structure completely many times, trying to get the right messages across.

I think that was a useful process, but since then I've also been learning to limit the time I spend writing, not just improving the quality. It's a tricky balance, and I need to be strict with myself. I can't afford to spend that much time on everything.

Making myself write faster has been good for me, I think. Short term the quality suffers, but I think I'm starting to get better at it. Thankfully I also started on this particular challenge while reviewing some shorter download games.

Shank was an interesting prospect. I volunteered to look at it, even though I'm a beat-em-up novice. I enjoyed writing a harsh opening paragraph, maybe a little too much.

This is a bit annoying, I realise, but the longer I put it off the more annoying it's going to be.

I'm currently in the process of consolidating some of my online identities. As part of this I'm rebranding this blog, including a URL change. I assume RSS users will also need to resubscribe.

I began this blog largely to avoid spamming my real life friends with a lot of game talk. It's my small and self-indulgent playground (and probably always will be), but it has also gathered a little more interest than I expected.

I've begun to work harder at my writing, and become more aware of game-journalists worth admiring. Suddenly it seems like I should have put a bit more thought into this blogging and where it fits into my life and other projects.

I am definitely a personal blogger at heart. My core audience are myself and my friends. Maybe I can also build new friendships -- that's always nice. So, it's time to ditch the silly name and embrace... what may still be a silly name, but I like it so I don't care. More importantly, I feel it.

New URL: http://shallow-depths.blogspot.com

Shallow Depths is something I've been trying to work out how to be for the last year or two. An artist, blending meaning and triviality; safety and fear. I think it's time to stop working it out and just be that anyway.

I love discovering different approaches to game reviewing.

40 Ounces, 1 Game seems to be inactive, but I approve of the premise:

I’m going to purchase a 40oz bottle of beer, and drink it while playing a computer game that I haven’t played before – and then, the following day, I’ll write about it based on notes taken in a progressively inebriated state.

I feel like it's an idea with potential, at least.  Someone should start up a new site with a similar theme.  Go on, you know you want to.  Preferably someone who knows there should be a space between '40' and 'oz'.  I'm not an experienced enough writer to be a proper Grammar Nazi, but units of measurement bring it out in me. Better yet, why not review games while drinking appropriate drinks from The Drunken Moogle.  I'd read it.

I recently discovered Action Button Dot Net, which uses a stream-of-consciousness approach and takes no shit from anyone.  What I've read so far felt a bit like someone was punching me in the head, which is kind of awesome.

Naturally, I'm very excited about the Five Minutes With... column which recently started up on Gamasutra.  Focus in on five minutes of a game -- sounds great.

Given the huge number of game sites and blogs out there I'm sure there must be others taking a more unusual approach to reviews, but it's hard to find them under the huge pile of formulaic score-based stuff.  There's a place for that too, it just doesn't interest me much personally.

Always interested to hear recommendations.  Less interested to hear whining about how these things aren't really reviews, because I don't care.  Although, I would love another term I could easily use for my own 'review' approach: something that describes writing about a single game in a subjective, flexible way, incorporating amateur analysis and related tangent stories.

Earlier this month I was linked to this article on Flower. As an ecologist who works in urban spaces it was fascinating to me, and described something close to my own experience playing Flower. I really wish I'd written something like it, particularly the parts about breaking down the separation between humans and nature. On another level, the article suffers from what I have been known to call 'Matrix ecology' -- a poor choice of terminology, since matrix usually means something else in landscape ecology. I should possibly call it something more like 'popular culture ecology'.

(Tangent: computers and ecology seem to have a few awkward terminology overlaps. We've also started talking about 'landscape defragmentation'.)

Most people probably remember this rant from Agent Smith in The Matrix:

I'd like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species, and I realised that humans are not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not. Instead you multiply, and multiply, until every resource is consumed. The only way for you to survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern... a virus.

Kyle MacGregor's Flower article follows a similar idea:

The earth once was a healthy functioning ecosystem. In many ways ecosystems function like individual organisms. If the earth were a single organism, than all life on earth would be in symbiosis with that ecosystem. Most terrestrial life has either a commensalistic or mutualistic relationship with the planet. However, in recent history the human race has become a parasite.

These views come back to the idea of the Balance of Nature, which suggests that in the absence of disturbances (such as humans messing with things), natural mechanisms will maintain a stable equilibrium. There is also more than a hint here of the form of Gaia theory that considers the earth like a single organism, with all parts working together in harmony.

That's sweet and all, but to me this is a mix of outdated theory and pseudoscience. There is nothing fundamentally different about the animal and human approach to resources, it's more a difference of scale. Yes, humans are having massive impacts on ecosystems, and I'd like to see us take more responsibility for that. But it's not because we are particularly different to other animals.

Ecosystems do not function like individual organisms, and do not tend to exist in a stable balance. Disturbance is a normal part of the world. People seem very attached to the idea of nature as stable rather than chaotic, though. Something about this balance idea has wormed its way into popular mindsets. Humans are attracted to balance and stability, while nature itself has no such preference.

Druids in Dungeons & Dragons must have a neutral element to their alignment and are concerned with maintaining the natural balance. These D&D druids will get into trouble with their society (and deity) if they set fire to vegetation, or fail to protect nature from that 'destruction' to the best of their ability. In reality, fire can be very important to vegetation, and many plants require it for reproduction (there are numerous examples of this here in Australia). The best caretakers of the land know how to manage disturbances like fire, not just suppress them. Well-meaning conservationists did a lot of damage before they worked that out.

Science has at least partly moved on, but the idea hasn't died away yet. Druid land management based on balance and preventing disturbance is probably found somewhere in just about every fantasy roleplaying game ever produced. There are a heap of quests in World of Warcraft that act as fairly recent examples.

Fantasy often presents nature as a kind of mystic entity, which is fine, but it's a benign, fair kind of nature that a lot of fantasy focuses on.  I didn't think people really believed that, but that may well be because I'm too close to the topic.  These ideas do seem to keep coming up in places where I don't expect them.

I don't know much about Kyle MacGregor, but his profile says he's working on a B.A. in Environmental Studies, so that's good reason to be interested in these ideas.  The Arts approach to Environmentalism is likely to be rather different to my Science approach.  I don't know what those courses involve, but here's hoping it sets some things straight.  I don't really mean to pick on him specifically, since it's a very common view.  But I'd like to see people learning and changing these ideas.


Further reading: How nature really works - new ecology (Their comparison to Galileo is poor though, he lacked good evidence for his theories and pushed them anyway, which really is arrogance.)

This post was inspired by Mark "Mr Ak" Johnson's recent discussion Danananana Batman! An in-depth case study of archetypes in different media formats. Batman! Batma-an!.  Because it's an interesting topic, and sometimes I just can't leave well enough alone.

I agree with Mr Ak that Batman: Arkham Asylum (game) is more enjoyable than The Dark Knight (movie) – less so about his opinions being objectively correct.  I (deliberately) don't have as much confidence in my own opinion, and trying to understand why I agree in this case is almost bringing me undone.  I'm not sure I should be right – 'should' is the wrong word, since opinions are all valid, but my reasoning and my gut reaction are at odds this time.  Can I back up my own opinion, then?  I'm going to try.

To explain this I need to step back and come from a different starting point.  Arkham Asylum vs The Dark Knight isn't the right comparison for me to start from.

Arkham Asylum was not based solely on any specific imagining of Batman, but I still played it while keeping a particular graphic novel firmly in my head.  Probably unsurprisingly, this was Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth (hereafter referred to as Serious House, for clarity).

I like Serious House since I have a weakness for darkness and symbolism, call me pretentious if you like.  But I have to admit, it's not the most accessible graphic novel I've ever read.  Dave McKean's artwork leans towards the surreal, and panels are often placed very close to the action.  The details of what's going on are not always clear, but it does very well at creating feelings like panic and madness.

The Batman of Serious House is vulnerable, and forced to play entirely on the Joker's terms.  To be trapped in the Asylum is to start to wonder if he belongs there.  To me, that's the core of Batman as a character – the need to maintain a fuzzy line between sanity and madness; hero and villain.

In Serious House, the Joker is even scarier than the Heath Ledger version.  He thrives in the chaos, and easily understands Batman well enough to push his buttons.  He flirts and pinches Batman's bottom, because he can see how uncomfortable Batman is with intimacy.  In later stories, I believe Bruce Wayne becomes stronger as a man as well as a hero, but at this point he's horribly dysfunctional.

This is nothing like Arkham Asylum the game, where Batman is predominantly presented as strong.  He executes those wonderfully fluid combos, and swoops down from gargoyles to take enemies by surprise before disappearing back into the darkness.  Overall, he's clearly the goddamn Batman, and worthy of fear.  The Joker still has control of the playing field, but he can never actually go so far as to reach the man under the bat-suit.  There is always the sense that Batman will eventually catch up to him and win.  Which is okay, because the Joker is just there to enjoy the game for as long as it lasts.

The Dark Knight falls somewhere between these two extremes, with Batman and the Joker possessing a similar amount of power.  It's that perpetual situation where neither can ever really best the other.  I think I enjoy imbalance more, but it does do a good job of highlighting how dependent on each other the Batman and Joker can be.

The Joker is in all cases pretty hard to pin down, as he should be.  Heath Ledger and Mark Hamill present different facets, but neither could create the whole.

Considering the game some more, the Joker in many ways isn't really the ultimate villain of Arkham Asylum.  The character who can actually get through to Bruce himself is the Scarecrow -- reminding me once again of why he's my favourite Batman villain.  The Scarecrow sections are really the only moments of true vulnerability in the game.

Since weaknesses are important to how I see Batman's character, the predominant emphasis on strength could have made me appreciate the game less.  So why didn't it?

It's probably because it didn't quite work that way in my mind.  I enjoyed Arkham Asylum partly because I was projecting elements into it that weren't really there.  Serious House never left my mind (partly reinforced by collecting elements of Amadeus Arkham's story), and I utilised my pre-existing interpretations of the characters to add extra layers.  I added more vulnerability to balance out the power fantasy.

So, I focused extra attention on Batman's suit becoming progressively more banged up and ripped, and assumed he was also becoming mentally exhausted.  I was afraid when I encountered Clayface, even though he remained safely sealed behind thick glass -- knowing what he could do was enough.  I worried about where Doctor Destiny might be, because I knew I couldn't really fight him.

The game allowed me to become the character, and left me enough space to build my own understanding into him.  I don't find that space in the comics or movies -- they are too strongly someone else's complete vision.

(Plus, I'm nerdy enough to enjoy collecting references to more obscure villains like the Ratcatcher.  Movies don't let me do that.)

Where Arkham Asylum almost fell down for me was the sense of place.  I got to know the layout extremely well, and that was one form of power I couldn't over-write in my mind.  I couldn't get lost and create anything like the level of panic experienced in Serious House.  Mind you, if I could I probably would have been too terrified to continue playing, so that's for the best.  The game provided me with an Arkham Asylum I could conceivably overcome.

Part of me really wants to see unwinnable story-driven games, but this probably wasn't the place to try it.  The existing balance was pretty much right.  Overcoming Arkham Asylum is fun, which of all things is an element of play I often overlook.

Brawsome's Jolly Rover, winner of the best Australian Game at this year's Freeplay independent game festival, is currently on sale for $4.99, in honour of upcoming Talk Like a Pirate Day.

At full price I'd been tossing up whether to part with my money.  On sale it's an easy choice for fans of point-and-click adventure.  It's a very polished independent game, with a great sense of humour.  It includes a heap of truly awful puns, but I also found myself laughing a few times, and I'm not an easy target for humour.

Jolly Rover really is essentially Monkey Island featuring anthropomorphic dogs.  That's no bad thing, though I would have loved to see them tackle a different setting.  It's also quite easy, which disappointed me but may appeal to some.

[Note: The rest of this post contains character discussion on Jolly Rover and Monkey Island.  Potential minor spoilers.]

James Rover and Guybrush Threepwood are both unlikely heroes.  They have a slightly childlike manner and sense of humour, making comparisons very natural.  They are joke pirates, in a sense.  Threepwood has his silly name and wields wit like a weapon, while Rover is quite literally a clown.

Monkey Island has naturally had a bit more time for character development, but Rover is pretty well fleshed out for the time available.  What I actually find more interesting (and a little disturbing) is comparing the love interests in Jolly Rover and Monkey Island.

Monkey Island's Elaine Marley is often held up as a good example of a positive female character in games.  She's a strong governor, showing kindness as well as intelligence and resourcefulness.  She commonly subverts the "damsel in distress" stereotype, by finding her own way out of situations before Threepwood can come to her rescue.  She is also quite definitely the dominant partner in their relationship.

Clara from Jolly Rover is also presented as strong, in that she will threaten to break Rover in half if he says or does the wrong thing.  She is once again calling the shots in terms of their developing relationship.  Where it falls down, though, is that she does little to earn either fear or respect.

We first meet Clara arguing with a group of man-hunting female pirates, and being determined to "have no more part in this bloody business".  She's demonstrating moral strength, but she lacks any influence within the group so is left powerless.

After teaming up with Rover, I kept expecting Clara to do something to demonstrate her ability as a skilled captain.  She never did.  In fact, she spent most of her time standing around doing nothing.  Sometimes she would even beg Rover to get them out of whatever predicament they were in.  It made me quite uncomfortable, and the game could have been improved substantially for me simply by giving her something to do.

Elaine isn't strong because she can snap at Guybrush and make him jump as high as she likes.  She's strong because she wields genuine power in her own right.  She possesses political influence, strategic thinking, and skill in direct physical action.  It isn't necessary to go quite that far – if anything Elaine may suffer from being a bit too good to be true – but I at least expected something from Clara.

Sure, you can create a passive character (of any gender) if you like, but overuse of the helpless female stereotype is not doing computer games any favours.  In a game that invites such a strong level of comparison to Monkey Island it's particularly disappointing.  I was silly enough to expect something more because of that.

I don't buy that the famous pirate's daughter is going to be so useless.  If she's going to talk tough I want her to be able to back it up.  Flitting between bossiness and helplessness, Clara is a wishy-washy mess of a character.

It was unfortunate to have such a bad taste left in my mouth after what was otherwise a worthwhile adventure game.

I'm not a particularly skilled player, so I do like having difficulty options of some form. I have also improved considerably and am working on continuing to get better. The only way I can do that is if game difficulty stays just a little above my current level. Enough to challenge, but not to give up in frustration.

One of my pet annoyances in games is when I die a few times and start getting messages reminding me I can turn down the difficulty level. The game seems to be mocking me. You aren't good enough to be here, why not just switch to easy mode, you loser? The occasional tip I could probably handle, but once I know the option's there I see no need to hammer the point. Unless someone out there in game-developer-land really enjoys teasing people like me, which is valid I suppose.

Adaptive difficulty is more subtle, and increases game accessibility without seeming to poke faces at me in the process. I have a slightly dubious relationship with this method though.  What if the game's just laughing at me behind my back now, instead of telling me to my face?

Theoretically, adaptive difficulty should be a great way to make games accessible to a wide range of people, and give me that level of challenge I'm looking for. In reality, this idea has quite a long way to go.

The major issue for me is actually choice. In a non-tweakable system, adaptive difficulty must naturaly make assumptions about how much of a challenge I'm looking for, and how many failures I will tolerate. I'm a relatively patient and determined person, so those systems will probably pitch their challenge just a little lower than I would like. It can make the wins less satisfying. Discrete difficulty levels are a bit limited, but at least they give me a choice.

My sister recently linked me to Infinite Adaptive Mario. It uses player performance to determine procedural level generation, as opposed to the more superficial tweaking of current mainstream games.  It doesn't solve my particular issues, but I think investigating different approaches to difficulty managment is useful.

I've never really got the hang of controlling platformers using a keyboard, so a PC Mario game is going to cause me some problems. After a few too many deaths the levels do become easy... and also kind of pointless. Thankfully it doesn't resort to that too quickly, and it's useful that how far you progress before dying is important to how far the difficulty is dropped.

All in all it's an interesting idea, and one I'd be interested to see used elsewhere. My major concern about choice still stands, though. I look forward to the day when I can more commonly control how I want difficulty management to behave.

The hip thing to do at the moment is apparently to reject the use of the word 'gamer' and tell people not to identify themselves that way.  Maybe I'm just not fashionable, but I have some reasons for standing up for the label (though not without limits).

The first issue is a lack of alternatives.

When I named this blog I accepted that including gamer in the title has its problems, but it is still meaningful.  Game can mean all kinds of things, but gamer is probably going to be about video games -- or possibly pencil and paper roleplaying, which is also accurate in my case.

Now, I could have tried to come up with a clever name without needing to include games as a term at all.  I could have incorporated something people might recognise from gaming culture, perhaps.  "Giant enemy crab set us up the bomb" isn't very personal really.  More seriously, I doubt I could have come up with something to fit.

My other option was to not worry about referencing games at all, and just use a blog title I happened to like.  Since I write for myself first and anyone else second that could have worked, but I still wanted to say something about what I was trying to do here.

Trying to use terms people will recognise... that's a marketing decision.  This is where some of the venom against the term gamer comes from.  These labels are designed to sell or promote stuff, and that makes them evil, right?

Marketing is only evil when it's trying to sell you something you don't really want.  Directing people to the things they are genuinely interested in is just sensible, and helpful all around.  Also, directing people away from things they don't want, for that matter.

Another major argument directed against identifying as a gamer is stereotyping.  Yahtzee covered this one recently on his Extra Punctuation column.  So, punks kick rubbish bins, goths want to eat your babies, and gamers are neckbearded manchildren.  Everyone knows these things are not really true (don't they?), but arguably the associations still flash up in people's minds.

(For the record, there is nothing wrong with a neckbeard.  That's just another meaningless beauty standard, like the people who expect me to shave my legs and armpits.  Screw the lot of them, and just be yourself.)

That stereotype doesn't enter into my head.  Gamer is convenient shorthand for someone who plays video games, and that's rapidly becoming everyone.  It's good to avoid over-using any term, but I don't think it's worth getting too worked up over this one specifically.

Maybe that's expecting too much from the general public, but I'm not writing for everyone.  I'm writing for people who are already understand.  I don't need to debate whether games can be art, because I am already past that point.  And I don't need to defend myself or worry about how I look.  I can just get on with things.

You can assume I'm a manchild if you like, but it's probably going to make you look like an idiot.

I do have my own pet disagreements about terms I'd like to see people cutting back on,  particularly 'gameplay' and genre labels.  That's a matter of clarity and ease of discussion.  Sometimes there is still a use for a term for a collective of people who play games, so I am happy to leave that in my vocabulary.

Rather than encouraging stereotypes, I think the main issue with calling yourself a gamer is exclusivity.  If gamers exist, so do non-gamers.  Then battle-lines can be drawn and we can start saying that those millions of Farmville players are not real gamers.  Not terribly constructive, but it hints at the reason behind the desire to group ourselves.

Video games are still fighting for recognition equal to other media.  That can make people defensive, and inclined to identify similar individuals, as well as create safe spaces where we can talk about our hobby without fear of disproportionate judgement.  Except from Yahtzee.

I'd like to say we are past needing that, and I hope we soon will be.  I think the harshest critics of the label gamer are the ones who most want us to be past that point.  I sympathise, but have to accept the reality of broader society.

Currently, I can't completely discount the value of a tribe.  Gamer can mean belonging to something, and that being okay.  Subcultures gets a bad rap, but  there's a good reason they exist.  The critics might want to take a hard look at why they want to attack various elements of society.  Perhaps deciding not to be 'us' is seen as the decision to be against us?

We disprove that easily.  Taking a label doesn't mean excluding others.  At Freeplay speakers could admit to not playing games and still be considered an equal.  We are constantly on the edge of new innovations, and broadening culture.  I am not going to be ashamed of the passion involved in labeling myself part of that right now -- though not at the expense of other elements of myself, naturally.

Having said all that, I now need to admit to a possible double standard.  I'm still trying to nut this one out in my head, but 'girl gamer' I really hate, even though the same arguments could be made.  I suppose I'll defend the right of others to label themselves girl gamers even though the thought of using it myself is vile.  That's fair, and they don't threaten me by choosing their own categories.

This is the point where I have to wonder where some people get off on telling other people how they can and can't identify themselves.  I'll defend a designated girl gamer's rights even though I don't understand her need personally.

If you don't want to identify as a gamer that's cool.  Do those of us who do use the label sometimes really threaten you so much you need to tell us not to?