Brindle Blog Thread

[Sulkdodds]

THIS WEEK ON THE BRINDLE BLOG: unearthing doctrinal parallels between retro indie platformer L'Abbaye Des Morts and the 13th century neo-Manichean heresy that inspired it. As it turns out, all trad platform games are Catharite, in some sense or another, and pitch the player as the sole element of agency in a world of toxic automatism.

These games come off like some ancient theology. The question they prompt is, "what sick, twisted bastard created this place?" But their activities are also those fundamental to human interactions with videogame systems: watching for patterns, exploiting their automatism, getting around them with the playful and unpredictable consciousness that only a human can offer. And the figure of the demiurge, the evil creator who builds a reality specifically designed to kill or entrap you for as long as your divine spark temporarily inhabits its world, will be familiar to players.

 

[ríomhaire]

You know when I was trying to comment on your blog and it won't let Irish people do it because we're poor and I wasn't wearing a hat or shoes?

Well anyway I was trying to post a link to The Room Tribute flash game to the penis article because of cocks. Also groping and touching brother groping the game s meaning and what is the shape of panis of man.

 

[Sulkdodds]

I have not seen The Room and so I must not play this game for fear of spoilers, but I am confident it involves a flaccid penis. That just heaps more evidence against my ridiculous sister's frail theory.

 

[Sulkdodds]

MEANWHILE, ON THE BRINDLE BLOG: a report from the 2012 GameCamp 'unconference', a festival of critical discussion and wanky nerdery ensconced for a day at London South Bank University in Elephant and Castle (winner of the National Silliest Name Cup 1953, 1969, and 1999) - plus some thoughts about the general importance of conversation and face to face meetups for any critical community.

“So the Care Bears defeat the humans by hugging them,” I mused. There were nods around the table; it made sense. “And…they can freeze the humans in a beam of peace and serenity.” The nods were more uncertain this time. “And…the humans can break each other out of this, but only by shouting insults at each other.” Looks were exchanged, but for some reason, that’s what we tried. Unfamiliar with live action games, I asked what some basic mechanics were apart from running and seeing. Nerf guns, I was informed.

Also, now on Twitter!

 

[ríomhaire]

Just realised I was too tired right now to take in this (says wonders for how well the study I'm about to do for my exam tomorrow is going to go) but did you play Laser Chess the computer game or the actual laser chess board game? If that latter, it's pretty cool but I suck at it.

 

[Sulkdodds]

The latter. Don't worry, I sucked at it too.

 

[Sulkdodds]

New post! Riffing on two recent articles from The New Inquiry about the myth of 'cyberspace' and how we perceive the internet, I analyze the recently-released trailer for Watch Dogs alongside 2001's Uplink, contending that the these games represent two milestones in the history of the internet, and that the difference between them indicates how much things have changed in the last decade.

Uplink’s interface is nerd equivalent of that white substance cruise ships are made of. You know the stuff: it’s something like metal, something like plastic, something like bone china, but it doesn’t look like anything of this earth. Seemingly unchained from mere resources, mere materials, it resembles pure money reified into frictionless fact. Well, Uplink’s menus are made of Internet, of Cyberstuff. They are the same bright, smooth substance as John Perry Barlow’s ‘Declaration of the Indepenence of Cyberspace’, which castigates governments as “weary giants of flesh and steel” on behalf of a world of “thought itself”, a “civilisation of the Mind” which is “both everywhere and nowhere” – but “not where bodies live”. Our weary meatbag world, declares Barlow, was “based on matter, and there is no matter here.” It was the last gasp of a particular breed of techo-utopianism which was no doubt fun while it lasted.

 

[kineaesth]

very nice, I really like the idea of physicality that you discuss. Obviously the hacking in the games is of a completely different nature, you wouldn't hack servers in a different country in Watch Dogs, but the way it's tied back to a sense of physical proximity and problem solving is really cool. I've been playing Deus Ex HR recently and that has a very different sense to its hacking - you're hacking things that are right in front of you, it's never remote, but through hacking them you are exposed to a much more broad world than you would otherwise get. You've also got the sense of physical connection in that people can literally see you hacking a computer and raise an alarm, and if a hack goes wrong enemies will converge on your location. Enjoyable article as always!

 

[Sulkdodds]

Thanks. Yeah, in both Deus Ex and Watch Dogs the simulation of hacking is not so very different from the simulation of lockpicking or magic or something, especially in terms of its high-level function in the rules (i.e. a way to manipulate things, you can either find a 'key' or 'break' it based on skills, there is a cost to trying and failing, you may be able to bypass special items, it will open up alternative approaches, etc).

Another post went up this weekend about The Games of Pippin Barr, a set of hilarious fun little experimental games that tend to come at typical videogame tropes from decidedly odd angles. The article is full of links to the games, so if you haven't played them, you can play along as you read!

What do you call an unwinnable game that players can compete to lose the most often? Or a game about our experience of art that simultaneously denies us the chance to experience it and simulates it perfectly? Or a physics platformer in which having complete control of all physics variables – and seemingly utmost power over the game – still leaves you with quite conventional puzzles to solve? You might call them a bit of a joke. You might call them experiments in paradox. You might call them horse shit (which is your prerogative, I suppose). But you might just call them the games of Pippin Barr.