Video Games as Literature - Cameron W.

    While trying to play Zork, I got increasingly frustrated. Almost everything I said returned the answer, “You can’t see any such thing.” Maybe I was playing it wrong, but I felt like there was nothing I could do other than read the leaflet and steal the rubber mat. The idea of it was fascinating to me though, and I feel like it must have been an extremely exciting invention for its time. I love how beautifully descriptive and strange the words are, you don’t even need images to construct a complete picture, the words do more than enough. 

    I really liked this quote from the article by James O’Sullivan, “These titles involve little more than travelling from one point to another, sometimes interacting with the occasional object while leisurely taking in the surrounds.” I’m not big on video games, but the idea of walking simulators does catch my attention as something I might like.

    I really related to this quote from chapter 4 of our book in relation to my attempt at playing Zork, “The actual experience of interacting with IF can however sometimes seem more like conversing via telegraph with a precocious chimpanzee who has worked out a compass and the possession of objects than conversing with an adult human,” (Rettberg 90). I also liked that on page 89, IF was compared to a detective novel and also to a riddle.

Blue Lacuna Website

Blue Lacuna Video

    This week, I chose to look further into the work Blue Lacuna which was created by Aaron Reed. It was created in 2009 and involves the story of a wanderer who is called to explore the world. I like that you get to make choices at the beginning of the game involving your gender, sexuality, and a choice between love and art. I think that this video from Blue Lacuna’s website does a wonderful job of explaining how the game works. I wasn’t able to play the game but the video does show clips of how it runs, it’s also helpful hearing from the author of the game. I specifically was intrigued by his explanation of how your decisions follow you throughout the game and that, as described in chapter 4 of our book, Reed created, “complex characters, who converse, remember, and form opinions,” (Rettberg 103). I’d be very curious to understand the complex coding involved in developing something so intricate and I’d love to find a way to play this game.

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