/lit/ - Literature

yes

sage goes in all fields

They already have, but not for the dumb reasons OP probably thinks. It's not because they're "deeper" (lol) or have more "meanings" (double lol), but because all art is simulation. And that's where the entire mystery begins to unravel.

Sometimes video games can use medium-specific features such as gameplay and/or player choice to achieve aesthetic value in a different way than literature. Unfortunately, there are a whole bunch of practical concerns which prevent this from being realized often.

>>3885494

Samefag is having a convo with hisself.

I rank Half-Life, Portal, and A Link to the Past ahead of quite a few of the novels I've read and films I've watched.

I prefer writing books. I also think that, in general, books have better story in regards to fiction and, in terms of non-fic, do non-fic games even exist? Literature also has superior audience demographics.

>>3885517
>do non-fic games even exist?
Basically all grand strategy games are heavily based in history

>>3885500
>>3885490
The fuck is your problem?

books

I feel that video games had their chance and squandered it. Mediums that go on to do anything interesting tend to have definitive masterpieces made during the great time period before "everything is figured out".

There was a time when huge sums of money were being tossed at people who were making everything up. Now it's all formula based on addictivity, microtransactions, cross-platform, blah, blah .

"Indie" games might do something interesting, but Minecraft has blown that dream.

TLDR: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GowCEiZkU70

>>3885606
nigga, that's revisionist history or historical fiction.

that is not non-fic. a non-fic game is possible. you could play as, uhh, i dunno, john mccain bombing the japanese.

Obviously I'm aware that there are historically INSPIRED games, but i'm ASKING if there are plain non-fic games. Seeing as video games require you to make your own experience that excludes that particular genre. Video games simply lose on that point. Deal w/ it :(

>>3885691
JFK reloaded comes to mind

Why couldn't they have made Planescape without the stupid combat? I played the game for the intriguing dialogue and detailed worldbuilding, not the clunky as fuck combat that the game forces you to do.

>>3885661

Again the usual retarded position that art isn't art unless it has "deep moral messages/meanings."

Video games indeed had their chance friend, and they exceeded all expectations.

>>3885494
Lol.

What is the literary equivalent of Dwarf Fortress?
>incredibly complex
>little to no mainstream appeal
>inaccessible

>>3885661

Also: video games now had no "definitive masterpieces" rofl.

>>3885706
Because it's dunegon and dragon duh

>>3885510
>Link to the Past

Maybe it's because I played Link's Awakening and OOT before ALttP but I don't see the big deal with ALttP. I'd rank the first Zelda over it.

I got a little excited when I saw dragons talking about the will to power, but on the whole there just doesn't seem to be any real intelligence from the writers of modern games. Plenty of creativity -- maybe enough so that some games are worth more than their direct entertainment value -- but no genuine storytelling talent.

The most blatant example that I can think of is Mass Effect. Intriguing narrative structure that only videogames can pull off, but then you get to the end of the universe (and the end of all possible storylines) and all that's there is an Apollinian robot god. What a shame.
I think I could inspire a rebirth of tragedy with a game based on the Iliad.

>>3885710
Gravity's Rainbow.

>>3885494
Nice fakepost, Anon. Pretty well-executed, I have to admit.

Video games are for children.

>>3885691
The act of writing history down requires some interpretation on the part of the writer and then some inference from the reader. May as well say literature can't be historical either.

>>3885710
Finnegans Wake or The Waste Land.

Diving straight in on your own won't yield (very many) results but can still be great fun. After that you'll wan't a written guide to get the most out of it.

The most interesting and valuable thought with regard to video games is coming from the trans community

>>3885752
This is sarcasm, right?

>>3885769
No. You obviously have no idea what I'm talking about, so you'd better shut up.

>>3885707
I'm with Nabokov in that "mediocrity thrives on *ideas*". That's not what I'm asking for.

I'm talking about a video-game that explores what the medium of video-games can do to an interesting degree.

>>3885711
I'm sorry, but the standards (Half Life, Shadow of the Colossus, Zelda, Mario, indie-game-number-15, etc) don't measure up to the best in other mediums.

>>3885776
>he thinks those are defining masterpieces
pleb detected

>>3885789
Enlighten me

>>3885752
Holy shit that line of thinking. Want to chase this down the rabbit hole to a singularity? You go ahead.

>>3885794

What line of thinking? I'm talking about a few specific people, actually, who you've probably never heard of...

Video games = Literature + Film + Music + Interactivity

Therefore video games are the medium with the greatest artistic potential.

>>3885811
But that's not true.

Are you talking about a game that would have objects of lit/film/music inside them?

>>3885811
But the very fact taht all of that stuff is thrown together bloats it up and keeps it from reaching its "potential"

>>3885822
The point is that it has literary, visual, aural and interactive components. Of course, all this really does is make it entirely different, not necessarily better.

Yeah, I see that video games have that potential.

The fact that they haven't realized it whatsoever is whats so upsetting.

>>3885793
Not him but Call of Duty would probably be a good start. Better than most books I've read.

>>3885833
Literary is implicitly written words.

Does a game without speech bubbles have "literary significance"? Does it need it?

This is the problem. Video-games are attempting to co-opt the "artistic" parts of other mediums instead of striving to forge their own.

Gameplay is its own art.

>>3885851
On par at least with the best from other mediums.

>>3885851
0/10
just embarrassing

>>3885859
Enlighten me.

>>3885869
Which Call of Duty are we talking about here?

The recent ones are not just boring, they're condescendingly so.

>>3885877
2

>>3885793
The Troika classics
Max Payne series (1&2 especially)
Dwarf Fortress and NetHack
Deus Ex and Human Revolution
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Braid
Bastion
That's just off the top of my head

Clearly murder simulators are the greatest form of art

>>3885877
>condescendingly so

>>3885888
>All games are murder simulator
I think I see the problem. You guys think videogames are shit and uncreative because all you play is the mainstream drivel.

>>3885881
Oh, you mean the one that was a minor version of Band of Brothers?

>>3885883
Fair enough, I haven't played most of those so I cannot speak to them. I'd be interested in your reasoning for one of them anyway. Something more substantial than "I liked it."

>>3885890
The facade of "action/intensity" in front of constant repetition is condescending to me aesthetically.
>THIS IS ACTION THIS IS FUN

>>3885899
Oh, I'm only talking about shooters and some other action games, don't worry

>>3885752
Agreed, I'm glad people are talking about how terrible most games are.

Armikrog finally reached its kickstarter goal. Now there's a game with some artistic potential

>>3885900
I'll elaborate further on this if the thread is still up in the morning, as it's 2AM and I really need to sleep, but
< That is a screenshot of Bastion
This is a song from bastion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz8c17upEwM
And this is a narration from Bastion
>"Best thing we can do for those beasts right now is put 'em down, quick and clean. There's only one kind of mercy left these days. Look at it this way. It's either them, or us. But if we win, they win too. Our Bastion is everybody's gain, not just ours. Unfortunately, there's no explainin' this to a simple Beast."
Read that in the sexiest black man voice you can imagine
That music, those visuals, and that constant narration blend together perfectly with some creative combat mechanics, and it makes for a unique and masterfully crafted game. Try it out sometime.

>>3885949
Can't say I'm impressed by any of that stuff.

>>3885955
I'd suggest you play it for yourself, the elements have to come together in order to work proper. It should be noted that Bastion and Braid are the runt of the litter of the above list, and the rest of the games are much better

HAve any of you played Kentucky Route Zero? That game is definitely an aesthetic experience

>>3885752
what do trans people have to say about video gaming from a gaming perspective? NOTHING. It's all story. Otherwise, I've heard their theory and it has to do with gender sliders during character creation - STILL NOT GAMEPLAY. Character creation is not gameplay, romance is not gameplay, boofin dudes is not gameplay.

>>3885949
Art Direction is p cool
Score sounds like gentrified folk ("No please Jack White, put out another bluegrass album!")
That quote is cliche wrapped in cliche.

The gameplay should be the important thing. It should be what you are describing. Right now you're describing the packaging to a book. "Great cover art!"

This is my problem with video-games. They pride themselves on aspects found in other things.

It's like when music fans only care about lyrics, or when film fans care about anything over cinematography.

>>3885970
see
>>3885772

Identity is an essential aspect of one's mode of expression. Gender is inextricable from video games as an art form

I haven't played any video game more artful than a choose your own adventure story. I'm an avid gamer.

Video games may eventually be great art, but i believe that won't happen until current attitudes and beliefs toward the medium change. And i mean the attitudes and beliefs held by gamers and developers. Games are merely vehicles for awful plots and thought destroying "entertainment" for now. No more art than Dora the Explorer or laser tag.

>>3885970
Why not?

>>3885985
P&C adventure games are probably the most artistically satisfying of all, honestly

>>3885979
Not the guy you are responding to, but isn't gender then an "inextricable" part of all art forms? Can we extrapolate that to whatever other narrative theory is popular for the day?

>Marxism can be found wherever you look for it
>Freud is under every rock
>Lacan is inextricably linked to soda-pop

>>3885985
>attitudes

Exactly. People use video-games a social platform, a replacement for the after-school/work game of street baseball, more than anything.

Most games are not art, they are games.

>>3885996
Famous European intellectuals aren't universal elements of the human condition, though some aspects of their thought certainly are

>>3886004
Well, they were stand-ins for their ideas obviously.
Marx would argue that socio-economics is universal, vital, important, etc as a way of deconstruction/analyzing.
Lacan would say the same about his ideas, Freud with his, etc etc.

But these are ways of analysis that are not medium-specific.

>>3885995
Why do you say that?

>>3886009
OK. I don't see the problem with that.

>>3886012
They're among the simplest mechanically and thus focus more on the aesthetic quality

>>3886013
The problem is that a gender analysis of video games says nothing interesting about video games, only about video games in relation to gender.

There should be a mode of analysis specific to a medium with an attempted ideal of what the medium should entail IE: literary criticism which deals with theories of narrative, film criticism which deals with theories of visual aesthetics. etc

Structuralism in the classic sense is the only analysis that is *about* a medium.

>>3886021
But there's nothing about a medium that doesn't have gender, politics, economics, psychology and so on as an inherent property, thus analysis is important. Just looking at the so-called "nuts and bolts" isn't going to get you anywhere aesthetically.

I don't know if the future games I have planned would be considered art, but basically I want to create a game saga based on the themes of ancient epic literature; like Gilgamesh and the greek epics.

The setting would be a futuristic alternative universe earth however.

>>3886033
That's a cool idea that totaly hasn't been done before

>>3886033
Do it then. I'm sure the amateur game dev general on /vg/ will be of assistance.

>>3886029
In the kind of analysis you are talking about, the object be it film/game/book/song/etc is a witness in a trial, whereas it should be on trial.

Video-game criticism should ask "What makes a good game?" Not, "what does this game 'say' about 'things'?"

>>3886020
I'd agree with that. P&C games certainly feature some of the more imaginative characters, plotlines, environments, dialogue, etc. but the gameplay itself is lacking.

Is the artlessness of video games due to an increasingly influential (as i perceive it) view of gameplay as a means to an end, i.e. a component in the pacing of a story, rather than an end in itself? Can gameplay even be artful when games are played with gamepads or keyboards? What even is gameplay? The frequency of inputs to the machine? The physical act of twiddling sticks? An interaction within a set of rules?

Somebody answer my questions because i just want to play the video game equivalent of Sonnet 73.

>>3886039
What the game 'says' about 'things' is inherent to what makes it 'good', though.

>>3886039
To put it another way, the very notion of what makes a game's mechanics 'good' is inherently political

Anyone played Anti-chamber?

>>3886056
Pretty cool game, but I was a bit annoyed that there wasn't any special reward for solving all the puzzles or finding all the purple cubes

>>3886048
“My advice to a budding literary critic would be as follows. Learn to distinguish banality. Remember that mediocrity thrives on "ideas." Beware of the modish message. Ask yourself if the symbol you have detected is not your own
footprint. Ignore allegories. By all means place the "how" above the "what" but do not let it be confused with the "so what." Rely on the sudden erection of your small dorsal hairs. Do not drag in Freud at this point. All the rest depends on personal talent.”
-Nabokov

"in place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art"
-Sontag

I mean, clearly you can think that, but to me that line of thinking comes from thinking that art in all mediums isn't a worthwhile endeavor on its own.

>>3886055
I mean, if you're looking for politics you'll find them.

>I think that SotC has good gameplay
>Of course you would you fascist cunt

>>3885883
I must add Pathologic to that list.

>>3885476

It surely can not be appropriate to propose that an example from one medium can excel an example from another medium in any but a relative sense. One game can be better than most other games just as one book can be better than most other books. Taking that reasoning to its natural conclusion, one game can be better than more games than a certain book is relative to other books. That method of measurement is subject to severe imprecision due to the differing ages and profusion of the aforementioned mediums.

The ways in which they are similar - prose, dialogue, etc. - do not seem to favor one medium or the other. Their differences - what makes each medium unique - can, obviously, only be rated against one another with great difficulty.

To pose an analogous question, is Shakespeare better than sex? I might like to read sonnets, but I also enjoy sex. Since I am not forced to choose one or the other, I can not imagine rating them against one another. They are different, and enjoyed in different ways for different reasons. At certain times of day, I will enjoy one more than the other.

>>3886061
You'll find politics even if you aren't looking for them, as they are unavoidable. If we don't analyze things with respect to politics or gender or so on then we won't understand why we like the things we do

>>3886079
>why we like things

We only like what conforms to our views of politics and gender?

>>3886085
Our views on politics and gender inform everything we do in our lives

>>3886088
Now here we must diverge as we've reached an axiom that I do not hold.

I'm one of those radicals who claims to take unpolitical shits in the ungendered woods sometimes. I even like some music made by fascist neopagans without being one!

We can't like things on their own merits? I don't like a beer because it tastes good, but because of my politics/gender?

>>3885883
>>3885900
how can you be unfamiliar with this list and still comment? Yeah, you shouldn't be speaking, I don't know where you got the confidence to in the first place. You asked him to enlighten you, look them up.
Why do people wear their ignorance as a point of pride? Just that you're holding the medium to such dated standards of high/low, art/not art shows you've got crap exposure to culture in general, beyond just videogames.
I mean, you don't think in the history of videogames, no one intelligent has decided to dabble in the medium? To test and explore its limits? Every medium gets its avant-garde. Haruhiki Shono's Gadget: Invention, Travel & Adventure. Osamu Sato's LSD: Dream Simulator and Eastern Mind: Lost Souls of Tong-nou. Suda51, Love-de-lic, Clover. Hideo Kojima (of MGS), Fumito Ueda (of SotC). Contemporary indie goes way beyond Braid and Bastion, try thecatamites, crypticsea. Cactus and messhof are making big waves with their game maker shit, I'm not really a fan of it. Man, if you don't know this shit, then play the fucking games or stop shit talking as if you have any idea what you're talking about.
How can this silly debate is still going on when they're featured in the fucking New Museum and shit. Games have been a presence in small galleries since the 90s. There have been galleries within videogames. Rhizome is funding games every year, covering them every week.
You've got to be totally out of touch with the art world to make such banal comments, and then, what the fuck are you doing even saying anything? I really despise these threads. Kentucky Route Zero is okay I guess, Bruno de Figueiredo did a piece on it on his new tumblr if you want a history lesson. What? Games aren't art? But look, he's using Chopin. They're talking about relationships and art. Look, this is in a fictional gallery, look, is this hyperreal? Maybe this one is art, it's too clear for me to justify why I still don't get it. The joke is I'm a pretentious fuckwad.

>>3886098
Hey, hey, hey. I'm trying to be open minded here. And obscure video games are harder to access than any other medium these days, right?

I'm very interested in reading an essay about any of these games, specifically what about them makes them good? Y'know?

Why the anger?

>>3886096
I think you're missing the point. I'm not just talking about politics as it relates to how you think the government should work, or whatever. It's your privileged position in society that allows you to enjoy 'fascist neopagan' music, whereas those less privileged might not be able to. And they would certainly like things that you wouldn't. So you can't like things "on their own merits", as they only have any merits because we decide they do, and how we decide is political in nature.

>>3886105
>privileged position
Calling nonsense here. Privileged to explore to the degree I have? Yes. But all cultures and all people interact with art an a daily basis, mediums differ culturally sure, but there's no privilege in enjoying art. It's universal.

>You can't like things "on their own merits"
Have you heard the phrase "I understand what you like about it, but it's not for me"?

You're also implying that aesthetic values are inherently political, but I'd argue that they are their own set. Fascists don't dress in a specific manner, and sometimes Anarchists dress like Nazis. Unrelated.

>>3886120
>there's no privilege in enjoying art

That's a position only someone in a highly privileged position could take.

>>3886124
So the slaves singing gospel songs were privileged?

>>3886101
>I'm very interested in reading an essay
>what about them makes them good?
Well, play them. You're acting like a work has the prerequisite to first prove that it's worth your time simply because it's a videogame. That's unfair, I mean, they're individual, people will like certain games and dislike others, and it's pretty hard to decide why.

Here are just things I collected for something else.
Gadget
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/gadget/gadget.htm
This is an interview with its creator, the profile at the beginning gives a summary of his ouevre with videos of each work on the right sidebar
http://coregamer.web.simplesnet.pt/shono.htm

Gadget's an important game, it was pretty influential and revolutionary, outside of just the videogame medium. I mean, it was pretty important to movies, 3D art (ie CGI) and games alike. I think Guillema Del Toro, the guy making Pacific Rim, you know, he did Cronos and Pan's Labyrinth, said that it was a large influence on Dark City and the Matrix, but idk if that's true, though aesthetic connection is definitely clear.

HG101 is pretty good, they cover a lot of quality games and are pretty comprehensive and consistent. There isn't a lot of good game journalism, but I'd place them at the top. Bruno (aka dieubussy) is good too, he's got three dead blogs at the top of that interview page with a lot of good info, I trust the guy though he can be a bit self-indulgent.
Here's the kentucky route zero thing
http://postplay.tumblr.com/post/41380729364/krzacti

It's a pretty good game. Not my taste. Every play an interactive-fiction? Try photopia. It's really easy, a great first game, but a good experience, one of my favorite IF's. You can play it right online
http://www.ifiction.org/games/playz.php?cat=&game=332&mode=html

Emily Short's Galatea is pretty cool too.

>Why the anger?
I wrote the post on another computer and then the internet died and I lost it. So I had to like, rewrite it all over again.

>>3886133
Do you know why they enjoyed singing gospel songs? It's not entirely arbitrary, as you seem to believe

>>3886098
Listen to this Anon

>>3886133
But really, it's funny that you use the most political possible example, what are you thinking?

>>3886135
I'd love to play them, it's just that it's harder to do that than with other mediums. I can read any book, see any movie, listen to any record for free and pretty quickly. Games are harder to come by.

Thanks for the informative post. It's exactly what I was looking for.

>>3886138
I claim that they enjoyed singing because they enjoyed singing.
You're going to claim that you can know the reasoning behind a near-universal human urge?

>>3886145
They sang. So do most people. Their motives don't matter. Singing matters.

>>3886146
>You're going to claim that you can know the reasoning behind a near-universal human urge?

Wait, are you serious here? HAve you ever heard of something called "psychology"? Lol

>>3886120
>Fascists don't dress in a specific manner

I would like to see a fascist movement which didn't include a dress code.

>>3886146
Yeah, I forgot I have some stuff uploaded. They're a little bit off the deep end, though. Um, like, a bit nonlinear, goalless, not fully game-ish.

LSD: Dream Simulator
http://fuckyeahlsddreamemulator.tumblr.com/downloadlinks
This isn't my dl. This has become a bit of a cult classic, you might've seen it before. This thing has the guide on what to download, or a tpb torrent that has it all setup, b/c it's a ps1 game emulated. Look up a video on yt to get an idea, or just jump right in

Eastern Mind
https://mega.co.nz/#!zEt2gD5T!c6yK92gisnFAEHOEjgGxVEyFOZwiGamvXXwNrOYF22w
By the same guy. I really like this one too, it's less surreal and has a set of goals, point n' click style. Has a really cool mythological influence, very dreamlike, great soundtrack. Don't know why people don't play it. It's a little confusing at first, I guess. This is is all setup with DOSbox and everything.

Proteus
https://mega.co.nz/#!iEkHRIAC!fM6IyDz3FDd4HDo2TPMWWC_oG-NdTPGNFAZUWzF7JzY
This is a newer indie release. Goal-lesss, emphasis on audio interaction and exploration. This is a good thing to start with actually. It's really peaceful, maybe 30 minutes long.

Pleasuredromes of Kubla Khan
https://mega.co.nz/#!eMsn1QgS!FGcb7T5Rk2pKRs5BH-Ge8DmaHn5t2VGvVLGq7Q5cZjw
this is by thecatamites. It's really funny, you can find all his games for download at harmonyzone.org
Murderdog IV is great too. Kafka-esque, but totally halfassed silly, self-aware, nonsensical.

Cosmology of Kyoto is also a really great game, nonlinear historical thing. I think Ebert noted it as an exception when he said games aren't art. I think you can find it online, I don't have it uploaded. I really love that game.

Yeah, maybe just download this heap and stick it in a folder somewhere, play through them over some time. They're all pretty short, I can't sit through full length games anymore. One thing that's great is that these were always intended to be played on a PC, unlike downloaded movies or music.

necrobump

>>3888370
OH cool, I thought this thread had been deleted. I hope this guy: >>3885494 comes back so I can argue with him

>>3885510
Three great games. All have made me well-up at the sad parts.

Everything created by humans is art, therefore video games are art

/thread etc

>>3885476
>Do you not see their potential to surpass even the greatest works of literature?

Yes - they have that potential but lets be realistic and think now whether anyone is actually capable of using that medium to truly achieve that objective. Not when games nowadays are created more for profit and 'impact' than actual story telling and depth also.

>>3885476
But OP's pic isn't a game, it's just text from a game.

>>3888474
The text is the most important component of the game, though, so the picture serves as a decent illustration.

>>3888479
>The text is the most important component of the game, though
You sure?

>>3888500
Someone once said, it's a video game that tries to be a book.
It has a great story. The fighting etc. is not really important about it.

>>3888500
Yes. The game could have done away with all of the mechanics that have nothing to do with the text and still have been about as good as it was

>>3885740
>After that you'll wan't a written guide to get the most out of it.
>I wan't someone else to read the book for me!

>tfw they will never be a game as great as Planescape:Torment again

>>3888550
Yes, because when reading things like Finnegans Wake and The Waste Land, it would be way too much work to do all the required research on your own, when there's already ~100 years worth of existing scholarship, and you're stupid if you think this doesn't still leave room for you to produce your own interpretation

>>3885985
I disagree completely. Sure, the majority of games released are purely made for entertainment, but there is a great amount of games that are truly artistically valid.

You wouldn't judge the medium of film after a single trip to the movie theatre, would you? You wouldn't judge literature after reading a paperback you bought at the duty free shop, would you? Why do you think it is acceptable to slander an entire medium like that?

>>3886098
follow this anon's teachings. His words are gold.

I'm not a samefag, either.

Okay, here's the thing.

Games can tell stories. Good stories, at that.

But the most important thing about games is gameplay. If the gameplay doesn't work, then the game is pointless, and no amount of graphics or story will save it.

Nowadays games are becoming some sort of interactive movies. Not so much LA Noire or The Last of Us, but even things like Bioshock Infinite. They are about the experience, the immersion in the fictional world. They're not about gaming.

>>3888613
Seriously, that cat's hep to the jive, if you know what I'm sayin, lol

>>3888638
I think that games can find a happy medium between storytelling and gameplay, with emergent gameplay. Dwarf Fortress tells stories, and every one belongs to you.

>>3888663
Emergent gameplay is such a vague term and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with story. Although I do like things like how people would play Deus Ex as total pacifists (0 kills) and things.

>>3888663
Yup. One of my favorite games essentially has you write out a mythological/fantasy epic over the course of several months of multiplayer.

>>3888663
>Dwarf Fortress tells stories, and every one belongs to you.
THIS SO FUCKING MUCH
90% of the reason most people play dorf fort is so they can have a story to tell once their fort fails spectacularly
This image right here is just one example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIx7Ot5Mq2Q

>>3885661
>definitive masterpieces made during the great time period before "everything is figured out".

>>3885661
"there was hope, but now its gone.."

>>3885711
Its true, the great master works of other mediums (Beethoven's Ninth, Moby Dick, The Song of Roland, Christ the Redeemer, The Sistine Chapel) vs....half life? Planescape? The Lies of Locke Lamora was a better book than Planescape.

>>3885949
Its an ok game.

Its a pretty far fuckin shot from Pynchon or McCarthy or even Stephen King

>>3885476
Isn't vidya a really young medium?

Not going to read the thread, but I will say that I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is a great example of a game being as meaningful as literature

>>3888791
You just had to post that fucking image. My ex-boyfriend is obsessed with that game. He knows the entire thing by heart and can recite most of the lines from memory. He went a little crazy from paranoia and broke up with me because he had these delusions that I was stalking him. I suspect he is developing schizophrenia or something. I still fucking miss the hell out of him though. I loved him with all my heart. I even wanted to marry him. ;_;

the best video game story is like a shitty teen novella compared to good books.

>>3889052
the game's phenomenal,
I haven't played through it in years..
your ex-boyfriend sounds like someone i might know
also somewhat like myself

didn't mean to bring it up,.

>>3889080
>the game's phenomenal,
>I haven't played through it in years..

If you did, it would cease to be phenomenal. Video games are for children.

There is nothing in video games that can compare to the Sistine Chapel, or to Shakespeare

>>3889084
Um yeah, especially stupid old JRPGs, LMAO xD

>>3889089
I think the code is bretty cool to look at.

Pleasantly surprised with the caliber of discussion in this thread. I can sense /lit/ in this thread.

Either way it's a waste of time, because video games will never be high art.

Video Games will never achieve the level of beauty as can be seen in a Rembrandt painting or can be heard in a Beethoven string quartet

>>3889101
>I can sense /lit/ in this thread.

>I thought I was on /v/
>I thought this was a thread on /v/
>Look at top of page
>I'm on /lit/

>>3889101
Even if video games never be considered high art, I still think that it's still a superb example of mechanical design. The same way a mechanical watch is.

>>3889106
Maybe you sensed /lit/ in this thread because people were talking about literature in it.

"An elderly man was sitting alone on a dark path, right? He wasn't certain of which direction to go, and he'd forgotten both where he was traveling to and who he was. He'd sat down for a moment to rest his weary legs, and suddenly looked up to see an elderly woman before him. She grinned toothlessly and with a cackle, spoke: 'Now your *third* wish. What will it be?'"
"'Third wish?' The man was baffled. 'How can it be a third wish if I haven't had a first and second wish?'"
"'You've had two wishes already,' the hag said, 'but your second wish was for me to return everything to the way it was before you had made your first wish. That's why you remember nothing; because everything is the way it was before you made any wishes.' She cackled at the poor berk. 'So it is that you have one wish left.'"
"'All right,' said the man, "I don't believe this, but there's no harm in wishing. I wish to know who I am.'"
"'Funny,' said the old woman as she granted his wish and disappeared forever. 'That was your first wish.'"

>>3889084
perhaps,
but I wouldn't be so dismissive
when I was younger (about eleven) I had a copy of final fantasy 7
I burnt through my father's hardrive playing it. I used to want to design video games actually. I really believed at the time that there was an entirely new medium being developed

>>3889094
MUDs are the purest form of gaming
/lit/ agrees

Xenogears has a god tier plot that could barely fit into the video game meaning itself. It is a shame that the second disk was slipshod.
I don't see any other video game that was so delved into mysticism, scifi and speculative history.
It showed that potential is there, but hopefully it will develop into something original and not just beta-movies.

>>3888888

>>3888479
>>3888533
That's like saying a movie is good only for its music.

>>3889124
Given the sort of evaluative language you use, IE 'god tier', and I'm not exactly sure I should trust your judgment, Anonymous

>>3885476
Number 8 is the canon answer btw

>>3889144
Well, it makes sense, because those posts are made by idiots. You can see how the situtation in OP's picture is strongly unique to the medium of games, despite being invested in text. The strength of what's pictured isn't in the "deep" mythic question, it's that the player is given a set list of answers to pick from, what those answers and the presumed futility of all of them. The uncontrollable distinction between [TRUTH] and [LIE] and the relationship developed (possibly emergent? I've never played the game) between the player (or the player's character) and the girl. Elements of what's being explored and how it is being explored reach for outside the boundaries of the novel.

>>3889150
Establishing a canon correct path for these games where your own choices determine what happens is retarded and completely devalues any individual player's experience of the game. There is no point in doing this shit whatsoever

>>3889163
You obviously have no idea what you're talking about when you haven't even played the game so you ought the shut the fuck up, lol

>>3889167
Probably have a better idea of it than someone who played it and actually thinks "it's a video game that tries to be a book" or says "Someone once said, it's a video game that tries to be a book."

>>3889175
Have you ever heard of something called a hypertext novel?

My two cents. Apples and oranges are two very different things. Some prefer one, while others prefer another. In my mind their both delicious. Also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QwcI4iQt2Y

>>3889184
Nope. One thing I've heard is "hypertext fiction," and I highly doubt that's what anyone meant when they alluded to the game's book-y-ness, if that's what you're getting at, considering hypertext's game-y-ness.

>>3889197
>One thing I've heard is "hypertext fiction,"

Now you're just being pedantic.

>I highly doubt that's what anyone meant when they alluded to the game's book-y-ness

You have no way of knowing that, especially when one of the people you so audaciously called an idiot specifically referred to the game's mechanics as it relates to the text. Try thinking about what you're reading a little more, next time.

>considering hypertext's game-y-ness.

Most hypertext authors wouldn't be happy to hear that you're calling their works "games", just fyi

I'll admit, tho, that I deliberately used the phrase 'hypertext novel' to catch you in the pedant trap and reveal your true nature for all to see

>>3889184
I was reading something about this, and I always wanted to check one out but I could never find one. Do you have any recommendations/links?

>>3889220
come on guys don't let me down now I was really curious about these

>>3889210
Nah, you were the one trying to pretend it's the same shit as "novel" just because you included the word novel. Hypertext isn't nearly ubiquitous enough for anyone to say book or novel, especially considering it exists (arguably with larger prevalence) in so many forms outside of that umbrella, and expect you to assume they mean hypertext. Get real.
I called them game-y, I think a game artist would probably maybe be just a little confused if you called them novelists, but hey, to each their own. And you know, you might annoy some net.artists calling them authors. Or maybe just confuse them again. Hypertext author hardly means anything really. I mean, what do /you/ mean by it? Does it not count if it's digital? What if there are pictures? What if it's got dice rools? Like, they might be "books", but are they /really/ still Literature if it's Goosebumps? Be honest.

>see these threads on /lit/
>want to get in on the side advocating serious look at the artistry of videogames
>read over the posts
>this position would place me into a camp with posters who cite the videogame counterparts of the Hollywood "product" as artistic paragons of the medium (e.g., Bioshock, Max Payne, Portal, Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty...)

Also just remembered about how at least one time, everybody who responded to one of these threads was summarily banned from /lit/. Funnily enough, the topic of that thread was whether videogames can be considered a form of literature. The bans were for non-/lit/-related discussion. Beg the question much?

>>3889220
There's some "games" at the bottom of this
http://www.auntiepixelante.com/twine/

Or you've got shit like Nabokov's the Pale Fire, and Choose your own adventure. I always liked the Goosebumps with the tornado and the bulldog.

A lot of the old internet works are dead now though. Just play myst.

animu > vidya gaems

The only games I know of that try to tell a story within the game's own terms (i. e. not aping cinema and novels) are Shadow of the Colossus and Dark Souls. Zelda has a bit of it too.

>>3889241
I always wondered, were they actually lesbians or did circumstances just make them sorta tie them together?

>>3889241
Were they actually lesbians or was it just circumstance that tied them together?

>>3889247
Everybody in the show was either gay or bisexual pretty much.

Yeah it was a romantic relationship though, the movie makes it even more obvious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2SgY0Dn7GQ

>>3889256
>>3889241
So... What does Venus think of while it shines?

>>3889256
>"Snails in her pencil box... A mongoose in her desk drawer... A giant octopus balloon in her closet! And now shaved ice for dinner?! You're making me sick!"

The history of struggles, The history when History itself struggles.

>>3885710
Steven Erikson Gardens of the moon

>>3889985
>incredibly complex
no
>little to no mainstream appeal
no
>inaccessible
yes

I think the answer to this question is good advice that one makes the effort to remember.