What does being LGBT or transsexual have to do with having access to resources? Who dares suggest that being non-white makes you less capable of crafting interactive fiction?
This thread is about design theory, not identity politics.
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I’m glad you asked! There’s extensive research literature in this area:
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Fair enough, I guess. I’d like to say, though, in case it wasn’t clear, that I’m not saying anything about parser vs. choice-based or any of the other “format wars” that have gone down at various times. There are great stories/games/you-name-it in every format.
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This would be relevant if language were logic. Language is not inherently logical. The definition of what is considered a game is, at best, a logical model that purports to represent our intuitions about the word.
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Here I thought sexual orientation varied across all ethnicities, economic statuses, and subgroups. It seems being poor and technically uneducated is somehow being associated with alternate sexuality.
To commemorate my becoming informed on this topic, I’m moving my picture of Alan Turing to the wall above my laptop, so that whenever I post to this forum I will remember how Twine is responsible for bringing sexual minorities into the computing community.
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I don’t agree with your understanding of my statements, but it’s not important to me that we agree. I just wanted to make sure that any marginalized authors making games or people making linear/dynamic games felt loved while reading this thread, and I don’t feel a need on my side to continue this particular debate.
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We construct logical models to better understand the world, not represent our intuitions of it - which are frequently contradictory, incoherent, and divergent from truth. We struggle to clarify our foggy and fuzzy intuitions into ideas that can be clearly understood and communicated precisely because of the greater value of rational thought.
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Yes, we do that too — with things like physics and chemistry, which are extrinsic to human experience.
The difference is, “game” is a word we use to describe a bunch of things we made up, and we all have a different subjective impression what a “game” is. There is no Platonic “game” out there which we can test for.
It’s like the word “blue.” Light exists and we can measure its wavelength, but deciding which range of wavelengths encompasses “blue” is a cultural and linguistic process, not a logical one.
The neuroscience of vision, particularly of the structure of the retina and optic nerve, tells us a great deal about what “blue” is - even in cultures that have no way to describe it, research has demonstrated that the perception remains, and is inherent in our physiology. Likewise, red and green are complementary colors not because of any cultural decision but are objectively incompatible due to the structure of the human nervous system.
In any case, although it’s interesting that definitions of “games” vary so widely, only a few of those definitions are useful in the context of IF. It is very important that games which are not art cannot be IF, but art which isn’t a game can be. Keeping that in mind is critical to people attempting to author IF.
You’re still talking about wavelengths and physiology and objective measurements of reality. The definition of the word blue is arbitrary. You will not find its parameters carved on the underbelly of the universe.
Here is an article on color perception and language. Not all languages delineate “blue” in the same way.
Not all languages have the ability to refer to “blue” at all. The people speaking them still have the concept. The word is arbitrary, the concept isn’t. The idea is to make our use of words match our underlying concepts.
Any use of the word “game” which would permit it to apply to reading a book violates our everyday understanding of the term. It is clear by extension that applying it to IF works which permit their users to exercise no choice is also a violation. Ergo, some IF works may not validly be called games.
It is statements such as this that make me feel there is no further purpose to discussion. I don’t agree that there is, or will ever be, a definition of “game” that will satisfy everyone; even if there were, I cannot agree that there is any common purpose in manipulating everyone’s use of language to match it. Within the scope of the thread, I am increasingly unclear what this definition would positively contribute even supposing we had one.
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Why would anyone care about satisfying everyone, particularly if you include hypothetical people? That’s neither logically possible nor desirable.
I can’t see how this could be true. They may not have a basic colour term for blue, but all natural human languages could say “the colour of a clear daytime sky”. I’d actually say it’s the concept which is missing. Blue as a distinct basic colour is not shared by all languages, and the English concept of “blue” collapses the distinction between blue and azure/cyan. We still have concepts for secondary colours, but we consider light blue a kind of blue, not a top-level colour in its own right.
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Although languages can always find ways to refer to things they don’t have special names for, it’s not quite that simple. Cultural differences in color terms
As an example, considering orange to be a distinct color rather than a type of red is a relatively recent development in English. If you don’t have a distinct category for orange, you wouldn’t sort objects by color into an “orange” group.
Rationality in action requires incorporating the consequences of your actions into your behavior.
You don’t seem to care whether you hurt people’s feelings with an exclusionary definition of “game.” Pursuing a theoretical project at the expense of human happiness is not more logical, more rational, more reasonable. It is the opposite.
On top of it all, you’re not even right about the examples you provide. There’s nothing logical about excluding games of chance from the definition of “game,” or claiming that I somehow chose to die in the paper mill in Anchorhead umpteen times.
If you’re going to be unreasonable while wrapping yourself in the flag of rationality, if you literally laugh when people tell you who it is you’re hurting and why, then this thread isn’t going to go anywhere, and should be closed.
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Are we having this discussion again?
If it plays itself, constructing a story without any input, it’s still a game. (Zero-player games is the term, I believe.)
If it’s avantgarde poetry without rhyme or reason it’s still literature.
We do distinguish between IF and interactive literature, there are interactive comics. I’m sure most of you would agree that games where the graphics are essential to the plot are point-and-click adventures rather than IF, even if it’s literally interactive fiction.
If an author calls their creation a “game”, who is any of us to dispute that? But it’s fair to try to categorise such a work with other categories, to categorise it according to the subcategories of games, and to question what game-like elements it has.
If an author doesn’t call their creation a “game”, but you think it is one, great. If the author disagrees, hopefully everyone can stay respectful.
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Mod post here. I consulted with another mod about whether we should conform to Dan’s suggestion above that we explicitly add “game” to the “broad definition” clause in the Code of Conduct. Their opinion was that “X isn’t a game”-style arguments were already implicitly included in the part that Dan quoted (“Don’t claim a type or style of game already accepted by the community doesn’t belong”).
Accordingly, and for the reasons Dan said just above, I think it’s best to lock the thread. My apologies for what I’ve done to keep the thread going.
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