textual media

I contend that “game, game, game and again game” (also known as “terrible game”), upon further consideration, is, in fact, a game. While it is decidedly not among the more “conventional” games, such as Super Mario (as we discussed in class), it has a different set of objectives. There are multiple goals that game developers incorporate into their works, including but not limited to: story-telling, mimicking real life, allowing for an escape from real life, and then there is the category of games that exist for the sake of the player simply enjoying him or herself.

Clearly, “game, game, game and again game” does not fall into this last category; nonetheless, it presents obstacles which the gamer ostensibly wants to overcome due to natural instinct. For example, in the first segment of the game, the gamer must “fall” down a hole into a depiction of the sun in order to reach the door to enter the next level. Now, instinctively, the gamer would assume that, in order to reach safety and get to the door that he or she should use the space bar to jump over the hole. I, personally, performed this action several times before realizing that I merely needed to allow the black hairball avatar essentially “fall” down the hole to reach the door, which acted as a portal into the next level. I came to realize that the “point” or goal of the game, however trivial, appeared to be, primarily, getting from point A to point B.

Essentially, this game falls under the genre of games known as platformers, or platform games, such as Donkey Kong. Additionally, it was clear that the game was intended to act as a catalyst for reflection on religion and, more abstractly, morality and its ties with humanity in general. Throughout the game, we encounter various examples of these themes. There is the representation of a cross surrounded by fish, which is clearly representative of Christian symbols or imagery. Parodies of scriptures appear when the avatar hovers over these fish. What appear to be home videos evoke the concepts of memory and family values. In one of the levels, the images of trembling rockets with the background of various buildings seem to suggest humans, as well as evolution.

Interestingly, one of the text bubbles reads: “where walls hide the frameless, a community served as soft and temporary, they open windows to brick and still.” The idea of a community is deliberately brought to the gamer’s attention, even though the word itself is crossed out—the temporality of humanity becomes an idea at this point in the game. Intriguingly, however, no score is actually kept and it is impossible for the gamer’s avatar to “die”…instead, an ominous voiceover says, on each level, “Come on and meet your maker.” It is as though religion becomes its own entity, despite its ostensible links to humanity. On another level, a bubble of text reads: “Perception is cell death,” while the word, “cell,” is crossed out. Another text bubble in another level reads: “this happens to be life-threatening and pretty and religious, the mechanics of a railroad life within antibiotics.” Finally, we are told, in the last level, “your life is really the end.” Clear and distinctive themes of morality and humanity come into play as central focal points of this game–even as they are not “goals,” per se, but rather, meaningful components of the game.

While provocative and visually stimulating, “game, game, game and again game” is, ultimately, overly visually stimulating and only provocative if read into with an extremely open mind, to say the least. It raises an overwhelming number of questions, which are neither answered nor even articulate. In the interest of finding something to do the other night during a spell of boredom, I showed two friends, who are avid video gamers, “game, game, game and again game.” First, one of them said, “This game wouldn’t exist without the Internet, because no one would pay for this game.” The other responded that the game was “easy…stupid…but then again, I’m not a very artistic guy. I’m sure to someone, that’s a window to the infinite soul of beauty, but really, it’s just annoying.” I thought both of these to be astute observations.

The merging of technology and literature is often described as a progression. We assume that because the scope of literature is expanding, so too must the quality of it expand. That’s simply not true, especially in the short term. As writers broaden their perspective, they lose focus on the forms of literature that have been proven to work for years. By changing the format, hypertext writers have a dual responsibility: to create a quality format and to create a quality text. Novelists, for example need only create a quality text, and simply have more resources to space for this singular task.

That’s not to say that there hasn’t been progress within hypertextual literature, but that it hasn’t had an opportunity to narrow its manifestations down to a few workable formats that can convey the message of the author most effectively. Once that has been done, hypertext can bring real progression to the popular conception of literature. But until then, it will remain a fairly unpopular form of art.

My first interaction with “Game, game, game and again game…” wasn’t very pleseant. When I first started playing it I was excited and had originally wanted to go through it all. After a couple levels, I had enough and had to stop. Perhaps my mindset was not right, but it was all too chaotic for me. Plus before I realized how to jump and consequently kept dying, the voice telling me to meet my maker was driving me crazy.

After we talked about the game again in class, I decided to go through it again and take a closer look at any meanings I could extract from it.  I liked level 2, which had the cross in the middle with the fake verses around it. I took this level as somewhat poking fun at christianity. With the whole attituide from the game it doesn’t seem to be really serious. The next level deals with materialism with housing and such. I liked when the huge red text came in saying “You will not ever be debtless.” Personally I liked this level because I thought it was pointing out the worthlessness of particular housing and how people go in way other their heads to live in places that have too much. The level with the staircase reminded me of a pyramid scheme, especially when the arrow point to the tip and said “your wealth.”

Overall, I would consider “Game, game, game and again game…” a game. Although it is no where near a traditional game, it nonetheless had game elements, yet was more concerned with meaning in my opinion.

It is clear from the video we watched in class that Jason Nelson is a little bit wacky.  This wackiness surfaces in his works The Bomar Gene and game, game, game and again game.  These works don’t seem to make much sense, and Nelson’s long, drawn-out explanation of The Bomar Gene complicates things even more.  However, I think that’s the point he’s trying to make.  There’s something intriguing about the oddity of his works.  Nelson is not seeking to entertain or satisfy his audience.  In fact, the creepy sound effects and disorienting graphics are meant to dissatisfy and even repulse readers, in a sense.  The Bomar Gene and game, game, game and again game are considered countergames because they do not entertain players and leave them complacent, but they push people out of their comfort zones and force them to think about belief systems or genetic codes, for example, in a different way.  In short, Jason Nelson’s works seek to change the way we approach particular subjects by creating dissatisfaction or displeasure among audiences.  I’m not saying that his works are deeply touching, but I do think that Nelson’s approach raises interesting questions: How are our lives governed by genetic codes?  What does it mean to be an individual?  Why do people need belief systems?   By raising these questions, Nelson forces us to reflect on ourselves and on the world in which we live.

Although it is considered an anti-game, I still do see some gaming aspects in game, game, game and again game.  The idea of death is trivialized in the work, much like it is in conventional mainstream games.  In games like Pac-Man and Super Mario Bros., for instance, the player meets his or her death multiple times throughout gameplay.  However, the player reappears on the screen almost simultaneously and goes right on eating as many dots or collecting as many gold coins as he or she can.  The same can be said for game, game, game and again game.  There isn’t really a penalty for dying.  In this way, the emphasis is placed on the illustrations, the different text and video.

When starting Arteroids, I immediately recognized the similarities to an old MS-DOS game called Asteroids. The base concept, controls and namesake were all basic copies, but beyond those points all similarities ended.

After mastering the mechanics of the game, Arteroids is far more challenging than the original. Not only do the word phrases pulverize your little “ship,” but choosing the wrong phrases to destroy can also result in the game ending. Therefore this exercise went beyond the original objective of avoid and destroy and added the challenge of forming coherent poetry.

One extra challenge was to somehow connect the green phrases with the blue phrases. Not only did prepositional phrases and verb tenses make this difficult, but the green and blue phrases seemed so entirely out of sync with one another in terms of poetry storytelling that it made this endeavor near possible. However – this extra challenge was not a random addition but sometimes a total necessity. Blue phrases were far more intent on chasing down your “ship” than the listlessly wandering green, and at times only one type of phrase color remained on the screen to shoot. So no matter how studious one could be on maintaining a coherent strain of poetry, every-once-and-a-while a completely incongruous line in the stanza would appear.

“The Baron” immediately drops the main character steps away from the fiery maw of a dragon and leaves the user up to decide the next stroke of fate. From there, the strength and player choice drives the rest of the piece.

In short, “The Baron” was fun. It could be played several times over and a new result could be achieved every time. In many ways, it was akin to the Choose Your Own Adventure brand of fiction, but with even more interaction since a user can choose between actions such as “look,” “open” or various other options that although can be done in the CYOA series, the books would have to be much longer than their average of 150 or so pages.

The length of “The Baron” is contestable, pending on which ending the user prefers. If the user decided to fight the dragon in the very onset of the piece, he or she would have found the main character burnt beyond recognition and the story over. Later on, a bad run-in with a wolf in the woods could be your end, or if the user was crafty enough to avoid the wolf in some manner and finally confront the Baron himself, that therefore could be considered the end.

However, this piece overall relies on the user’s imagination to not only mentally picture “The Baron” ‘s fictional world, but imagination is also required to access all the possible courses of action.

Another consideration that it is rather strengthened from is the endless possibilities of discovery. Should the user decide to spend more time with character study, he or she will find out many things about the character that they control, as well as his relations to others in the story. On the other hand, it is completely possible to avoid character study entirely, and simply play the story like a low-grade action-oriented drama with increasingly thinner character motivations.

As mentioned during the Media Inquiry #2 assignment, I experienced “Bust Down the Doors” in two formats. The first viewing occurred when I had Internet access but no speakers, therefore I watched the presentation without its music or sound. Regardless, perhaps due to the rigid rhythm the text appeared on the screen, the text played in my mind’s ear to its own drum beat. Moreover, since the BDtD repeated text over and over with changes only to the pronouns, this internal rhythm was further and further cemented into my brain and by proxy, my bias.

Therefore, when I later returned to BDtD when I had both Internet and speaker access, I felt like I was watching a whole other piece. I found the background music actually distracting to the text since the drum beats did not line up perfectly. Suddenly, the symmetry that I initially imagined in the piece was replaced by asymmetry. Regardless, I sat through BDtD in its entirety both with and without sound, and then recorded my observations with both versions.

Again, during the mute version, the focus was automatically on the text since that was the only stimulus available. It didn’t take long for the intent to become apparent when the second version began to play on screen and all the pronouns were replaced. Suddenly my interest was piqued in how much the context of the work changes when the characters’ identities are switched again. Two perspectives I focused on in the inquiry were the woman versus the man version, and the man versus woman, each scenario being the offender and victim, respectively.

In the second viewing with the sound, as mentioned before I found the music distracting. But what was interesting to note was that although the background drum beats were dissonant and therefore matched the piece in meaning, it too looped and repeated. However, it sound be noted that end and beginning did not match up with the end and beginnings of the text, most likely because the music did not last as long in duration in comparison to the text.

Overall, I enjoyed and appreciated the intent of this piece. On one last note, it’s interesting to compare both my initial bias towards watching the piece mute and the gender or social biases within our perceptions. In other words, I preferred watching BDtD without sound because that was the manner of my first experience. In the same vein, there are also different emotional reactions to watching “them” commit horrible crimes to “you,” or “he” dragging “she” out into the street then shooting her into the head. All these things and how we view them are heavily reliant upon our personal perceptions as well as our past experience forms us.

I immensely enjoyed game, game, game and again game on several fronts. On the level as a simple browser flash game, it held the proper components: stages, challenges and goals, both short term and long term. The objective was to move the main character, the black MS Paint fuzzball, from one end of a level to another to reach a square brown door. Part of this journey relied on solving a few puzzles, but each level provided a level of entertainment by providing things to collect along the way.

This was where game, game, game and again game was at its most interesting. In every level, there were certain objects that by touching them, new images or words would appear on the screen. By giving the player the ability to choose whether or not to come in contact with these objects, the game also allowed the players to choose what level of exposure they desired to game, game, game and again game’s texts.

I played the game several times through and each time chose a different style of gameplay. The first time through, I was completely exploratory and tested every object in every level I came across. This strategy yielded both bad and good results, such as the ability to visually identify every “enemy” or hazard in the game, though this ability came at the price of dying basically every time.

On the second and third time through, I tried different approaches. During the second trial, I skipped every bit of information I could and played the hypertext as nothing more than a simple browser flash game, nothing more. With that particular experiment, I found game, game, game and again game still very entertaining, as if the game was founded on the creator’s subconscious and relied on the surreal to create a fun experience.

Finally, during the third trial, I attempted to be picky and choosy in order to unveil the various hidden texts and messages in this hypertext and then attempt to ascertain their meaning. Unfortunately, this proved more frustrating than fulfilling, because it soon became apparent that the texts were not semantically connected to one another at all; rather, it was their lack of logical meaning that made them relatives. But therein lay the message of game, game, game and again game, as outlined in the creator’s “about” section: that many cultural or religious considerations and texts are convoluted, and overall very meaningless when taken out of their context and replaced with new words. In many ways, this reminded me of Lewis Carrol’s Jabberwockey, as well as the hypertext engine we discussed at the beginning of the semester that operated on that concept.

When watching Bust Down the Doors! I thought that the music, movement, and the pacing of the text worked together to build tension in the reader. Initially, I was expecting each iteration to have different music, but I think the same music throughout the piece made the text more dramatic and unexpected. Of course it was easy to have the general idea of what was going to happen next, but the reader never really know who the next scenario was going to involve.

Because each iteration was different, each story line had a different effect on me. Hayles writes, “In the endless cycle created by these possibilities, the user becomes implicated within the recursive cascading processes of interpretation, at once reflected in the work and reflecting upon it, that give meaning to interpretation.” (p. 122-123) The words flashing on the screen do not have much meaning to them at first glance, but after understanding what is being said and attaching emotions, comes meaning. For example, I was more entrenched with iterations that included “you” or “I”. These iterations had me unsettled, while other iterations that included “they” or “her” or “she” or “he” made me feel concerned for them, but not overly empathetic.

The iteration including, “They open the door while you sleep,” especially made me disturbed.  I put myself in the position of lying in bed alone, awoken by two people that were going to take me outside to hurt me. I would think that this scenario would make many people anxious, as it is all too common in today’s society.

Another iteration that affected me included myself as the intruder. “We open the door while they sleep,” was also disturbing, but in a completely different manner. I imagined me and a friend, or perhaps a relative, taking someone hostage that has hurt us in the past. Unrealistic, of course, but a lot more thrilling.

As the iterations continued, I could not tell whether the pace of the text or the music sped up. If it did, then this would probably cause the reader to read faster and more franticly. I also could not tell if the word size increased. Hayles writes, “Although the work appeals to hyper attention through its speed and context, deep attention is required fully to comprehend the work’s narrative strategies and the synergistic interplay of text, music, color, motion, and animation, to say nothing of how the similarities and differences between tempos relate to one another, as well as the nuances, connotations, and implications of the two different languages.” (p. 128) The pace, music, and size of the text made it difficult for me to read. It wasn’t until the fourth or fifth iteration that I fully understood and read all of the words.  

As someone who has enjoyed playing video games in the past, I have to say that I enjoyed “Arteroids” more than I probably should have. Of course, I was naturally reminded of the classic arcade game Asteroids, but this offering provided me with much more than I was expecting. The concept of words shooting down other words sounds dorky in its own way, but I found the game to be a little deeper than that. I think what really made me appreciate the game more was being able to read the poem in the settings menu. When I could see the whole body of text, it allowed me to appreciate the thought behind it as well as actually begin to understand what exactly I was shooting at.

As far as gameplay is concerned, I found it to be quite simple. Some may think that the trick is to maneuver around the screen a bit, but I thought it was easier if I remained stationary and spun in circles. Had I known that accuracy was taken into account for the final score, I might have been more selective about my shots, but live and learn I suppose. The sound effects amused me quite a bit and my roommate gave me a funny look when he saw what I was giggling at. Sigh. When I cranked up the difficulty, the game actually went up a few notches in terms of enjoyability for me. I’m not one for challenges, but the high speed of the hurtling words allowed for a lot longer period of gaming for me.

In the end, I wasn’t completely convinced this was a work of “literature”, but like I said, when I saw the full poem, I was able to appreciate the context a little more. I have to say that this game was a lot more fun for me than Nelson’s “game, game…you know the rest”. The only thing that could have pushed it over the top would have been to hear “time to meet your maker” when I died. I have to hand it to Nelson, that was excellent.

In my opinion, game, game, game and again game by Jason Nelson is aggravating.  There isn’t one aspect of this work that appeals to me.  Regardless of the statement it makes, I would never want to engage it again, and I probably would not recommend it to anyone.  Unlike Hamlet, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and the Bible-one of the most enduring works of all time and a work that Nelson ridicules-game, game, game and again game most likely will not stand the test of time.  (I couldn’t stand it for 15 minutes.)  Related to our class, I find myself questioning over and over, what is art?  And I keep coming back to my own personal criterion:  Does the experience make me a better person?  Writers like Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Booker T. Washington, and Harper Lee have contributed to my personal growth and have enhanced my life.  I can honestly say that their works have made me a better person.  Nelson has the opposite effect on my psyche.  He successfully irritates me.  I am more attracted to some form of beauty than any form of annoyance.  And, yes, I think it is true…beauty is in the eye of the beholder. 

I appreciate the exposure to textual media, but I can’t help but notice something curious.  Electronic literature is not overwhelmingly popular.  Most everyone is familiar with Asteroids but not Arteroids.  Most everyone is familiar with Orson Wells but not Orson Whales.  When television eclipsed radio, the new technology was better and everyone wanted to own a television.  I can remember when a high school friend told me that cassette tapes would replace albums.  I couldn’t believe it, but within two years, I had purchased a cassette tape case and had filled it with cassettes.  I am building a personal library of books that I love-Shakespeare, the Bible, Anna Karenina, To Kill a Mockingbird, etc.  I want to include all of Kenneth Branagh’s Shakespeare films in my DVD collection, but…I don’t think I will include the Bomar Gene or game, game, game and again game. 

Today, when we discussed the difference between conventional games and counter games, I (finally!) began to see that many of the game related works we have explored are deliberately the antithesis of what I naturally expect and enjoy.  I guess I’m a little slow, but this finally helps answer another question I have frequently asked myself, “WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS?!”  Art that is counter to the norm has a more jarring effect than art that conforms to the norm.  Prof. Sample used the term upside down related to counter games.  Shakespeare employed an upside down device in his works.  It is called topsy-turvy (referred to in I Henry IV.i.83) and dates back to Saturnalia.  So, this is a technique that has proved to be effective in art through time.  (In the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo employs the same idea related to the Feast of Fools.) 

Electronic literature definitely turns things around and shakes things up.  Sometimes it’s dizzying! 

Just in case anyone is interested in exploring the topic, Leo Tolstoy wrote an essay entitled “What is Art?”  Excerpts can be found on-line at  http://www.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/361r14.html

Although I think each new media text we have studied so far has something meaningful to offer, my favorite piece of them all would have to be my body – a wunderkammer.  I became interested in the genre of creative non-fiction in high school, and I’ve always wondered about new ways to present my creative non-fiction writing.  I enjoy reflecting on my past experiences, especially those during my childhood.  I’ve found that creative non-fiction writing can illuminate a lot of things about yourself that you tend to overlook.  This kind of writing also allows you to step out and “make the familiar strange,” as they say.  Creative non-fiction writing can really give you insight on how you position yourself in the world, how you develop relationships with others, or how you view a particular issue.  There’s also a sense of relief when you get it down on paper or, in Shelley Jackson’s case, complete the html code.

I was very impressed with Jackson’s approach in my body, and I’m considering the work as an example for my own media project.  Instead of simply choosing to write a memoir, Jackson chose to create a hypertext in which she recounts her memories.  The fact that each body part is linked and readers can pick and choose which body parts to explore gives readers the sense that they are interacting with the work.  We actually feel as though we are taking a glimpse into Jackson’s life.  Presenting the memories in a digital work makes it more pleasurable for the reader.  If we had to sit down and read a book about Jackson’s life, we would probably find it dull and boring.  Some parts of that book might be dry, and we’d have to sit through all of it, instead of just picking out the parts we enjoy, the parts that we can relate to.  It’s a totally different experience with my body.  Jackson boldly presents readers with a picture drawing of her body, encouraging them to click where they please.  I, personally, gravitated towards the body parts that held some significance in my own life.  (I clicked on the ear first, since I have a funny story about the time I stuck a pearl in my ear.)  In this way, readers can find ways to relate to Jackson’s work. 

I also enjoyed Jackson’s candid tone.  She seems comfortable talking about anything and everything, and at times her story seems fantastical and fabricated.  For me, the line between creative non-fiction and fiction is blurred in the work.  I still found it intruiguing, though.  Also, I thought the sound and illustrations were nice touches.  The drawings were visually stimulating, and they served as a break from the actual text.  In addition to the text, the drawings provide a glimpse into Jackson’s life.  They show readers how Jackson perceives herself and her body.  She mentions drawing in a lot of her anecdotes, so she’s infusing more of herself into the work by including these drawings.  I feel that my body is an up-close-and-personal piece – from the heavy breathing that accompanies the title page to the “wunderkammer” idea that seems to encourage readers to explore this body.  At the same time, however, Jackson seems very inviting.  She wants readers to be able to relate to her work.  Presenting her memories in this way not only reaches a larger audience, but it also encourages readers to reflect on their own experiences.