Today’s Plan:
- Reviewing Bogost Reading
- Custer on Procedural Rhetoric
- Project One Expectations and Game List
Reviewing Bogost Reading
Question #1: What is Procedural Rhetoric?
- Procedural rhetoric is the practice of conveying different avenues of thought based off of rules imposed inside of the game itself.
- I would define procedural rhetoric as arguing a point by showing or allowing people to go through a series of events that illustrates the arguer’s viewpoint.
- I understand this to mean that it is a way of proposing an idea or argument through the limitations or structure of the interactions of a system based on how that system is established, or how it allows the player to interact with it. Procedural Rhetoric portrays this argument, in short, as what a system allows its user to do within the confines of its rules.
- Procedural Rhetoric is allowing consumers to explore and discover ideas through their own actions within a given ruleset.
- Procedural rhetoric is like telling a story or making a point, but instead of using words or images, you do it by creating a set of rules or actions. When you’re playing a video game, the game doesn’t tell you a story just by dialogue or pictures. It also tells a story through the rules of the game, how you interact with the game world, and what happens as a result. Procedural rhetoric is all about using design and processes to share ideas or convince someone about something.
- My understanding of procedural rhetoric is that video game makers can provide social commentary within their games through gameplay mechanics and objectives.
- Procedural rhetoric is similar to other types of rhetoric, in the way that rhetoric is found and analyzed, but different in what in particular is being found or analyzed. As opposed to expressing rhetoric through words or imagery, procedural rhetoric expresses ideas through the creation of rules
- Google Doc Work Space
Question #4: Procedural Experiences
- There are times when game designers will purposely leave programming bugs for players to use, such as using a small amount of liquid to gain vacuum space to store food in the game Oxygen Not Included, which should have been a bug but Klei never fixed it. Perhaps these bugs allowed
players to create unique effects that even the designers hadn’t thought of, and were preserved as the features of the game - Something interesting that Undertale did procedurally was its central mechanic around killing vs sparing enemies. If the player played through the game as they would any other game by killing any monster that stood in their path, they would get a bad and rather depressing ending while missing out on fun story and interactions with the characters they murdered. It uses procedural rhetoric to argue that killing is bad, even if those who you are killing are deemed the “bad guys”. I really hope that most people agree with that sentiment without having to play Undertale though
- This one is a lil weird but the game Who’s Your Daddy is a game about playing as a baby trying to find ways to kill itself while the other player controls the dad and tries to stop the baby from killing itself. It’s low quality and is hilarious to play seeming very much just a game of a baby trying to die while the dad stops him. But I think a deeper meaning to the game is that it kinda teaches people that babies 1. are a lil dumb and will find themselves in dangerous situations that can result in them getting hurt or killed and 2. that anything can be dangerous for babies and as parents, guardians, and even babysitters have to think outside the box on about what a baby might find fascinating that can be dangerous to them. It’s funny and a lil exaggerated at times but it also kinda expresses the dangers that babies can get themselves into even from random every day household items.
- I’ve recently played Kirby and the Forgotten Land, and one example of an instance that required procedurally completing a task involved retrieving a star to advance to the next level. The star was hidden behind a set of doors, and to open the doors, a set of torches needed to be lit. A set of steps was required to open the door correctly, which took time due to having to light the torches to open the doors.
- One example of procedural rhetoric in a game that preforms interestingly is the Hitman franchise. In each mission you are provided with multiple potential solutions to your mission of “eliminating” your target, and as the level progresses, you interact with the environment as it throws guards, hazards, and new ideas at you. To be successful, you need to analyze the area and fully use every tool in your arsenal.
- The practice of using rule-based representations and interactions to convince others, rather than relying on spoken or written language, images, or videos is known as the art of persuasive communication.
- The game I can immediately think of is the game that I am currently playing Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. In this game the planet that you live on Pandora has been inhabited by humans who are polluting the world and it is the players job to stop of pollution facilities and take back Pandora. It is a commentary on how if we don’t stop what we are doing just like in the game earth is going to die from over pollution, we only have one world, we don’t get another.
- When reading about Animal crossing the author was talking about how you have to earn money to buy more things and how you have to make decisions on what you buy. Way back in elementary school I played these games there were always called Papa’s and than what ever you were selling where you either inherited or got a restaurant and you had to earn money to either buy upgrades or decorations for your restaurant. You always wanted to buy upgrades to make the process of making the food faster or better but always wanted to make the place look nice. And like Animal crossing I feel like this game shows the idea of mundane work, and from my own experience of these games, as many as there were I never finished them because they always just felt like they went on forever.
- One of my favorite games, Bioshock, is set in a world governed by ideas presented by Ayn Rand in her books The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. I really enjoyed Atlas Shrugged; however, one of the most jarring aspects of the novel for me was how extreme Rand’s views could be in a world constructed by her and around her ideas. I found Bioshock to be interesting in that it provided a direct insight into the worlds and ideas presented by Rand, but from a third person perspective in the eyes of the game developers and shedding some light on some of the shortfalls of the absolute, rigid ideas presented in Rand’s works. Admittedly, Bioshock does so to the opposite extreme, but by evaluating both Rand’s novels, and the opposing ideas presented and
explored through Bioshock, I believe a more complete personal opinion on the ideas can be formed. - One game that comes to mind when I think of procedural rhetoric is Cyberpunk 2077; in the game, there are side quests to stopping crime. As you slowly stop crime as you play, the environment becomes nicer, and there are fewer threats to the player as you walk/ drive around the city
- A time I can think of when a game did something interesting procedurally is the Persona series use of shadows and personas where the playable characters have to overcome negative aspects of themselves to gain power and strength to fight back against foes in the real and cognitive worlds for a better future.
- There is a game I played a while back called game dev inc. where your goal is to create your own game development studio. The game is great and you start by making a game and try to make it a hit. Over time the years go on and new systems come out, while you need to keep relevant and keep producing games to keep your company afloat. The interesting procedure of this is that you are behind the scenes running everything and trying to make the company succeed
One particular instance of a game that I have played interestingly using procedural rhetoric would be a game called Lethal Company. The company that the players work for sets a monetary quota that resets at a higher value every time it is met. If the players cannot meet the quota in the allotted time, they are thrown into the vacuum of space, resetting the game and establishing that the players are only valued when they meet the company’s expectations. This stands as a commentary on the perspective some modern corporations have for their employees despite the rough working conditions they put them through.
Project One: Procedural Analysis
Our first project this semester is based on Jason Custer’s article on teaching procedurality. In the article, Jason distills the Bogost article you read (and a few other materials) into a “heuristic,” a set of generative questions we can apply to any game. I’ve modified those a bit, so here’s our collective heuristic:
- What does this game represent? [What is the theme? Rhetorical Purpose? Argument? Message?]
- Mechanically, what stands out to you?
- What mechanics does the game use to support that representation?
- What are some potential arguments made by the mechanics?
- In what ways do the mechanics match the argument?
- In what ways do the mechanics clash with/ignore the argument?
- How might we modify the mechanics to create more procedural harmony/aesthetic impact?
