This section of the class, The Random and Automatic, has mainly consisted of a series of games that have predetermined ends and/ or story lines. These game creators have taken out the need for the player to choose- good news for indecisive gamers! However, this prompts the question of whether or not this is an effective method of game design.
An important point to note in Dakota is the lack of choice the game provides. It is more of a story told in motion- in my opinion. This method of story telling reminded me much of “This is How You Will Die”. Although these games had two very different story plots, they were very similar in the lack of choice the game design provided to the player.
In class, we talked a lot about the aesthetic components of games. More specifically, we used Twitter bots to compare aesthetics. The Twitter bots we talked about in class had very different looks; for example, @robotrecipies used a seemingly standard Twitter format. This did not draw much attention from various viewers as each tweet just looked like the next. However, each tweet from @factbot1 had a picture that corresponded to the fact that was displayed in the tweet. Having various images captured my attention more than other bots we looked at. I think this is a good comparison to Dakota as we can also discuss this games aesthetic properties. Dakota uses large words flashing across the screen to capture the viewers attention. The goal of having the words flash across the screen fast is to get the viewer to feel involved in the piece, however Jessica Pressman discusses this in varying views. “(H)is success can be attributed to its simple, minimalist and, indeed, modernist aesthetic. This aesthetic, I argue, has the effect of compelling viewers to close read. The flashing text pro-motes speed-reading while its literary content demands an opposite response” (Pressman, 79).
The minimalism Pressman points out is very interesting to me. I think that she is right in saying the the very plain text design requires the viewer to focus more on the words that are popping up on the screen as opposed to anything else on the screen or otherwise potentially distracting from the words. This is very different than the Abra: a living text app we played. This app had a lot going on, and many of the components (not all on the screen at the same time) added to the chaos. I was pretty confused when playing this game as there were so many possibilities the game provided that I did not know where to begin. I like that Dakota had much less going on, but at the same time wish there was more. I wonder if there is a better method to clear up this grey area I speak of?
Works Cited:
Jason Nelson, “This is How You Will Die” (2005)
Amaranth Borsuk, Kate Durbin, and Ian Hatcher, Abra: a living text (2017)
Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries, Dakota (2002)
Jessica Pressman, “Speed Reading” from Digital Modernism: Making It New in New Media (2014), pp. 78-100