The 8-bit consoles of the seventies and eighties obviously could not produce the so-called \u201cimmersive\u201d experiences of today. In fact, think back to the categories Nintendo used to systematically design games, and you won\u2019t find \u201crealism\u201d among them. Instead, you have:<\/p>\n
Graphics, in this case, doesn\u2019t equal realism. Nintendo especially focused on stylized, cartoonish graphics. Your task for this lab is to set aside\u00a0contemporary standards of what makes for an engaging game experience, and instead focus on games as-is, as someone in 1982 might have played them. There are two parts to the in-class lab:<\/p>\n
Jon Ippolito suggests that emulated games are “copies…spiritually, if not physically, equivalent to the originals” (135). Yet he also notes that occasionally aspects of the original games might be “lost in translation” when played in an emulator (136). In this lab you’ll take advantage of what Ippolito calls “emulation as service” by playing some vintage videogames in a browser-based emulator.<\/p>\n
Here are several versions of Pac-Man <\/em>(and one version of\u00a0Ms. Pac-Man<\/em>). Spend a few minutes with each version of the game, talking with your group about the changes to the game across platforms. Think about\u00a0formal elements such as sound, graphics, mechanics, and the other categories above. Above all, use criteria other than \u201crealism\u201d to think about these games. (And think deliberately about what those criteria should be.)<\/p>\n As Stephen Kline and his co-authors\u00a0point out, there are many ways to read the underlying message of\u00a0Super Mario Brothers<\/em> (124). The critic Janet Murray calls it a game about exploration. Henry Jenkins thinks about it as a struggle over\u00a0contested spaces.\u00a0Kline et al. view the game through the lens of colonization. What do you think?<\/p>\n This lab report is open-ended. Use the report to delve deeper into questions and insights that came up during the in-class lab. Think about the advantages and drawbacks of emulation. You can follow-up either Part I or Part II\u2014or both. Whatever questions you pursue, be sure to back up your response with specific examples. Also refer back to (and cite) Ippolito or Kline et al. as needed.<\/p>\n The lab should be about 500 words, shared with me as a Google Doc by the end of the day, Tuesday, February 6.<\/p>\n Ippolito, Jon. \u201cEmulation.\u201d In Debugging Game History: A Critical Lexicon<\/i>, edited by Raiford Guins and Henry Lowood, 133\u201341. MIT Press, 2016.<\/p>\n Kline, Stephen, Nick Dyer-Witheford, and Greig De Peuter. Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing<\/i>. Montr\u00e9al\u202f; London: McGill-Queen\u2019s University Press, 2003.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 8-bit consoles of the seventies and eighties obviously could not produce the so-called \u201cimmersive\u201d experiences of today. In fact, think back to the categories Nintendo used to systematically design games, and you won\u2019t find \u201crealism\u201d among them. Instead, you have: graphics sound initial feel play control concept\/story excitement\/thrills lasting interest and challenge overall engagement …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-103","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P9xw5i-1F","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/103\/revisions\/112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Part II: Super Mario Brothers<\/h2>\n
\n
Lab Report<\/h2>\n
Works Cited<\/h2>\n