From "open mailbox" to context mechanics: shifting levels of abstraction in adventure games
Abstracting the fictional world to essential components is one of the first steps to design the system of a game. The amount of detail with which the fictional world is implemented as the system determines the level of abstraction of the simulation of the game [9]. This paper is a historical analysi...
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
2015
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/100262 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1579-2384 |
| _version_ | 1811092976990945280 |
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| author | Fernandez-Vara, Clara |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing Fernandez-Vara, Clara |
| author_sort | Fernandez-Vara, Clara |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Abstracting the fictional world to essential components is one of the first steps to design the system of a game. The amount of detail with which the fictional world is implemented as the system determines the level of abstraction of the simulation of the game [9]. This paper is a historical analysis of the design of a specific genre, adventure games, and how the levels of abstraction have shifted through time. Early adventure games, such as Zork or The Lurking Horror, had a wide range of possible actions and had more detailed simulations of the game world. Through the more than thirty years of history of adventure games, such as Space Quest, Myst, Indigo Prophecy or the recent Machinarium, the nuance of the simulation has diminished, as well as the variety of possible actions. There are two basic reasons for this simplification: first, to make the interface easier to use, and second, in order to facilitate players finding and identifying the elements of the puzzles and advance the story. This historical exploration of adventure games design provides insight on the trade-offs of choosing different levels of abstraction in the design, which may be extensible to other videogame genres. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:37:36Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/100262 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:37:36Z |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publisher | Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1002622024-06-26T00:42:51Z From "open mailbox" to context mechanics: shifting levels of abstraction in adventure games Fernandez-Vara, Clara Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing Fernandez-Vara, Clara Abstracting the fictional world to essential components is one of the first steps to design the system of a game. The amount of detail with which the fictional world is implemented as the system determines the level of abstraction of the simulation of the game [9]. This paper is a historical analysis of the design of a specific genre, adventure games, and how the levels of abstraction have shifted through time. Early adventure games, such as Zork or The Lurking Horror, had a wide range of possible actions and had more detailed simulations of the game world. Through the more than thirty years of history of adventure games, such as Space Quest, Myst, Indigo Prophecy or the recent Machinarium, the nuance of the simulation has diminished, as well as the variety of possible actions. There are two basic reasons for this simplification: first, to make the interface easier to use, and second, in order to facilitate players finding and identifying the elements of the puzzles and advance the story. This historical exploration of adventure games design provides insight on the trade-offs of choosing different levels of abstraction in the design, which may be extensible to other videogame genres. 2015-12-15T15:30:20Z 2015-12-15T15:30:20Z 2011-06 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 9781450308045 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/100262 Clara Fernandez-Vara. 2011. From "open mailbox" to context mechanics: shifting levels of abstraction in adventure games. In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games (FDG '11). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 131-138. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1579-2384 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2159365.2159383 Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games (FDG '11) Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) MIT web domain |
| spellingShingle | Fernandez-Vara, Clara From "open mailbox" to context mechanics: shifting levels of abstraction in adventure games |
| title | From "open mailbox" to context mechanics: shifting levels of abstraction in adventure games |
| title_full | From "open mailbox" to context mechanics: shifting levels of abstraction in adventure games |
| title_fullStr | From "open mailbox" to context mechanics: shifting levels of abstraction in adventure games |
| title_full_unstemmed | From "open mailbox" to context mechanics: shifting levels of abstraction in adventure games |
| title_short | From "open mailbox" to context mechanics: shifting levels of abstraction in adventure games |
| title_sort | from open mailbox to context mechanics shifting levels of abstraction in adventure games |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/100262 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1579-2384 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT fernandezvaraclara fromopenmailboxtocontextmechanicsshiftinglevelsofabstractioninadventuregames |