I realize it happens in a vision, but does that really make it any better?

Well, this goes into the difficult territory of the Old Testament VS the New Testament. Some Christians claim that both Testaments are equally valid, but I think you can't really reconcile Jesus with the Old Testament. Not really. Unless you take the approach of William Blake, who argued that both narratives contain truth, and concluded that Jesus was the Saviour and God was an asshole.

Edit to show I'm not joking:

"Thinking as I do that the Creator of this World is a very Cruel Being & being a Worshipper of Christ, I cannot help saying: "the Son, O how unlike the Father!" First God Almighty comes with a Thump on the Head. Then Jesus Christ comes with a balm to heal it." - from A Vision of the Last Judgment

I adore Looming, but surely it requires exactly the same skills to fully complete as any adventure game? It's actually quite hard, in a way.

Yeah I would disagree with that statement.  I don't believe all games are art but I think there are definitely a good amount that are.  I dont think it's necessarily insulting, its just their view.  I mean I dont think that chess is art, its a game.  Equally amazing as masterpieces of art but its just different.  I think some videogames are Art though because they are more than just a mechanic and more than just a "Game".

The problem starts when people like ToT essentially dismiss everything that's been done in the medium that didn't take their approach to being art. Game mechanics are as much a tool of artistic expression as words or film; more importantly, people have argued for computer games as a form of expression for years, and many amazing works have been created. And then ToT show up, claim it's all "games, not art" and go on to claim their despicable Frankfurt-School-type standards are the One True Path.

And no, this is not the fricking Apocalypse of Indie Games. But I feel obliged to speak out against this form of elitism because I think it's harmful, just as it is in other artforms. ("Only European movies about people arranging matches are art!" "Stephen King isn't a real writer!" etc.)

The biggest problem I find with the religious games I've played is that their authors are fanatics screaming about their faith - without having the slightest knowledge of the Bible or the wide world of Christian thought. There is so much to draw upon, from the Apostles to Chesterton, from Milton to Blake, but so many of these writers only come up with "Jesus saved you, kill demons!" Like much of modern Christian artistic output, some of these stories could easily be categorized as philosophically anti-Christian: that is, Jesus Christ would have a fit if he ever saw them.

(My own games actually attract quite a few Christian fans - and I'm agnostic, and intensely dislike organized religion! But I think religious people - honestly religious people, not fanatics - react to the philosophical content and to the literary influences, more than to any actual religiosity, real or perceived.)

They just think that art is a separate category and games are a separate category.

Exactly. I can think of nothing more elitist and destructive than that. And, to be honest, nothing more offensive to those of us who have been fighting for years - since long before there was a Tale of Tales - for the recognition of the interactive medium, for the idea that games are art.

But the term "notgames" is not meant to imply a different type of gameplay, or at least not only: it's also meant to imply

• for adults
• everything else is for children
• serious
• everything else is not serious
• artistic
• everything else is "just games"

And that's where it gets offensive, and utterly destructive. So I repeat: if TotT were talking only about the games they would like to create, or how we can all expand our horizons, no-one would mind. That they feel the necessity to use their logically flawed ideology to declare everyone else worthless is less than acceptable.

You might also be interested in looking at the (still in development) Dead State:
Their site
Rather more informative interview

That sounds so good.

I don't know about other threads, but I don't find AshfordPride's comments here to be particularly offensive. Some are more intelligent than others, but offensive? Not really. I think exasperated sarcasm is a valid response to pretentiousness. It's not an attempt to shut ToT up, it's just an attempt to break up their self-righteous solemnity. I think allowing his style of complaining is allowing a diversity of expression.

If it was all-caps and incomprehensible I'd say it's trolling, but it's simply not. I wouldn't write my every post in that style, and wouldn't want to read an entire forum in it, but that doesn't mean everyone has to start asking AshfordPride to leave.

And what the hell, why does that warrant being called childish?

I don't think it does, myself. While the authorial context of a work isn't everything, and flawed people have produced great art, it's also entirely human to consider the context when evaluating the work.

I must say, I don't understand why so many people are attacking the posters who voice their disagreement with ToT, when the Over Games presentation aggressively dismisses and devalues so much of the world and history of computer gaming. Why can ToT say "you are all crap" and other game designers are not allowed to say "I think not"?

Burai Fighter Deluxe! Holy shit, my childhood is coming back to me! I didn't even remember the name of that game, though I do remember how difficult I thought it was.

really noticed this today as I entered "Stalker" into YouTube's search field. Did I get clips from the masterpiece by Tarkovsky? No! I got trailers and clips from a game based on it... It involved gun-wielding zombies, constant gunfires and military helicopters. Have you really no respect for the source material whatsoever?

The masterpiece by Tarkovsky? You mean the one which is itself a very loose adaptation of Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky? Granted, with a screenplay by the original authors, but still... hypocrisy much? Stalker the movie has almost nothing in common with the book; STALKER the game is actually much closer to the real source material - so who has respect for what, now?

Also: just how arrogant do you have to be to make all these claims about a game without having played it? STALKER, despite being quite difficult, accomplishes so much more in terms of storytelling and atmosphere than ToT ever did. It's not without flaws, but it is a work of art in its own right.

This is what I mean by illiteracy.

Christ, people do waste their time with the oddest things.

I think that in a healthy society, in which people can separate fantasy from reality, games like this will not cause problems. In a demented society like ours, they might; but that is not their fault, and banning them or getting angry about them won't do much.

One difference in my personal enjoyment of such stories is their tone, however. When the tone is on the anarchic side, I can find them quite enjoyable - they aren't about killing, but about metaphorically smashing society's standards. When the tone is cold and realistic, on the other hand, all I can feel is disdain for a simulation of the real lunatics running around our world. (Which, to me, includes games about paid murderers, like Splinter Cell etc.)

So, I think it's not the setting per se that is ethical or unethical, but what is done with it, and what it can be taken to signify.

Why can't we allow games to be diverse and terrible and wonderful in the way that other more mature mediums are?

Well-said.

I think people who think that attacking this presentation means attacking innovation or artistic games are missing the point. I, for one, have spent the last ten years operating under the belief that games are art. I've made experimental games, games that touched people. But I never pretended that these games were not games. A long time ago I also thought we needed a better term - something like "interactive art" - until I realized that was nonsensical, and what we needed was better games, not pretentious terminology.

As someone who strongly, deeply believes in digital games as an artform, there are still a number of things in that presentation that are highly offensive:

• The notion that there is no innovation in games today. Basically they are dismissing everything anyone has ever done - or more precisely, they seem to know nothing about computer games. They claim to have changed the world with their games, but much of what they claim is so innovative was done long ago and better by people like Adam Cadre or Emily Short. (“To say ‘videogames have stopped evolving’ reveals a willful ignorance of the form.” - Gregory Weir)
• Their postmodernist nonsense about "the humanist machine" and the evils of technology. I'm sorry, but stuff like "you will no longer program computers to tell us what to do" coming from a team that programs software is just too precious.
• Their identification of "fun" with childishness, and of the entirety of modern gaming, from Photopia to BioShock, as childish entertainment. It's your typical elitist nonsense, but it's even more dangerous in this particular field, because it devalues almost everything that's ever been made, and suggests that enjoyment is antithetical to art.
• Their claim that goals and rules - absolutely integral to any game, including their so-called notgames - are essentially wrong and/or oppressive/unethical/childish. Please understand: no-one is opposed to them making games that alter the rules, or set no clear goals! I myself have made a game that has no ending and is an infinite loop, not exactly a standard goal. But to claim that everyone who makes games with goals and rules is wrong and unartistic is simply arrogant.

As I said before, I've already written a long and detailed response to this, and I don't feel any desire to help turn this into a flamewar, but the combination of extremely flawed theory and extraordinarily arrogant tone, the lack of reference to the reality of modern computer games, and the sheer number of nonsensical/illiterate remarks (like the stuff about "Tolkien's universe," or the sexism) make for a very, very bad presentation.

To think so is not an attack on innovation in games - it's not even an attack on ToT's games, though I personally find them uninspired and hollow. It's the natural response to a presentation that instead of wanting to make more out of games, to expand our horizons, chooses to tread contemptuously on much of what has made the interactive medium so important to so many people and announces that the only way to go forward is to rehash the ideas of postmodernist academics (i.e. failed writers).

I found that entire presentation to be both silly and destructive; it's like they're desperately trying to take the art out of games. It did motivate me to write a detailed reponse, though, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

[yes]

I don't post here (or anywhere) much, but I came across this and just had to say yes. I've been talking about exactly the same idea for years: a zombie game where the focus is on survival, not just on running and shooting. More like the game version of The Zombie Survival Guide, or an interactive version of the "What would I do in situation X?" conversation most people have after seeing a disaster movie.

I'd love to play that.

For those who played/finished the game:

! (Caution: spoilers and silliness.)

I thought it was excellent, and made its point well. A very effective use of the medium.

And there was no way of making this subtle, because what it is about (both politically and in terms of other games) is not subtle. The brutal simplicity of it is precisely what makes it powerful.

Sure it does. Make a new keypress event and for the action go to System and then under Display is Set Full Screen. Which you can enable or disable.

Ah. Indeed. Either I missed that, or I had stability issues with it at some point in the far past and dismissed it. Either way, it's something to keep in mind for the next patch.