Randy Smith's Recent Blog Entries

• What’s Fun Got to do with it‭?
  If we want our medium to be taken seriously,‭ ‬it wouldn’t hurt to demonstrate that both‭ ‬‘Fun‭’‬ and‭ ‬‘Not Fun‭’‬ games are equally within our capabilities.

  I‭ ‬have a rant about the dogma of‭ ‘‬fun‭’ ‬which goes like this:‭ ‬Brokeback‭ ‬Mountain‭ (‬or‭ Schindler’s List,‭ ‬or your favorite depressing movie‭) ‬is a powerful and valuable film,‭ ‬and I’m glad it exists,‭ ‬but I wouldn’t consider it‭ ‘‬fun‭’‬.
  ‭
  February 20, 2009
• The‭ ‬Inevitability of‭ ‬Change
  Are‭ ‬videogames‭ ‬capable of capturing the emotion,‭ ‬the poignancy,‭ ‬the grief and the excitement of change‭?

  There’s something that rings false about the big,‭ ‬epic finale.‭
  
  The final moments as you transition out of one thing and into the unknown future are as commonplace as any that came prior,‭ ‬and that strikes me as very poignant.‭ ‬A‭ ‬hurled ball bounces around erratically,‭ ‬but it always calms down before coming to rest.‭
  
  February 3, 2009
• Essay Questions on Storytelling
  Much like real life, which is also made up as it goes along, we are invested in the unfolding, emergent story told by our actions in a videogame.

  Essay Question 5. In his closing keynote at MIGS 2008, Jon Blow expressed opinions about the intersection between stories and videogames. Summarise what he said and offer an opinion of your own.
  Jon Blow stated that stories in videogames were a losing proposition because they were either not interactive (and therefore didn’t belong in the interactive medium) or, to the extent that they were interactive, they would always be inferior to stories authored in advance by a human mind.
  
  January 7, 2009