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I wouldn't compare it with The Swapper in terms of better/worse, because it's a different kind of gameplay, as your question points out. Gone Home is the same type of game as Scratches or Dear Esther, which could also be considered, as you suggest, interactive novels with a minimum of not-too-complicated puzzles to solve (at least Scratches; I didn't play Dear Esther).
I played a LOT of point-and-click adventures (not platformers, not survival and I'm not including interactive novels here) and I've seen a wide range of difficulty, according to game. Some have various types of puzzles and you can actually lose (get fired, die, etc.); others are not challenging at all and you can never lose and "not getting it" just causes the game to last longer.
I totally see your point, especially if you enjoy action games and I would agree to call the genre "interactive novel", which doesn't mean I don't consider it a game. At least you didn't suggest that the "oh so witty" players who tagged it "walking simulator" were right. :D
i would compare this closer to something like 'inception' or ilovebees.com .
i bring up 'the swapper' because it is the first video game in a long time that felt like a game (reminds me a lot like tetris, portals, deus ex 1).
i recently played max payne-3, dx:hr, saints row the third and although i like them and they have parts that are difficult to solve based on how you build your character/ inventory, i feel like they were like long movies (especially mp3).
game (geɪm)
noun
noun: game; plural noun: games
1.
a form of competitive activity or sport played according to rules.
synonyms: match, contest, tournament, meeting, sports meeting, meet, event, athletic event, fixture, tie, cup tie, test match, final, cup final, play-off;
clash;
playdown;
split;
archaictourney
"he broke his leg two weeks before the big game"
a meeting for sporting contests.
"the Olympic Games"
British
athletics or sports as a lesson or activity at school.
"in order to be popular, you had to be good at games"
a person's performance in a game; a person's standard of play.
"Rooks attempted to raise his game to another level"
2.
an activity that one engages in for amusement.
"a computer game"
synonyms: pastime, diversion, entertainment, amusement, distraction, divertissement, recreation, sport, activity, leisure activity;
frolic, romp, source of fun
You take the first, but I take both. :-)
I would label "Gone Home" (and Dear Esther etc.) an "exploration game" within the larger "point & click adventure" genre. I don't think it is well served by labeling it an interactive novel; it may possibly be considered IF in 3D, but I always read IF as "text adventure" and not as anything book-related. Gone Home is much too nonlinear in its gameplay to be well compared to a novel.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/234940/
Of course the argument of game vs. not s game is rather pointless and really a low level and silly debate. It's not actually something with a definitive answer when people don't consider the same kinds of things as parts of a game. You can make up any nonsense and claim it is a game, or you could call all kinds of things that people consider games as not games based on a narrow enough view of what a game is.
If you take definiteion #1 above there are an incredible amount of products on Steam that are considered games by almsot everyone that don't fall into that definition. If you take the second definition almsot everything does as we are talkign about entertainment (this includes graphic novels and movies even if you interact with it like Indie Game The Movie). Entertainment is what we are all doing on Steam so arguing about what software that entertains us is a game, or not is pointless. It is either enjoyable as entertainment, or it isn't. I don't enjoy comic books, or graphic novels as great forms of literature, but I wouldn't say that they aren't forms of literature, or entertainemnt. Even a picture book someone could claim is literature becuase the pictures tell a story, while someone else with a more narrow definition would claim that it needs words to be considered such. Too much room for subjectivity in the definitions.
How do you fail a puzzle game? By not being able to solve it. How do you know you're not able? You don't. The state of failure looks the same as the state of being in between solution steps. You fail by abandoning the game before it's finished (which is the reason why we often feel compelled to finish even awful games, rather than spend our time on something better).
You fail Gone Home by not reaching the end credits, and people have managed that by not finding the hint about the hidden door (nor the door itself, obviously). To fully complete the game, you'd want to find all of the journal entries (so that the page that lists them is filled) and also figure out the stories of mom, dad, and uncle Oscar; to that end, unlock every lock in the game, which is optional for the main story.
But of course it makes no sense to talk about puzzle games or point&click adventures that way. You win them by completing them, and if you haven't won them, you just haven't. Even if there is a way to die, that's just a temporary setback. There is no "failure state". Even most other games today have a checkpoint save system, where failure means a temporary setback. Really the only games that need to have failre are coin-operated games, because failure means you need to spend a new coin, and it's a necessity or else the machine wouldn't be profitable (and even that isn't an absolute, consider racing games).
Ask yourself, is there a way to fail at Tetris? You get a score at the end, and the end is when the screen is filled, and it looks like a failure, but that means there is no way to *win* at Tetris, and wouldn't that make it even less of a game?
"Your actions matter" is saying "it's interactive", no less. I don't think you can pin that down any more than that without running into trouble to justify the boundary between what matters and what does not, but I'd be interested to see you try. ;-)
I think the notion of games that are not competitive is hard to swallow for some. Gone Home is not competitive. Lego (or Minecraft, understood as a building game) is not competitive.
My definition? If you can play it, it's a game. You're not watching Gone Home, you're playing it. (Of course you can also play music, but that's different, right?)
I clarified that by "Failure state" I didn't mean a Game over screen, by that I mean not being able to accomplish something, for example, I would say a failure state for a puzzle game wouldn't be to fail a puzzle that cannot be failed (a la Gone Home or Amnesia a Machine for Pigs) but instead, actually missing a puzzle is more of a failure state to me (Again, in Gone Home, it's very easy to miss a couple of things, like the safe in that small corridor or the toy in the dark room)
IMO, we really need to get out of this win/fail definition we've learnt from traditional gaming, winnig or failing can go much beyond, and altogether I do believe that Gaming is an interactive media, but there is not much point in interaction that is restricted to you moving around in a room, by that definition, alot of things that we don't consider games could be considered games, like Google Street View for example.
All in all, I believe there's a very grey line when it comes to defining games, but I do believe that the abilit to achieving certaing things, or failing certain things is really what defines our interaction within games, you claim you fail Gone Home by not completing it, but that would be putting games on the same line as Books or movies in which pretty much everything you can do is stay tuned during the whole thing, so in a way, you would be narrowing down games' ability to blend reading, viewing and interacting to just follow that straightforward path of completition.
I'd even say not getting all the journal entries could be considered a more than valid enough "Fail State", and I repeat myself again, I believe Gone Home is a game in itself, I don't hold any doubt about that, but take into account something like the Super 8 demo that came with Portal 2, that feels in essence exactly like Gone Home, but it's not considered a game at all, it's an interactive trailer, you can play it, but it's not really a game, you can't lose or fail anything at all, your actions don't matter at all, just look around until the train crashes and that's basically it, that whole demo would be my sole reason for saying that not everything you can interact with can be a game.
To clarify, I don't really believe a game becomes a game out of competitivity, IMO, it holds no grounds, we seem to inherently link Fail and Win with competition, but it's mostly a reference to the degree of interactivity that something can hold, failing doesn't necesarilly mean losing when it comes to games, even though we've been acostumed to that.
Yeah, the Super 8 trailer isn't a game, but then, is the Stanley Parable Demo? Is The Stanley Parable? Second Life isn't, what's the distinction?
You can use a game as something else: it shows its game-ness when/if you can play (with?) it. Gaming is a certain type of interaction that people can have with themselves or some objects, for enjoyment; perhaps you can even play in your head, drinking games, whatever.
My definition: if it has rules and is for fun, it's a game.
Admittedly, Gone Home is very light on rules, but they're there.
Then again, I think you didn't get what I meant, and you can very easily reach a Failure State in Tetris, it just comes down to, well, losing, it's not a game that strives for complex mechanics in the least, it has a very clear goal and a very clear way to lose.
The Stanley Parable clearly works as a game as it gimmicks gaming tropes and even mocks them in a gamey way, again, a failure state doesn't have to limit itself to a game over screen, just like a winning state doesn't have to limit itself to a Credtis roll screen.
All in all, I think I have to mostly agree with Total Biscuit on his view about it, he's got some very valid points, I don't agree with some of them, but still, he also brings up the failure state theme and debates nicely of how games actually adress that.
In case you want to watch his opinion though, IMO, it's fairly interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bvX4hzqcqc
You mentioned Second Life, which is interesting. I'd see Second Life as a game, but it depends largely on what you do in there. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that people create their own games in Second Life, as you can just go shopping, hanging out with friends, or you can actually play games. You can go bowling, fencing (my bf used to participate in samurai tournaments LOL). Most people participate in RPG, creating their characters and playing a role in a setting. Sometimes it's only like a theatre, but sometimes it involves fighting, getting weapons, learning how to maneuver, using a counter, etc. So, while Second Life itself may or may not be a game, people go in there to play games.
That video you posted was very interesting (made me want to go buy Brothers). I agree with some of the points the guy makes about the player needing to feel involved in the story, and how some games fail at this. However, I wonder if not all players feel involved in the same way. I felt fully involved in the gameplay and the story in Scratches, for example, though it's a similar type of game as Dear Esther (which I haven't played yet). I wonder if, within the genre, Dear Esther is just not such a good game, instead of it being a failure of the genre itself. Most point-and-click games have a bit of this struggle and that's why some of them come out as incredibly boring... to some people.
I'd say that the main issue here is that "failure state" and, even though it's not always dying or game over screen, still not all players like the failure state, which is why most point-and-click games eliminated this possibility. They became more popular among some players and lost other fans, who enjoyed the challenge. I used to play a really old game tons of years ago: KGB.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kd-oUvpTNI
Unlike modern point-and-click games, you could fail miserably just by saying the wrong thing, wearing the wrong clothes, knocking on a door ahead of time, p*ssing someone off, etc. There were numerous endings and numerous stories, according to your choices and decisions. There were several games and most of them were like that. Suddenly, it stopped. I wondered if players preferred easier games, where you just go through a linear story and you can't lose. Recently, I've also seen an effort to go back a little bit, to offer more choices to the player and vary the outcome in a way, especially indie games and I like it. On the other hand, maybe some gamers are perfectly happy playing Dear Esther and wish more games were like that. I guess it's impossible to keep everyone happy.
The "obstacle" theory that TotalBiscuit advances is similarly half-baked: to a beginning reader, a book provides an obstacle, yet it's not a game, and to an experienced player, certain games (or certain modes in certain games) provide no obstacle, yet they're still games.
Gone Home puts me in control: I am a player, not a spectator, and I can interact with almost anything I wish to in that house.
Gone Home gives me an objective: "find out what happened to Sam", and it translates into "find her journal entries" as a game mechanic, but still keeps some of that larger frame running as well, and there are certain ways (these are the rules) how I can find these entries: I need to search the house more or less systematically, unlock some locks, and generally put two and two together.
One could say that an "interactive art installation" isn't a game because it imposes no rules on the spectator, but in fact it does, and the more interactive it is (if it can be "used"), the more it approaches game-ness, much the same as sondbox-type games provide an environment as well as a game that allows player to make their own rules.
I think someone else introduced the term "system-rich" into a discussion here to characterize games that are heavy on rules and mechanics, which Gone Home isn't. Presumably there's a point between "system-rich" and "systemless" where people stop to think of something as a game, but I suspect where it is exactly depends on the individual. What's the difference between a dark gray and a light black?
You've misunderstood the way TotalBiscuit uses the term "failure state". Which is another reason why I think it would be best to not use it in discussion.