Minor Quest 1

                    On Friday January 27, four of our guild members Alex Chen, Michael Scheible, Jon Lipkin and Elise van den Berg went to the game library as part of our Minor Quest. We didn’t have trouble finding the library since we have some game fanatics in our guild who already knew where the library was. Jon and Elise had never been to the library and were intrigued by the place.  It was full of gaming equipment, some old, some new, and was also packed with avid gamers! After looking at all the games, the four of us decided to play a classic, Mario Party on the Nintendo 64 as our pre-2000 game, and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 on the Xbox 360 as our post-2000 game. During the course of our quest, we came to the conclusion that game theory and simulation are concepts that game designers have consistently included in games over the years.

The first video game our group played was Mario Party 2 on the Nintendo 64. It is a game that is very similar to a physical board game, but it initiates a mini-game after every round and uses a more dynamic game board that can be altered by the players’ actions, utilizing the capabilities of video games. The ultimate goal was to be the person who gets the most stars, which are obtained by reaching points on the board and paying for them (if you have enough coins).

 

While exploring the Duderstadt Center, looking for the video game archive, our team bonded very well – however, you wouldn’t have thought so if you watched the way we interacted in the game. We stole coins and items from each other and were often pitted against each other in mini-games. Our strategic interactions were oftentimes selfish and downright mean. Of course, once the game ended, you wouldn’t have been able to tell we had done any of that – we were back to being friends.

This is reminiscent of the key and frame framework presented by Mia Consalvo in “There is No Magic Circle.” When playing Mario Party 2, our group entered a new frame, with a distinct keying. We adopted new identities, as represented by our avatars, and were placed in a competitive atmosphere. It was mutually understood, however, that whatever happens within this frame is not to be extrapolated beyond it. That is, if we are selfish in the game, we are not necessarily selfish outside of it. This belief held when the game ended and will likely continue – unless we sit down to play Mario Party 2 again.

After our group’s game of Mario Party we decided to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. We started off playing a team based objective game: search and destroy. In this game type each team ( in our case 2 v 2) has to take a bomb and plant it at 1 of 2 sites in a certain amount of time; if a team fails to plant a bomb or the whole team dies they lose the round. If the team plants the bomb the have to keep it from being defused and if they do they win the round. Each team plays both offense and defense with an overtime round if the score is tied after 2 rounds. While simple games such as the prison game only offers the player a few select outcomes and options this game offers the player thousands of different options. From choosing what type of gun (sniper vs. assault rifle) to the way you end up working with your teammate. Our guild had a great time playing this game, we played about 5 games overall, each time trying different combinations of guns, strategies with our teammates, and different maps. With all of these varying options for players in this game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has a tremendous replay value for gamers.

The game was a prime example of the concept of the “magic circle”, as the first-person nature of the game resulted in the transportation of the player into a virtual world in which the rules and bounds of reality became malleable via competition, perspective, and state-of-the-art graphics. The degree of realism added to the significant feeling of interaction with the game and the other players. It is interesting to note that while we were friends in reality, we were “killing” each other with virtual weapons in the game.

In conclusion, these two games represented the concepts of games that we studied in class, and illustrated the strategies that game designers have employed over the years to develop virtual worlds that inspire competition and simulation outside of the real world.