Comments on Hit Self-Destruct: Photo Album

Thanks for your thoughts, Joshua. I agree with you...

2009-05-16T20:41:00.000+12:00

Thanks for your thoughts, Joshua. I agree with you so I don't have a whole lot to add, but I just wanted to mention how grateful I am when someone adds so much value to my original post.

Oh dear, I posted my comment before I finished the...

2009-05-15T04:48:00.000+12:00

Oh dear, I posted my comment before I finished the second paragraph. I meant to say "There's a little debate on the merits of open-world vs. author-controlled narrative debate, but in the end a game will give very different experiences for every person, regardless of if it's like Mass Effect or like Braid."

On the note of memory and experiencing games, I'd ...

2009-05-15T04:44:00.000+12:00

On the note of memory and experiencing games, I'd like to note that before video games were invented, people probably have been trying to create these sort of memories in painting, prose, poetry, theatre, and so on for centuries, if not millennia. As you mention with music, the other "passive" media can definitely be successful in being memorable, but it's very individual. Personally, the imagery in Oscar Wilde's The Sphinx has been stuck in my mind for years now. I also had a similar memory to your Mass Effect one when it came to rain in Arizona—with the song "A Horse with No Name".

Games are different, though, because video games are indeed the first (or one of the first?) media to be able to give a really, really individual, generated experience. Ignoring the open-world vs. author-controlled narrative debate,

Approaching games—and film, books, and music—from an entertainment perspective often involves trying, as you say, to pin down "the proper way to play[/watch/read/hear] a game [and etc]." When I read your article, it made me wonder if there's futility in trying to manipulate to perfection the experience that a person has with it—in any media of communication and art. All our experiences are so individual.