User:Lijil/Game and again
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| Author | Jason Nelson |
|---|---|
| Genre | Digital poetry, Art games, Electronic literature |
Publication date | 2008 |
| Website | http://www.digitalcreatures.net |
Game, Game, Game, and again Game is a digital poem and game by Jason Nelson, first published on the web in 2008. The poem is simultaneously played and read as it takes the form of a quirky, hand-drawn online platform game. It has been translated into French by Amélie Paquet for Revue Blueorange.[1]
Gameplay and reading experience
[edit]Although the game uses game mechanics familiar from simple platform games,[2] the hand-drawn graphics and the integration of poetic lines and phrases draw attention to the literary and aesthetic features of the experience. Rather than striving for a high score, the player is "moving, jumping, and falling through an excessive, disjointed, poetic atmosphere".[3]
Game, Game, Game, and again Game has "high interpretive difficulty from a minimal mechanical difficulty", Patrick Jagoda argues[4]. It is not difficult to play the game, he writes: "the game includes relatively few enemies and obstacles, avoids substantial punitive measures for the avatar’s death, and gives the player an unlimited number of lives".[4] However, it is difficult to interpret the meaning of the game while playing it. For instance, the level names are often long and subtitled, but disappear quickly, cheating the reader-player of the "slow reflectiveness that is both possible and encouraged in print-based poetry".[4]
In their introduction to the work for its inclusion in the Electronic Literature Collection Vol. 2, the editors describe set thus: "By usurping the well-known conventions of video game play, in this case, the run-and-leap paradigm familiar since Donkey Kong, Nelson has found a way to lure the user through his many levels of writing, drawings and old home movies with a simple but effective reward, increased survival."[5]
Reception
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Nelson, Jason (2013). "Jason Nelson". blueOrange: Revue de littérature hypermédiatique (in French). Translated by Amélie Paquet. Retrieved 2022-10-16.
- ^ Sezen, Digdem (2015). "Narrative Explorations in Videogame Poetry". In Koenitz, Hartmut; Ferri, Gabriele; Haahr, Mads; Sezen, Digdem; Sezen, Tonguç Ibrahim (eds.). Interactive digital narrative : history, theory and practice. New York: Routledge. p. 231. ISBN 978-1-317-66868-8. OCLC 907609900.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ Wright, David Thomas Henry. "Beauty in code – 5 ways digital poetry combines human and computer languages". The Conversation. Retrieved 2022-10-16.
- ^ a b c Jagoda, Patrick (2018). "On Difficulty in Video Games: Mechanics, Interpretation, Affect". Critical Inquiry. 45 (1).
- ^ Nelson, Jason (2011). Borràs, Laura; Memmott, Talan; Raley, Rita; Stefans, Brian (eds.). "Game, Game, Game, and again Game". Electronic Literature Collection Vol 2. Cambridge, MA: Electronic Literature Organization. Retrieved 2022-10-16.