Move, move, move!

The fourth chapter of Computer Games: Text, Narrative and Play is again authored by Diane Carr and is titled Play and Pleasure. Carr picks up right where she left off with a discussion on why she thinks Baldur’s Gate is a compelling play experience: the game offers various possibilities for a player to be “mobile” between “attentive states” of “immersion, engagement and flow”. The remainder of the chapter is focused on “what the game invites players to do” that offers a fusion of “pleasure” and “play”.

The first part of this chapter extensively describes the character creation process. Not much is to be noted here, as Carr does not spend any time in critical analysis of any of the options. Rather, she only lists the various possibilities of class, race, aesthetic, moral compass, attribute distribution, and those benefits/consequences behind particular choices.

Carr then describes the difficultly in prescribing characterization of game protagonists/avatars.  Despite being a partial construct according to a set of preordained parameters, player action also largely informs characterization. However, Carr also contests that the consequences for particular narrative and gamic choices limit and govern the game narrative; certain moments of gameplay are only made available because of a particular set of criteria having been met. Therefore, Carr asserts that the ability to “assign traits to characters... is a continuing collaboration between game and player.”

Next, Carr delves into a discussion on the various forms of player mobility between different “attentive states”. Carr describes the process of the player internalizing the game systems and subsystems management “engagement”, which in turn evolves into the gamic concept of “immersion” and “flow” (via seamless transition between such systems, thus culminating in a process that results in quicker reaction times that makes gamic action innate). Carr then concludes that pleasure from play resides within “the player’s slide between more or less conscious moments of attention.” The final point that Carr makes in regard to continual pleasure of mobility involves the “gradient” quality of play (the game increases in difficulty and requires particular parameters to be met in order for progression to be made.)

Carr’s concepts of ludic action informing narrative and vice versa from her previous chapter play quite well into her discussion on how compelling gameplay comes to fruition in Baldur’s Gate; “mobility” between psychological attentive states of “engagement”, “immersion”, and “flow” is made possible because of the interconnectedness of gamic and narrative elements. Although this argument is logical in nature, Carr’s examples from Baldur’s Gate and the narrative and psychological theory she draws from create rather tenuous connections. Also, claiming that “immersion” within gameplay mechanics stems from the interconnectedness of gamic and narrative options, which in turn regulates “flow” and develops “engagement”, appears rather circular in its logic. Despite feeling rather engaged with Carr’s attention to detail in describing the particular gamic and narrative options of Baldur’s Gate (in fact, I am so enamoured with them that I plan to purchase the re-release of the game this September once it is released), I would have preferred a more detailed analysis of why “immersion” occurs rather than just defaulting to the fluidity repetition. Perhaps the “flow” involved with navigating between systems and subsystems occur because of practicing informatics, as Galloway discusses.