Idle Thumbs 86: Always Support the Danger Layer

[Sno]

I found it strange that Eve Online was on that list. I'm not sure that Eve Online itself is all that interesting, but rather it's the ways that it facilitates community interactions, and the interesting community it has engendered because of that. How would that be represented in a museum context?

I was also personally highly critical of the list of games they announced, but i think i've been flipped around by Chris's point about the "nerd canon" already being extremely well represented by so many other institutions, and the importance of having these different perspectives.

[feelthedarkness]

As somebody who loved Doom and who can barely get Dwarf Fortress to run, I think it makes total sense from an art and "big picture/what is miraculous about games" perspective. The list points towards a kind of systematized expression. What are these things trying to communicate to you? Again, I love Doom, but is it that expressive beyond "point at a thing to make it go away?" Tetris kind of covers that pure joy of mechanic category anyway, plus it has a more compelling background.

[Lechimp]

Same here. It's simultaneously so bare bones but has so much depth that it has earned itself a place of recognition.

The one thing on the MoMA list that I disagree with is The Passage. I mean, I get why it was chosen, but I don't think it should be there.

Why not? I thought it was a really good selection and felt like the game that belonged the most in a museum of modern art, not that the other ones don't.

[shammack]

It's so damn trite and so transparently museum-bait! The rest of the list was fine, but that particular selection provokes from me a million barves.

[BigJKO]

Museum-bait is such a weird thing to call a video game..

[melmer]

Ha, I took the goldblum screen shot especially for you guys

http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/6371-jeff-goldblum/page__st__20

I'm glad I'm slowly seeping into the thumbs collective consciousness

[Henroid]

Why not? I thought it was a really good selection and felt like the game that belonged the most in a museum of modern art, not that the other ones don't.

For me the only thing noteworthy about The Passage was the effect of things ahead of you being blurry and increasingly coming into focus, but in exchange things behind you go less out of focus. And for a minute or two's worth of experience that doesn't do anything for me. And to be clear, yes I know there's a maze below you. For me, it was a presentation concept work rather than a game (or a puzzle).

If I try to examine any sort of statement from the game - as many others have claimed to have gotten from it (and I won't deny people their own experiences) - all I get is, "everything you're doing is futile." As a person with depression and childhood issues, I don't want to be told that yet again.

[plasticflesh]

What is "it's the wave of the future" a reference to?

[CaptainFish]

Great cast! The Secret of Monkey Island story was so great and touching.

I have an important question though: How much danger layer would you incorporate in the Danger Lair?

[thainatos]

Disagree with the decision to leave out DOOM. Its a game where the art comes through player agency and systems interacting, which seems to be the last thing anyone wants to point to as art and also probably the most important thing games have to contribute. Also, why curate Pac Man and Pong into the exhibit if we're not including games just for their formative effects?

[Twig]

(I hate The Passage. It's so dumb.)

[elmuerte]

(And The Passage hates you.)

[Twig]

(I'm somehow okay with this.)

[Scott W]

What is "it's the wave of the future" a reference to?

I believe a movie, but I'm not sure which one. Anybody know the name?

[mikemariano]

I believe a movie, but I'm not sure which one. Anybody know the name?

It's

, which I've never seen but I guess is good?

[melmer]

Yeah it's good

Leo di caprio goes insane flies planes

You don't need to watch it now

[youmeyou]

"Wave of the future" was the running joke for months and months after I saw that film. I'm glad me and my friends weren't the only ones to find that crazed mirror monologue ridiculously funny. (unless you guys didn't find it funny and just like saying it, which is possible since you consider the aviator to be a good film, while I didn't particularly care for it).

[Lechimp]

For me the only thing noteworthy about The Passage was the effect of things ahead of you being blurry and increasingly coming into focus, but in exchange things behind you go less out of focus. And for a minute or two's worth of experience that doesn't do anything for me. And to be clear, yes I know there's a maze below you. For me, it was a presentation concept work rather than a game (or a puzzle).

If I try to examine any sort of statement from the game - as many others have claimed to have gotten from it (and I won't deny people their own experiences) - all I get is, "everything you're doing is futile." As a person with depression and childhood issues, I don't want to be told that yet again.

Fair enough. I had a different interpretation from it and thought it was cool how player movement was used as a metaphor.

I felt like the game was more about how life is rewarding in different ways depending on if you're on your own or with someone else. When the game allows you to control two people at once, you're unable to access many parts of the maze but you gain points twice as quickly from walking.

Anyway, that's just what I got from it and I could see disliking the game by having other interpretations from it.

[coaxmetal]

Chris said something about DFA during this episode in the context of talking about programming, and I thought he meant a deterministic finite automaton at first, since we were talking about implementing one of those, or some sort of rules engine, at work today. I didn't realize until later that he probably meant double fine adventure.

Would be cool if he was just talking about making a DFA for the music system though.

Also, though I have no particular aspirations to be a programmer for a game company, I like where I am now, its good to hear that it isn't all C++, since I don't like working in C++. Lua is nicer.

[A Zen Master]

sean's marriage made me laugh in real life. thanks Jake!

[thainatos]

1. Just watched The Aviator, and I think it's one of Scorsese's best. I don't find Tourette Syndrome or OCD to be funny in any way(having known several people with each), and Hughes' breakdowns, to me, were very intense. The thumbprint on the glass bit was especially cruel, and it says a lot about how far we've come as a society that we can see that as deplorable. Still something very quotable about those two particular lines though: "Way of the future," and "show me all of the blueprints." They've got satisfying mouthfeel, I think, like a good poem.

2. Grats to Jake and Sean on the win last night. My girlfriend and I were a mess after finishing Episode 5, and

Lee slumped against the radiator in that last room

is an image that's difficult to forget. The Walking Dead sets a new bar for empathy in any medium.

Edit: I am an idiot. Thanks, shammack.

[shammack]

Sorry to be that guy, but your second point there probably merits a spoiler tag.

[Merus]

I like MoMA selecting a bunch of games based on their opinion of artistic merit. I like the idea of a list of notable games that does not include Doom; I like the idea that we can determine which games are most notable in ways that do not end up with the same results.

Considering what MoMA is, actually, I really like that list. You can really see MoMA's intent, there: they want games that have artistic depth to them, that can be interpreted, that comment on the time they're in either consciously, subconsciously, or by being part of the zeitgeist. Pacman, I think, captures that more than most of these games; its central metaphor is still being reinterpreted today, and its association with the rampant consumerism of the 80s lends itself to critiques of that consumerism in a way that is totally clear to most Westerners. I'm pleased it's in the same museum as Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans. Passage may not be particularly satisfying as a game, but it's important in the development of the art form as an artform and not purely an entertainment medium.

Honestly Canabalt is a bit weird, I can't really see that one.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Great podcast. For whatever reason, in the discussion about G. Oatse when he wrote "Sometimes I wish my ancestors had harvested barley" and Chris said "no, you don't, it's better this way," something about the way he said it made me laugh so hard I had to pause the podcast for a moment. And the sponsored ad segment was great.

I'm not surprised to see some disagreement about The Passage here - I think it's almost impossible to make a game worthy of being included in a curated collection at the MoMA without it being at least somewhat controversial, either in terms of "does it belong" or "does it say anything useful." Like, Henroid, what you got out of it was way different than what a lot of people got out of it, and maybe the interpretation "everything in life is futile" isn't something The Passage was trying to convince you of but rather something you were already convinced of that you brought to the game and saw reified in the way the game worked. That's what often makes good art - people have widely differing interpretations but they also think they have good reasons for having those interpretations.

I do agree that Canabalt is kind of a weird choice - the art is stupendously evocative but the whole "keep restarting" thing and also the "keep jumping!" thing sort of kills the atmosphere for me. I mean, in terms of fun it's an objectively delicious dish of a game, but "press X to jump at the right time" is hardly a revolutionary concept or even a very interesting one.

[Merus]

I figure at this point basically MoMA can do whatever the fuck it wants and claim it's part of a performance piece; recontextualising the relationship between art and gallery by turning the curation process itself into art.