Space, graphics, and sound in video games

In the second half of chapter 5, Nielsen goes on and explains other aspects of aesthetics in video game such as space type, scroll, exploration, time, graphical style, game audio, emergence, and number of players. The main goal that game developers wanted to reach through crafting gamespaces was "a player's desire for a more "realistic" gamesapce to navigate".Nieslsen introduces three types of gamesapces: unconnected levels, zone-based multi-screen spaces, and seamless multi-screen spaces. Unconnected levels can be described as no physical connection between each map/level in videogame (when a player clears a level in video game, a player's character is transported to another level). Zone-based multi-screen spaces is basically when the player's character goes through one side of the screen, the player's character reappears on the starting point of the next screen, which makes it look like all maps/screens are either horizontally or vertically connected. Lastly, multi-screen spaces is reveals the game sapce as the player's character move. Another important apsect to notice in gamespace is off-screen space. Nielsen suggests that in video games, there are either active or passive off-screen space. Passive off-screen space can be basically described as if the player exists from the screen that is revealed/shown, then there is nothing going on in the off-screen. Active off-screen is opposite of that where things that are going on beyond the screen affects the course of the game play. All RTS games are likely to be active off-screen.

Another very important aspect in video game aesthetics is time. To understand time in video games, Nielsen suggests we need to understand the terms, "play time" (the "real" time the player spends playing the game" and "event time" (the time passes in the game world". Games such as Quake or most of FPS games have same play time and event time. However, simulation games such as Sim City has a time frame where real time 1 minute can be 1 year of game time. Another elements that affect players' sense of time are cut-scenes, loadings, save, etc. It was intersting to notice that Juul refering that game developers use of loading/saving to interrupt game time is "violation". This statement of Juul's sounded like he was pro-hardcore gamer that doesn't consider all types of game users/players.

Graphics are very important direct video game aesthetics. Nielsen divdes graphical styles into three categroies: photorealism, caricaturism, and abstractionism. Photorealism is basically try to portray the game screen as real as possible. In a way, photorealism style games are like "interactive movies". Even within photorealism, there are two subcategories: televisualism and illusionism. Televisualism can be easily explained by sport-games that try to "faithfully mimic the aesthetics of television". Illusionism is photorealistic graphics used to portray non-realistic things such as aliens. Caricaturism is a use of cartoon-like graphical style. Nielsen gives Warcraft 3 as a good example of caricaturism style. Caricaturism is widely used in video games that are unrealistic in their game play. Lastly, abstrationism is a graphical style that does not represent people or real-life objects. Games such as Tetris is a good example of abstarationism.

Another very important direct aesthetics in video games is of course, audio. There are four categories in game audio which are vocalization, sound effects, ambient effects, and music (soundtrack). Vocalization is character vocies in game. Sound effects are sounds that are made by in-game objects. Ambient effects are sounds that are made from non-specific atmosphere around the game space. And music (soundtrack) is basically music that is added to the atmosphere of the game. Sounds are very important in game play and serves for multiple functions in game. For example, sound effects are used to create more realistic game experience to the players. However, game music can also change the mood/astmoshpere of the game. Horror/dark music in video game hints the player that something awful/scary will appear in the game soon. Sound in video game is just like sound in cinema that alters the game play/experience depending on the audio. Game music(soundtracks) are also very popular even out side of game play by many users. For example, in Japan, many of video game music is sold on a separate CD in music stores just like film O.S.T market.

I personally think and like the in-game sound effect the most when playing video games. Sound-effects provide the player with realism on the sense of spatiality, physics, and the environement. I hate to play video game that has bad/unrealistic sound effects. What about you guys? Which part of the audio do you personally like the most when playing video games? sound-effect, game music, ambient sound? (or vocalizaion)?