I had been nurturing the delusion that after the devastating arguments I brought forth in this article no one would so much as fucking dare to attempt defend the absurd notion of emergence in videogames -- at least not in my presence. And then I just got this little email, which also happens to be the first response I have received on this article. (Amusingly enough, no one has even linked it yet. Compare this to what happened with the hobag article -- yet more proof that the more valuable insights you give to people, the fewer of them will actually bother with them.)
Dustin Smith wrote:Hello there, I'm Dustin. I stumbled upon Insomnia (ironically at 4:00 AM) this morning. I perused your site and read some of your articles in their entirety. Let me say that I enjoy Braid, Spelunky, Cave Story, and other games you deem worthy only of "artfags." Alright, you caught me. I want your cock. Bad. I'll cradle the balls and stroke the shaft while humming Cave Story's soundtrack. Obviously.
Get the fuck over yourself.
Making homophobic remarks towards people that disagree with you is juvenile [I know. It's one of the methods I employ in an effort to keep the child in me alive. --icy]. Posturing yourself as an enlightened philsopher, spewing walls of pseudo-intellectual psychobabble text does not make you smart. You are not some long-lost disciple of Baudrillard, as hard as you try. Guess what? Interest in Philosophyy and video games aren't mutually exclusive. I'm a Lewisian philosopher [lol --icy] through and through, and any intro-level Critical Thinking student [lolololol --icy] could see that all of your articles are nothing more than ad-hominem attacks strung between other logical fallacies [Which fallacies, conveniently enough, you will leave for someone else to point out and refute. --icy].
Your "emergence" article was utter bullshit. You showed that you have no knowledge of procedurally generated content [I am sorry but these non-terms keep multiplying! Who could keep up with all of them! --icy] -- you missed the point entirely. Play Nethack. Study Go. Get over your indie phobia and try out Spelunky. You'll see that this algorithm-based gameplay [As opposed to non-algorithm-based gameplay, I suppose. --icy] truely brings out emergent behavior. Games like Go provide a simple ruleset, but from it a byzantine amount of strategies and gameplay styles emerge. The downside: these games require two people. Rogue-likes, like Nethack, procedurally generate the levels, enemies, loot, etc. This makes every playthrough different, since the many systems intertwine and interact with each other. These instances are not designed, intended, or predicted by the designer. Unfortunately, these games have novel length instruction manuals and unwieldy controls. Which leads to Spelunky. Here's the site. I implore you to play it.
http://www.spelunkyworld.com/
After you play it, read this essay by Chris Crawford, a veteran of our industry. I'd advise to absorb as much as you can of his work, as he speaks volumes of game design.
http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/JCGD_ ... ivity.html
You played the game? You read Crawford's work? Insert foot into fucking mouth. Spelunky melds the procedurally generated content of Rogue-likes with the immediacy and spatial elements of platformers. It creates every level in a semi-random fashion, mixing the traps, enemies, loot, etc. in a glorious fashion. Every playthrough is different and no level is outright designed. You die a lot, but each death teaches you something new about the game or reinforces something you already should now. I could go on for lengths about the game, but the gameplay speaks for itself. As it should.
Instead of being so God damn negative, at least try to appreciate the better aspects of our medium. Quit trollin' and try something constructive for once.
Sincerely,
Dustin
His email address is kivetoruk@yahoo.com. Feel free to sign him up to any number of scat-porn or child pornography mailing lists. I bet he will learn more about the world from such images than from all the rubbish scribblings he has so far been filling his brain with.