Game Culture: Data Cruller

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My project deals with gaming in a manner of externality; I have constructed a game that forces the viewer to realize how and in what way they are reacting to the device they are playing on. Often we find ourselves focusing solely on the visual representation of a video game on a screen forgetting the basic nature of video games that they are sequential, graphic representations of software code run through the hardware of a console. We forget, as Dr. Wark noted, that there is a blatantly obvious power cord running out of the back on our machines, and we instead focus on the pixels and vectors of the last step in the game process hierarchy.

 I aim to disrupt this electronic amnesia through Data Cruller, the PC game I developed. I use the name Data Cruller as an umbrella, including the actual game application as well as the several subsequent Batch and VBScripts developed to work along the actual visual representation of the game. In regards to sequencing, I began by developing a concept to confront the viewer with a sort of externality while playing a game. A la Too Many Cats I decided the best way to do this was to exploit the file structure of the system itself, in my case this being the PC because I am comfortable and familiar working within the constraints of windows programming. I settled upon the concept of a game that, as a viewer plays it, confronts the viewer with media files they have chosen to create or place on their hard drive. Along with the stripping away of the external façade of game video, it also deals with personal choice in a way that simply presenting a viewer with preprogrammed media or ‘breaks in the continuum of the game’ could not hope to accomplish. Following this, I began development of a system that could achieve this goal, which is where the aforementioned scripts came in. I began by creating two separate ‘generating’ scripts named gen_list and gen_rand and two consequent ‘launching’ scripts which essentially launched the two generating scripts hidden in the background as to not break the game/file dynamic with distracting command windows. However, following Dr. Wark’s advice I then developed another generating script, gen_arch and another launcher. The coding is open-source and can be seen and modified by anyone by opening any of the six scripts in any plain text editor. These generating scripts are the real powerhouses of the entire game, performing individually, yet working simultaneously with each other to accomplish tasks vital to the completion of my goal.

A quick rundown of what these tasks accomplish; gen_list, launched at the very startup of the game application, searches for a local document ‘fileslist.txt’ and if it does not exist compiles a list consisting of any and all files with any of 38 common media extensions (.jpeg, .mp3, etc…) and their filepaths located in the 6 folders people usually place created or downloaded files on a Windows OS. When playing the game, the viewer is forced to collect items (I decided on anthropomorphic apples) due to a countdown which, upon reaching zero, produces the players ‘death’ and game restart. Once an apple is collected, the gen_rand script is activated, identifying fileslist.txt and assigning a number to each line which contains a filepath in the document. Then, essentially, it generates a random number ranging from 1 to the last number of lines in fileslist.txt, creates a separate text file named archive.txt in which it transcribes the path of the number it chose, and finally opens the file in whatever program the user of the PC has set it to natively.  This fundamentally completes my goal of presenting the viewer with a random external stimuli relating to the system in which through the game is being played. However, the last script, gen_arch is launched either when the player exits the game through the game menu, or when the player reaches the final end object in the game, whereby it is accompanied with a GML script. Gen_arch principally creates a folder named Archive in the local directory, copies the files to the folder through their filepaths included in archive.txt, then deletes both archive.txt and fileslist.txt so that new lists can be created upon beginning a new game. The purpose of this script, as Dr. Wark suggested, is to create a record of the files opened during the game and to consolidate them into one place. Upon game completion, the GML script opens the Archive folder so that the viewer can see the files they have ‘collected’ as well as realize the ‘reward’ they have been playing for was essentially included on their hard drive the entire time.

Artistically and theoretically I attempted to address some critical questions with this piece. In regards to the project, the aspect of game culture which I am attempting critique and/or provide an understanding of is the selective amnesia in regards to videogames that I discussed earlier, i.e. the issue of externality in systems versus visual representation. I also struggled with the attempt to create an aesthetic accompanying game to illustrate my concept, as well as attract viewers and entice them to actually play and participate in the game. The actual structure of the game proved difficult to execute, with game physics and movement being the most difficult, accompanied with the fact that I had to learn GML code to achieve most of the physical mechanics of the game.  Regardless of game architecture, much of the game’s formal choices were accompanied with deeper meaning that originally revealed. The apples and the main character, behind-the-back-bear, are humanlike in appearance, mimicking the viewer and the viewer’s trace upon the files they choose to place on their hard drive. The last third of the game takes place in a monochrome exterior gamespace which I intended to mimic the removal of the viewer from the gamespace as the character they are controlling is removed from his representative gamespace.

All of these elements culminate to an experience which forces the viewer to step back and realize the externality at play between themselves and the system, as well as inside the system itself. It speaks about personal choice, publicly and privately, and the things we choose to place on our computers. It functions as a work of art, both in the visual sense as well as structurally, and addresses game culture in regards to game process, presentation, and reception.