The Research

The best place to start with this project (experimental art game) was to study what exactly is realism in the realm of video games & other interactive media and in the realm of fine art. I found a few scholarly sources and studied them hard. The first was an article from the International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction, and it discussed the contributions of different forms of realism to enjoyment and engagement. When the topic of realism in video games is discussed, it is in the context of graphics, violence, and play aggression. Graphic realism is only one type of realism, and in the context of video games it is actually the least important one. There are actually 3 types of realism in games: graphic realism, external realism, and enactive realism. The second source defined realism in the context of fine art. Realism (I’ll refer to this as original realism to avoid confusion) was a term coined by a french novelist known as Champfleury. This concept was then brought to fruition by his friend and painter Gustav Courbet. The subject matter of realism was that of the lower, working class during its time. Higher art was inaccessible to many and reserved for the elite. It was also higher art that almost always portrayed royal figures caught in extraordinary acts, and so the realism movement aimed to counter this exclusivity. It can be argued that realism in games stems from original realism, but this is not the case. Both media explore different ideas and this gap is further expanded due to fine art being a non-interactive medium, and video games being the opposite.

The most common form of realism people think of when they think of the word is definitely graphic realism, whether it’s in video games or in fine art (in fine art the proper term for graphic realism is naturalism). Graphic realism is the extent to which the game’s graphics are realistic, or “lifelike”. With system hardware still evolving, more and more AAA titles are coming closer to simulating a realistic, computer-rendered environment that mirrors our real world. The second form of realism in games is called external realism, and ironically the use of this form is actually far more practical in non-interactive media. External realism is in the context of the representations found in the game. How realistic are the game’s representations of people, places, and things? How likely are the game’s events to happen in real life? Media like books or films use external realism much more effectively, as it has been proven to be a determining factor of enjoyment. The more likely the events are to happen, the more thrilling it is. It’s why we enjoy non-fiction books, documentaries, etc. The last of the three, and without a doubt the most important of the three, is called enactive realism. Enactive realism in games the extent to which the player interacts with the game via its interface, controller, other players/characters that make the game feel like a real, participatory experience. It’s easy to see why this is the most important dimension of realism, as video games are the quintessential interactive media. The enjoyment, engagement, and experience of a video game rest heavily on the quality of interaction. 

Taking all of the research into consideration, my question became, “How might I make a game of self-expression that combines enactive realism with original realism?” I started with self-expression, and what about me or my life could I turn into a participatory experience. Another question posed was, “Will the player be seeing these experiences, or will they be doing them?” Original realism encouraged me to think about ordinary experiences that I share with the people in my community. Every hard working New Yorker takes the subway. We take the subway through cold mornings with the sun nowhere to be seen, through sweaty rush hours while everyone is packed in the trains like sardines, and through late nights when train service is really messing with us. Another thing we do, and more in the 21st century, is listen to music. Conversations on the trains are scarce. And so finally I had a concept. I decided to do a walking simulation of my evenings returning from Manhattan to the Bronx; the evenings that I walk alone just listening to my music and watching the crowds, the sunsets, and competing with the noises of the city.

For the game’s interface, I thought the way to begin achieving a good enactive experience would be to incorporate natural mapping. For those who are not familiar with natural mapping, it’s an interface design practice where the layout of a set of controls corresponds to the layout of the desired outcomes. The most common example of this is the stove: The dials are the controls and the burners are the desired outcomes. It is an example of the third-best level of natural mapping, because the dials can be arranged in the same spatial configuration as the burners. Because I’m dealing with the feature of playing music, I did some case studies of music interfaces in the real world. Using the mobile apps for Tidal, Apple Music, and Spotify, I compared the button icons, the layout, and the natural mapping of each. I then brought these findings over to the project. The main controller is a gamepad, so the next obstacle became laying out the fundamental controls for music playing in a way that feels comfortable to the player. Just like the stove example, I wanted the controls to be in the same spatial configuration both on the gamepad and in the game’s interface.

For movement, I had already decided that the left analog stick would be for locomotion (as that’s what’s most common among first-person games), and the right analog stick would be for camera. This raised another obstacle, because originally I wanted the music controls to be on the Dpad. The reason I wanted this was because when I thought of music controls, I used the Apple iPod Shuffle’s button mapping as a reference. Volume control is traditionally Up/Down, and song selection is traditionally Left/Right. The problem with using the Dpad came because if I were to predict what a player would have to do with their fingers to change the music, it would result in halting the intended pacing of the game. The player will likely constantly be moving with their thumb on the left analog stick, but in order to change the music they would have to use their left thumb to press a direction on the Dpad. In other words, the player has to stop walking; this was an effect that I did not want. This is how I came to place the music controls on the right side of the gamepad, and this stood firm for three reasons:

• Movement is traditionally on the left side of the controller, and it’s better to not force the player to compromise their movement in a walking simulator

• The shapes of the buttons on the right side remain consistent among all gamepads (Dualshock, Xbox, PC, etc.), this makes it easier to streamline the in-game interface icons

• Most players are right-handed anyway

Sources:

1. Lin, Jih-Hsuan Tammy. (2015). The Contributions of Perceived Graphic and Enactive Realism to Enjoyment and Engagement in Active Video Games. International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction. 11. 1-16. 

2. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/r/realism

3. https://uxdesign.cc/the-new-ios-13-volume-hud-a-stellar-design-that-demonstrates...