I’ve read about 60 pages of Mircae’s book and it seems to mostly focus in on one thing. Ancient people felt their actions such as rituals or even fishing were more validated if that action had a corresponding prototype in their myth or legend. Most of the work seems to focus on that concept. I will note I think I got an older edition of the text so maybe some chapters have been re-arranged or something of the sort. Reading the game-time article made me think that perhaps in the new edition the time related stuff comes first but not in my edition.
Anyway the discussion of actions being validated and real despite just being imitations of ancient heroes reminded me of an old debate in the video game community. Strategy guides or walkthroughs are documents that tell the player how to defeat the entire game and often includes all the secrets and hidden places in the game world as well. Some feel that it cheapens the experience others feel that it just allows you to fully enjoy the game. I say this is similar to the concept of following in a god or hero’s footsteps and copying what they did. Perhaps even for some compulsive game completers it is similar to the idea that the playing of the game is not “real” or “valid” until, just like the writer of the strategy guide or walkthrough, they perform every task in the perfect way and achieve 100% completion or something of the sort.
The First Person essay regarded game time and how it relates to real-time. Various game genres utilize different relationships between “play time” or the time the actual player is devoting to the game and “event time” the time scale in which the events of the game unfold. Action games have a pretty direct connection between event and play time to create a sense of immediacy of action and quick emotional pay off. Strategy games have a time scale that distorts play time into massive event time so that events such as wars or the rise of civilization become playable.
Now there is an interesting area where the readings overlap. I managed to get into some of the “Regeneration of Time” segment and looked at how various cultures viewed New Years Celebrations. They are a time to expunge the community of sins and mistakes and become re-prepared for the new year. I feel this is similar to the idea of a save point as discussed by Jesper because a save point allows the player to “expunge” the “sins” of their previous failure by not completing the task and try again. He wonders why that save, reload, play, reload, play, style seems so boring on the surface but can actually be enjoyed by the player. Perhaps it has to do with this sort of ancient enjoyment of fixing previous mistakes and trying again, people might just enjoy 2nd chances. I can attest to doing a lot of play, reload, play, reloading myself and I feel that the pay off of finally getting it right is worth the previous failures.
As a final note Mircea used the word “biocosmic” and I rather enjoyed it.
