shoni

I recently visited the Games Lab exhibition at Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI). The Games Lab showcases a range of innovations in game culture designed by local and international developers. The exhibition is interactive and provides visitors the opportunity to play different styles of games. They vary in complexity some only requiring one or two minutes to play while others are involved and required the player to have more developed gaming skills.

The games use a combination of simple embedded narrative and complex emergent narrative. I found the exhibition particularly interesting in light of the convergent game we are designing in Emerging Media. Games Lab challenged many of my preconceived criticisms of game culture by engaging me with games that make social and political commentary. For the first time I was struck by the power of the game as a creative medium and inspired by the educational possibilities that it affords.

Although impressed with the most of the games and the messages they conveyed to the player, the only game that resonated deeply was Escape from Woomera. Set in the controversial Woomera detention centre the player adopts the character of a refugee who has to find a way to escape before losing hope. A barometer that sits on the edge of the screen measures the player’s hope. Unfortunately my hope was diminished before I could escape which I attribute to my lack of gaming experience. My disappointment with Escape from Woomera was that it felt directed towards a male audience. Gender representation is obviously an issue for the gaming industry of which there has been significant media coverage, particularly in relation to characters like Lara Croft.

Hill in his article ‘Boys’ Zone’ reports that “One of the most popular commercial games with women is The Sims. More than 60 percent of Sims players are female. Designer Will Wright says that his team deliberately tried to make the game appealing to women.” (The Age Livewire, 31 March 2005, p.17). I think one oversight in Escape from Woomera was that the refugee that the player adopts the character of is male. I think providing the player with a choice of gender helps the player to better identify with the character and connect more easily to the game.

Acmipark allows the player to choose the gender of their character and by doing this it becomes more inclusive of a broader audience. Acmipark is a fantasy virtual environment that replicates the architecture of ACMI. Navigating Acmipark was a completely new experience for me as someone not conversant with gaming. It provided me with a good introduction to the other games in the exhibition. I was able to familiarise myself with the tools to orientate myself in a virtual space.

Crickets, Palm Valley, July 2004

Palm Valley is where Bj and I spent our first night in the big red. It was the beginning of a journey that took us through the outback and into the top end of Australia. We documented our experience as we travelled through the dramatic and subtle changes in landscapes. From Palm Valley we journeyed northwest through the MacDonnell Ranges and Tanami Desert to Fitzroy Crossing and across to Broome. Just south of Broome, at Roebuck Bay bird sanctuary we met Greg and Penny and their three kids, Oscar, Molly and Charlie who had been travelling around Australia for over a year. Greg is an oral historian who collects stories of people he meets and archives them with the National Library of Australia.

From Broome we continued west into Jindamarra country and explored Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek. The footage of the fresh water crocodile was taken at Windjana Gorge National Park. This crocodile was one of many basking in the searing sun on the sandy banks of the gorge. The footage of the bats was taken at nearby Tunnel Creek, south of Windjana Gorge.

Crocodile, Windjana Gorge National Park & Fruit Bats, Tunnel Creek, September 2004

It was here, at the beginning of our Kimberley experience that our car fridge lost it’s chill and our hats and sunglasses were stolen. We had spent a few months before we set out dehydrating food, so although we wouldn’t have anything cold apart from the odd roadhouse ice cream, we had enough supplies to continue into the heart of the Kimberley. We lost our exhaust and manifold so we spent a few days at Drysdale Station getting some rudimentary repairs done to the Landy to see us to Kununnurra, the first township with supplies since Derby a few weeks earlier. We bided over a week in Kunnunurra while a new exhaust system was sent from Perth. During that time we hired a car and drove south to Purnululu to catch up with a friend and her family who were working at a school on a nearby Aboriginal community. Once the Landy was back on the road again we meandered further east to Katherine and then begun our long journey south through Witjara and the Gammon Ranges. In a secluded campsite thousands of kilometres from Broome we met again with Penny and Greg and their kids. Stranger still, later that night another couple drove into camp that we had all met with weeks earlier at the Broome Bird Observatory. We were so off the beaten track, tucked away next to a dry riverbed in bush that hadn’t seen rain in months. It was such an unlikely camp which none of us had planned to spend time in. We hadn’t seen anyone else throughout the whole of the Gammon Ranges. It was just so incredibly coincidental.

Bj and I are developing the footage of our journey through central and northern Australia into a visual journal of our experiences.

SBSi is accepting submissions for one-hour documentaries for its primetime ‘Storyline Australia’ timeslot. They are also seeking pitches for low-budget feature length telemovies. See www.sbs.com.au for details.

SBSi in partnership with South Australian Film Corporation are launching a cross media documentary series for the ‘Inside Australia’ prime time slot. They are seeking submissions for four 25 minutes films that can be delivered in conjunction with substantial online content. The details are at South Australian Film Corporation Site (more…)