

Portal as a required college text - ptomato
http://www.brainygamer.com/the_brainy_gamer/2010/08/portal-booklist.html

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btilly
I appreciate the idea, but I have a major issue with it. I personally get
motion sick from playing various kinds of first person games. (The problem
first showed up for me with Doom.)

Judging from videos I've seen, Portal would be exactly the kind of game that I
can't comfortably play. Normally that is not an issue because I don't have to
play games I don't like. But if they get a kid like me in the class, how will
they deal with it?

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mattezell
People are excused from "required" activities for all varieties of physical
and psychological conditions... I am sure that it would be no different here -
an alternative assignment being the likely resolution.

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_delirium
Calling it a "book" is weird, but in the right context,
culturally/technically/socially significant games aren't any weirder a
required item than, say, films that also meet those criteria, and studying
important films has been pretty well established for decades. Portal is a
slightly strange choice, though, because of how new it is. I would imagine the
course doesn't usually choose books or films from the past 5 years, but
instead looks for things that are more classic?

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patio11
Classic videogames didn't really go for the self-aware pretentiousness that
makes Portal a compelling choice for academic study. (I mean that in the
nicest possible way: it is a game that _knows_ it is better written than 90%
of the stuff on the shelves next to it, and it isn't afraid to hit you over
the head with that fact over and over and over again.)

~~~
_delirium
There's quite a bit of stuff from the 80s that is self-aware of videogames as
a medium, and is actually studied by academics pretty frequently. Chris
Crawford's _Balance of Power_ / _Balance of the Planet_ duo are two that are
frequently discussed. Crawford is so sure that his stuff is better than other
stuff out there that he's even written several books about why his game design
is so great, and other game design is so bad. ;-)

And in terms of academic interest, I think _SimCity_ or _Civilization_ , among
a dozen other choices, is far more compelling than _Portal_ , and we also have
enough distance to see how games like that influenced their successors. Mostly
the choice of _Portal_ smells to me of a university picking a famous recent
title in an attempt to stay relevant--- like if they'd picked _The Matrix_ or
_Inception_ as the one film to include.

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sp332
_Mostly the choice of Portal smells to me of a university picking a famous
recent title in an attempt to stay relevant_

I don't see how you can get that from the article. It explains pretty clearly
the specific topics they're going to emphasize, and how Portal ties in with
the rest of the course.

What's nice about _Portal_ is that it has such clear elements, that it gets
people to see things they ordinarily wouldn't look for in a game. It's a great
introduction to the idea that games can engage humanity.

For starters, it's got great set design, sounds, and music. The characters are
studies in their respective types. The set shows a clear progression from
clean "lab"-style environment to broken-down warehouse style (both well-
executed) and then back again, with a gradual transformation between styles
that mirrors the transition of the protagonist's relationship with her
environment. The game also raises lots of different issues: the morality of
experimenting on humans, the possible emotional nature of AIs, the
effectiveness of various incentives (like curiosity, or guilt) and
disincentives (like "death", more guilt, or pessimism).

I really would not have any trouble writing a humanities paper on this game,
there's a lot going on. It's not the best video game ever, but I think it's
good to start with a super-accessible game like Portal because so many people
don't take games seriously.

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_delirium
That seems to be mostly missing the point of games as a medium, though---
everything you're discussing is what a novelization of _Portal_ might have
been about. In that case, why even pick a game at all? To me at least, the
interesting aspects of games as a new form of media are the things that you
_couldn't_ imagine one-to-one translated into a novel, like experimentation,
interactivity, exploration, rule systems, etc.

I do agree that it's easy to write humanities papers about games from a purely
narrative direction, but it's a hallmark of the not-games-focused humanities
academic usually--- the literary theorist or film scholar who wrote a paper
about a game as if it were a novel or a film. That kind of work is thankfully
getting much less common than it was 10-15 years ago.

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skybrian
The narrative wouldn't work the same if it were a novel or a film. To take a
simple example, watching someone else being reluctant to incinerate the
Weighted Companion Cube would only work as part of a screwball comedy. If you
have to do it yourself, it's still a funny situation but it feels a bit
different.

And if you want to focus on the game, there is an interesting game mechanic,
too.

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whimsy
Agreed. I spent a long time looking for a loophole... especially since that's
the first level with a broken wall.

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moultano
Passage would be a much better option:
<http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/>

It's very short (5 minutes,) free, and you don't have to worry about anyone in
the class not having enough skill to complete it.

It's also communicates in a way that only a game can. The rules of the game
themselves are most of what gives it its expressive power, not the narrative
or the visuals.

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patchwork
I never win this game.

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jrockway
Hey, the world from Stallman's _The Right to Read_ is finally here. Embrace a
DRM'd video game that only runs on non-Free platforms, or fail out of
University.

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Robin_Message
I'm not sure. You can borrow a lab machine, or a friend's machine. Surely it
is no worse than a dead tree book - you either have to buy it or find
somewhere to borrow it from. Embrace DRM or fail seems like a false dichotomy.

I do agree that this is a worrying trend, and Stallman make a valid point in
_The Right to Read_ , but I think the point he is making is that once you have
DRM, you can stop people borrowing stuff. That is bad, but we haven't got
there yet.

~~~
jrockway
How do you loan someone an XBox Live download or Steam game?

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Eliezer
Don't get me wrong, Portal is an awesome game. But he considered Planescape:
Torment too, and went with _just_ Portal? Where's Fate/Stay Night or
Tsukihime? I can't respect this college.

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whimsy
Planescape: Torment is significantly longer than Portal. For non-gamers, even,
it would be an epic time investment.

* I did not downvote.

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houseabsolute
Honestly, this is cool, but also a travesty. Portal is in no way on the same
level as some of those other works of literature, and certainly not enough
time has passed to see if it survives the years of literary criticism that
will be required to tell if it ever should be. It seems like a move that
simply panders to . . . well, whoever is pandered to by moves like this.

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phaedrus
I disagree. I think Portal is on the same level as a great work of literature.
As an aspiring game developer myself, I feel one could analyze Portal as "the
perfect game" in exactly the same sense that a classic may be described as
"the perfect novel". That's not to say it's the greatest or cannot be topped,
but that it took an idea, explored it to its ultimate depths, combined it with
supporting elements, and finished up strongly. That there is a Portal 2 in
development is immaterial: Portal 1 stands on its own as a self contained
work, and in that sense I think it is very much like a great novel.

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RodgerTheGreat
Unlike a great novel, automatic updates have changed the ending sequence to
better lead into the sequel- a trend that we will likely see more frequently
in the future. Does that interfere with a work being "perfect"?

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Fargren
I don't think it does. Just because it's perfect doesn't mean it can't be made
better, or that it can't be modified to better suitit's enviroment. The
gameplay, dialog and story that made it so fantastic remain, and the
modifciation, if anything, shows how powerful and different it's medium is.
Being able to modify a work after it's been delivered is a very new concept,
but I don't see how it harms the work. Of course, we do have the special
editions of Star Wars, that many people see as a negative thing, but I think
new ways for the creator to interact with his work are a good thing.

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philwelch
Well, at least it takes less than 5 hours to finish, which is a lot better
than some books I've read for school.

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fossuser
Seems like a waste of time to me (to require in a class setting), but then
again it is a liberal arts college.

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blahedo
I _love_ this; the notion of non-book texts (usually film) is also one my
colleges have worked on in developing our freshman seminars.

But, and I hate to bring this up, but I wonder how differently this idea would
play at a college that was not all-male. I've attended a lot of CS education
talks that have a strong tension between "games are a way to engage students"
and "games are way less engaging for girls than boys". This is a different
context, of course, but I'm still curious.

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azim
It's kind of strange requiring a video game as a required activity for all
students. Subjects like reading and mathematics are things taught in grade
school and have required proficiency levels before admittance in to
university, but there are a lot of people out there who just don't play video
games. Portal is not a difficult game for people who play video games on
occasion, but people who don't will have an awfully difficult time.

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quanticle
Now, I'm fortunate enough that I can afford the necessary hardware (a
relatively high-end PC) to play Portal. What about those who cannot? Is their
performance in the course automatically degraded simply because they don't
have the outside job/rich parent necessary to get the PC or XBox?

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pjscott
Computer labs usually have decent hardware, and are free for students to use.
That should work as long as they can get the administrators to allow Portal on
the computer lab machines.

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DLWormwood
Huh, not quite what I expected for what Portal could have been used for. In my
mind, Portal (especially in the commentary mode) would serve better as a model
of quality assurance, testing, and architectural design than as a work about
the human condition.

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jcw
Won't this just make people hate Portal and think it's boring?

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whimsy
Haha! I hope not, but it would make me giggle if Portal suffered the same
slings and arrows as classics of literature.

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b0b0b0b
_germane_

