Narrative vs. Mechanics in physical games

I’ve been struggling a lot lately with the value of focusing a game around narrative content, versus just letting the mechanics of the game speak for themselves.  This sounds ridiculous, but the internal debate has largely been spurred by thinking about what sort of game would work best as an art piece in a gallery exhibition.  The idea of a physical game exisiting as an installation is fraught with issues of feasibility.  Gallery goers don’t typically engage with a piece in the sort of deep repetitive way that a game demands. And without people playing, a game really isn’t much to look at.

But I still think the design challenge is interesting in that it makes me think about what signifiers of significance a game is missing that prevents it from being taken seriously. Does it need a narrative that frames and gives context to the experience of interacting with the mechanics? We can experience the anger or frustration or fear that a game may induce, but to be a piece that would garner critical praise from a crowd devoted to contemporary art, would it also need a frame that tells you how to understand those emotions? Because I can envision a time when a gallery might present an exhibition of physical games, but I have a hard time seeing them including something as abstract and shorn of content as a pure sport.

Galleries like Babycastles (http://www.babycastles.com/) are already beginning to grapple with games in gallery settings, though they have dealt primarily with screen based and therefore contextualized work.

The game I’m running this weekend at Come Out & Play in San Francisco has really been the catalyst for this line of thought.  The game pits a blindfolded player against an aggressor who can see, but is burdened by bells. In play it evokes a sense of horror and dread in the blindfolded player. Its a fun and compelling game even in the abstract, but I was interested in what a little narrative might do to it.  So the players are cast as the wolf and the shepherd. We’ll see this weekend how players react to the layer of story and whether that element should be exhumed from the game.

Pictures and a report to follow after the game runs.