Semantics and semiotics
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Ok, so let’s talk about design. C.S. Peirce, American philosopher and founder of pragmatism, defines the semiotic sign as ”something that stands for something, to someone in some capacity” This concept is straight forward enough, if I play Batman Arkham Origins and I want to continue the story I look for the sign on the map that tells me where to go next. It is a sign, that stands for ”story continues here”, to me in the capacity of player. But wait, then there’s affordances, which is by far a more insidious concept. An affordance is defined by Lidwell, Holden and Butler as: ”A property in which the physical characteristics of an object or environment influence its function.” The sign on the aforementioned Bat-map influences its function by explicitly telling the player where to go next. That’s pretty straight forward too. But in the world of design affordances NEED to be physical. Affordances that we cannot touch are not real, the affordance on the Bat-map exist only because we compare it to reality and perceive it to have a similar function. So it’s a perceived affordance. But this isn’t necessarily true, because according to psychologist James Gibson affordances can also be defined as ”actionable properties of the environment/actor/system”. In affordance based game design the affordance is ”the act or behaviour invited by an object, person, place or event.” (Ahwad, Ferguson, Craig). Of course this works for our bat-map too. The marker is an object that invites the player to act upon it by going to the location and continue the game. The marker is also an actionable property of the system. So it’s still an affordance. Three kinds of them. Well, two and a half. Here design falls into semantics, and I love it. It is an ore vein in a wall of programmer’s code that leads to a treasure of uncertainty. As a person more versed in art and social science than technology these aspects exude both familiarity and a certain amount of adventure. I bet a lot of people are going to tell me I’m weird now. Go ahead. It’s all a part of the game. Postat i:5SD018, Game Design and Analysis – an Introduction Tagged: 5SD018, Game Design and Analysis – an Introduction  |
