Making the water move: techno-historic limits in the game aesthetics of Myst and Doom.

This paper proposes that the technical limitations at the time of a game?s creation have an enormous impact on the overall aesthetic of any specific game, and also the traditions of the whole craft. Thus, an awareness of this aspect is critical to the useful analysis of games. However, this is often...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Hutchison, Andrew
Format: Journal Article
Published: Game Studies 2008
Subjects:
Online Access:http://gamestudies.org/0801/articles/hutch
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/10418
_version_ 1848746226705498112
author Hutchison, Andrew
author_facet Hutchison, Andrew
author_sort Hutchison, Andrew
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description This paper proposes that the technical limitations at the time of a game?s creation have an enormous impact on the overall aesthetic of any specific game, and also the traditions of the whole craft. Thus, an awareness of this aspect is critical to the useful analysis of games. However, this is often missing from current analyses of games. To illustrate both the significance of techno-historic limits, and several fundamental principals of digital technology, the landmark games Myst (Cyan, 1993) and Doom (id Software, 1993) are explored as examples of the evolution of game aesthetics over time. This leads to an examination of the future limits of the rendering of images and sounds, and how this may have an impact on future game aesthetics and genres.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T06:29:53Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-10418
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T06:29:53Z
publishDate 2008
publisher Game Studies
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-104182017-01-30T11:18:37Z Making the water move: techno-historic limits in the game aesthetics of Myst and Doom. Hutchison, Andrew artificial intelligence games Moore's law Doom aesthetics AI Myst technical historical rendering This paper proposes that the technical limitations at the time of a game?s creation have an enormous impact on the overall aesthetic of any specific game, and also the traditions of the whole craft. Thus, an awareness of this aspect is critical to the useful analysis of games. However, this is often missing from current analyses of games. To illustrate both the significance of techno-historic limits, and several fundamental principals of digital technology, the landmark games Myst (Cyan, 1993) and Doom (id Software, 1993) are explored as examples of the evolution of game aesthetics over time. This leads to an examination of the future limits of the rendering of images and sounds, and how this may have an impact on future game aesthetics and genres. 2008 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/10418 http://gamestudies.org/0801/articles/hutch Game Studies fulltext
spellingShingle artificial intelligence
games
Moore's law
Doom
aesthetics
AI
Myst
technical
historical
rendering
Hutchison, Andrew
Making the water move: techno-historic limits in the game aesthetics of Myst and Doom.
title Making the water move: techno-historic limits in the game aesthetics of Myst and Doom.
title_full Making the water move: techno-historic limits in the game aesthetics of Myst and Doom.
title_fullStr Making the water move: techno-historic limits in the game aesthetics of Myst and Doom.
title_full_unstemmed Making the water move: techno-historic limits in the game aesthetics of Myst and Doom.
title_short Making the water move: techno-historic limits in the game aesthetics of Myst and Doom.
title_sort making the water move: techno-historic limits in the game aesthetics of myst and doom.
topic artificial intelligence
games
Moore's law
Doom
aesthetics
AI
Myst
technical
historical
rendering
url http://gamestudies.org/0801/articles/hutch
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/10418