(Not) Game Genres, pt. 7: Wolf's Elementary Spatial Structures of Video Games (part two)

Continued from the previous post (these post titles are getting too long).

Wolf's spatial structures of video games, from "Inventing Space: Toward a Taxonomy of On- and Off-Screen Space in Video Games" (Film Quarterly (Fall 1997, vol. 51, no. 1) and republished in The Medium of the Video Game (2001)), was an inspiration for my own "A Taxonomy of Virtual Spaces" (Rowe, 2021, unpublished). Before I delve into the differences between my own taxonomy and Wolf's, I'll review Wolf's work through the eyes of two other scholars who influenced my work: Clara Fernández-Vara and Dominic Arsenault:

Clara Fernández-Vara and her team at Georgia Tech took issues with Wolf’s methods, stating that, “his analysis lacks a historical perspective, and the strict comparison to film misses what the intrinsic properties of the digital medium bring to videogames” ("Evolution of Spatial Configurations in Videogames," Fernández-Vara, Zagal, & Mateas, 2005). The paper rightly ignores Wolf's structures 9 (split screen) and 11 (mini maps) as these are augmentations to spatial representation, not a specific structure of playable game space. They also exclude structure 1 (text description) and full-motion recorded video as the team was not interested in games that "import spaces from other media" (2005).

The Georgia Tech team's paper declares that "the screen is the basic unit of space in videogames, since it frames the interface" (2005). I've adapted this into my own research as it provides a measuring stick usable in so many games, especially 2-D games. However, I can't agree with excluding games with text descriptions of spaces and full motion video from my research. I am working toward a method of understanding the aesthetics of games that can also be applied to other forms of digital media. Excluding the entire swath of text adventure games (interactive fiction), full-motion video games, and countless other games with "imported spaces" from other media would leave a massive gap in the system's usability.

Dominic Arsenault and his team at the University of Montreal took issue with Wolf’s spatial structures, citing that, “Wolf’s focus on historic, early 2-D game spaces led to him creating fine details between different types of scrolling spaces, but little detail for later 3-D game spaces” ("Game FAVR: A Framework for the Analysis of Visual Representation in Video Games," Arsenault, Côté, & Larochelle, 2015).

The University of Montreal team notes that much of Wolf’s spatial structures are focused on “scrolling spaces,” or what they call the Framing Mechanism Mobility. This deals with the player’s ability or inability to access off-screen spaces (if there are any) within the digital game, which as I discussed in the previous post, was the focus of Wolf’s essay. This means that Wolf’s categorizations give mostly superficial definitions of the spatiality presented within the screen’s frame. Like Arsenault’s example, Wolf lumps all 3-D spaces into the same category, no matter what method is used to project a 3-D space onto the screen. In Wolf's defense, he does have a detailed section of "Ways of Representing Three-Dimensional Space" (2001, pp 70-75) that concludes the article. However, the section doesn't differentiate between, say, 1-point (Maze Wars), 2-point (Battlezone), and 3-point (Quake) perspectival methods or pre-recorded film and video clips (Dragon's Lair, Myst) or the different ways they may affect the player's sense of space.

The four image planes of the Game FAVR system (2015)

The Game FAVR system developed by Arsenault’s team is specifically designed to define graphics, not spatiality. It uses a multidimensional approach to define by categories of ocularization (through what “eyes” the game world is presented), frame mechanism (how the frame moves across the game space), and plane analysis (how the agents, in-game environment, off-game environment, and intangible interface are projected to the screen). I took a similar multidimensional approach in the structure of my own taxonomy of virtual spaces, focusing on spatial construction as conveyed through graphics. A sense of space is mostly conveyed through graphics, so much of the methodology (like plane analysis) works equally well for my purposes.

As example, here is a direct comparison between my taxonomy and Wolf's classification:

1. No visual space; all text-based - I classify this spatial structure's image planes (to borrow a concept from the Game FAVR) of agents, environment, and background/foreground elements are all "rendered" in text description (something that neither the Georgia Tech nor the University of Montreal systems account for, by their designs).
2. One screen, contained - This is a fixed framing device with no mobility (in other words, the game "camera" doesn't move).
3. One screen, contained, with wraparound - Wraparound screens imply one of two types of topology, either cylindrical (wraparound two edges of the screen, like Pac-Man) or toroidal (wraparound all four edges of the screen, like Asteroids). Rarely, there are other topologies (like the cubic topology of E.T.).
4. Scrolling on one axis - This is a framing device with smooth scrolling 2-D mobility in one direction along either the vertical axis (Xevious), the horizontal axis (Super Mario Bros.), or a diagonal axis (Zaxxon). Xevious and Zaxxon are examples of auto-scrolling framing devices (what Game FAVR calls authoritarian).
5. Scrolling on two axes - This is a framing device with smooth scrolling 2-D mobility in any direction (Gauntlet). I have other specifications for games like Metroid where, due to technical restrictions of the Famicom/NES hardware, the game space may be vertical scrolling or horizontal scrolling, but not both at the same time.
6. Adjacent spaces displayed one at a time - This is a framing device with discrete 2-D mobility (sometimes called "page flip"). Some have single axis mobility (Pitfall!), others have two axis mobility (Atari's Adventure).
7. Layers of independently moving planes (multiple scrolling backgrounds) - Wolf describes two different cases here. The first is a background layer or layers (often in orthogonal projection) scrolling at a different rate than the player avatar in parallax motion to create an illusion of depth (he wrongly gives examples of Zaxxon and Super Mario Bros. - neither of which use parallax motion. Moon Patrol and Sonic the Hedgehog would be good examples). The second case is and example of a layered space, where there are multiple 2-D planes of gameplay that the player avatar may move between. Either there is a jump layer above the typical gameplay plane (Bump n' Jump, Pac-Mania) or the avatar may move into a background layer (Super Mario Bros. 3, Warioland).
8. Spaces allowing z-axis movement into and out of the frame - Wolf gives examples like Tempest and Night Driver. I call this a framing device with 3-D mobility in the Z-axis only.
9. Multiple, nonadjacent spaces displayed on-screen simultaneously - This is just split-screen multiplayer (Spy vs. Spy, Super Mario Kart, Final Lap). Multiple frames on a single screen do not make a new spatial structure, in my thinking.
10. Interactive three-dimensional environment - This is a catch-all category that I discussed above.
11. Represented or “mapped” spaces - For the most part, Wolf refers to a mini-map, which I note as a spatial modifier in my taxonomy (Rally-X, Bosconian). It can enhance the player's understanding of the game world in its entirety, but isn't really a navigable, playable space unto itself. The map usually appears at the edge of the screen (Defender) or replaces the gameplay frame (Spy vs. Spy) or the map is diegetically displayed in the game world (Myst). In some cases, the game is still playable with the overlay (Doom), but that is not the intended way to play.

Wolf also includes "god's eye" map games like SimCity and Caesar II in this category. I consider these to be games with an environment image plane that may have use plan orthographic (SimCity (1989)), dimetric (SimCity 2000 (1994)), or trimetric projection (SimCity 4 (2003)), or three-point perspective (SimCity (2013)), or numerous other projection options.

Video game imagery is hybrid in nature. Images are montages constructed from various visual elements, overlaid upon one another, transforming and animating, and often projected to the screen in different techniques for reasons of clarity, technical limitation, or stylistic choice. Such a complex and varied visual form for displaying space cannot be described with only eleven categories. It requires a multidimensional approach that accounts for the various conceptual planes (to borrow from Game FAVR) of an image in order to document, classify, and create a framework for studying its expression of a virtual space.

(Not) Game Genres, pt. 6: Wolf's Elementary Spatial Structures of Video Games (part one)

In my last post, I analyzed a system of video game genres developed by game scholar Mark J. P. Wolf and published in his book, The Medium of the Video Game (2001). This time, I am switching to the topic of spatiality, a chapter subject that Wolf included in The Medium of the Video Game, but was previously published as the article "Inventing Space: Toward a Taxonomy of On- and Off-Screen Space in Video Games" published years earlier in Film Quarterly (Fall 1997, vol. 51, no. 1).

Film Quarterly (Fall 1997, vol. 51, no. 1)

This means that 25+ years ago, Wolf devised a taxonomy of digital game spatiality, much the same as my current research. I previously analyzed Wolf's taxonomy in my own unpublished essay, "A Taxonomy of Virtual Spaces" (Rowe, 2021). Our works don't completely agree, but certainly applaud his early stabs in the dark at defining something so nebulous and undefined as game spaces.

He based his analysis of the spatial structures of digital games on his background of film and television theory, but made a prescient call that "video games are certainly deserving of their own branch of theory" (Wolf, 1997). Within a few years of that quote, game studies (or ludology) started to be recognized as an academic study and the first journals dedicated to the subject started to be published.

Wolf felt that video game theory would likely be "in close kinship to film and television theory" (1997), and much of early game studies reflects this notion. When he first published the essay, many game developers sought to converge digital games with cinema. 1997 was in the midst of the "Silliwood" (Silicon Valley/Hollywood) era when studios invested heavily in making "interactive movies" using full motion video (FMV) of live action actors mixed with digital elements. The fad boomed with the proliferation of CD-ROM drives, but most FMV games simply weren't very good. It isn't easy to create a dynamic and interactive world from pre-recorded film clips and many of these games were sold more for spectacle and star appeal than for substance. [As a personal aside, I got my start in the industry in 1996 as a tester for Voyeur II by Interweave Entertainment and later worked for DreamWorks Interactive, publisher of games like Steven Spielberg's Director's Chair. So, my game design career is a product of this Silliwood era.]

Inside Adventure's Blue Labyrinth and Black Castle image from "Space in the Video Game" (The Medium of the Video Game, Wolf, 2001)

As Wolf's essay title alludes, he was interested in how games create a sense of space, both on and off the screen, to create a sense of a cohesive world. He notes how, in games, these connections between spaces may create impossible, non-Euclidean worlds that cannot exactly be mapped on a rectangular topology (such as the example of Atari's Adventure, shown in the image above from Wolf's revised 2001 version of the essay, where screens have impossible connections to one another and an entire multi-screen labyrinth is "inside" of a smaller castle object). He likens these spaces to similar "impossible" spaces in film and television, the the TARDIS from Doctor Who. 

Wolf's 11 Elementary Spatial Structures of Video Games

1. No visual space; all text-based
2. One screen, contained
3. One screen, contained, with wraparound
4. Scrolling on one axis
5. Scrolling on two axes
6. Adjacent spaces displayed one at a time
7. Layers of independently moving planes (multiple scrolling backgrounds)
8. Spaces allowing z-axis movement into and out of the frame
9. Multiple, nonadjacent spaces displayed on-screen simultaneously
10. Interactive three-dimensional environment
11. Represented or “mapped” spaces

I'll go into more details on Wolf's spatial structures and compare them to my own spatial topology in the next post.

Game Genres, pt. 5: Mark J. P. Wolf's Interactive Genres for Classifying Video Games

Previously, I reviewed early game genres as developed through the lenses of marketplace leaders, an expert player, and a professional game developer. This set of game genres was developed by an academic, Mark J. P. Wolf. Wolf was one of the earliest scholars in the field of game studies and has written and published 23 books, mostly on the subject of digital games.

The Medium of the Video Game, Wolf (2001)

Wolf's The Medium of the Video Game (2001) includes the chapter "Genre and the Video Game" where he outlines what he sees as the core categorizations for digital games.

Wolf takes guidance from Ed Buscombe's essay "The Idea of Genre in the American Cinema" in that genre elements may appear in a film's iconography, structure, and theme. Iconographic genres like "Western" and "science fiction" (what I previously referred to as milieu) may work for narrative games, especially those inspired by cinematic tropes, it doesn't really work for nonnarrative and abstract games. Additionally, two different games in the same iconographic genre or theme may be very different experiences for the player. Wolf moves away from these cinematic concepts of film genre by focusing on the classifications of interactivity seen in digital games.

Wolf notes that games may best fit into multiple genres (Pac-Man is primarily a "Collecting" game, as the player's primary objective is to eat all of the dots on the screen. Secondarily, it also falls under the "Escape" and "Maze" genres).

• Abstract - Arkanoid, Breakout, Q*bert, Tempest (with Shoot 'Em Up), Tetris (with Puzzle)
• Adaptation - Games that are adapted from card games (Casino), cartoons (The Simpsons), comic books (X-Men), film (Star Wars), sports (Atari Football), etc.
• Adventure - Games set in a freely explorable "world" usually made up of multiple, connected rooms or screens, involving an objective more complex that catching, shooting, capturing, or escaping. Adventure, Tomb Raider, Venture.
• Artificial Life - Games involving the growth or maintenance of digital creatures. The Little Computer People, The Sims (with Management Simulation).
• Board Games - Board game adaptations and digital games that play like board games. Culdcept, Monopoly, Quest for the Rings.
• Capturing - Capture objects or characters that move away from and evade the player character. Keystone Kapers, Surround (with Escape).
• Card Games - Card game adaptations and digital games that play like card games. Solitaire, Uno, Casino (with Gambling).
• Catching - Catch objects or characters that do not move away from or evade the player character. Stampede, Circus Atari, Kaboom!
• Chase - "See Catching, Capturing, Driving, Escape, Flying, and Racing."
• Collecting - Collect objects that do not move. Pac-Man (with Maze and Escape), Amidar (with Abstract).
• Combat - One vs. one shooting challenge. Combat, Outlaw.
• Demo - Demonstrate games or system.
• Diagnostic - Test the functioning of a system.
• Dodging - Avoid projectiles. Frogger (with Obstacle Course), Journey Escape.
• Driving - Night Driver, Pole Position.
• Educational - Games designed to teach. Basic Math, Mario Teaches Typing.
• Escape - Escape pursuers or get of of an enclosure. Pac-Man (with Collecting and Maze), Surround (with Capturing).
• Fighting - One on one fighting without the use of firearms. Boxing (with Sports), Mortal Kombat, Tekken.
• Flying - Flying games where shooting an opponent is not the main objective. Flight Unlimited (with Training Simulation), Solaris. 
• Gambling - Slot Machine, You Don't Know Jack (with Quiz).
• Interactive Movie - Dragon's Lair, Space Ace.
• Management Simulation - Aerobiz, M.U.L.E.
• Maze - Dig Dug, Lode Runner, Tunnel Runner.
• Obstacle Course - Frogger (with Dodging), Pitfall!, Jungle Hunt.
• Pencil-and-Paper Games - 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe, Noughts and Crosses, Hangman.
• Pinball - Pachinko!, Sonic Spinball, Video Pinball.
• Platform - Crazy Climber, Donkey Kong, Lode Runner (with Maze).
• Programming Games - Player writes short programs to control an agent in the game. Omega, CRobots.
• Puzzle - Tetris (with Abstract), 7th Guest, Myst (with Adventure).
• Quiz - Fax, You Don't Know Jack (with Gambling), Trivial Pursuit (with Adaptation).
• Racing - Win a race or cover more ground than an opponent. Mario Kart 64 (with Driving), Slot Racers (with Dodging).
• Rhythm and Dance - Keep time with a musical rhythm. Beatmania, PaRappa the Rapper, Samba de Amigo, Space Channel 5.
  
• Role-Playing - Diablo, Phantasy Star, Ultima, Interstate '76.
• Shoot ’Em Up - Shoot at and destroy a series of opponents or objects. Asteroids, Berzerk, Galaga, Zaxxon, Missile Command.
• Simulation - "See Management Simulation and Training Simulation"
• Sports - Atari Baseball, Bowling, Fishing Derby (with Catching), Pong (with Table-Top Games), Sky Diver.
• Strategy - Ataxx (with Abstract), Chess (with Board Games), M.U.L.E. (with Management Simulation).
• Table-Top Games - Table-top games that require physical skill or action. Battle Ping Pong, Electronic Table Soccer!, Pocket Billiards!, Pong (with Sports), Virtual Pool.
• Target - Primarily aim and shoot at targets that are not in motion. Air-Sea Battle, Carnival, Shooting Gallery.
• Text Adventure - Planetfall, Zork.
• Training Simulation - Games that simulate a realistic situation for the purpose of training and usually the development of a physical skill (such as driving or piloting). Comanche 3 (with Flying), Flight Unlimited (with Flying), Police Trainer.
• Utility - Have a purpose beyond that of entertainment, although they may be structured similarly to games. Basic Programming, Diagnostic Cartridge (with Diagnostic), Infogenius French Language Translator, Sped Reading.

This is a highly detailed system of genre classification. I see the usefulness of classifying games by a core game mechanic (like Capturing, Escaping, or Target), but some categories are non-games (Utility and Diagnostic), confusing (I would expect Table-Top Games to be board, card, and role-playing games), or questionably applied (in what way is Q*bert abstract?).

Looking closer at Wolf's definition of "Abstract" games, he describes them as having "nonrepresentational graphics" and often a non-narrative objective, which may involve "visiting, filling" or "destroying the screen," though they may have characters that are "anthropomorphic in design" (2001, pg. 117). Wolf's non-narrative objective aspect puts his definition in line with "abstract strategy" board games and puzzles, such as chess, checkers, Othello, and peg solitaire. However, he specifically does not include digital versions of such board games in this genre.

My problem is that almost all of Wolf's "Abstract" examples (Arkanoid, Amidar, Ataxx, Block Out, Breakout, Marble Madness, Pac-Man, Pipe Dream, Q*bert, and Tetris) use representational graphics. Ataxx and Pipe Dream play like abstract strategy board games, which he would exclude from the genre if they were adaptations. Arkanoid, Block Out, Breakout, and Tetris all feature shapes that are more than abstract geometric forms (the shapes are meant to represent bricks and blocks). Amidar, Marble Madness, Pac-Man, and Q*bert all feature cartoonish characters existing in representational, if sometimes impossible, spatial structures (Q*bert is no more abstract than the famous works by M. C. Escher).

Some of his examples arguably have abstract elements. Tempest's high-speed, neon world of geometric shapes in conflict is akin an electronic edition of Lissitsky's Suprematist Bolshevik propaganda works like Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (1919). [Side note: for a true digital game version of Suprematist works, you must play Chris Totten's Lissitsky's Revenge (2015).] In both cases, the shapes are more symbolic than abstract.

Qix (Atari, 1982, arcade game)

Qix is one case of a game with a truly abstract element: the titular Qix, a shapeless series of rainbow-colored lines that undulate around the environment and threaten the tiny, diamond-shaped player avatar. Where Tempest's lines create identifiable and distinct shapes (bow tie-shaped "flippers," the staple-shaped "blaster" player avatar), the Qix has no specific form. It is an unpredictable, chaotic force that the player must work to contain and control as they claim the game's territory by drawing walls on the screen.

EarthBound (Ape Inc., 1995 (originally Mother 2 in Japan, 1994))

A good example of what I'd consider abstraction in digital games is seen in battle sequences in the Super NES game EarthBound (see image above). Most of the game world is presented with typical CRPG spatial structures (with some brilliantly unexpected breaks in reality, as I've written about before). When a battle starts, the environment is replaced with a truly abstract background comprised of multiple colored, morphic shapes layered on top of each other. This puts the scene in ambiguous space, a term I adapted after attending Bruce Block's lectures on cinematic production, which he later collected in The Visual Story (2013). The subject of the scene (the Starman Jr. enemy) is clearly represented but its location in the world is unspecific, non-representational, and non-symbolic (in other words, abstracted). Wolf did not use EarthBound as an example of an abstract game in this essay.

Next, I'll review Mark J. P. Wolf's classification of game spaces, something much more applicable to my own research.