Friday, October 01, 2010

Permanent Death

While reading a post about Minecraft (isn't that the media whore de jour), I found this mention of a machinima novel, 'Permanent Death'.

Thinking it strange that I had not heard of it before, I downloaded the pdf and started to read it. I am only a few pages into the document, but it is a fascinating read so far.

The author plays through Far Cry 2 with only a single life (hence the title) and captures the entire 20 hours or so of gameplay with a great pictorial (read screenshot) book of a whopping 391 pages!

I am instantly reminded of Freeman's Mind, the tongue in cheek playthrough that Ross Scott has been presenting for Half Life.

I am also reminded of Synechdoche New York.

Documentary? Fiction?
What are these constructs?
First person existential narrative?

Original post about Minecraft narratives that led me to this.
SLRC - Permanent Death.
Briefly mentioned here.

3 comments:

Kate Fosk said...

Thanks for this. I'm having a go at visual novels and I downloaded to see how this looks, really stunning. The text is an odd mix of 'game walk through' and narration as if the person is experiencing the situation for real. I wish he'd stuck to one style or the other (or added game comments as footnotes maybe?)..maybe to a seasoned game player the shifts of consciousness would be less noticeable, well worth having a look if anyone else was thinking of downloading, the images are very well done.

bllius said...

I like the mix of the two. I think that is what elevates it. And breaks the fourth wall.

Kate Fosk said...

I'm sure you're right, I do have issues with the management of the 4th wall. I think it's a tricky thing to manage and this mix may not quite work for me because of lack of shooty game playing experience. I do like it though, the images and presentation are wonderful -Kate