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Klastrup
Lisbeth Klastrup
klastrup@itu.dk
On an roll: a joint study of Super Monkey Ball
Presented by researchers at
The Center for Computer Games Research
IT University of Copenhagen.
Introduction
Super Monkey Ball (SMB) is primarily a single player game, but comes with a number of "party games" that have proven more popular than the main game itself. SMB tends to be placed in the classical puzzle genre, but contains elements of action & skill and race games as well. Each player of the game controls a little monkey in a ball, up and down narrow tracks; or in the party games, for instance on a golf course or boxing ring. SMB was launched in late 2001 and has sold nearly 1 million copies so far. Following its success, Super Monkey Ball 2 was released in august 2002.
This symposium addresses the game from a variety of perspectives. The purpose of this approach is two-fold: firstly, we want to cover as many aspects of the game experience as possible and demonstrate the potential "canonical" qualities of a game which we have all enjoyed playing; secondly, we want to explore and demonstrate the fruitfulness of a multi-researcher approach to one game.
Susana Tosca
The appeal of cute monkeys
Every player of Super Monkey Ball would agree that MeMe, GonGon, Baby and AiAi are some of the most successful computer game characters ever created. The game doesn't have any story, but the monkeys have personality and are ever so cute. Is it possible that the "aesthetics of cuteness" so prevalent in many Japanese consumption and entertainment products has also now conquered Western hearts? This paper examines the construction and reception of the four characters, as a starting point for a reflection over a possible change of taste, attitudes and aesthetics in Western popular culture.
Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen
Hand & eye coordination in Super Monkeyball from a learning perspective
Monkeyball is analysed in respect to the demand for hand & eye coordination. Monkeyball is a fitting object of analysis as the gameplay draws heavily on hand & eye coordination. Furthermore the same basic hand & eye coordination set-up is used to facilitate different gameplay in the sub-games. The analysis of Monkeyball is used as a starting point for a discussion of the highly controversial research or lack of such, pointing to the beneficial effect on hand & eye coordination involved in playing computer games.
Lisbeth Klastrup
Fun as Social Interaction
SMB can be played both in single-player and multi-player mode (up to 4 players). Play sessions within our own group, with students and visitors, have demonstrated that playing SMB against each other is "great fun" and, surprisingly, these multi-player battles also hold great attraction as a spectator sport. Games can, according to Goffman and Fine, be seen as "focused gatherings" during which strict rules of world building activity and play is in function. What characterises multi-player sessions of Monkey Ball as focused gatherings and what in particular make them so fun?
Troels Degn-Johansson
Vertigo and Verticality in Super Monkey Balls
The vertical dimension is crucial to all levels in SMB and invites us to meditate on vertigo, verticality-and failing-in the spatial construct of this game and in computer-games as such. In SMB, the vertical dimension should be mastered (landing on tiny islands with the ball glider) or may invite to dangerous short-cuts (descending tilting planes), but most notably, verticality is emphasized by failing. Slipping off the race-track or shooting oneself off the golf course by mistake always means dropping into a spectacular free fall losing the poor baby monkey in dark swamps or sparkling oceans. Speculating on the aesthetization of falling and failing in SMP, this contribution outlines the peculiar allegorical (albeit funny and social) character of the game, which is just as important as playing the game as such.
Jesper Juul
Mirror Neurons and Monkeys in Balls
Recent studies of monkeys have shown that specific neurons of their frontal lobes become active not only when a monkey performs a specific task such as picking up a peanut, but also when it watches another monkey (or a human) perform the same task. These neurons have been dubbed mirror neurons. This incidentally also provides an explanation of why a human playing Super Monkey Ball might experience vertigo when the monkey is about to fall of a ledge, or how a human watching another human playing super monkey ball is able to share the experience of playing the game.
This is obviously one possible perspective on SMB, one that is complementary to more tradition interpretative approaches of humanities and game studies. This raises the broader question why simple and physically oriented but replayable games like SMB appear to studied very seldomly. I will make the case that we are currently operating with an implicit and quite na•ve hierarchy of actions in games, where spatial movement has low status, whereas strategies, storytelling, and general social interactions have high status.
Bios
Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen
PhD student IT-university of Copenhagen, master degree in psychology, founder of Game-research, reviewer Game studies, and student officer Digra. He has done research on educational games, online gaming, and play theory in relation to computer games. He has authored two Danish books on computer games and education, written several articles in the field, and regularly give talks on the subject.
Susana Tosca
Susana Tosca is Assistant Professor at the IT University of Copenhagen. She is a doctor in Information Sciences for her PhD thesis on Hypertext and Literature. She has talked and published extensively on hypertext, computer games and cyberculture. She is one of the founding Editors of
"Gamestudies", the first academic journal devoted to the study of computer games. She is also Editor of "JODI", the Journal of Digital Information, and a member of the Literary Advisory Board of the Electronic Literature Organization.
Troels Degn-Johansson
Troels Degn Johansson is an Assistant Professor and Head of Studies at the IT-University of Copenhagen. Author of a number of works on pictorial representation, aesthetics, and modernity with special reference to cinema and new media. Current studies on computer games are engaged primarily with spatial and aesthetic aspects, focusing on spatial perception and level design for multiplayer-shooters, rhetorical aspects of computer-games in art and entertainment, and cybernetic aspects of computer-games with special reference to strategy games.
Lisbeth Klastrup
Lisbeth Klastrup is an Assistant Professor at the IT- University. She has a background in Literary Theory and Media Studies. She recently completed her Ph.d thesis, in which she outlined a first poetics of persistent online worlds. Her present studies focuses on aesthetic, social and narrative aspects of life in online game worlds. She has written several articles on virtual worlds, interactive narratives, games and interactivity. She is member of the Association of Internet Researchers Executive Commitee. She is currently co-editing an anthology on Digital Aesthetics and Design.
Jesper Juul
Jesper Juul is the Review editor of the Game Studies academic journal on computer games. He has done research on the relation between games and narrative, on time in games, on emergent gameplay, and currently on transmedial gaming. He has an M.A. in Scandinavian Literature, and is completing a Ph.D. at the IT University of Copenhagen. Jesper has developed and programmed web-based multiplayer games and chat systems. For more information, see http://www.jesperjuul.net.
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