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Analytical Perspectives in Game Design
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The lexical perspective is used to describe the translation from the objects stored in the game to the words used to described these objects. it takes into account the language and dialects used by the person to describe the culturally perceived world. This module is defined by a lexical matrix. The matrix has meanings on one axis and words on another. A single word can have many meanings (polysemy) and a single meaning can have many words (synonymy). The assumption here is that a person will generally use a word that has the highest weighted determined from their cultural, language and dialectical biases. I have assumed that semantic placement is not involved. (This is probably incorrect, but it makes it easier.) Different types of words translate using different rules. The word types here are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Loosely speaking: Categories in the game world represent nouns. Referential adjectives actually form compound nouns. Characteristics map onto graded adjectives. Capabilities are verbs. Who knows what adverbs are???!!!?!?!!??! Things have proper nouns as their names.
Nouns (nee categories) are organised in topical hierarchies. This is described from an object modelling view and an example is given in the 2B or not 2B sample game. The root-thing forms the root of the tree. From there on in a categorisation follows, where a thing follows a "is a type of" categorisation. Compound nouns are used to describe categorical items (word meanings) that have for some reason not been given their own single-word term. For example a personal-computer is a type of computer. It is not a computer with personality. In other languages this usage is clearer. In Chinese a bus is called a gong-gong-qi-che which literally translates as public-steam-vehicle. (Steam-vehicle actually translates to car or automobile.) Thus any category could actually be listed as the root-category modified by a long list of referential adjectives. Verbs can describe one of 2 things in the core model. They can describe a state-change or an association change. State changes are associated with characteristics and capabilities. For example: a door can be opened or closed (characteristic state changes between the open and closed states.) A card player can practice or forget the card playing skill. Association changes effect the different types of attachment, containment, composition and context relationships. A thing undergoes a movement verb when "moving" from one containment to another. The person moved from (being contained in) room 2B to (being contained in) room not 2B. A thing undergoes construction or destruction when components are added or removed. A person uses a bench-top, and four legs to construct a table. A thing can be attached or detached to another thing. A person attaches a sign to the wall. Within these classifications, there are sets of verbs that can override the parent verb to provide a context sensitive variation. Adjectives and adverbs are organised in n-dimensional hyperspaces? Graded adjectives provide subjective descriptions of an object and hence are not part of the core object model. A thing has characteristics, that for a particular culture or event individual will map into a set of adjectives. So a person from a remote town may describe a 2 storey building as tall, where-as another person from an European city would describe it a short. Generally these adjectives represent a range of points along a linear state machine. Referential adjectives are assumed to actually form part of a noun or category and as such not be adjectives at all. Relational adjectives for a description of the type of attachment between actual instances in the real world. For example a male-person may be a brother to someone who shares a common father and also be a father. When a relational adjective in concert with a noun can actually describe either a category or a capability. For example dental-hygiene describes a characteristic of cleanliness when related to the mouth (and thus overriding the cleanliness capability) while dental-student is a type of student and hence a category. |
22/11/99
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See also: [Role
Playing Games] [Game Engine] |