Canabalt
Game
5 documents in the library are about Canabalt, from writers such as DiGRA, Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture and International Journal of Games and Social Impact. Each has a summary and key insights with the page they come from.
Connections
Each row is a game or company named alongside Canabalt, each column a document, oldest first. A mark means that document names it. Select a row to see those documents.
Documents about Canabalt
Press Play to Start: The Challenges of Exhibiting Video Games at the Museum
Museums are increasingly grappling with how to exhibit video games as art, a shift that has accelerated since MoMA's 2012 acquisition of fourteen games for its Architecture and Design collection and the Smithsonian's The Art of Video Games that same year.
- Games resist conventional art presentation because their interactivity, dependence on evolving technology, and commercial origins do not fit the neutral 'white cube' gallery model, a tension framed through theorists Brian O'Doherty and Lev Manovich.
- Institutional recognition of games as art accelerated with MoMA's 2012 acquisition of fourteen games for its Architecture and Design collection and the Smithsonian's 2012 exhibition The Art of Video Games.
- Curators must 'translate' games' digital culture, community-based contexts, and interactive logic for diverse audiences, a framework associated with Domenico Quaranta, while funding pressures and audience appeal shape which titles are selected.
A Statistical Analysis of Player Improvement and Single-Player High Scores
The analysis investigates the statistical likelihood of players achieving high scores and streaks in single-player games, positing that the probability of setting new high scores rapidly diminishes over time, even with player skill improvement.
- Improvement in player skill is often too slow to offset the declining odds of beating past scores, so high-score rewards become progressively harder to earn as play continues.
- Under an i.i.d. baseline with no learning, the chance of beating the previous score is 1/2 and the chance of a new all-time high on game n is 1/n, so expected high scores follow the harmonic series (approximately ln(n) plus the Euler-Mascheroni constant).
- Real data from Canabalt (roughly linear skill improvement) and Drop7 Hardcore (power-law learning curve) closely track these no-learning predictions, with fitted correction factors of only about 1.01 to 1.11 attributable to learning, whose influence diminishes as games accumulate.
One Simulated Hand, Two Real Hands: Antisimulation and Phenomenological Correspondence in Videogame Control Schemes
This analysis establishes a framework for evaluating videogame control schemes through the lens of phenomenological correspondence, which measures the relationship between the complexity of a simulated action and the physical input required by the player.
- Control schemes can be categorized into three models based on phenomenological correspondence: reductionist, completionist, and antisimulation.
- Antisimulation games like QWOP, Surgeon Simulator 2013, and Octodad: Dadliest Catch intentionally design controls to be more complex than the simulated task to disrupt player agency.
- Reductionist correspondence, seen in titles like Call of Duty 4 and Canabalt, simplifies complex real-world actions into intuitive, singular inputs to prioritize player empowerment.
"Tap, Tap, Flap, Flap." Ludic Seriality, Digitality, and the Finger
Till Heilmann's 2014 essay in Eludamos uses the mobile hit Flappy Bird, whose entire gameplay consists of one repeated tap, to argue that seriality is fundamental to videogames and that the digital itself originates in the human finger.
- Heilmann's essay argues that seriality, the structure of repeated, countable actions, is the fundamental organizing principle of play in videogames, using Flappy Bird (2013–2014) as its paradigmatic case.
- The author distinguishes 'strongly serialized' games such as Flappy Bird and Tetris, built on sustained repetition, from 'weakly serialized' games such as Heavy Rain and Flight Simulator X.
- The essay concludes that arcade-era design established serial play as the dominant model of the videogame medium.
Retro Evolved: Level Design Practice Exemplified by the Contemporary Retro Game
"Retro Evolved: Level Design Practice Exemplified by the Contemporary Retro Game" examines the level design methodologies prevalent in independent "contemporary retro games," which blend nostalgic aesthetics with modern, focused gameplay.
- The paper argues that contemporary retro games treat level design as a deliberate craft, building play experiences on established core mechanics rather than treating levels as incidental content.
- The authors propose qualities of good level design: a balance of difficulty and flow, tension between freedom and constraint, risk and reward, alignment with narrative, and effective player guidance.
- The authors argue these five practices overlap rather than compete, and identify balancing repetition with variation as the key to sustaining player flow.