In this early stage of the project, before we have even concluded our survey of Hunger Games sub-genres and implementations, it has already become apparent that the label “Hunger Games” as applied to types of Minecraft play scenarios is quite problematic.

“Pure” Hunger Games implementations in Minecraft involve a themed arena, entry tubes/elevators, a cornucopia of loot near the start (meant to encourage a “bloodbath” of kills in the first few minutes), and even a TNT cannon to signal a player’s death. (One thing that we have noted is conspicuously absent from most HG implementations is the PvE elements seen in the books/films — the need to find food and clean water, and to avoid hostile wildlife.)

As Pat and Marie have pointed out, however, the label of “Hunger Games” seems to be applied liberally to just about any Minecraft-based violent PvP elimination mini-game, even though that genre of game has existed since well before Minecraft or Hunger Games entered the scene. The cultural meaning of Hunger Games in Minecraft has lost most of its transmedia trappings, and has become a kind of frozen loan-word used to describe a general set of game mechanics. This may be in part due to the way that massive online server listing databases are set up — and possibly the way that YouTube is set up as well. In fact, the blame may rest more generally on web 2.0 tagging and search optimization: once “hunger games” becomes an established tag, tacking it onto any server listing or Let’s Play video that is vaguely related is easy and increases exposure.

In our brainstorming for scenarios we might like to design, we have been surveying what makes the HG genre what it is while also looking for opportunities to try new variations — for instance, making actual hunger a mechanic, turning off direct PvP combat, limiting combat to “non-lethal” effects, creating situations that require cooperation, etc. In this process, some have wondered if some of these proposals depart too far from the core idea of Hunger Games, and (given what is discussed above) how much we should care.

This has prompted me to think of our potential implementation of something HG-like, and more generally of implementing non-Minecraft-like game logics in Minecraft, in terms of remake and demake. In video games, a remake is typically seen as enhancing a game by taking advantage of more powerful computers and new technical affordances, but also includes an element of re-interpreting the core mechanics of the original and re-configuring them in a way that makes them both novel and familiar. A demake, on the other hand, re-imagines a game as if it were implemented on older, more crude technology. Technical limitations require a form of re-interpretation that strips the game down to its “essential” characteristics in order to make implementation possible. Attempting to port or re-implement a game on a platform where it doesn’t quite fit has a lot in common with demaking, even when the target platform is not necessarily older or more crude. For instance, despite the theoretically infinite configurative possibilities of Minecraft blocks, as well as the Turing-completeness of redstone systems, Minecraft as a platform resists attempts to implement certain kinds of game mechanics, as I learned in my ongoing attempts to create a functional Minesweeper mini-game on the TAG server (which I will probably discuss further in future posts).

Remake/demake may be a useful tool for thinking about to what extent the types of Minecraft-based game scenarios we observe and design ourselves are, in essence, Hunger Games. What is Hunger Games like when stripped down to its essential components? What if we were tasked with making an HG-like experience in some other game engine better suited to direct combat mechanics, like Half-Life Source, Unreal, or maybe something even more limited like Quake or the Cyan Worlds Engine used for Myst/Uru. What if we used a side-scrolling world like Terraria (already arguably a demake of Minecraft itself)? If we give ourselves some leeway to depart from the strict HG-ness of our Minecraft implementation, and yet still end up with something more faithful to the original than what we would get if we tried to demake traditional/pure Minecraft-HG in Terraria or using GameMaker, then shouldn’t we still be able to make the case for calling our creation Hunger Games? And if we tried to make HG in Unreal, wouldn’t it just look like… Unreal Tournament?

Stay tuned for next week, when I decide whether I am going to take this half-baked remake/demake thing further or chuck it in the round file.