How to Do Things with Video Games – Texture
In Chapter 11, Texture, Bogost describes how media adopts “their own understandings of texture.” (p. 78) Board games have tactile “sensations that people find interesting on their own.” (p. 78) You can feel the surfaces of a board game and it’s playing pieces, some are rough and some are smooth. The board game trouble has a smooth clear plastic dome players press to roll the dice (tactile) when this dome is pressed it makes a popping sound (audio). Game developers use effects to create texture in video games. They render detailed visual effects, for example “the marbled diffracted surfaces of water [and] the filthy grit of alley ways.” (p. 82) Texture is also brought in by the rumbling of a joy stick. Video games are more immersive and engaging when texture and audio are used together. For example, the noise of a muscle car revving is more immersive and engaging when it is combined with the joy stick rumbling. Bogost describes the trance vibrator and music used in the game Rez. The trance vibrator offers the player uninterrupted tactile sensations especially since it is combined combined with visual and musical texture. Bogost explains that texture offers tactile sensations that people find interesting and that texture when used effectively will keep people interested in video games.
Bogost, I. (2011). How to Do Things with Video Games. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.