Paper Abstract - Will Brooker

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ABSTRACT

The Many Lives of the Jetman: A Case Study in Video Game Analysis

Will Brooker

This paper examines the changing meanings and forms of the computer game Jetpac, which was originally released by Ultimate for the ZX Spectrum in 1983 and has been recoded by individual programmers during the late 1990s, in at least three different shareware versions, for PC and Spectrum emulators. Through this analysis, it asks a simple question: how can we approach, and perhaps academic study of computer and video games?

I look at Jetpac from various angles to contextualise its role in 1980s computer game history and attempt to apply existing theoretical models to this unique media form, examining the game in terms of authorship, genre and possible socio-political connotations. I then move on to the PC remakes of Jetpac that circulated online during the late 1990s, and discuss the very different context of these reworkings. Jetpac was originally released into a thriving Spectrum game culture with a vibrant fanbase and a range of intertextual material such as spin-off comic strips and competitions. The new versions of Jetpac are amateur productions, released as shareware for a specialist audience and presented as nostalgic of love rather than trailblazing arcade games.

Finally, I try to establish a means for analysing the gameplay of a text like Jepac, by comparing the original with the slightly tweaked rewrites and pointing out the difference that a very small change in the game's "physics" - colour, gravity, sound effects - can make to the experience of playing. The paper aims to provide a model for a theoretical framework that we can apply to computer games, using this specific example as a demonstration and, I hope, a springboard towards with and the analysis of other software texts.

In terms of the proposed conference structure, this proposal fits neatly into the category of Textual Analysis, and touches on all the other themes mentioned in this group: Gender, Gaming His Gameplay and Character and Narrative.

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