Category: Thoughts

SissyFight vs Left4Dead

I was thinking about SissyFight and Left 4 Dead.

One is set in a schoolyard, is free, and all players are totally anonymous.  It focuses on teaming up to take others down.  It’s not really suitable for kids, in my opinion.  But there’s nothing to stop 12 year old girls playing it.

The other has guns and blood, there are zombies attacking you, you have to pay to be able to log in, and you can look up information about players’ accounts.  It focuses on teaming up to keep everyone in the game, because you are likely to fail dismally if you don’t work together as a team.  Sure, you can be on the opposing team, but once again, you have to work with your team.

Which would you prefer your kids to play?  Violent, dark, teaches teamwork;  Clean, light, teaches bitching?

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They get you while you’re sleeping

I don’t play Left 4 Dead for a week or so, and what happens?  My subconscious decides that I obviously haven’t been killing enough zombies, so I should live out this desire to play L4D by making me dream about Zombies.

In my dream, some guy had a white Pit Bull that seemed very handy at killing zombies for a while.

Which reminds me:
Have you played The Outbreak?

It’s an interactive, choose-your-own-adventure style web film.

But I want to know… why does it always seem to be night time when zombies are around?

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Katharsis and the Deuteragonist

While I want to explore and delve deeper and deeper into Freud (dreams + play), I am constrained by what I can achieve in one year, with both an exegesis and a creative component (in my case, this will be a design document).

My main thrust is Katharsis (or Catharsis)-  this continues from my discussion of Othello/Iago.  If Othello is the Tragic Hero, and Iago the protagonist, it then follows that Iago must also “be audience,” to Othello’s tragedy, which obliges him to experience fhte same Katharis that the audience would.

This also prompts another thought: does the Player-Character (PC) always have to be the Hero or Title Character?

Postmodern narratives delight in the idea of exploring a familiar narrative from an unfamiliar perspective (no new stories, only new ways of telling them).  Othello could have been both the Tragic Hero and the protagonist, but it is more dramatically effective and interesting to feature Iago as the Protagonist.

When I mentioned this to a friend of mine doing his Honours in Theatre studies, he argued that Iago is the Antagonist, but I rebutted by saying that he must be the Protagonist, due to having the most active role, Othello getting in the way of his plans, and also being the character most featured in the role.

But, if Iago is neither the Protagonist (he is not the Hero) nor the Antagonist (he is not just trying to put blocks in Othello’s way, as he is trying to ruin Cassio more than Othello), then he must be in the support role: the Deuteragonist.  My friend mentioned how it is often the Deuteragonist that has the direct dialogue with the audience, by way of asides and soliloquies, and shares the same position as the audience in regards to Dramatic Irony.  The fits Iago’s role perfectly.

So why is the Player Character necessarily the Hero, Tragic or otherwise?

I have some theories “Why,” which refer to Joseph Campbell and Freud, but this is both too big for me to tackle this year, and also not as illustratable as I’d like, which prohibits me from producing an effective creative component to my Thesis.  So, instead, I want to turn this on its head and discuss the possiblity of having the PC as the Deuteragonist, and ask, “Why not?“

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Too Big for Honours

I’m frustrated, because there are all these things I want to look into, but they’re just too big for Honours.  This means, if I want to investigate them, I’ll start thinking about a DCA… and I haven’t even finished my Hons.  Gettig ahead of myself, much?

I want to write them here, but I’m nervous that people will take them and do their own research on them… which will be good for the industry, but not for me.  And I feel like being selfish 😉

But all you need to know is that Freud may be on my side…

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Who is the Protagonist?

I was thinking about the idea of the player wanting to cause events to happen, to be active rather than passive.

What came up in my mind is Othello.  It is well known that this, one of Shakespeare’s plays, is Othello’s tragedy, but Iago’s play.

If there were to be a game of Othello, would you be intended to play Othello, the insecure “Moorish” man (it is never explicitly stated where he is from) who becomes the General of an army and marries a beautiful caucasian woman, only to be tricked into murdering her in a jealous rage?  Or, would you be intended to play Iago, the cunning, sneaky ensign, who lures Othello into this horrific mess?

Othello, the Tragic Hero, has his fatal flaw, and the audience tends to walk out thinking, “If only Othello weren’t so insecure, he wouldn’t have trusted Iago and then Desdemona would still be alive.”  Iago, meanwhile, has a ball being doing everything he can to seek vengance on Othello for promoting another over him.

So this prompts the question: Who is the protagonist… and who does the player need to play?  Could this stretch so far as the “real” story focus on another, provising a backdrop, while the player has their own journey; like many of those PoMo novels about some significant figure’s dog’s walker’s hairdresser, offering both their own narrative, as well as hinting at the epic story occuring  behind them?

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GTA’s “Extreme Storytelling”

Time Magazine recently published this article.  The most intersting part to me is the conclusion:

“Imagine Victor Hugo trying to write Les Misérables with Jean Valjean under the reader’s control and you’ll get some idea of what Houser is up against. The player is both the audience and the ghost — a mischievous poltergeist — in the machine.”

Additional comments..

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IRL Games

This morning, I dreamt about not making a game that was like a play, but making a play that was like a game.

You, as the Protagonist, walk around and talk to various people, collect objects, go to places to do things, and recieve rewards.

Thinking about this while I am awake, while I’d be awesome to make a “real life” game, you’d be restricted by props, sets, effects, and any extra equipment or whatever that the player may have collected (“red herring” collectables or unbroken equippables) might be… taken away or broken by the Player.  It’s so much easier to have the “OH BUT THIS ISN’T REAL, THESE THINGS DON’T EXIST,” excuse with PCs on Consoles.

On a side note, my computer is being really slow.  I think it’s time for a virus scan or such.

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