Actraiser
Throughout the course, I've found that I'm more drawn to certain geographic principals over others and have naturally chosen games that reflect those themes. Actraiser plays with a couple of my favorites. Firstly, it is playful with its shifting perspectives. In the game, your view changes from an overhead god like figure that impacts the landscape in order to manipulate the fortunes of tiny villagers to a close in, Castlevania like exploration of the individual areas that make up the panoply. This plays with two geographic concepts we covered.
First, the idea of landscape versus place or space (discussed in the first lecture). If a space is just a location and people make it a place, then a landscape is simply a zoomed out view of an area, untouched by the viewer. There can be people within it but you, the beholder, is not. The game shifts between these two perspectives freely.
Second, the idea of Nitsche's “Forms of Presence” is invoked, though not fully explored. In both senses, the world and people within it react to you, and you feel a part of it, but in very difference ways. You slide along the spectrum from impacting things directly on a large scale (terraforming) to a small scale (smacking a monster with a sword). In both instances you invoke all three elements of presence but in godmode, you have the illusion of being less in the world.
Throughout the course, I've found that I'm more drawn to certain geographic principals over others and have naturally chosen games that reflect those themes. Actraiser plays with a couple of my favorites. Firstly, it is playful with its shifting perspectives. In the game, your view changes from an overhead god like figure that impacts the landscape in order to manipulate the fortunes of tiny villagers to a close in, Castlevania like exploration of the individual areas that make up the panoply. This plays with two geographic concepts we covered.
First, the idea of landscape versus place or space (discussed in the first lecture). If a space is just a location and people make it a place, then a landscape is simply a zoomed out view of an area, untouched by the viewer. There can be people within it but you, the beholder, is not. The game shifts between these two perspectives freely.
Second, the idea of Nitsche's “Forms of Presence” is invoked, though not fully explored. In both senses, the world and people within it react to you, and you feel a part of it, but in very difference ways. You slide along the spectrum from impacting things directly on a large scale (terraforming) to a small scale (smacking a monster with a sword). In both instances you invoke all three elements of presence but in godmode, you have the illusion of being less in the world.
Gone Home
One of the most important things we've covered, or at least interesting from my perspective, is the idea of a sense of place. A lot of things can contribute to that but one thing that stuck with me was when, in lecture, you mentioned that it has to do with how easily one could imagine being in the place in question. To my mind, Gone Home accomplishes that with aplomb.
When exploring the empty home in this game, great pains are taken to make it feel like the player is experiencing the same thing as the character: coming home to an empty house after a long absence. Though the gameplay is focused on finding out what happened to your family in the interim, the house itself feels as lived in as any game environment I've ever experienced. The father's office is littered with an appropriate number of failed drafts and discarded stories (he's a writer). The younger sister has just been exposed to riot girl music and has decorated her room to match. The master bedroom features his and her bedside lamps, signaling a couple that spends more time reading in bed separately than enjoying one another's company. The entire experience feels like walking into a strangers home, not house, which is a large part of the appeal.
One of the most important things we've covered, or at least interesting from my perspective, is the idea of a sense of place. A lot of things can contribute to that but one thing that stuck with me was when, in lecture, you mentioned that it has to do with how easily one could imagine being in the place in question. To my mind, Gone Home accomplishes that with aplomb.
When exploring the empty home in this game, great pains are taken to make it feel like the player is experiencing the same thing as the character: coming home to an empty house after a long absence. Though the gameplay is focused on finding out what happened to your family in the interim, the house itself feels as lived in as any game environment I've ever experienced. The father's office is littered with an appropriate number of failed drafts and discarded stories (he's a writer). The younger sister has just been exposed to riot girl music and has decorated her room to match. The master bedroom features his and her bedside lamps, signaling a couple that spends more time reading in bed separately than enjoying one another's company. The entire experience feels like walking into a strangers home, not house, which is a large part of the appeal.
Dark Souls
Dark Souls immediately came to mind when we started talking about concepts in mapping. Not only is it my favorite game of all time, it's also a wonderful example of how 3d games resist accurate 2d representation, the same way real places do. Similar to how almost every globe is inaccurate by necessity, I feel like most 3d games, especially those that take advantage of their Y axis, make poor candidates for maps. The world of Dark Souls is vertical and interconnected. There is a very clear highest point in the game and a very clear lowest and you can often see one side of the world from the other. Between these extremes are a web of stortcuts, switchbacks, elevators and sidepaths. The entire thing reads perfectly and logically in play but falls down as a representation.
Another thing Dark Souls does extraordinarily well is express narrative through geography. We're never told that Anor Londo was once inhabited by both giants and men but we do see a staircase that features two sizes of steps. We're never told that the knight Iron Tarkus fell to his death traversing the precarious temple rafters but we find evidence of his breaking the window to get in and his armor set strewn on the ground below. The placement of detail in the world explains the world to you without ever actually expressing it directly. There isn't a game that combines narrative and geography better, to my mind.
Dark Souls immediately came to mind when we started talking about concepts in mapping. Not only is it my favorite game of all time, it's also a wonderful example of how 3d games resist accurate 2d representation, the same way real places do. Similar to how almost every globe is inaccurate by necessity, I feel like most 3d games, especially those that take advantage of their Y axis, make poor candidates for maps. The world of Dark Souls is vertical and interconnected. There is a very clear highest point in the game and a very clear lowest and you can often see one side of the world from the other. Between these extremes are a web of stortcuts, switchbacks, elevators and sidepaths. The entire thing reads perfectly and logically in play but falls down as a representation.
Another thing Dark Souls does extraordinarily well is express narrative through geography. We're never told that Anor Londo was once inhabited by both giants and men but we do see a staircase that features two sizes of steps. We're never told that the knight Iron Tarkus fell to his death traversing the precarious temple rafters but we find evidence of his breaking the window to get in and his armor set strewn on the ground below. The placement of detail in the world explains the world to you without ever actually expressing it directly. There isn't a game that combines narrative and geography better, to my mind.
Jet Grind Radio
When I found out that we'd be discussing sound in games, my first thought was to talk about Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a consummate spooky game that uses sound to build atmosphere. But then I started thinking of how sound could contribute to a more specific sense of place than just a vague sense of foreboding.
Jet Grind Radio is a triumph of unified aesthetic. Every part of it recalls a specific slice of Japanese youth culture, that of Shibuya Kei music fused with American punk. The bands featured on the uniformly excellent soundtrack typify the styles of the area and time. This wouldn't be noteworthy on its own but it's nice that they didn't ignore the audio element when every other element is working so damn hard. The graphics are blocky, timeless and hip and the anti police sentiment is punk as hell and resonant now. It would have been easy to include a simple driving soundtrack rather than such authentic weirdness.
-Gary Butterfield
When I found out that we'd be discussing sound in games, my first thought was to talk about Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a consummate spooky game that uses sound to build atmosphere. But then I started thinking of how sound could contribute to a more specific sense of place than just a vague sense of foreboding.
Jet Grind Radio is a triumph of unified aesthetic. Every part of it recalls a specific slice of Japanese youth culture, that of Shibuya Kei music fused with American punk. The bands featured on the uniformly excellent soundtrack typify the styles of the area and time. This wouldn't be noteworthy on its own but it's nice that they didn't ignore the audio element when every other element is working so damn hard. The graphics are blocky, timeless and hip and the anti police sentiment is punk as hell and resonant now. It would have been easy to include a simple driving soundtrack rather than such authentic weirdness.
-Gary Butterfield