Into the Darkness Video
This here is the video my partner Casey and I had to create for our game, Into the Darkness.
Into the Darkness is a game where the core mechanic is painting your surroundings in order to see where exactly the you are in relation to the environment around you. With this, players can see if there’s a pitfall at their feet or a wall in front of their noses. Players can also use the paint mechanic to push objects around quickly, albeit with less precision.
The story behind this game is simple–the emphasis in our class was more of a proof of concept rather than a narrative masterpiece–and oh, did it pain me to have a generic storyline!
The player is trapped in an underground lab and must make their way up to the surface. There are traps awaiting them, in addition to a creature stalking them in the darkness. The player must escape the creature before it rips them apart.
Guns for Heels: What Bayonetta Could Mean for Female Game Characters
Female characters in video games can often be described as slight variations of one of three archetypes: the helpless, hapless damsel in distress; the coquettish, alluring vixen; and the cold-hearted, distant embodiment of stoicism. In addition, the majority of women in games are heavily and overtly sexualized for mass male consumption, thereby providing slight variations of the same visual across several different games. Many lauded video game members have taken issue with the current state of women in games and have offered their own viewpoints in order to fix it. Leigh Alexander writes in an editorial for Gamepro Magazine that characters such as Bayonetta “[take] the video game sexy woman stereotype from object to subject” in which “the game itself is an artistic representation of the concept that female sexuality is its own kind of weapon.” Others disagree, believing that “characters [should] reflect the harsh lifestyle of their world in a much more believable way” (Hamm). Both offer interesting yet opposing solutions. However, both solutions can go much further in creating believable or truly empowering female characters. The hypersexualized dominatrix invoking female empowerment is a dramatic knee-jerk response to the objectification of women in games. The normal, average woman with a matching attitude and manner is currently the method being taken for game developers wishing to inject their games with respect for females. Video game females can be so much more than either of those two proposals. The change the industry needs for their female characters is to make them more multifaceted by giving them unique strengths, weaknesses, quirks, and personality traits. Female characterization needs to evolve to better reflect where females are today, instead of the antiquated false notions of what they were and perhaps should have been in the past.
Bayonetta
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
I originally wrote this on my tumblr a while back, and can’t begin to wonder why I never cross-posted it here as well. Anyway, this is a few weeks old and I have not been back to the mysterious and frightening world of Amnesia since I wrote this short blurb–something I should fix immediately!
Pure Innovation vs. Pure Profit
Below is a paper I wrote for my advanced writing class. I disagree with some of the points I’ve made in it, but for the purposes of the paper I argued them. It was interesting and educational, having to state ideas I did not quite agree with.
Facebook games can currently be summed up with the phrase, “It was morning when I began–a thousand clicks and several dollars later, it is now 4 o’clock.” Facebook games are part of the emerging category named social gaming. Social gaming is drawing ire from the mainstream game developers because they feel as though it undermines the years of hard work they put into their products. Independent game developers are mixed on their feelings—many of them love the opportunities that platforms such as the iPod offer, but they dislike the monetary motivations behind developing for social platforms such as Facebook. In fact, several companies that develop games for Facebook cite money as their main motivation, saying that “monetization is best achieved when you align it with game design” (Kohler). As the industry tries to establish itself as having artistic potential, the focus on superfluous and fiscal revenue will only diminish any advances the developers have made. Furthermore, the abolishment of any sort of distinction between high culture games and low culture games will only serve to harm the industry. Facebook games such as Vampire Wars, Farmville, and Mob Wars in particular are guilty of placing profit over gameplay mechanics. The simplistic mechanics and lack of depth could easily be connected to what Allan Bloom speaks of in his essay “”Music” from the Closing of the American Mind.” While he speaks of the effect of rock music on our culture, much of it can be applied to these basic Facebook games when he says, “it perhaps thus reveals the nature of all our entertainment and our loss of a clear view of what adulthood and maturity is, and our incapacity to conceive ends” (77). These game are doing far better than games aiming to make a difference are—take, for example, Limbo or Braid. Both are games that sought to prove that video games can be used for artful storytelling and moving experiences, yet the commercial success of the monetarily driven Facebook games is causing more developers to look to cheap and easy money makers, which only harms the industry’s reformation as a serious medium. The split between the high culture of independent games and the low culture of Facebook games should be maintained because the aim of these two types of games are different—independent games are created to innovate, experiment, and challenge whereas Facebook games are created with the purpose of becoming financially successful.
GDC– The Recap
I still have not recovered from GDC, but that’s alright. I had such a great and amazing experience, it was definitely worth every hour of sleep that I lost. As I’m sure you can find elsewhere on the net people extolling the virtues of attending GDC, I will say this: if you can be a conference assistant at GDC, be one. Apply early, write one killer essay, and hope for the best. Being a conference assistant was one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had in my life thus far, and it is one I’m sure to never forget.
GDC
I attended the Game Developer’s Conference as a conference assistant this year. This visit up to San Fran was a bunch of firsts! First time on my own far away, first time at GDC, and first time as a CA. I’m still recouping from pulling in between 2-4 hours of sleep and working my butt off during the day, but it definitely was such a memorable and amazing experience. Especially because I was a CA.
A full write-up of everything I did, witnessed, and all that will be available next weekend, when I finally catch up on all the sleep I missed out on!
Deceptive Control
Below is my academic paper on interactivity, why it is an object of fascination, and what it reveals about those fascinated with it. Although it is due today, I’m still very much in the process of tightening it up and proofing. Any feedback is more than welcome!
Changing Up my Play Style, Part I
Ask anyone who knows me what kind of player they think I am and they will probably have the same answer: a nice one. Maybe too nice.
Mind you, we’re not talking about Burnout or any other destructive racing game, where my goal in life is to personally destroy every contender several times over. I am not in it to win it; I am in it to murder your car.
Now, you probably don’t believe me to be one of the nicest players to walk the virtual fields of video games. Take this example: when my friends and I were playing a game once, I was given the option of advancing myself forward one space or pulling a player back three spaces. This player, who is also my best friend and is in fact a very mean player, was primed to win. Pulling him back would have meant that I was next in line. Due to the fact that I am such a nice person, I opted out of doing the ultimately beneficial action and instead chose to advance one measly space.
Knowing all this, imagine this scenario: I am playing Civilization V. Every computer player in the game has just finished denouncing me. Shoot, some of them denounced me as soon as they met me, and all I did was trade them my Iron for their Wool! Sure, I may have wiped out Ghandi and Montezuma, but c’mon, CPU dudes. My military advisor told me to!
What’s my next move? Total. Domination. Why the sudden switch from stupidly nice to supreme jerk? Well, let’s see…
Gut Impressions: Civilization V
Here are my gut reactions of my first twenty minutes playing Civ V, unedited.
Cinematic. No thanks. I want to play. *Click*
Alright. Cinematic has yet to disappear. *Click* *Click*
Blueberry Garden
Below is an academic one page write-up I completed mere seconds ago for an indie game entitled Blueberry Garden. With a charming and eccentric aesthetic and catchy music, this game is definitely an experiment whose main focus is the players, and using them as the core mechanic.
Blueberry Garden is a Steam game that retails for 5 dollars and won awards at IGF and the Swedish Game Awards, in addition to critical praise on many game sites. Blueberry Garden is a platformer that the player is thrust into with no exposition, no instructions, and no clue as to who you are, where you are, and what this game is about. It is a game about curiosity and wonderment. It is also a game that tests the player’s abilities of discovery and persistence. Read More…
Michelle
