Sunday, February 23, 2014
Gone Home
I started the game by being highly confused on where to go. Immediately I'm reminded of the time I played Slender and Dream Painters:Anna. The scenery has the same creepy, semi old school horror game vibe. I tried to play Amnesia recently with my boyfriend but he got pissed because I was too slow and looked at everything. The whole time I was exploring the house, I was horrified. No music played. Only the sound of the horrible weather outside, familiar footsteps, and creepy televisions with either static or the weather channel playing (I don't know why these tvs are on anyways). Anyways, I'm int he front room and finally find the key after clicking on the door a hundred times. I use the key to open the door and decide to go left into the bathroom and play with the items. I didn't see a mirror, which was weird. Maybe they don't want me to see myself? Then i walk out of the room and go to the left area some more, listen to some voicemails, look at itinerary for Katie's trip, etc. I walk down the hallway through the rest of the house. Go into the closet and listen to the story about "first day of school" I visit the office and the library, where I find some books published by the dad? In th eliving room on the tv is a warning about sever weather. I go into a closet and read a story about a turtle which was handwirtten by a kid. I decide to go through the foyer and visit upstairs. There were bedrooms and the closet light was on in one of them. In Sam's room the tv was on and it freaked me out. Even scarier was passing the end of the hallways with the attick. The christmas lights and note on the wall reminded me of finding a piece of paper in Slender. I felt like once I turned around I was going to die. This whole game is freaking me out. It's hard to play at night,
Boy Space & Girl Space
Continuing the article by Henry Jenkins, is a look at the differences between boy and girl spaces and how game developers used them in game making.
The boy space was explained by giving examples of boy books. In books aimed towards young male readers, adventure is the goal. Adventure and exploration consumes the reader by immersing them in large spaces with fights for survival and treasures. These childhood stories as well as the experiences of backyard play as a boy, lead to the games we make for our children today.
Part of the articles that was describing "girl space" looked at this specific game called "Secret Paths". This game had a few other versions, but the one in the articles was about forests. The game appeals to girls because it involves personal improvement and transformation. I looked up a playthrough of this game and learned that it was like a story book about girl problems. The game's home screen is a treehouse (can be changed) with a sign that says "girls only" along with books on the floor and a scenic background outside. This room can be decorated by clicking. By looking through the books you learn a specific girls problem and follow a path through the forest to learn more about the problem and how she overcomes it.
This girl space topic reminded me of the games i played as a child. My parents usually bought my sister and I Barbie or movie PC games like "Ariel's Story Studio" (1997) and "Anastasia: Adventures with Pooka and Bartok" (1997). They were mostly stories that you walked through that included some girl related things. One game I played many many hours of was a Barbie makeover game where you just dressed up Barbie with different makeup and accessories. I might make a Let's Play about that. Haha.
The boy space was explained by giving examples of boy books. In books aimed towards young male readers, adventure is the goal. Adventure and exploration consumes the reader by immersing them in large spaces with fights for survival and treasures. These childhood stories as well as the experiences of backyard play as a boy, lead to the games we make for our children today.
Part of the articles that was describing "girl space" looked at this specific game called "Secret Paths". This game had a few other versions, but the one in the articles was about forests. The game appeals to girls because it involves personal improvement and transformation. I looked up a playthrough of this game and learned that it was like a story book about girl problems. The game's home screen is a treehouse (can be changed) with a sign that says "girls only" along with books on the floor and a scenic background outside. This room can be decorated by clicking. By looking through the books you learn a specific girls problem and follow a path through the forest to learn more about the problem and how she overcomes it.
This girl space topic reminded me of the games i played as a child. My parents usually bought my sister and I Barbie or movie PC games like "Ariel's Story Studio" (1997) and "Anastasia: Adventures with Pooka and Bartok" (1997). They were mostly stories that you walked through that included some girl related things. One game I played many many hours of was a Barbie makeover game where you just dressed up Barbie with different makeup and accessories. I might make a Let's Play about that. Haha.
Monday, February 17, 2014
What Games Do FOR Children
The article “Freedom of Movement: Gendered Play Space", by Henry Jenkins is mainly a real life comparison of the author's childhood and his son. Jenkins grew up in suburban Atlanta with land to roam. His childhood consisted of playing outside, using his imagination, and at times exploring dirty and dangerous places. Since the 1960's children have grown up differently. A majority of the population lives in cities and apartment buildings where children have no outdoor space to play. Some places prohibit children from being in the area. Luckily the children have video games. The author seems to be in favor of children playing these games because it offers the same sort of adventure as playing outside. Although the physical actions aren't taking place, there is still emotional stimulation, which is vital for children growing up.
I personally can't imagine staying in an apartment with children. Although a majority of people's lives are going to be in front of screens, it's best to throw the kids out in the while before they really know what they like (videogames). I feel the same way with the diet of children. When people are young, they don't have the privelege of eating mcdonalds or making bad decisions. The parent may as well send them in the right direction. Aka treat them like pets and feed them perfect salads until they go to school and discover real food (junk). Overall it's a good start for any human to grow up with nature and eat healthy. By the time they can make decisions for themselves without being scolded by their parents, they would have physically developed properly at least.
Aside form health reasons, video games are probably the best stimuli. I believe everyone should invest their time in a few games throughout life. Games teach a ton of lessons. They typically include some sort of puzzle, interesting story, social aspects. New vocab can be picked up, hand eye coordination, new friends, knowledge of places around the world. People only bitch about kids playing games because they're middle aged hags who spent their mid life crisis reading 50 Shades of Gray and leaving their husband because of it. Games aren't just for FUN, but they are fun., which is also an important part of life. People are too stuck to appreciate what games do for the world.
I personally can't imagine staying in an apartment with children. Although a majority of people's lives are going to be in front of screens, it's best to throw the kids out in the while before they really know what they like (videogames). I feel the same way with the diet of children. When people are young, they don't have the privelege of eating mcdonalds or making bad decisions. The parent may as well send them in the right direction. Aka treat them like pets and feed them perfect salads until they go to school and discover real food (junk). Overall it's a good start for any human to grow up with nature and eat healthy. By the time they can make decisions for themselves without being scolded by their parents, they would have physically developed properly at least.
Aside form health reasons, video games are probably the best stimuli. I believe everyone should invest their time in a few games throughout life. Games teach a ton of lessons. They typically include some sort of puzzle, interesting story, social aspects. New vocab can be picked up, hand eye coordination, new friends, knowledge of places around the world. People only bitch about kids playing games because they're middle aged hags who spent their mid life crisis reading 50 Shades of Gray and leaving their husband because of it. Games aren't just for FUN, but they are fun., which is also an important part of life. People are too stuck to appreciate what games do for the world.
Monday, February 10, 2014
Avatars and Personality
An article from the Huffington Post titled "Know Thy Avatar: Good and Evil in the Gaming World" described the experimental findings of psychological scientists Gunwoo Yoon and Patrick Vargasat on the subject of how games affect personality in real life. Volunteers were asked to play a game, each a different role (heroic or villian) for 5 minutes. Then they proceeded to eat and serve either spicy of sweet foods to the other volunteers. The test itself seems too shallow to actually give a semi accurate outcome whether or not immersion on games affects real life personalities.
However, the topic itself is an interesting one to study. Does playing a certain type of character affect how a person is in real life? I've personally seen the effect on children and immature adults. I remember specifically an embarrassing moment in my childhood when I just finished watching Hercules in theaters. After the movie ended, I told my mom "I feel like I'm dead", referring to how a majority of the story had to do with mortality. Along the same line, I read a comment regarding someone's reaction to seeing the movie Frozen, where the viewer just walked outside of the theater. The parent told her to put on a jacket. The girl proceeded with one of the lines "The cold never bothered me anyway!" and turned her back to the family. Although these are movie examples, it expresses how immersion can make people feel like one with the movie.
I can see this being a problem with children being exposed to violent games, but only very young children and gullible adults. I say this because those are the very impression-able people. I believe that in games that involve the player to pick their own character/personality generally choose a morally good persona. This is more likely because this character represents themselves. Although it is easy to make a fake character for yourself, it's still you behind it all. If anything the new character brings out the best in people because the character is a display of what the player wishes they looked like, or rather personifies their actual personality, making them feel more confident. This seems to be the case in the MMOs I've played anyways.
However, the topic itself is an interesting one to study. Does playing a certain type of character affect how a person is in real life? I've personally seen the effect on children and immature adults. I remember specifically an embarrassing moment in my childhood when I just finished watching Hercules in theaters. After the movie ended, I told my mom "I feel like I'm dead", referring to how a majority of the story had to do with mortality. Along the same line, I read a comment regarding someone's reaction to seeing the movie Frozen, where the viewer just walked outside of the theater. The parent told her to put on a jacket. The girl proceeded with one of the lines "The cold never bothered me anyway!" and turned her back to the family. Although these are movie examples, it expresses how immersion can make people feel like one with the movie.
I can see this being a problem with children being exposed to violent games, but only very young children and gullible adults. I say this because those are the very impression-able people. I believe that in games that involve the player to pick their own character/personality generally choose a morally good persona. This is more likely because this character represents themselves. Although it is easy to make a fake character for yourself, it's still you behind it all. If anything the new character brings out the best in people because the character is a display of what the player wishes they looked like, or rather personifies their actual personality, making them feel more confident. This seems to be the case in the MMOs I've played anyways.
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Zombies Games and Their Depressing Player Base
I'd like to take this time, dear reader, to discuss how zombie games are shit and reflect the depressing personalities of the player base.
Overall the idea of fighting zombies plays for a good game. Having dead people as the enemy, players have an excuse to kill humanoids in a brutal way without feeling sympathetic. Alongside that, some amount of storyline can be made up around the idea that the enemies are undead people. But how much can you milk this idea? At some point shitty storylines of mutation and other sci-fi garbage must clash, resulting in copyrite infringement. Like, how many times can a mad scientist screw up an experiement leading to the world ending if you, a typical human male with a remarkable set of combat skills, don't fight them all to save the entire planet? The only reason any of these games are making some amount of profit is because other game developers keep promoting it. Luckily vampires haven't taken over videogames, because the people interested in that are lovesick preteens masturbating on the bathroom floor to a love scene in a Twilight fanfiction. Vampire obsession has taken over the writing industry (or whatever you want to call it), thank God.
Now let's talk about the people who play these games. Anyone I've met who is a part of this "zombie craze" is a complete unoriginal douchebag. They seem to spend their time on tumblr reblogging shitty memes all day long with photos of them being camwhores with their striped sweaters and emo hair. You'll most often find them reaching the leaderboards of CoD or whatever the shitty "trendy" game is currently. They follow the internet crowd, yet try to be as indie as possible, which is why they turn to zombies, a once semi-rare interest, turned mainstream. Overall the reintroduction of these shitty games is continuing the trend of shitty unoriginal people with no lives. But of course, that's how these game companies are making their money. Also if you don't like zombie games, you're considered an outcast, considering half of arcade games use the typical human vs. undead shit idea.
If the world could just get past this horrible idea, maybe some better games could start being made?? Like why the fuck does Call of Duty: Black Ops: Zombies exist?! The title itself is hilarious. The Call of Duty part LOL, the Black Ops part LOLOL then they have to add ZoMbIeS?!!!!LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL way to milk that cow dry. Fucking disgusting. And alas, what promted me to even bring up this shitty topic, (http://www.joystiq.com/2014/02/09/omg-hd-zombies-shuffling-aimlessly-toward-steam-on-february-13/?ncid=rss_truncated OMG HD ZOMBIES!) It's like a joke now, yet no one is taking it as one. I think that people are actually making fun of the zombie fandom with the title "OMG" and having an "HD" version of the game. But the sad part is that more than 90% (my estimate) of players actually doesn't realize this, and will legitimately play this game because they think that zombies are popular. These players are just going with the flow of what popular, clueless to the fact that the game they're playing is probably a shittier version of the last 50 or so zombie arcade games of the year.
But I guess if you're a cheap unoriginal dumbass with a slight interest and knolwedge of game development, now's the time to cash in on these weak useless customers with a zombie title. Have at it.
Overall the idea of fighting zombies plays for a good game. Having dead people as the enemy, players have an excuse to kill humanoids in a brutal way without feeling sympathetic. Alongside that, some amount of storyline can be made up around the idea that the enemies are undead people. But how much can you milk this idea? At some point shitty storylines of mutation and other sci-fi garbage must clash, resulting in copyrite infringement. Like, how many times can a mad scientist screw up an experiement leading to the world ending if you, a typical human male with a remarkable set of combat skills, don't fight them all to save the entire planet? The only reason any of these games are making some amount of profit is because other game developers keep promoting it. Luckily vampires haven't taken over videogames, because the people interested in that are lovesick preteens masturbating on the bathroom floor to a love scene in a Twilight fanfiction. Vampire obsession has taken over the writing industry (or whatever you want to call it), thank God.
Now let's talk about the people who play these games. Anyone I've met who is a part of this "zombie craze" is a complete unoriginal douchebag. They seem to spend their time on tumblr reblogging shitty memes all day long with photos of them being camwhores with their striped sweaters and emo hair. You'll most often find them reaching the leaderboards of CoD or whatever the shitty "trendy" game is currently. They follow the internet crowd, yet try to be as indie as possible, which is why they turn to zombies, a once semi-rare interest, turned mainstream. Overall the reintroduction of these shitty games is continuing the trend of shitty unoriginal people with no lives. But of course, that's how these game companies are making their money. Also if you don't like zombie games, you're considered an outcast, considering half of arcade games use the typical human vs. undead shit idea.
If the world could just get past this horrible idea, maybe some better games could start being made?? Like why the fuck does Call of Duty: Black Ops: Zombies exist?! The title itself is hilarious. The Call of Duty part LOL, the Black Ops part LOLOL then they have to add ZoMbIeS?!!!!LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL way to milk that cow dry. Fucking disgusting. And alas, what promted me to even bring up this shitty topic, (http://www.joystiq.com/2014/02/09/omg-hd-zombies-shuffling-aimlessly-toward-steam-on-february-13/?ncid=rss_truncated OMG HD ZOMBIES!) It's like a joke now, yet no one is taking it as one. I think that people are actually making fun of the zombie fandom with the title "OMG" and having an "HD" version of the game. But the sad part is that more than 90% (my estimate) of players actually doesn't realize this, and will legitimately play this game because they think that zombies are popular. These players are just going with the flow of what popular, clueless to the fact that the game they're playing is probably a shittier version of the last 50 or so zombie arcade games of the year.
But I guess if you're a cheap unoriginal dumbass with a slight interest and knolwedge of game development, now's the time to cash in on these weak useless customers with a zombie title. Have at it.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Games, Explained
Games can easily become a literal part of life. Our virtual adventures and accomplishments can become real adventures and accomplishments in our real lives. As described in the article "Games, Explained" by Frank Lantz, games "become more than just ways of experiencing these qualities, they start to represent these qualities to us – they become symbols that stand for pleasure and freedom." These symbols will then find themselves in other aspects of life such as dreams, life aspirations, and personality. An example of this is where a goal in a game can become very relevant to a goal in real life. Then to accomplish this goal in real life, a person will try to gain the same satisfaction by completing it in game. This can make a confusing cycle of whats player really wants. The end result is a player that can't distinguish life from the game or goals from fantasy goals. As poorly written in Lantz's article "For example we may realize that the process of signifying pleasure has made a game less immediately pleasurable, and we may wonder why we spend so much time and energy projecting images and performing pantomimes of the things we want instead of just pursuing them directly. " Overall the article is written in a sequentially confusing manner, but highlights some big topics, such as "what is a game?", "What is the purpose of games?", and "How Games Take over real Life".
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