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So I would like to do a breakdown of the mise-en-scene of one of my favorite video games: Skies of Arcadia: Legends (GCN). I will try and use the definitions on pp6 of the Lacey reading.
Temporal Aspects to Keep in Mind
There are a couple of things to keep in mind while trying to do an accurate job at looking at the scene here: this battle is usually taken on later in the game, and has happened three times before, each of varying difficulty. This is the end of a sidequest and story that makes the party especially powerful when completed – the boss is worth a level of experience when defeated (most enemies aren’t – a lot of grinding has to go on to be able to complete this battle!)
Some Visual Aspects
The player is treated to a typical RPG menu overlay on top of the camera work. The spirit points, the gauge as to what types of special moves or magic can be used, is displayed at the top of the screen, and the main menu of commands are also displayed in the lower left corner, accompanied by a set of icons to make it easier to see what the possible choices are for the player. Also, whenever a move, magic, or attack is done, it is shown on the top of the screen as the actor plays this part of the scene, which allows the player to not only confirm what has been selected, but to help prepare for what should be done next round.
The battle takes place on an imperial battleship, complete with a bridge and “quad”-laser that’ll take out demigods with ease. The battleship is huge, has multiple floors, and is made out of metal (I believe). The battle takes place on the front deck of the ship, only after this imperial battleship docks with a very small boat that the antagonist pilots. The battle also allows the player to be in a small amount of control of the camera, as he/she can move the camera during the “turn preparation” (before the scene, aka turn, has happened) – this isn’t shown as well. Also, the camera pretty much is satisfied to circle over the action for most of the battle, until it zooms in on a player or computer, when their turn is taken. Then the camera programmatically repeats this until the battle is over.
Aural Components
This is the best part of the scene, as this is the part of the experience I cue into the most while playing an RPG (besides focusing in on the action). The sounds used for all menu operations are very small, quick, and pretty much to-the-point. They become musically and a cue for one to get to the actions one wants to take, and are very helpful in this way. What’s missing is the sounds of the control stick and the button presses on the GameCube controller.
The main reason why the experience of playing this game is so epic is due to the boss music. The first whoosh that occurs is a sign of an upcoming boss fight, cued by the signature boss music itself. The music is also reactive to the context of the boss fight as well: when the main character dies, the music segues to an uphappy and distressing tune, to let the player know that the fight is not going in their favor, and must do something to turn the battle around. There’s also the segue to the epic happy music when the player is winning, and happens later in the video, as this cues the player that he/she is winning and needs to keep pouring it on to achieve victory. It is also possibly to get the most epic segue, from getting it to go from the bad music all the way up to the win music in one blow – it’ll blow your mind, and make the hair stand up on the back of your neck (that’s why I keep playing this game! – I even prolong the boss fights to hear the music more, too). The music also has more cues as well, as one can hear the death knell from the bell in the beginning of the cutscene, showing the player that this is going to be tough (and it is a tough fight, believe me). There’s also the happy post-battle music too, along with the posing and victory chants as well too, and I hum this as well along with the video.
The Performance of the Actors
There are 6 character actors here in this battle (unless one wants to count the ship, as it is pretty vital to this battle). They are: (protagonists) Vyse (main character in blue), Aika (girl with orange ponytails), Fina (girl dressed in all white and veil), and Enrique (the other guy, who’s pretty epic); (antagonists) Piastol (a secret boss – this is the 4th encounter), and her puppy. Each character has their own set of moves, namely attacking, adding spirit points (the thing on the top of the screen used to determine special moves) or using a special move. Most of the acting in this battle is determined by the player (except for the cutscene beforehand), and can be changed to do whatever he/she wants – this was just one way of acting this battle out. Each of these sets of actions has their own way of being acted out (namely, each animation is different, the way the battle is being acted). The player also gets to see the costumes each character has: Vyse is a sky pirate, so he wears blue denim, sky goggles, and has a double set of cutlasses; Aika is the girl next door type of character, so she wears a yellow skirt, tall boots, and uses a boomerang (she tries to get Vyse’s attention a lot, but not in this battle); Fina is a mage, so she gets to wear a white dress and veil, uses a very subdued and demure posture, and utilizes her magical pet Cupil as her weapon; Enrique is a prince, so he wears very formal and imperial clothing, stands tall and proud, and utilizes a rapier (a very fancy and refined sword). What’s super interesting here is that the acting is very repetitious (the typical RPG battle), even though it is a boss fight (the player utilizes each character’s “role” in order to achieve the “good” ending of this scene), even though the player of this movie could have done a different script to achieve the same ending, although not recommended by other players (I would have done this at a much later experience level, personally, and focused on speed of attack and the team’s special attack, not shown here, but causes the moon to come out of the sky and destroy the battlefield). The items also play a critical role here, as they not only help the team to victory, but they have their own animation (which can be bypassed if desired – but all enemy animations cannot be bypassed), which reinforces their role in the script of victory here.
I could go deeper, but I would like to start a conversation about this, so please jump on in!
So, as some of you may know, me and Casey go play DDR just about every Friday afternoon. As some of you might not know, Casey is insanely good at DDR.
It was funny last Friday, though… There were a couple of new interactions that happened. First, we gave the Pump it Up machine a try… It has 5 buttons instead of 4 like DDR. Later on, Casey gave Doubles on DDR a try. Doubles is where you use both pads and have to dance across the whole machine.
Now, Casey is insanely good at singles/versus DDR but I noticed that he was having trouble with the other two. So, we got into a short discussion…
Normally, Casey doesn’t even think about the DDR pad when he’s playing, but it was obvious that on the 5 button game and on the doubles he was having to look at his feet sometimes and and think about what he was doing.
This seems like a good example of going from Ready-at-hand and Present-at-hand. We disagreed on what it was that was becoming Present-at-hand though…
Was it his mindset/DDR knowlege? Or was it the pad? Or was it his feet? I argued that it was the pad because it was the tool he was using to play the game. Especially on the 5 button machine, he had to consciously focus on the buttons because he wasn’t used to where they were. But in the end, we weren’t too sure.
Anyway, that is all for today.
So I decided to look at a bit of machinima made from WoW clips set to the song “Here Without You” by 3 Doors Down. It has been an interesting journey. It is incredible to think that some clips from World of Warcraft set to a cheesy late 90’s love-rock song could make me misty-eyed. I dare you to watch this video multiple times and not be moved at least a little bit.
Here is something you don’t see every day: a quadriplegic WoW player who’s among the elite (progression raiding is sort of the top of the food chain in WoW–it takes months if not years to get to the point where you can even start doing it; RL issues notwithstanding, this guy is good).
Besides its human interest and inspiration for all of us, this kind of computing at the extremes can be a very informative case study. Obviously, this is a great example of emergent uses of technology.
But from a phenomenological standpoint, it is really amazing how similar this player’s experience of WoW is to any other elite player’s. I mean, other than the physical mechanics of how he plays, he talks about raids like I do. That says something not just about him, but it also says something about WoW as a technological environment: it is able to create similar–and very successful–interactive experiences for an incredibly diverse base of users. And phenomenological theory can help us explore and articulate the characteristics of those felt experiences in rich ways.
So I also am going to put up what I have been thinking about for the mock outline exercise. The interaction (again) I was thinking about looking at phenomenologically is the Rock Band character creator:
So I won’t be able to give the “whole” outline here, but the topic I would be talking about is that creating rockers are a painful and reflective experience. The “pain” and “reflective” aspects are the things I would like to attempt to work out phenomenologically. In terms of the actual game experience, the pain comes in through what type of controller you are using to create/edit your rocker, how much time you can dedicate to your rocker, when/where you play Rock Band, and also if you can actually find anything in the rocker’s closet that will please your tendencies.
In terms of a reflective experience, I find this interaction to allow one to reflect on what it means to be a rocker for his/herself, reflect on the achievements done in game, listen and take action on other players’ comments about your rocker, how one can continuously keep reforming their “rocker identity” to the world, and how one can keep pushing themselves to make a better rocker.
So I’ll have to go back to my notes and see if I can find anything to support this (which I believe so, as this came from a reflection on my notes), but I was wondering what the class thinks of at large about how to pull this off in a written form.
(^^)V
My selected interaction follows:
Still working on refining my argument–here’s the mind barf:
My Claims:
- This interaction is successful at being entertaining/stimulating to the intended audience
- The designers were able to understand the lifeworlds of the fans/audience and hold true to the ‘rules’ of the world of the series
- The dialogue spoken in the actor’s voices (Bruce Campbell, Ted Raimi), the humorous interaction of the player abusing the sidekick, and the fact that the game holds true to the mise-en-scene of the film series all together holistically create a pre-ontological experience for the player that allows them to act and do things with the controls ready-at-hand, which therefore allows them to become fully engaged in this particular game world.
Argument?: One of the more prominent interactions designed into the video game “Evil Dead: Regeneration” where the player, who assumes the lead role of Ash (Bruce Campbell) from the Evil Dead series, is encouraged and able to “use and abuse” his companion sidekick Sam, is an interaction designed for the life-worlds of a specific audience, and through a phenomenological understanding of their audience’s life worlds, and through an understanding of the intersubjectivity for what is funny and entertaining to this specific audience, the designers were able to successfully create a fun and enjoyable experience for fans of the series and players of the game.
Ok, thanks for replies,
-Joe
I took a shot at the 1 hour epic cramming, and found it to be pretty insightful. I was able to start thinking about the critique I would be hypothetically writing about, even though I just created a large text file of words and quotes. If you get a chance to do this before class, or even before any papers you have to write, it seemed to pay off pretty well for me. I also used the notes generated from this exercise and pumped them into Wordle, suggested from Binaebi, which is a tag cloud generator. The results were pretty cool, though part of the image got cut off on the right. The funny thing, is that the tag cloud looks like a drink/sundae. What do you think?
Here’s the link to the actual picture of the tag cloud: here
And here’s the interaction I would be writing about, the character generator in Rock Band
Talking about game semiotics last thursday, along with the new readings on embodied interaction made me think of one of my favorite games ever, Jet Force Gemini. I’ll try and explain some of the tacit knowledge of being a gamer that semiotics has given me, along with trying to briefly being able to describe the embodiment I find in this game.
Quick Backstory
This game is about three space travelers who are fighting against the evil bug-robot Mizar. Our protagonists are Juno, Vela, and Lupus, and this game was originally on the N64. The story so far is that they have seen the evil Mizar enslave a happy set of bear-people, called the Tribals, into doing his evil bidding. The video here places the player at the first “level” of Vela, on the starship Sekhmet. The video also starts halfway through the level, as well.
The Tacit Knowledge
So here’s where the gamer and the tacit knowledge take part. The first room the video takes place in is a “safe room”, as there are no baddies. This is due to the fact there is someone the player has to talk to in order to get a key and some important weapon pickups in there. It’s also a plain square room that doesn’t feature that much else as well, which communicates that the room is just to be used quickly and just for the items (even though the player needs to come back here).
Then the player goes back through some small tunnels to get back to a large room (the tunnel’s purpose is just a connector, and some fighting occurs here). This large room was the scene of a lot of fighting, as the different walls in the room afford cover for the player and the baddies. This room also is a springboard to other areas of the level, but only if the player has the jetpack accumulated later in the game. This is communicated through the small tunnels at the very top and back of the screen, which tells the player: “haha – I’m here but you can’t get to me yet!”.
The next room affords a lot of information for not only the player, but the viewer. A ton of baddies come flying in from the top of the screen and from in front of the player. This speaks to the player that they need to enter first person mode and shoot them all. When this happens, the player moves the targeting crosshairs over the targets, which then make a sound every time. This indicates to the player that he/she is locked on to a target and can begin to fire. When the player successfully removes a target, the baddie makes a sound, whether it be an explosion or a death scream. This indicates to the player that he/she can move on. When all the baddies are removed, the door at the end opens (because it’s green, and the camera centers on it, and it has been a mechanic the player has gotten used to by now).
Once done, the player moves into the next area, which has a maze on top of the boiling lava. This immediately tells the player that not only a physical challenge is needed to traverse this lava, but also that there might be more trouble ahead, since there are almost always baddies in every room, unless the music changes or there is an NPC in the room. Once completed, the player moves in the next room, which has a walkway. This immediately connotates to the player that it is meant to be walked on and followed through the whole time to get to the next area, even though there are jumps to complete and elevators to use as well. Other cues in this puzzle are from Floyd, your robot friend, who alerts you to baddies in the area – he makes a sound and glows red (and is accompanied by red arrows on the side of the screen to tell you where the baddies are). All of these help to make the challenge easier.
Also, I didn’t mention that the elevators move up and down, which also tell the player you are meant to use them in that fashion. The tribals in this room on unreachable platforms also tell the player that he/she needs to come back with something that will make this area accessible. There is also the usage of a blue glowing corridor to help point out to the player where the goal to get to is. Without the color, it makes it a little harder to figure out where to go. The music also spurs the player on, since it is epic and awesome, that action is needed to keep the story and the action going, too.
Then there’s another small room again where the player has to destroy a lot of baddies to move on, but this time they move faster and shoot back a lot more, which tells the player that this type of challenge will have to involve accuracy and sidestepping/strafing. But the player also sees the cue that if this challenge is completed well, this is actually a rewarding encounter, as there is a lot of life (the pink gems) and ammo boxes around. The next areas also feature the same type of cues (long hallways full of baddies, and small rooms full of items and respite). These are the types of cues gamers can pick up on, and really utilize them in crafting an experience that will let them be a better player.
For me, this type of reading makes for me a full embodied interaction with the game, as not only am I literally in the game, but I am also reading it and making a conversation about it. I may be talking to the designers through the game, or with other people about the game, but I just really like how these things can truly “get me into the game”. And that’s the embodied experience I go for.
Epic Rant
Unlike the following:
This is the much hated and loathed Krauser fight in Resident Evil 4. (Start at around 2:20, and this is not the GameCube version that I know, but it’s still roughly the same game). Heidegger has finally given me the words I needed to explain why I hate this:
He argues that the mouse exists for us as an entity only because of the way in which it can become present-at-hand, and becomes equipment … only — through the way in which- it can be ready-to-hand.
Resident Evil 4 is a game through which all of the action looks like a cutscene. It is in letterbox, a long time cue to the player to take a break and enjoy the story. This game takes the opposite view, and makes all of the action only available through this type of view. The fight that you see is the hardest in the game, in my opinion, as the player is not only being exposed to story, but has to have lightning-fast reflexes to get through the 6 or 7 challenges to press buttons in order to survive and see the story (and also, why does a knife kill him instantly, but zombies can’t?). The point here is that the cutsene makes me think it is time to take a rest, the present at hand view of gaming that I have. But, no, they like to force me to realize the story IS the game, and then the game forces me to take it as ready to hand (hope i got that right). Anyway, the combination of being forced to do this challenge, while transforming the current notion of story as (instead of) being present at hand, where I can enjoy it, to something as ready-to-hand, where I have to confront it in a way that makes me really really really really really really angry. I will always try to skip by and pray I get through this part due to this type of change in the game and the style of gaming.
Looks like it’s time for another post to be done.
In light of the readings for this week, I would like to attempt to “read” the different types of horror used throughout major “horror” video games: Silent Hill 2 and Resident Evil (GCN version). I hope this doesn’t end up being too structuralist, but I foresee that happening, as I am comparing the readings of 2 different, yet similar video games (I wanted to try to go more phenomenological, but we’ll see what happens).
Please also note this comes from someone who plays these games all the time and ends up laughing now when designers try to involve the scare factor in gaming now. Also, I want to point out that I did try the second game I present here before the first one. But I digress.
Also, sorry for any potential spoilers I may give – I’ll try to reduce them so you can experience these games.
Silent Hill (SH)
SH I believe, along with Fatal Frame, are the leading games in the industry that do “horror” best. For this series, “horror” ends up being defined as “psychological horror (thriller)”. The player always ends up being some poor soul, through some sort of magical series of events, gets thrusted back into this town that has cultish origins. Some of the mechanics used to achieve SH horror from the movie industry are: the epic amount of fog (you can barely move down the streets of SH without being enveloped by it), the very cramped corridors, the mise-en-scene (including the characters), the exclusion of most sound in the game, the usage of the static radio, and the obligatory “messed up alternate world of SH”.
All of these aspects of SH create a very tension from the first time one picks up the controller. The main mechanics of the game help to support the immersion of the world and hellp to create this psychological thriller, which is SH horror. The radio is used to let the player know where the bad guys are, and the way it is delivered is super effective at even making me get the chills (I had to put down the game the first time I played it because I got creeped out). Also, the only way for the player to see where he/she is going in most of the game is to utilize the flashlight – which only illuminates a small portion of the screen, but also alerts the bad guys to your presence. So a player could walk around in the dark everywhere, or walk around mostly in the dark but attract all of the bad guys. It’s up to the player.
But that’s only the action aspect of the game. The story itself thrives upon SH horror. The way the characters interact with each other, the way the player creates his map, the way the world is created, and the development of “psycholand SH”, the inverse of the world in SH where the walls are covered with living, and moving blood. That world has its own rules, utilizes flesh for a covering of machines, has lots of creepy bad guys, and also utilizes lots of screaming, moaning, and voices in the background make you want to get out of that world as soon as possible. But unfortunately, about half the game occurs in the creepy world, so one has to build up a tolerance to it. The good news is that once you have played through one version of SH, you have a good tolerance in you to withstand the others.
Resident Evil (RE)
Please ignore the voiceover – this video shows some of the aspects of RE I want you to see.
This clip is from the GCN (GameCube) version of the game. It was enhanced with better graphics and 1 new area from the original PlayStation version of the game. RE is essentially a remediation of the actual camera used in older horror films and it is the main critique many gamers have of this game: the camera is cemented still and will change depending on where the player walks. It can be quite disorienting to some, especially with enemies around, but this adds to the “scare” factor RE tries to play up to: the “cheap scare”. This is a name my sister and I have used to call the type of scare which has the following features: there’s something around the corner and it pops out and tries to scare the audience, it is usually preceded with the removal of sound and then something happens suddenly, or just the usage of blood or lots of shadows to make the audience feel they are in a horror film.
For me, this ends up making a great and a horrible experience. It is great for me as a gamer, as these are the visual language I use to “hack” the design of the game: these cues for cheap scares tell me exactly when to grip the controller, and when I should start singing and laughing when zombies start eating people. Yeah – it’s that predictable (I also watch a lot of bad horror films in my spare time). This added language I have gotten from the movie industry has made me realize where these cheap scares are about to occur, and unfortunately make the game less scary. Also, this game and RE0 were, in my opinion, the best of the series in trying to scare the player, but that’s a story for another day. This type of horror ends up ruining the experience for me, as I am immediately taken out of the context of the game and I just see the images on the screen as just part of a “map”, and not part of a horror world. I also am saddened because many of the tricks they use are awesome the first couple of times, but then end up losing there charm, just as the horror industry does. I also want to challenge the developers to not only utilize this method of utilizing the camera, but trying to really scare (shake me to my core) me, than just situate me in “just another zombie film”.
I would love to keep talking and play this for everyone if we want – it’ll be great to not only reflect on the material in action, but also will get a chance for everyone to see something they can interact with and critique.
Maybe it’s just my eye… but what do you think about the horror trying to be portrayed in these games?
So the movie “9″ was mentioned today in class again and I’ve been mulling over writing a blog about my experience with the movie since seeing it last week.
First I want to say that the movie is great and you should all go see it. I’ve tried to eliminate spoilers as much as possible, but if you’re crazy hardcore about not know anything about a movie before you see it, you may save reading this for later. Otherwise read on friends.
The movie has a level of predetermined expectations for those familiar with Tim Burton and animated films. It has a very dark theme in a post human world. The movie also owns some of its design elements to steam punk, a fashion that is picked up and re-coined by the director/creator of the film as “stitch-punk” because the main characters are sort of sac puppets with mechanics inside.
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