Gaming – New Media: Storytelling in Literature, Films, and Games

Omission – A Remediation of Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Introduction

Embark on a strategic escapade as Sadie Green in Omission, navigating from the game room to the nurse’s desk. Your mission: log community service hours without being caught by Sam. With each passing second, your logged hours diminish, along with the prospects of earning the community service award. Most too fast, and you may alert Sam, ending the service project.

Why Remediate Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow?

Although there are several games woven into the narrative of Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow that we could have remediated, we wanted to create a new game based on the central relationship in the novel. The book follows thirty years of conflicts between gamemakers Sam and Sadie, beginning when they met as children in a hospital game room. It was during these formative years, through shared gameplay and blossoming friendship, that Sadie covertly logged her time with hospitalized Sam as community service hours–a fact she kept from him.

The months of lying by omission lead to their first major conflict, shaping the beginning chapters of the novel and hinting toward the future of their relationship. We chose to use the community service conflict as the foundation for our game, believing that it reflects the pivotal moments that will define and drive their relationship forward, both personally and professionally.

Game Design Process

Revisiting Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow – Our initial step in the game design process involved re-reading the beginning chapters of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. It was essential to re-familiarize ourselves with the characters Sam and Sadie during their time in the hospital. The game adopts young Sam’s perspective on the community service conflict yet paradoxically casts the player as Sadie. Essentially, we wanted to make the game as if Sam was the creator trying to understand Sadie’s actions in her lying by omission ‘game.’

*Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow* by Gabrielle Zevin

Upon discovering that Sadie had been logging their time together as community service hours, Sam’s initial response was to shut her out, feeling reduced to a mere means to an end rather than a true friend. Although he grew out of this mindset, we used his initial perspective to make our game competitive. We integrated a countdown mechanic into the game, where the longer Sadie takes to beat the level, the more community service hours she loses. The countdown begins at 609 hours – the number of hours Sadie records in the novel. This mirrors Sam’s perception of Sadie’s priorities––questioning whether her intentions stemmed from genuine friendship or a mere tally of hours. Understanding the nuances of their relationship and their personalities at our early design stages was crucial for accurately translating their dynamic into our game’s narrative and elements.

To translate our vision into a playable game, we planned every aspect of the gameplay with detailed road maps. These plans outlined the journey from the welcome screen to the various end-game scenarios, with clear instructions for programming Sadie’s and Sam’s interactions and specific conditions for winning or restarting the game.

Program Selection – After evaluating various options, we carefully selected GameMaker Studio 2 to develop our game. This decision was driven by the specific needs of our project, particularly the demand for a program that excels in 2D game development with comprehensive features such as sprite and animation management, and a drag-and-drop interface that simplifies complex game development tasks.

Sprite and Background Design – Our first real step in the game design process was designing the sprites. After discussions on the visual style we wanted to achieve, Henry meticulously crafted detailed sprites for Sam and Sadie, and a nurse. Sam and Sadies’ sprites included profiles for multiple directions (front, back, right, left) to support a more fluid gameplay experience. Henry utilized GameMaker’s sprite editor to layer colors and add depth, ensuring the characters stood out against the background.

Background design followed, with specific attention to interactive elements like doorways, which are vital to the game’s aesthetics and mechanics. In designing the background, we aimed to mirror the ambiance of a hospital by incorporating elements such as checkered floors and numerous doorways while also integrating a bright wall color to create a more engaging atmosphere for the game.

Character Movement – For character movement, we programmed Sadie with basic directional controls (right, left, up, down), while Sam’s NPC movement (right, left) included pathfinding and collision interactions with walls. We also programmed character interactions, such as collisions between Sadie and Sam.

Sadie Basic Movement (Up, Down, Left, Right)

Challenges

GameMaker Studio 2 & Collaboration – One significant challenge we faced was GameMaker’s limited support for real-time collaboration across separate computers. This limitation posed difficulties in our early development process, as it restricted the ability to simultaneously edit our design game elements as a group. In an attempt to overcome this limitation, we tried to integrate Git to share game files between different computers. We successfully created a repository and separately downloaded the programs; however, integrating Git with GameMaker proved more difficult than anticipated, and we had to look at other options. Instead, we used Henry’s computer to install GameMaker Studio 2 and scheduled in-person meetings to collaborate on programming the game.

Complexity of Wall Collisions – Handling collisions, especially with walls, introduced a new layer of difficulty for our group. Initially, our characters would react unpredictably upon hitting a wall – sometimes getting stuck, other times passing through as if the barrier didn’t exist. We initially suspected it was a boundaries issue, but our many attempts to edit didn’t yield the results we were looking for.

We had to program walls not only to stop character movement but also to influence it depending on the game’s physics. For example, when Sam (the NPC) hit a wall, he needed to turn around and bounce back.

Score/Countdown Timer Error – The most challenging aspect we faced – and one that caused errors even after game creation – was implementing the countdown timer that updated Sadie’s logged hours. The finished game was meant to work as follows: a countdown timer starting at 609 seconds would begin at the start of the game; when Sadie reached the nurse’s desk, the timer would stop, adding the remaining seconds from the timer to the player’s score. The player’s score was meant to be cumulative, meaning that if they did not get the necessary score of 609 from their first playthrough, they would need to play again. For example, if Sadie finished the level with 598 seconds left on the timer (which translated to hours on the score sheet), this would be her starting score for the next level. When the next level starts, the points will be cumulative, but the timer will restart at 609 seconds. Additionally, Sam’s speed would increase, making the game more difficult at each level.

The root of our problems came from updating the score based on the amount left on the countdown timer. Due to GameMaker’s limited drag-and-drop ability, we were unable to update the persistent (cumulative) score variable with the temporary (resets each level) timer variable. Our limited knowledge of how to stop the game’s clock and, therefore, stop the timer prevented us from storing the remaining timer value in the score variable, as GameMaker could not update the score variable with a constantly changing integer. We tried storing the timer’s value at the exact moment Sadie reached the nurse’s desk using an intermediary variable, but this, too, failed to resolve the issue. If we had an expert in GameMaker on our team, we certainly could have fixed this error; however, over several days and many YouTube tutorials watched, the error persisted. Ultimately, we had to accept this unresolved challenge, deferring its solution to the future.

Successes

Sprite Design – One of our major successes was our work on sprite design. Our sprite designer, Henry, decided to craft each sprite from scratch instead of relying on premade options available in GameMaker. This decision allowed for complete creative freedom to personalize Sam and Sadie. The detailed and unique sprites Henry created added a distinct visual appeal to our game, enhancing the overall player experience.

Movement Mechanics – Another satisfying achievement was mastering the basic movement mechanics. This fundamental aspect of our gameplay had to be smooth and responsive to ensure a satisfying gameplay experience. After a series of interactions and adjustments (and with a lot of help from Lizzie), we managed to program movements for Sadie that were not just functional, but simple and fluid.

Collaboration – These successes were not just about getting certain aspects of the game right; they were milestones that reflected our growth as game developers. Each sprite and every movement that worked were testaments to our evolving skills and deepening understanding of game design. We celebrated every small achievement. These successes propelled us forward, encouraging us to tackle more complex interactions within our game.

In addition to technical achievements, another area of success was our ability to work as a cohesive team despite the initial challenges with collaboration tools. We found ways to streamline our communication and workflow, ensuring that everyone was on the same page and could contribute effectively to the project. This collaborative spirit was crucial to overcoming the obstacles we faced.

Final Takeaways

The limitations of the free version of GameMaker Studio 2 initially slowed down our progress. In any future projects, we plan to invest in the paid version of the software, which offers enhanced features for real-time team collaboration.
The varied skills within our team played a pivotal role in our project’s development. For example, Lizzie’s programming expertise and Henry’s talent for design provided a balanced approach to tackling technical challenges. Sterling’s documentation was crucial in articulating our process in the game design document, while Alex’s creativity shone through in creating a compelling game trailer that captured the essence of the game’s story.
One of the key lessons we learned from this project is the importance of persistence and continuous learning. Game development is a field that is constantly evolving, and being adaptable and eager to learn new skills is crucial. Sometimes, it was difficult to find a tutorial to aid our programming difficulties, so it was essential for us not to give up and try different approaches on our own.

Credits

Game Development: Henry, Lizzie

Game Design Document: Sterling

Game Trailer: Alex

Link to Game Trailer: OMISSION – Game Trailer

MarxBlaster

*The Cover of* Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow *by Gabrielle Zevin*

Introduction

For our game design project, we were particularly inspired by Gabrielle Zevin’s novel Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, a book about game-making, friendships, and lives lived together & in conflict. We were particularly inspired by the passion, creativity, and care that Sadie and Mazer put into each game they created over the course of the novel, even as they struggled with their relationships with one another. In creating our game, we wanted to remediate the novel by pulling together aspects of two different games that Sam & Sadie made: EmilyBlaster and The Master of Revels, in order to touch on the importance of the name of the book & explore more deeply the scenes within it. This led us to create our game, MarxBlaster.

What Our Game Is

MarxBlaster is a remediation of two games, EmilyBlaster and Master of Revels, from Zevin’s novel. EmilyBlaster is a first-person shooter game, one of Sadie’s early games described in the book, where the player shoots down phrases from Emily Dickinson’s famous poems in order to assemble the finished works. In Master of Revels, the game is set in Shakespearean London, where the gamer has to discover who killed the playwright Christopher Marlowe. Our game remediates, in part, a section of the game Sadie created an actor styled after her deceased partner Marx, who gives the “Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow” speech from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the same speech that the novel is titled after. We combined the two games by borrowing the scene and the speech from the Master of Revels scene while placing additional emphasis on phrases like Sadie did in EmilyBlaster. In our game, the player is tasked with navigating the Globe Theater in order to find her friend Marx, who is preparing to deliver the “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” speech. Over the course of several levels, you must collect speech bubbles containing the lines from Marx’s speech while moving through various rooms of the theater, including the light room, a makeup room, on the side of the stage, and at the end, meeting Marx on the main stage. The speech bubbles constantly change speed to increase difficulty as the game progresses. Upon collecting all the speech bubbles, the player completes the game by reaching Marx, who then performs his speech before the audience (and the player).

At the end of the game, a voice (voiced by our group member, Sarah Beth) reads the speech aloud. The screen switches to the lines of the speech displayed and read together for the first time in front of an image of Under the Wave off Kanagawa, also known as The Great Wave, by Katsushika Hokusai – the same image referenced on the cover of the book alluding to the iconography in Ichigo – Sadie & Sam’s first game.

*The end scene from* MarxBlaster *where the speech is read aloud and shown as a whole work*

Game Design & Our Process

In designing this game, we tried to balance what scenes we thought would be interesting to remediate with our group’s game-making inexperience. Originally, we were deciding between our final project idea, inspired by our love of Marx, or trying to recreate one of Sam’s mazes in LA, with several dead-ends referencing core plot points of the novel. In learning more about game-making, we decided a platformer game would be within our skill level while still having the capacity to remediate the work how we wanted to. In placing Marx’s character directly in our game, we remediated the novel by both featuring games & scenes in the work, but we also remediated Sadie’s love letter to Marx by placing him in our game, just as she placed him in hers.

Once we decided on MarxBlaster, we tackled the design of the obstacles to reaching Marx. This is where we took inspiration from the mechanics of Sadie’s game EmilyBlaster. We used the concept of shooting phrases to create the obstacles to getting individual lines of the “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” speech but implemented it within the platformer rather than as a shooter game. We decided to use the platform Scratch, as none of us had any coding experience. Because our concept was more complex, we tried to balance it with the simpler system in order to add in all the details we wanted to, such as moving from scene to scene through the Globe Theater and with our moving text boxes.

*One of the scenes from the game, which is also an interior shot of the Globe Theater*

Visually, we decided to use photos from the inside of the Globe Theater in order to give the player the feeling of walking through the game. We made text boxes that simulated text we associate with classic video games and tried to reference the font used on the cover of the novel in the process, especially considering the phrases the game’s main character collects to reference the speech.

Our character design was based in part on convenience and in part on the type of remediation & game we wanted to create. There are only two characters in the game: Marx & the main character. Marx’s character was chosen mainly because the sprite was dressed appropriately for an actor in Macbeth. The main character was chosen for some of the same reasons: she was an existing sprite that had good costumes available, especially to animate her while she walked. However, part of our motivation was also because, as we’ve talked about in class, there is a lack of diverse representation in video games, and we wanted to challenge some of those notions in our protagonist selections, especially because race & representation are hugely important themes in Zevin’s novel.

*A screenshot of our game where the character jumps to hit a moving textbox*

Our entire group collaborated on the design of the game. Mariah did the majority of the coding, especially around creating the stages, coding each sprite’s movement, creating the beginning & end sequences, and figuring out how the text boxes would move. Brynn did most of the graphic design work, especially in the end scene & with the text boxes, and coded the movement between scenes, the point value system, & switched the text between levels. Sarah Beth helped with finding the scene pictures and created our trailer.

Successes & Challenges

In terms of concept, our game was very successful. Our finished product does what we set out to do: we have multiple levels the protagonist goes through, the text bubbles move with varying speeds and difficulty, the introduction & end of the game align in terms of our messaging of the game, and we were able to create text bubbles that disappear when touched and add points at the top left of the screen. Our game was also successful in that we learned a lot about game-making and just how much goes into it – although Scratch is certainly a simpler tool, we were able to use it to learn more about game mechanics and foundational lessons around game-making. Marxblaster is certainly not without bugs, and because of time and experience constraints, it is not as difficult or complex as we may have wanted it to be, it is cohesive in terms of the story we wanted to tell through game-making and the way in which we wanted to remediate core aspects of the novel.

Along the way we did have a lot of difficulties. Learning to code with zero experience between the three of us led to a huge learning curve. We had a lot of difficulty even getting our game to save our progress in Scratch because too many of us were signed in, leading Mariah to have to recreate more complex sequences of code multiple times. Although the simplicity of Scratch was why we chose the program, at times, it also was too simple for us, and we had to come up with workarounds to the software in order to get our game to do what we wanted it to do. Additionally, we had a lot of issues with our text boxes and changes between our six total scenes. We had to come up with a bit of a convoluted workaround that led to some of the boxes running across the screen upside down, and difficulty in keeping them on screen in order for players to be able to collect points. For a while, we struggled to get the player to progress through the game and had to switch around our mechanics; first, when the player touched every text box they would switch screens, and then we moved to a model where when Avery touches an x-value on the right end of the screen, the backdrop switches and a new level begins.

What We Learned

We learned a lot about how difficult game making is, but also how unique a tool it is for remediation & storytelling. As we discussed in class, game type has a lot of impact on the feeling someone has playing a game; in LOTRO, the ability of players to never have to beat Sauron while enjoying the world of Middle Earth creates a far different atmosphere from that of the book & movie, which draw on the imagery of fated heroes on impossible journeys. In our game, we tried to use the platform game type and the remediation of text as a backdrop to MarxBlaster, creating a game that anyone could play but that a reader of Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow would get a lot more out of. Games allow for multiple levels of remediation: we were able to combine aspects of two different games described in the novel, several major plot points in it, and Shakespeare’s Macbeth into one project. Although it’s far from polished or complex, we hope the nuance within our concept and the variety of scenes you experience offers an interesting game to play!

Trailer

Thanks everyone!

How The Impermanence Of Online Games Both Mirrors The Human Lifespan And Gives It Meaning: A Study Of How Cyberspace Occupies Time Through The Lens of Retired Online Gaming Platforms

As human beings, we have the pleasure and curse of occupying a relatively short amount of time within the existing timeline as we know it; from the moment we are born, we can make the fair assumption that we will live anywhere from 0-122 years old based on all prior recorded human lifespans. We can live comfortably knowing that no matter what we do, eventually our time on this Earth will end. We can leave remnants of our existence behind in the form of art, history books, nuclear waste, and to be more abstract our loved ones’ memories, but as far as we know there is no way to immortalize our existence. Art erodes, history books burn, nuclear waste decays, and families forget. No matter how much time we individually occupy, which I’ll define as any period of time that is touched by any result of one’s own existence so I don’t unnecessarily limit the impact a human life can have, a single human cannot have existed within our timeline from the beginning of time to the end of it. Some may argue that religious human figures such as Adam and Eve break this logic if they existed and are still known of today, but to that, I would argue that even before those first humans, time marched backward–for at least five days according to the original source text (The Bible). For those who are of a different belief, or are not religious, I would emphasize that there has always been a time before humans: whether it be a time of dinosaurs or a time of cosmic energy. Given all of the logic above, it is safe to say that we, as individual humans, occupy a subsect of time. If you give me three minutes of your short subsect of time, I’d love to tell you a bit about why I believe that just as we are allotted time to exist on the ultimate timeline, online games are allotted time to exist on the internet. Then, after that, if you give me one more precious minute, I’ll tell you a bit about how the impermanent nature of these video games should teach more about how we view our own lives and impact.

Part One: A Brief History of My Own Experience With Retired Online Games

*Poptropica* is an online role-playing game that was first released in 2007. It operated using Adobe Flash Player until 2020, when it was briefly retired before being reprogrammed to run with Haxe. In the transition, many of the original gameplay aspects were lost, but players could still access them using a Flashpoint work around or the Steam download of the game (with a few server issues). However, in 2024, with CoolMathGames’s acquisition of *Poptropica*, the Steam download has been rendered largely inoperable, and many of the old aspects of the gameplay have been lost outside of Flashpoint.

Two weeks ago, I was feeling a bit nostalgic for my childhood back in the late 2000’s (do you feel old yet because I do), and I wanted to visit my childhood gaming website: Poptropica. As I remembered it, the site was a beautiful Oasis in my elementary school computer lab where my after school care friends and I would congregate to solve puzzles located on in-game islands in order to unlock different achievements and mini-games. My favorite island, and one I can still remember every step to solving to this day, was Reality TV Island, where you could follow a sequence of steps as your character to effectively apply, get accepted to, and compete in a Reality TV show. Obviously, still on that nostalgia kick, I immediately went to look for that island after logging into my old account. What did I find? Nothing. A big empty space where the island was supposed to be located on the map. My hopes and dreams for reliving my childhood were crushed. Needless to say, I was more than a little upset, but this got me thinking: how many games has something like this happened to? I knew of Club Penguin, which was another of my childhood games that was recently retired, but I didn’t know of the over sixty online games that had gained a cult following online before being shut down. This list includes, but is not limited to, Marvel Heroes 2016-a free MMO released in 2013 and shut down in 2017, Firefall-another MMO released in 2014 and shut down in 2017, and Spark City World-an MMO geared towards girls released in 2008 and shut down in 2017.

An interesting pattern you may have noticed was that all three of the games I listed shut down in 2017. This is not the result of me manipulating data and only showing you games that shut down in 2017 on purpose, as the games I selected were entirely random. A better explanation, however, is that Adobe Flash Player was deprecated in 2017, rendering many online games that relied on the software as good as dead, as there was no chance for players to emulate them on their own machines. In a matter of months, due to a corporate decision, the lifecycles of these games within the timeline of the internet were officially ended. To make this concept a bit easier to understand, I’ll employ an analogy that helped me wrap my own head around the idea of relative time: humans are to the ultimate timeline as a game is to the section of the ultimate timeline that the internet takes up. Therefore, when an online game hasn’t existed for the entirety of the time the internet has existed, that game mirrors the temporary nature within the timeline of the internet that humans have within the ultimate timeline. If you’re a keen reader, which I know you are, you may take my examples of retired games and argue, “If you could find information about them on the internet, then their lifespan hasn’t ended yet.” To that I say, first of all you have a great point, but second of all you’ve got to think a little bigger. Think back to before the game existed-the game’s lifespan certainly doesn’t extend to the first ever instance of the internet, as the internet was originally created to house and parse raw data. Then, think to the future. If these games could be deleted because the software they relied on for the backend was given up on, the same can be said for every website that houses an article written about those games, as well as every website that houses a video, and every website that houses any information about it whatsoever. These games, therefore, are not immortal within the timeline of the internet, just as we humans are not immortal and all-existing within our own, ultimate timeline.

Part Two: Why We Should Care That Online Games Are As Temporary As Human Life

A representation of a wormhole, which Forbes uses to link to the possibility of time travel. For our purposes, it’s best to think of humans as at the very least occupying contiguous time. With our current scientific knowledge, for something to happen in the future, it must have happened in the past. For our theory, this means that the human who caused something in the future would occupy all of the time from when they started the future event to when the future event happens, as it happens as a result of their existence.

The fact that these games are not permanent will effectively allow us as humans to experience the games within the time of the internet as if we were the ultimate timeline experiencing humans. In the same way that we view these games as just a glimpse of an event within our lives, we are a glimpse of an event within the ultimate timeline. Nevertheless, just as the games were well-loved, fostered connections, and were entertained within their brief time allotted within the time of the internet, us humans are well-loved, connected, and entertaining within the time of the ultimate timeline. It is in this comparison that the main reason we should care as humans is revealed: no matter how short our allotment of time within the ultimate timeline, we can still make an impact on those who have the pleasure of perceiving the time we occupy. Just as we are impacted by perceiving the limited lifespan of the games, the ultimate timeline is impacted by perceiving the limited lifespan of humans. What we do may seem insignificant or small relative to such a large amount of continuous time, but if online games can make an impact within the timeline of the internet despite occupying such a small amount of it, us humans can do the same with the ultimate timeline. By recognizing that these games have limited time, we can hopefully become more comfortable ourselves with our own limited time, knowing that it can have an impact. I can only hope that through the lens of ultimate time I am as loved, cherished, and important as Poptropica is to me and the internet.

With love,

Lizzie

Sources:

Poptropica Picture: linked here ; Human Lifespan: linked here ; Retired Online Games Reference Buzzfeed: linked here ; More Retired Online Games: linked here ; Poptropica History: linked here ; History of the Internet: linked here ; Spacey Picture: linked here

Aging in Video Games: Immersive or Immersion Breaking

Aging in video games always seemed like a weird concept to me. Why would you include something so grounded in real life within your digital world that many use partly as an escapist fantasy. So many of us have experienced or observed the heavy toll that getting older has whether it’s just lower energy or a more serious decline in health. My thoughts after our brief conversation about aging in games has led me to rethink some of my thoughts around aging as well as its potential as an in-game mechanic.

A variety of games feature mechanics that suggest the passage of time. Simulation games such as the sims have been aging characters for a while now and while it isn’t exactly aging in real time the time jumps to different life points such as children becoming teens and teens adults offer a sense of immersion that many crave. Fortunately, for those looking for escapism, the aging mechanic can be turned off.

Other non-simulation games feature mechanics that allude to aging without full committing to the effects of it. Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Witcher 3 both feature in game barber shops where the player can choose new hair and beard styles as well as a quick trim. To provide and extra feeling of immersion, the devs for both games implemented mechanics where the players head and facial hair grow overtime. This level of time passage only effects gameplay on an aesthetic level and just adds more customization features for your characters without effecting players looking for a less realistic time mechanic.

Recently I’ve begun playing Sifu, an indie game released in 2022 by Sloclap studios. The game puts you in the role of a young Kung Fu master seeking revenge for the murder of your father. This requires you to clear rooms full of henchmen with complex chains of attacks. What really makes the game unique is its really interesting use of aging within the game. The enemies in Sifu are challenging so it’s expected that you die a fair amount, fortunately your character has a magical pendent that resurrects them. The catch is that each of these deaths causes you character to grow older with the amount you age growing with each consecutive death. Dying to the same opponent repeatedly sees you character go from 22 to 23 to 25 to 28 etc… The aging Is more than just visual flair. As you grow older your character unlocks new powerful techniques due to the wisdom of aging which allows you to do more damage to your opponents. To balance the benefits of experience, your body becomes frailer, and you have a smaller health pool when fighting your enemies. The real kicker is that when your character ages into his 70s and 80s there is a chance he will die permanently, and the level will restart from the age you first began it at. It’s really cool having a permanent death mechanic that is actually reflective of how real aging works.

I find this a fascinating mechanic as it suggests a life outside of what we see in our gameplay. As our character ages they experience numerous trials and train to become stronger, but these experiences are all implied. I also love the lens through which they portray aging, having it be something positive for the player where they learn and grow but also keeping the harsher realities of getting older. Perhaps this proves that even the mundane and often sad parts of being human can inspire innovative and entertaining gameplay mechanics.

I would love to see someone take the concept even further with maybe a time sensitive aging mechanic that encourages you to beat levels as fast as possible while experiencing a variety of aging consequences in real time. Maybe could explore and do puzzles on other planets and have different rates of aging due to how time passes on other planets.

-Henry

Who’s Playing Who? The Hidden Connections Between Video Games & Firearm Manufacturers

Doom. Halo. BioShock. Call of Duty. First-person shooter games are some of the most popular on the market, placing the gamer in a “first-person” perspective, as the name would suggest, seeing the world from the protagonist’s point of view and allowing the gamer to see the game through the scope of a gun. Some games, like Big Buck Hunter, are found in arcades, allowing you to pick up a plastic gun and shoot it as the controller, blurring the lines between reality and your furry victims. As entertaining and popular as these games are, first-person shooters exemplify an opacity in games we tend to overlook but should pay more attention to: Video games aren’t made in a vacuum devoid of corporate interests. In the case of first-person shooters (FPS), domestic arms dealers use these games to glorify and sell high-powered firearms to young men, regardless of their consequences.

When people talk about the connection between video games and violence (as SB did in her blog last week), we often think about how games influence gamers. But, we should also think about how corporations influence games themselves and how corporations trade on the popularity of games to sell products, whether through the addictive models of gambling games, persistent ads, or, in the case of the gun industry, through gun glorification to sell high-powered firearms to very young adults. I started to learn about this a year ago when I was researching some of the firearm industry’s marketing tactics that ran afoul of the Federal Trade Commission’s guidelines regarding misleading marketing tactics and unfairly targeting minors. From there, I learned about an entire branch of the gun market dedicated to getting younger and younger kids access to bigger guns by using misleading statistics, bright-colored firearms, and intentionally marketing guns to attract young men who played FPS.

Firearm Manufacturers Allude to Games in Their Marketing

One way firearm manufacturers do this is by alluding to popular games in their marketing. For example, the pictures below show two Instagram posts by a gun manufacturer, Anderson Manufacturing, where pink palm trees are painted on guns and displayed on their Instagram. Next to them are two promotional images from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, a popular FPS (which depicts illegal gun use, among… many other crimes), which also feature the same palm trees and color scheme.

Images 1 & 2 show Anderson Manufacturing’s Ads, and images 3 & 4 show promotional images from GTA Vice City which use the same colors & palm trees

Another example is from a 2018 gun show, where four men with guns fight off a “mob,” with the slogan “Not Today Antifa” plastered above it. There are a lot of concerning aspects of this ad, but for this discussion, note the style in which these people are depicted. It’s not realism or cartoon; it looks like the type of animation we associate with first-person shooter games, linking real-life ownership and use of high-powered weapons with people’s actions in violent games.

The “Not Today Antifa” ad from 2018 used at a national gun show demonstrates how the gun industry has turned towards militaristic messaging which also alludes to gaming

Game Makers and Firearm Manufacturers Work Together

Perhaps even more troubling, proof of deals between the gaming companies and the gun industry has been unearthed. Remington, the firearm company that made Bushmaster an AR-15, went bankrupt after a settlement with families of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. As part of this settlement, emails and documents were recently released that show undisclosed details of a deal that took place between the company and Call of Duty to put their guns in the game, expressly hoping to appeal to a new generation of potential customers. According to reporting by the Wall Street Journal, one of Remington’s rifles, known as an “ACR,” was put into Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in 2009. Remington wanted to sell a civilian semi-automatic version of the ACR, and Activision Blizzard, the company that published the game, wanted a more “realistic” feel for players. It was mutually beneficial. The game sold over 22 million copies, and the civilian version of the ACR developed a cult following. This deal, which is far from the only one out there, shows that a) video games can be used as marketing tools, and b) it demonstrates the desire of the firearm industry to use games to reach a new, younger audience. Another report by Intercept discussed how the firearm industry is moving from an older consumer base that primarily used guns for hunting to a younger market, where the industry advertises how high-powered weapons can be used for “self-defense.”

Ryan Busse, a former executive at a gun manufacturer-turned policy adviser at the gun-safety group Giffords, describes how the industry shifted from hunting-focused advertisements in the 90s to marketing which now focuses on high-powered weapons, military imagery, toxic masculinity, white supremacy, young men, and games. The impact of this is palpable: for the last three years, guns have been the number one killer of children, teens, and young adults in America. Mass shooters in Uvalde, Texas; Aurora, Colorado; Sandy Hook, Connecticut; Highland Park, Illinois; Parkland, Florida; Buffalo, New York; and doubtless countless others used firearms from video games that they had played. In Busse’s words, “The gun industry’s modern marketing effort did not just arm these shooters; in a very real sense, it created them.”

To be fully transparent, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with first-person shooter games. I think they can be really fun (even though I’m pretty terrible at them), and there is no proof of causation between playing these games and engaging in real-world violence. However, pretending as though these games are created or played in a world removed from the weapons they depict is dangerous. The gaming industry needs to take accountability for the deals they’ve made with firearm manufacturers to place real guns in their games. We should all be more aware of the consequences of the gun industry purposefully linking their guns to popular games: they intentionally use militaristic imagery to get (mostly) young men who play FPS, which often show firearm use in active combat, against zombies, or for illegal purposes, to buy real semi-automatic firearms for “self-defense” against other civilians. But beyond the gun industry itself, games are a powerful marketing tool for companies willing to use them, and we should view any product placement, even if it’s seemingly innocuous, with some vigilance. Because although we play games, sometimes they play us too.

— Brynn

NieR: Automata: a discussion of video game sound effects design

There always comes a time when I’m playing a game and feeling a bit labored, so I put down my gamepad and just watch the game screen for a brief rest. However, one game happened to hit me out of nowhere at that exact moment. When I first stopped in NieR: Automata, I felt a powerful soundstage surround me, not just for its excellent soundtrack but as a combined experience of the different layers of sound in the game. In this blog, I’m not going to talk about Studio Platinum’s excellent action and fight design or the philosophical ideas that Taro Yokoo wanted to discuss. However, instead, I’m just going to talk about its soundtrack and sound effects, how it affects the potential for interactivity in the medium of video games as game development technology continues to evolve, and what considerations are made for sound effects design.

NieR: Automata is an ARPG video game released in 2017, developed by Platinum Studios and published by Square Enix, whose story revolves around a proxy war between robots created by aliens and robots created by humans. The music in Nier was arranged by Keiichi Okabe and his team at Monaca, and Platinum Studios used real-time processing of the audio in the game to achieve unprecedented effects. The following technical discussion comes from Platinum Studios member Shuji Kohata’s technical presentation at the Game Developers Conference 2018, please check out the presentation, which includes a number of compelling live demos.

Spatial-based real-time sound effects

For large-scale games like NieR: Automata, which include open-world elements, players exploring different areas within the game is undoubtedly one of the key gameplay elements. And the Platinum Studios team realized powerful spatial audio effects through two technologies: spatial audio technology independent of the output device (simple 3D) and interactive reverb technology (K-verb).

Among these, simple 3D is a spatial audio processing technique that does not depend on the sound output hardware and is designed to enable the player to be aware of objects behind them using only stereo sound. Audio differentiation is accomplished by adjusting the sound source’s volume based on its position, increasing or decreasing its high and low frequency components, and responding to objects behind it with bandpass filters. Interestingly, Shuji Kohata and his colleagues manually adjusted this set of techniques by comparing the audio of a stereo in front of Kohata and one behind Kohata. K-verb refers to a real-time reverb technique (named by Shuji Kohata himself) based on the position of the game character and the size of the surrounding space. By shooting ranging rays in multiple directions from the character’s position and calculating the size of the space around them, the duration of the audio reverb is controlled, resulting in a spatial audio effect that is dominated by the character rather than the player’s point of view.

K-verb: rays shooted on surrounded areas as balls

Real-time sound effects based on game mechanics

Hacking into enemy robots is an essential part of the gameplay. This is where the player enters a shooting mini-game to simulate the process of hacking into other machines. And based on this gameplay, the Platinum Studios team developed a unique audio filter that doesn’t rely on the 8-bit version of a specific track but instead 8-bitizes the current audio through software to achieve smooth overdubs and adjustability of the 8-bit effect. Secondly, like many games where scarlet begins to color around the screen when the protagonist is injured, NieR: Automata produces a unique lo-fi sound effect when the player is injured, mimicking the state of old-school machinery when it’s damaged without making the noise too jarring to add to the immersion of the game.

demonstration of 8-bit sound filter where the “8-bit” level is adjustable

In addition to the above two types of audio technology, Shuji Kohata also mentioned other fun designs used in games, such as odd voice effects if the player adjusts the volume of a character’s voice too high or too low, as well as Doppler effect processing of audio produced by rapidly traveling units, and other sound effects designed to complement the game’s graphics. It’s worth noting that all of the above audio effects must be lightweight and not cause the game to lag by acting out the audio. For example, the lo-fi effect reduces the sample rate of the game’s audio before processing it and subsequently resampling it, while the 8-bit sound effect simply uses mono audio.

Whether it’s a K-verb or 8-bit effect, these techniques demonstrated by Shuji Kohata make in-game audio relevant to the player’s actions, with exact feedback when the player presses a button. This is fundamentally different from playing footsteps when the player starts moving and switching to a “battle” soundtrack when they enter a battle. The sound design in NieR: Automata is integrated into the gameplay. There are few video games I’ve seen that focus on the player’s auditory experience as much as NieR: Automata, which seems to be an aspect many creators don’t pay enough attention to. However, gamers who have played the NieR series know that sometimes games can impress you with their sound alone (please try it here).

—Howard

Microtransactions… Mega Problem

When I was younger, when a game was released, the only payment a player would be responsible for was buying the disc. However, as I began to play more mature games like Call of Duty, I noticed that a few times per year there would be DLC (Downloadable Content) releases in which new maps would be released. While purchasing these releases was not mandatory, those that did not purchase the DLC maps would not be able to play with those who did purchase them, essentially splitting the player base in half. I always did purchase the DLC maps as they weren’t too expensive and I looked forward to new in-game content. While the Call of Duty franchise was not the first game to include in-game purchases, my experience with Downloadable Content first came while playing COD and games released by EA Sports such as NHL and FIFA.

Although the splitting up of the player base in Call of Duty was irritating, a player’s in-game performance was never directly influenced by anything that was available for purchase. That is, until they decided to release “supply drops” in 2014’s Advanced Warfare. Supply drops were initially earned in game; these drops included variants of weapons that provided players with a distinct advantage, as many variants included increased damage and range or significant improvements in mobility speed. While the release of supply drops received a bit more backlash than Activision (developers of Call of Duty) expected, because supply drops were originally not available to be purchased, the backlash was limited. However, Activision ultimately decided to release advanced supply drops which were available for purchase and provided significantly higher odds of obtaining the best weapons in the game.

(Call of Duty Advanced Warfare unfair weapon variant and Advanced Supply Drops in the Marketplace)

Unlike the original supply drops, this move by Activision caused extreme damage to the game, as many players felt that the integrity of the game had been lost. Now, the skill gap was smaller, and the game became “pay to win.” Although I think the community overreacted to these supply drops since the weapons weren’t that much better than the originals, Call of Duty’s player base began to decline at a rapid rate. Call of Duty seemed as though it would be a dead game so long as supply drops and microtransactions were a part of the game. To combat this issue, Activision made supply drops that include strictly cosmetic items that did not impact game performance. Although this change was positive, Call of Duty has never been the same game as it was when microtransactions were limited to DLC maps.

While Call of Duty may have ruined the game by way of microtransactions, one game that enhanced the player experience through the use of microtransactions is CS:GO. CS:GO also allows players to purchase skins for real money; however, these skins hold monetary value and can even be resold on the marketplace. Through microtransactions, CS:GO has not only preserved the longevity of their game, but also created an entire community of players who are obsessed with collecting and trading. While no game that includes microtransactions will ever be perfect in my opinion, I think CS:GO does an amazing job of integrating microtransactions as an optional enhancement to game enjoyment. Some of these skins have even gone on to sell for tens of thousands of dollars, even hitting prices well over $100,000.

(This CS:GO knife skin is valued at over $1 million, and its owner has turned down offers over this price tag)

While my complaints regarding microtransactions seem to be very minor as they only affected my enjoyment of the game, there are more tangible reasons as to why microtransactions are more harmful than good. One thing I have noticed in microtransactions is that there are two specific types, both of which ruin the experience: microtransactions that provide an advantage or those that look to exploit children.

In my experience of playing games, since Call of Duty, I have mostly seen the first type of microtransactions in sports games, specifically FIFA. For example, when I was in high school, I watched one of my good friends become addicted to opening FIFA Ultimate Team packs just to gain an advantage against other players. When it was all said and done, he had spent around $2,000 in under 6 months, causing a long discussion with his parents. Again, microtransactions of this type may be annoying to those that do not wish to spend money, yet they can also be extremely problematic to individuals, especially when the perceived in-game advantage they provide is extremely large as is the case with FIFA.

For the second type of microtransactions I have come across, the first game I point to is Fortnite. Although the items offered in the Fortnite marketplace do not affect gameplay, the inclusion of pop culture icons and characters in game “skins” is directed at mainly children, especially when considering Fortnite’s player base. While this may be profitable for the developers of Fortnite, it begs the question: are microtransactions truly ethical? When purchasing from the Fortnite marketplace, it takes about 15 seconds for an individual to add money to their account and purchase a new skin. And with each skin costing roughly $15-$20, purchasing skins quickly becomes a very expensive hobby that young kids are most likely unable to stop themselves from participating in. Considering that the revenue from microtransactions is nearly $100 billion per year, I would argue microtransactions in this context are absolutely not ethical; however, there is no chance that microtransactions are going anywhere, as they’re just too profitable.

(Fortnite marketplace featuring Star Wars skins for purchase)

As mentioned previously, microtransactions can be positive for a game; however, they also cause a lot of problems when overused and when they’re meant to exploit young kids. In the days of early Call of Duty and CS:GO, I thought microtransactions could help enhance games; yet, when a game revolves around its microtransactions, I learned how microtransactions could become exploitative and lead games to lose their integrity. While I’m not exactly sure how to fix this issue, I do think we need to investigate solutions, as it is typically more of a problem than a game enhancement.

Death and The Fool’s Journey: Persona 3 Reload

As a word of caution, this post will contain spoilers for several of Persona 3 Reload’s Social Links. I highly recommend you put off reading this until you have had a chance to play and finish the game for yourself if you are at all interested. An additional trigger warning is that this blog will discuss topics surrounding death and suicide.

Three years ago this past weekend, I finished Persona 5 Royal for the very first time. After 106 hours and 34 minutes of playtime, I completed a game almost a year after I started playing. My journey with the Persona series began in March 2020, during the pandemic. We all had been sent home, not knowing what the future held for us. I had been so busy through high school that I had lost time for gaming, but during the lockdowns I had so much time on my hands that I could make time again to play games. On March 31, 2020, Persona 5 Royal was released worldwide, after a Japanese release in October of the previous year. After some pestering from a friend, I bit the bullet and purchased it on release day.

What is Persona? What’s with the suffixes?

Persona is a spinoff of the Japanese Role Playing Game (JRPG) series Shin Megami Tensei, with the first Persona game releasing in the West as “Revelations: Persona” on September 20, 1996 for the Playstation. Each game follows a similar structure: a group of teenagers are able to harness their Persona, a physical manifestation of their consciousness, to defeat shadows and save humanity for one reason or another. Up until the last several years, the Persona series had been relatively underground. It had its fans, but never really took off for Western audiences until the release of the original Persona 5 in 2016. Which leads into the next question, why so many suffixes? Usually, each main game (with the exception of Persona and Persona 2, which actually has two versions but that’s a totally different story) will get an enhanced re-release a few years later with bonus content and polished game mechanics. Examples include Persona 3 FES, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 Royal.

A Re-Release

However, this year marked something new for the series. This is the first time a game had been completely remade from the ground-up for modern systems. Earlier this month, after massive fan outcry and several years of begging, Persona 3 Reload was released worldwide for PS5, Xbox, and PC. Many fans hold Persona 3 as their personal favorite in the series, and for good reason. It was the beginning of the “modern” Persona formula. In addition to the JRPG combat system and dungeon exploring, it added the Social Links (called Confidants in Persona 5), and other Life-Sim attributes. During the day, your player character (Makoto Yuki) would be able to hang out with friends after school, ranking up their Social Links and unlocking new combat tactics and the ability to wield stronger personas.

Social Links

For most players, including myself, the Social Links are the highlights of playing a Persona game. They offer additional stories outside of that of the main plot, and often lead to great rewards, and are the perfect compliments to the main theme of the game. In the case of Persona 3, that main theme is death and loss. Every character in the game is touched by the loss of someone important or close to them. These stories start simple, but end up breaking your heart by the end. The first one to really hit me enough to move me was Maiko’s Social Link. Maiko is a grade schooler the player meets at a shrine. While she doesn’t experience death in a traditional sense, the player quickly finds out that her parents will be getting a divorce. Obviously, as a grade schooler, she has a hard time being able to properly handle this and her emotions surrounding this situation. So, she decides to run away, leaving her parents devastated at the loss of her daughter. The end of Maiko’s story does have a happy ending, with her parents reuniting to find her after she runs away. With this being the tip of the iceberg, let’s move on to a Social Link that isn’t quite as heartwarming.

At about the halfway point of the game, the plot starts to take a turn for the darker. You then can unlock what might be my favorite Social Link in the game, Akinari. You meet Akinari in the park, while naturally progressing through Maiko’s link. Only later are you able to unlock him as a Social Link. His story is that he is diagnosed with an incurable disease, and feels hopeless to the world. He doesn’t have friends, as he feels that he shouldn’t be close to anyone because his time is dwindling. It’s a moving story that I won’t spoil further. I encourage you to check it out sometime.

To reflect on the main party of the game that you adventure with, all of them have experienced loss and death as well. For instance, Yukari and Mitsuru both lost their fathers, Mitsuru even during the course of the game, and we see it happen with our own eyes. Junpei loses his first love, Chidori, after she sacrifices her life to save his. Akihiko lost his whole family, then his sister in a fire at the orphanage they grew up in. Ken has no family left. And the player character makes the ultimate sacrifice at the end of the game.

In Summary

But what fun is it if I spoil everything? I heavily encourage you to play Persona 3 Reload, or even any version of Persona 3 you can. Actually, why not just play any game in the series at all? Persona 3, 4, AND 5 are very easily accessible on most consoles! If you are at all interested, start with Persona 5 Royal, then Persona 3 Reload, then Persona 4 Golden. The stories are all self-contained, so you could completely disregard my recommendations if you like too! Happy playing!

-Ethan

Dave the Diver and Dredge: How Art Direction and Tone Can Separate Otherwise Similar Games

I have played video games for the majority of my life in varying quantities depending on how busy I am with other pursuits. Upon entering college several years ago, I found it harder to keep up with the year’s releases just due to the level of academic and extracurricular obligations that I prioritized. Despite having less time to game overall, our month-long breaks from class are where I do a lot of catching up on some of the year’s more prominent releases. I typically focus on indie games just because I find the gameplay styles a little more varied and the completion times are low enough where I don’t have to worry about not finishing. Oddly enough two of my favorites of the year ended up being fairly similar in terms of gameplay. Dave the Diver and Dredge are two fishing indie games released in the year 2023.

While somewhat similar on the surface, I feel the two games offer a really interesting case study on how art direction and tone influence a game’s final product. Both revolve around fishing mechanics, both operate on a quest-based structure, both have risk v. reward elements for fishing at night, and both have a “catch them all” completion mechanic. Their execution of these elements is what separates the two. Dave the Diver is a beautifully pixel-art animated vibrant and comedic experience where you spend a large amount of time helping and forming bonds with the eccentric locals. In contrast, Dredge is a Lovecraftian influenced 3D cell shaded game with slightly more focus on exploration. Unlike Dave the Diver, Dredge’s NPCs are cold and anti-social characters who frequently lock themselves away from the player in service of the isolating madness the game instills in the user.

A comparison of the meter based real in mechanics used for catching fish. Dave the Diver (left) and Dredge (right)

This difference in tone is particularly apparent in the night expeditions available in both releases. In Dave the Diver the player has the option of venturing into the sea at night in order to obtain exclusive fish or to complete specific missions. This differs from the daytime gameplay in that the fish become much more aggressive and the player further risks their health and valuable time. While there are more threats during the nighttime, the actual tone of gameplay does not shift very much. Dredge has a far more dramatic shift during the night. In Dredge the player is incentivized to journey out at night with the chance of catching rare fish or completing special quests, much like Dave the Diver. The key difference is the drastic tonal shift of Dredge. At night, Dredge becomes a survival game as the player must navigate the rocky landscape while being actively hunted by giant menacing sea creatures. Much like the Lovecraftian fiction that it takes influence from, the fisherman in Dredge begins to go mad after the sun sets which leads to untrustworthy environments where rocks and other hazards spontaneously appear in front of the player, hidden within the thick fog that surrounds us.

A comparison of night time gameplay between the two games. Dave the Diver (left) and Dredge (right)

While there are obvious differences throughout, these nighttime journeys are what really separate the two games with one still being a mostly relaxing good times romp and the other drifting towards unsettling and genuinely scary moments. These two releases demonstrate how gameplay similarities are really not that important when trying to create a unique game. The more important aspect is how the tone and art direction of the game’s carve out a unique environment for this gameplay loop. While there are near infinite possibilities for new mechanics in video games, as developers cover more ground, I expect the tone and art style of games to be far more important for developing new experiences.

-Henry

The Butterfly Effect in Until Dawn and How it Taught 11-Year-Old-Me Empathy

Adolescents cannot be diagnosed as psychopaths, and ten quick minutes in the chat room of any multiplayer game will tell you why–all children are psychopaths. That is, all children are either psychopaths or sociopaths until they learn empathy. Empathy, defined as “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another” person by Merriam-Webster, is learned through life experiences. It can develop rapidly or at a very early age for some people, or over time, but still before the age of 18 for others. A select few never develop empathy at all, becoming the psychopaths or sociopaths of the world (which is completely okay and a genuine medical condition). Although I can’t pinpoint exactly when I developed empathy, I believe that a big part of my ability to put myself in the shoes of others comes from watching others play video games in sixth grade.

After a bad friend group break-up at the tail end of my first year of middle school coupled with an announcement that my father was moving to another state for work, I turned to the internet for a bit of company. At the time, Let’s Plays were the big trend on YouTube. At the risk of exposing myself as a huge nerd in middle school, I’m going to let you guys delve into the psyche of 11-year-old me through my then most-watched YouTube creators. Dan and Phil would have been the top two, followed swiftly by PewDiePie, JackSepticEye, and Markiplier. Somehow I missed the Zoella train, but not to worry, Jenna Marbles was always a staple. I first got into Let’s Plays by watching Dan and Phil’s gaming series where they played the Sims. The videos were entertaining since I remembered playing a free, mobile version of the same game on my phone back in the good old days (elementary school). From there, the recommended bar pushed me into the world of the big three gaming YouTubers I mentioned earlier, but more specifically, it pushed me into the world of Until Dawn.

If you don’t know, or weren’t a victim of the YouTube algorithm in 2016, Until Dawn is a cinematic, modern, choose-your-own-adventure style horror game in which the Butterfly Effect plays an integral role in what ending a player gets. At its core, the goal of the game is to keep 8 college-aged people alive through the night in the snowy mountains surrounding their friend’s cabin. However, throughout the game there exist totems, physical parts of a totem pole that allow the player to see choices they may be presented with in the future in hopes that the snippet of information the totem gives them will be able to help the player make the right choice down the line. There are certain choices in the game that cannot be made if a totem revealing the proper choice isn’t found earlier in the game. Additionally, Until Dawn makes its connection to the Butterfly Effect very direct by announcing that a “Butterfly Effect” has been discovered when a player views a totem. All of the butterfly effects are also tracked in a virtual notebook so the player can see when they have had an effect on their personal gameplay. I’ve attached a picture of a totem, as well as the butterfly effect journal, below.

The final death totem in Until Dawn. When a player encounters a totem, they can pick it up and the game will flash a cutscene of a future decision to be made in the game as well as the immediate outcome of that decision.

The Butterfly Effect notebook within Until Dawn. When a player picks up a totem, the left side of a butterfly is filled in with the causal event. When an event occurs later in the game as a direct result of the earlier action (or inaction), the right side of the butterfly is revealed.

Watching others, most likely Jacksepticeye and Markiplier, play until Dawn in its entirety forced me to sit idly by while they made decisions that were the opposite of the ones I would have made. However, even though they were doing something that I didn’t want them to do, I still had fun watching. It also seemed like they had fun playing. Heck, sometimes they even stumbled into better outcomes by making those different decisions. Through this process of watching, but not having control, I learned that sometimes others lived experience led them to make decisions that would be better in the long run. I found that while watching them play the game, if they made a decision that I wouldn’t have made, and it led to a good outcome, I would switch what my decision was going to be to match theirs. If they made a decision that led to something horrible, and I would have made another, it still didn’t change how the course of their game went because the video of their gameplay had already been shot and recorded. These experiences, combined, taught me patience with others decisions and how to deal with my own emotions when the consequences of their decisions impacted my own experience. Watching them play the game taught me empathy, as well as respect for others independent decision-making.

Not only did watching others play the game teach me about empathy, but Until Dawn itself taught me how to put myself into others’ shoes. If it were only watching others play a game that taught me empathy, I would have learned the complex topic much earlier, while watching my sister play Nintendogs on our shared pink DS. Maybe I learned a little empathy during those sessions (for the poor dogs that had to deal with her agility training), but I certainly didn’t learn as much as I did while watching people play Until Dawn. Due to the structure of the game, the player is forced to play as all of the characters in the game at least once (with the exception of the non-human characters or any characters whose trustworthiness is meant to be unclear to the main group of 8). This procedure of having the player physically be in every character’s shoes forces the player to, at least for a little bit, make decisions from that character’s perspective. This means taking into account how their decisions when playing as that character will affect the other characters, knowing that they will have to play as the other characters later. As a programmer now, looking back, I have no idea how the game creators thought of these mechanics and didn’t immediately say “no way, that is going to be absolute insanity to code,” but I’m so glad they didn’t. In fact, they doubled down. The programmers said, “actually, we’re not going to make the players guess how their actions as a specific character affect that character’s relationship with the others, we’re going to directly tell them.” Which was a revelation to 11-year-old me who had absolutely no clue, or didn’t care to have a clue about, how my actions affected those around me. I’ve included a picture of that feature of the game below as well. You’ll notice that the character’s relationship with every other character is measured, as well as the strength of their own character traits. Of course, every decision the player makes affects that character’s traits as well as that character’s interpersonal relationships–because programming the game wasn’t already hard enough.

Mike’s character information screen. On the left, it lists his character traits, and on the right, it lists his relationship status with the other seven people at the cabin. The levels of these traits all change depending on decisions made in-game.

I’m not saying Until Dawn singlehandedly prevented me from becoming a sociopath, but I can confidently say that it sped up the process of my own learning about empathy. The cut-and-dry way of seeing how actions have consequences not only for oneself but for others in a very direct way that forces the player to have empathy for every character they play as was very easy for 11-year-old me to pick up on. If it could happen in the game, then certainly it also happened in real life, which meant that I needed to stop acting like my own actions didn’t have consequences. Overall, I’m glad a game like Until Dawn came out when it did, and although I would never want to program something as complex as it on my own, I hope that someday something I program can have the same impact on its users. I hear from the grapevine that a movie for Until Dawn is in the works, and I can’t wait to see how these elements translate to that form of media.

With love–Lizzie.

Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magazine/can-you-call-a-9-year-old-a-psychopath.html ; https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-couch/201810/can-empathy-be-taught; https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathy ; https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/until-dawn/