video game – New Media: Storytelling in Literature, Films, and Games

Legally Blonde – Group 9

Video Link: https://youtu.be/ycV_0ziiqdg

When our group first met, we had a series of incredibly dissimilar ideas. Our preliminary meeting consisted of bouncing between text-only adventure stories, visual novel horror stories, and some edition of the recently popular game “Episodes”. Because of our differing genre preferences, there didn’t seem to be a movie we were interested in remediation that the majority of us had seen. That is, until Lara suggested Legally Blonde. The sorority-girl-turned-lawyer film is a millennial cult classic, something we all loved as kids (that is, except Nick, who had never seen it) (This quickly changed).

This idea is when we began to see that we could combine multiple elements of different game types we had proposed making – Legally Blonde remediated into a game could be a text prompted, visual novel type game where users had to solve the same case that Elle had to in the movie. Choosing which scene we were going to remediate proved a simple task after choosing the movie. The courtroom scene in which Elle had to take charge and prove her client’s innocence through information collection seemed the clearest example of a mission to complete.

Preparing to create our game and remediate the courtroom scene from Legally Blonde partly involved Lara drawing each character. She took inspiration both directly from the movie’s actors and by looking at other visual novel type games to create her style.

Preparation also involved the creation of a dialogue tree. We started by transcribing the questioning of each witness from the movie. We then had to figure out which questions chosen by the players led to which information being revealed. Those who had seen the movie might find it obvious exactly which path to take, but those new to the franchise would have to solve the case themselves in the same way Elle had to.

We chose to create the game in Ren’Py, a visual novel engine written in Python. Audrey and Nick downloaded the engine and confirmed that it could support the game mechanics we had discussed, including the image buttons which allow the player to make observations about the witnesses appearances and use it in their arguments. Then, we used the menu function to create dialogue choices, and developed branching choices with associated flags so that the game would remember those choices.

One struggle was determining the best way to keep track of game logic – initially, we tried to use primarily Boolean-valued variables, but because of the nature of screen language in Ren’py, we decided to use a “set” to which we add different tags depending on previous important choices.

Our dialogue tree is fairly simple, but it could be expanded with further time (and willingness to deviate from the original media). Currently, the player is guided towards success, and failure in previous rounds doesn’t prevent the player from ultimately getting the truth out of Chutney. When the player asks a question that leads them towards important information, they are allowed to progress in the game.

A question or conclusion that does not help the player will result in a stalling or lack of progression. Had we had more time, we would have added ways in which the player could fail completely, such as by revealing Brooke’s liposuction or failing to click on Chutney’s hair.

The video making consisted of comparing a scene from the movie with the game itself. We wanted to draw attention to the amount that we kept the same between the two – as people often complain about the inaccuracies that occur through remediation, we felt passionate about keeping consistent with the Legally Blonde that fans know and love.

Reflections on Death: Coping Through Spiritfarer

tw: experiencing death of loved ones

Death is not a foreign concept to me. I know, what a way to start this blog. But, as unfortunate as it may seem, it’s true. Over the past few years, I have lost family members and family friends, some who were more dear to me than others but all who had some impact on my life. Loss can be a difficult thing to process, and grief is different for everyone, for every death. Coping with loss and grief can come in many forms, but for me, what has helped me the most is immersing myself into video games. Video games can provide you with a sense of purpose and normalcy when the real world seems just a little too difficult to manage. One game in particular that has been my go-to game to cope with loss is Spiritfarer.

Spiritfarer is a management sim and sandbox action game which follows the character Stella and her cat Daffodil. Taking on the role of spiritfarer in the afterlife, Stella sets sail across the sea to find lost spirits and help grant their last wish to pass on. With death and loss so central to the plot of Spiritfarer, it’s no surprise why it’s helped me through some rough times. Spiritfarer is a game that explores what comes after death and shows that it is only normal to pass away before accomplishing and fixing everything that you wanted to. From coming to terms with a cheating ex husband to exploring mental health issues, the characters that you help throughout the game all face their own struggles that they must overcome. Even though the characters appear as anthropomorphic animals, and one even as a mushroom, they are some of the most human characters that I’ve seen in a video game. Each character has so much depth, and as you get to know them better, they start to show more sides of themselves to you, from their flaws to their vulnerabilities. The best part: you can hug all of the characters!

Once each character feels ready to move on, Stella takes them to the Everdoor, the threshold from this part of the afterlife to the next. There the character reminisces on their life before giving a final hug to Stella and disappearing in a flash of golden light. Spiritfarer has taught me that although the time we spend with others will always be temporary, the relationships and memories we hold of them are valuable, even if the person is no longer in our lives.

– Sanjana

The Making of Catching Ferris

Our group’s initial discussions focused on what type of game we wanted to create and we eventually all came to agree that we liked the idea of a side-scrolling platformer similar to that of Braid or Super Mario Brothers.We looked into using GameMaker and RPG Maker as well, but decided that the Unity platform seemed like the most efficient software to implement our design ideas through while also allowing for seamless collaboration between multiple group members.

After discussing various potential topics to base the game on, our team ended up in a conversation regarding different films from the 80s. We wanted our project to be a remediation of one of these films and we narrowed our options down to three: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Breakfast Club, and The Goonies. We eventually decided on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as there were several different conflicts within the film that we felt would allow us to create an interactive experience exploring these situations. We also decided on this movie because we felt connected to Ferris in a way. This is the first semester that we have not had a single break, so sometimes we want to be like Ferris and just take a day off. When beginning the design process, a single player game seemed like the obvious choice and we wanted to mix it up and rather than making the hero the protagonist, the player must play as the villain (Principal Rooney).

We chose the scene of Rooney going to Ferris’s house because, after deciding that a game more similar to Braid would be easier to create in Unity, we established that this scene in the movie naturally has a lot of obstacles that we can recreate. In the movie, Rooney drives to Ferris’ house and his car ends up getting towed after Jeanie kicks him; however, in order to make the game more interactive we chose to have Rooney walk to the house. Walking was essential in order to incorporate the added challenge of fighting off the dogs while searching for the three keys, collecting gems, and avoiding Jeanie. Additionally, we found this scene to be one of the funniest in the movie! After downloading Unity, we collectively found that the 2D template was set up perfectly for the game type we chose.

As the goal of the game, we wanted to pay tribute to the never-ending humorous tasks laid out for Principal Rooney in the movie, while also keeping the tasks relatively simple as to not overwhelm ourselves with the novel process of game design. The first task we agreed upon was having the player, or Principal Rooney, have to collect 3 keys before entering Ferris’s house. To complicate the task of collecting these keys and remediate the storyline of the movie, we created vicious dogs that must be avoided in order to progress through the game. To further incorporate the storyline of the movie into the game, the player must jump over Jeanie at the end as to avoid getting painfully kicked! Lastly, we decided that in a vein similar to that of the Mario and Sonic games, we wanted to include coins for the player to pick up. Rather than directly copying those two games with either rings or coins, we elected to use gems. Although gathering the gems does not give you an extra life, they offer a small minigame within the main journey to Bueller’s house. Consistent with the plethora of tasks Principal Rooney had to juggle at once to find and catch Ferris, we thought this added mini-task of collecting gems to raise the player’s score was appropriate.

A big challenge for our group was the steep learning curve of Unity. None of our group members had any experience with this software or even the game design process in general. One of the biggest issues we had was figuring out how to change the sprites of the players and the enemies. Over time, we were able to problem-solve and create sprites for Principal Rooney, the dogs he had to fight off, and even one for Jeanie outside of Ferris’s house! We also experienced technical issues with Unity; we had a lot of trouble figuring out how to export sprites in a file that could be viewed by other group members. Once we had changed the sprites, we also had to change some of the properties of the player and the enemies within the platform level to ensure that each entity was still functional. Furthermore, it took us a while to figure out how to publish changes made in Unity so that the rest of the group could see the updated changes; this made collaboration quite difficult because it was hard to see the most up-to-date version. Overall, using a software unfamiliar to us was quite a challenge; however, if Ferris Bueller taught us anything, it’s to never give up

On the other hand, one of our greatest successes was our group dynamic. We worked extremely well as a team and were able to problem solve together in order to work through the challenges posed to us. Each member did a significant amount of work and an immense amount of effort was put into this project by all parties. Additionally, another success was the remediation of the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off into a game! While some adaptations were made, the creative way of expressing this scene with Principal Rooney in the movie through gameplay was a great success.

Overall, we learned a lot about the game-making process. There are so many different complex components that go into it. From the content creation to the actual designing of the game, there are many moving parts that come together for the final product of the game. Additionally, through the remediation process, we learned a lot about the balance between giving a work a new meaning while at the same time building on what came before. One of the most important lessons that we learned during this process was that while unfamiliar challenges seem daunting, hard work and collaboration will always provide a solution. Our group learned a lot about teamwork, as we inspired each other to keep going in the face of the unknown. No one in our group was afraid of the challenge, so we were able to accomplish the result that we wanted. As tribute to Ferris Bueller, we also learned that skipping school every once in a while is not the end of the world 😉

Credits:

Jack Hollier: Game design, video/image Collection

Makenna Pierce: Game design, sprite editing

Brian Campe: Game design, document creation

Charlotte Tucker: Trailer editing, document creation

Christian Catanese: Trailer editing, document creation

Whitney Brown: Trailer production, video collection

All: Document review, project approval

The Shining, A Text-Based Narrative Game

Classic ‘Here’s Johnny’ Clip from the Movie

Our game design took inspiration from Choice of Games, LLC., a company that hosts and publishes multiple genres of text-based narrative games. When remediating a scene from a visual movie like The Shining, it was easier to see how we could take the visual and auditory information from the movie and transcribe it into the text form for our game. Creating the game also posed an interesting task to us because of the creative nature of the alternative ending and alternate choices along the original story line from The Shining’s infamous chase scene. Each group member had at least one of the 7 main choice options to choose from and write the contextual information proceeding the choice, as well as the different choice options and conclusions following those choices.

After writing the narrative part of our text game, the next step was to include the coding component. Using ChoiceScript, our group member Daniel (the only one with coding experience) was able to run a couple of tests with the working narrative. He implemented the coding language alongside the narrative we had written to start on turning our game into a playable format. We were able to successfully create the text-based narrative game that has since shown no issues in its playability.

We based our group decisions around what we could do well, and what would be compelling to our audience. A text-based video game, despite its challenges, sounded very interesting to our group. With our limited computer skills, we felt we could make something much more compelling with text, rather than with visual components. After deciding on a text-based format, we chose to recreate the final chase scene of The Shining, because everyone in the group had either seen the movie and loved it, or hadn’t seen it but really wanted to. Additionally, The Shining is very popular as a book as well as a movie, so we felt that a lot of people would be interested in our game. Specifically, we got to take an in-depth look at the motivations of Danny and Wendy. Understanding the complexity of the climax of The Shining, allowed us to grasp the danger and severity of their situation to a higher degree. Trello was a resource our group was new to, but it proved a very efficient way of dividing up work clearly. Finally, as a group our collaboration skills were present in all stages of the assignment, and we were able to achieve a working dynamic that is desirable in all group projects.

We believe that our group’s strong point was our designation of work. We were all able to pick up pieces of the project and make sure we split off the work as evenly as possible. This made creating the game a fun and less stressful activity. We also made great use of the Trello, allowing us to see what each other had finished and what more work had to be done. We found success in breaking down the last scene of the movie and understanding a lot of the moving parts. Therein lay the problem, though, as we now had to create alternate scenarios for each major beat of the last scene. Though we resolved the issue quite easily, it was still a brain tease to think up many different possible scenarios that could stay true to the story. In actually coding the game, we found success in translating our choice map into Choicescript. It was a pretty easy transition in that we were able to correctly code all of our premade choices/outcomes. A failure that we can see is the lack of visuals. As our project is solely choice based, we did not put a focus into visuals, possibly creating a half baked atmosphere. We discovered that while Choice of Games supports images in the game, we were unable to access this feature because we would have to submit our game through a review process with the company, Additionally, we did not get to implement stats such as choice trackers or how many times a character has made the wrong choice. We could not devise a good way to implement that feature into the design of our game because of the limited choices we were able to implement in a single scene remediation.

We faced personal and group challenges in the making of the video game. Participating in something that is collaborative in an environment where there was no in-person interaction was especially difficult, but we found ways to make it work. Two members of our group are asynchronous so, even when there were face-to-face meetings in class, our collaboration was limited significantly. However, we formed a group chat and discussed our ideas there, which helped make our roles clearer. The Trello board was helpful as well especially when we couldn’t meet, as it helped us stay on task and outline our project visually. A personal challenge stood out when doing the actual remediation of the scenes from The Shining. Being loyal to the plot of the movie, and adapting the scenes to fit in better with the video game was a challenging, but rewarding experience as we got to make an older story new. We also had to write alternate endings to The Shining, but it was a fun creative challenge.

Game Trailer:

Escape from the Overlook Game

Game download available here (requires Node.js): https://www.dropbox.com/sh/291lae7jdw71xbt/AAByVQnjI0vWCriQlKAWAU-3a?dl=0

Credits (Group 9)

Emma Catharine: Created and managed the Trello board, provided context for the opening summary of the game, created Choice 6 and the following context related to each choice, contributed to part of the game design document and posted it to the blog, used past experience with Choice of Games to guide our game design decision process, helped outline the video review process

Isaac: Created Choices 3 and 5, was involved in the creative process of choosing a scene from The Shining to remediate, created the video for the game review, turned in video

Olivia: Created Choices 1 and 2, was involved in the creative process of choosing a scene from The Shining to remediate, created the script for the game review

Louis: Created Choice 4 and the ending summary to the game, narrated the video for the game review

Daniel: Created Choice 7, transformed the text narrative that was written and reviewed by all group members into a playable game by using ChoiceScript, sourced images of coding process and from the The Shining for the video game review

Death, Taxes, and Video Games

For being one of the few things guaranteed at birth, death is a fickle thing. I am not promised how I’ll die, when I’ll die, or where I’ll die, but death is promised nonetheless. Maybe I can chalk up death’s inevitability to life being unfair, or it could be the only thing that’s fair when the credits roll on my game of life. But no matter how much I prepare for this inescapable ending, death is often unexpected.

It took me a whole year to realize Pokemon evolution was a thing…

This (among other things) is where reality and video games differ. Yes, death is assured in video games, but it is expected at some point in my journey. Whether that is my Chewbacca crumbling into a pile of Lego limbs after losing four hearts or my Charmander fainting in battle against yet another wild Pokemon, death is a part of the contract you sign as soon as you boot up your system.

For being one of the few things guaranteed at birth, death is an unfamiliar thing… until it’s not. I knew what death was from an early age because of how innately straightforward it is; it’s the state of not living, of not being, anymore. That is obviously an oversimplification of an incredibly complex idea. But, we aren’t born with the mental capacity to understand its intricacies, and until we do, we are forced to live with this elementary concept of death.

This is where reality and video games are similar. My mortality has and always will be easier to understand than others’. My life is finite and full of “Game Over” screens. I made tentative peace with that a while ago, whether that came in the form of turning to religion or throwing a few controllers across the room. Still, despite my internal preparation, I couldn’t wrap my head around a friend or loved one passing away.

Video games taught me to expect death, but Mass Effect broke those seemingly sacred rules. For the uninitiated, Mass Effect is the ultimate mix of a third-person, sci-fi shooter and a soap opera. In between your firefights with invading alien hordes and saving the universe from genocidal annihilation, you spend your most meaningful time convincing NPCs to join your crew aboard your equivalent of the Millenium Falcon. Over the span of three games and 200 hours, these crewmembers feel more like friends as opposed to a few megabytes in the game’s bedrock of code.

My favorite crewmember was Legion, an enemy robot, or Geth, that inexplicably joins your quest. Legion is a conglomerate of every Geth personality and, therefore, struggles with the concept of free will, referring to itself as “we.” Despite its steely exterior, Legion has a lovable personality, a hilariously dry sense of humor, and is always eager to help his commander.

Throughout the trilogy, I died countless times while Legion charged through levels like a bulletproof battering ram. I was conditioned to believe Legion was invincible in the face of my own helpless mortality.

Towards the end of the third game, Legion and the Geth have a chance to be freed from the chains of their code… with one catch: Legion must sacrifice itself for its race to achieve true free will. His final words before shutting down one last time are “I’m sorry. I must go.” After three games of referring to himself as “we,” Legion finally recognizes his individuality. Through tears, I reloaded the level and tried again and again and again to save Legion to no avail. Death is inevitable, no matter how many times I tried to help my friend escape it.

My great grandma passed away later that year, and I thought I was ready. I thought I knew what death was. I tried reminding myself of my oversimplification, and that made me sick. I told myself that “she was in a better place,” but I knew I was lying to myself. I wanted to hug her once last time, or eat her homemade pie, or just hear her soft voice again. But, all I could do was cry. You can do everything right, but sometimes that’s still not enough. No matter how prepared for or familiar you are with death, the inevitable is labeled so for a reason. The most important lesson I’ve learned from gaming and life is that, after the necessary tears and mourning, I have a mission to pursue every day, whether that is saving the virtual universe or just spending time with my friends and family I am fortunate enough to still have with me today.

Gaming Has Positive Effects On Your Health… So Where’s The Hype?

By Sparling Wilson

In class, we have discussed how video games incorporate many different philosophical, artistic, historical, and social issues across their many forms and types. For some games, relaying information or a critique to the player is the end of goal, while others incorporate these elements more subtly to make a deeper and more complex gaming experience. Even first person shooter games incorporate high though, such as Bioshock’s blatant critique of Ayn Rand’s objectivism. However, even games that are not as cerebral can benefit the players.

Heath and mental benefits of these games range. According to Dr. Daphne Bavelier players’ eyes may actually benefit from looking at a screen for hours, improving the ability of people who play most to distinguish gray scale and the definition of objects. She also indicated that playing certain kinds of games have positive effects on people’s ability to multitask and on their attention.

Here is the video, where you can see Dr. Bavelier giving the talk..

Ted Talk On The Benefits of Gaming

This Ted Talker spoke about designing games to be useful for rehabilitation or specific learning purposes, which of course is valid. At the same time, I must offer a critique on her idea, and specifically her presentation of it. While she just spoke about the benefits of playing video games, and most importantly first person shooter games, which have long been considered the most extra-regular of the gaming family (minimal story line, all focused on simple, repeated task of shooting enemies), she just took a major step back and gave a large blow for the gaming community. Sadly, she separates games played for pleasure from games with a practical application. If you watch the video, she spends a great deal of time relaying how these pleasurable games actually do have a practical application, and yet, she does not consider games played for pleasure to be completely as applicable as a game designed with a more scientific purpose.

Personally, I am constantly befuddled at the mainstream community and scientific community to continually write off gaming and gaming culture, especially after seeing the great deal of high-concept thinking that video games employ. Why can’t we accept that games are a valid form of media, and event at their most basic form, they provide health and mental benefits when used in moderation?

I have come to view gaming as awesome: it incorporates visual art, audible art, narrative, philosophy, history, culture, participates in remediation, and critiques itself, probably more than any other form of media. What’s more, I’ve come to regard it as one of my favorite forms (although I’m still new) because it’s interactive and challenging: I am able to participate in the art and narrative in a way that is unique to gaming.

I guess going back to my previous question about people accepting the validity of gaming in the mainstream, I can relate to the haters. A few months ago, I didn’t really understand much of the hype or the depth that games can possess; I merely thought of gaming as entertainment. My assumption is that as gaming continues to attract more and more followers, both through a diversity of genres and increasing accessibility because of platform integration (hello, mobile games), people will begin to see games as a more valid form of media. As a result, more scientific and sociological research will be done on games, and then, once the artistic and scientific communities fully accept games, the medium will receive the respect it deserves. It is sad that acceptance necessitates this kind of validation, but I really hope that it comes soon.

A Musing About Games and Gender

In a relatively recent video series on youtube, PBS Game/Show, one of the videos discussed was “Are You Weird if You Play as the Opposite Sex?” (source below). In it, there was quite a bit of discussion into a genre of roleplaying games that allow players to design their own characters. These game include many MMORPGs and single player games, such as World of Warcraft, Mass Effect series, the Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, and many others. After watching the video, I have been thinking a bit about why I sometimes play as opposite genders in roleplaying games.

It would be lying if I said I often play as female characters in games. If one looks at my Mass Effect save files, the ration is something around 2:5 female to male. As a man, I still usually default to being a man in video games as well. While I do not consider this skewed ratio an issue, I have seriously thought about this particular behavior. Is it simply because I am a guy, or because I am uncomfortable playing a women, or perhaps I am unconsciously gynophobic? That last one is a joke, mostly. After thinking about it and getting nowhere, I decided to jump in and start a female Commander Shepard, back when I was playing Mass Effect 2. And I enjoyed it just as much as playing the male Shepard, even when I am getting her…romantically involved with other men, or male aliens (yep, you can do that). The experience was fun, engaging, and maybe even a little bit enlightening.

So understandably I was sorely disappointed with other games such as Skyrim, where playing male or female characters hold no difference whatsoever, aside from the occasional pronouns. In Skyrim, and most MMORPGs, the sex difference is very glossed over, and have next to no bearing on the gameplay or the narrative. At this point, I have actually surprised myself, because I am now actively trying to learn more about the female perspective from video games.

Perhaps, just perhaps, this little habit of mine has contributed to my sense of gender equality. Unfortunately, I still can’t come to any sort of productive conclusion about playing games as the opposite sex, but nonetheless, it has me intrigued, and of course I am not going to quite anytime soon.

-SyC

Sims 3: Blast from the Past

Playing Sims 3 in class on Thursday immediately made me feel like I was 10yr old again, fighting with my sisters for a turn to play. Although it was a different version of the game (we played Sims 2), most of the controls are the same, which made it easy to pick it right back up pretty easily. Molly and I spent the whole class creating a family because of the extensive details that go into creating a sim. We ended up only fully creating the mom from scratch and randomizing the dad. From there we used the genetics button to create a child with characteristics from both. This is a new, super cool feature in the Sims 3 and it is awesome. So far I have loved playing the Sims game again. I really think it is a good game choice for our presentation because of its highly mediated nature. The screen is always full of control bars and buttons and when you click on anything in the game, multiple options appear for different actions. You can also see a sequence of actions for each character on the top of the screen. However, the nature and purpose of the game is to create a family life and invest in the characters’ lives, enriching them with relationships, careers, and housing. In this way, it is ironic that the game is so mediated instead of attempting to be more transparent and realistic. This game is very interesting because of this contrast. I am very excited to explore the relationship between the game’s narrative qualities and its mediated qualities for the project!

-Emily Blake

Risk over Halo anyday

By Aneel Henry

8 cans of Red Bull, 10 cookies, 6 treaties and 2 broken friendships later the game of risk ends in world domination. The winner runs around the table in a sort of victory ritual, hooting in excitement and beating his hands on his chest to clearly display his newly earned alpha male status.

I’m sure that most who have ever played an extended board game (like Risk or Monopoly) have witnessed a natural phenomenon much like the one I just described. The victory against the opponent, the conquering of the planet, and the complete and utter genocide committed upon all who stand in the victors way culminate in an immense rush of accomplishment and ecstasy for the victor. This degree of emotional investment is critical in creating a successful game. It is not the map design, or the quality of the pieces, or the rolling of die that makes board games like Risk fun. It is the intense competition that springs from direct person-to-person relations that make Risk and Monopoly universally appealing.

Unlike board games, console and online games are not direct interactions with other human beings but interpersonal competition reproduced through a medium (the TV or computer screen). Although this competition can be just as intense, it is much harder for a video game to produce the level of personal interaction achieved while playing a board game. Many companies have tried and succeeded in stimulating personalized competition with inventions like Xbox live, and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG). These games link each unique avatar directly to a person, thereby stimulating intense competition that admittedly has the capacity to equal or surpass that of board games.

Despite attempts at recreating the intimacy of board games, I feel video games have not captured the universal human spirit of competition. Although many love video games, there is a large percentage of the population that finds the medium through which the competition is stimulated (TV, PC, etc) too confusing or not engaging enough to capture their attention. There is no equivalent to a board game. In a video game, it is impossible to fully personalize an opponent to the degree a board game achieves. There is nothing like watching the excitement melt off of your opponents face as your army wipes him off the map. Or just watching a player truly debate over the best strategy to win, concentrating so hard that you can practically see the gears turning in his/her head. Although video games, to some extent, have captured the competitive spirit of a select group of people, they have not been able to emotionally engage the player as board games have successfully done.