Read and watch the following:
The Game Over Analyzer, director. The Art of Failure in Video Games | Designing Difficulty, Tragedy and Death. YouTube, 21 Apr. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pIljlIlQ5E.
Juul, Jesper. The Art of Failure: An Essay on the Pain of Playing Video Games. MIT Press, 2016. https://onesearch.library.northeastern.edu/permalink/01NEU_INST/i2gqis/alma9951590564001401.
Anderson, Craig G, et al. “Failing up: How Failure in a Game Environment Promotes Learning through Discourse.” Thinking Skills and Creativity, vol. 30, 2018, pp. 135–144., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2018.03.002.
Muncy, Julie. “It's Time for Videogames to Embrace the Power of Failure Again.” Wired, Conde Nast, 12 Oct. 2016, https://www.wired.com/2016/10/videogames-need-failure/.
Answer each of the following:
Identify a Trope or Cliche in games. Give examples of games that have it. [short answer]
Respond to this weeks' reading. Is there anything inspiring/useful for you? (Must read Juul) [paragraph]
Find a game (not mentioned in class or reading examples) where failure is creative/instructive and intrinsic to its design concept. Go beyond simple loss or deaths. What is the game saying about failure? What types of failure is it teaching, discussing, or rewarding? Is failure fun? Be prepared to present this game in class. [paragraph]
*Exta Credit. 1 point: Take a game that is considered EXPERIMENTAL / INNOVATIVE and analyze where it “fails” and where it succeeds.
DUE BEFORE SUNDAY 1/30
1. Detective mode is a very common cliche in many games. It gives players another vision, for instance, X-ray vision, so that they can perceive things around them better. Once the mode is activated, certain objects or paths will be highlighted or glow in order to direct the player. In the game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, players can use detective mode to track the enemy’s footprints. Another example would be the elemental vision in the game Genshin Impact. When the vision is on, everything except the environment around the player will be highlighted, including treasure chests, enemies, and loot. This will give players a better clue about what to do in the game.
2. In Juul’s book, the Art…
Identify a Trope or Cliche in games. Give examples of games that have it. [short answer]
Trope in game basically means some types of methods that are used from generations to generations of games.
What I found was “The Most Important Person in the World.”
Examples: Pokémon series; Skyrim; hollow knight.
Respond to this weeks' reading. Is there anything inspiring/useful for you? (Must read Juul) [paragraph]
In the article of The Art of Failure an Essay on the Pain of Playing Video Games, Juul was trying to make the paradox of failure clearer. As we know, players don’t want to fail in games lots of time, and interestingly don’t want games that cannot beat them up once. Juul was thinking…
1.The trope is a common rhetorical device used to tell stories in games. For example, in the game Celeste, It is used to establishing the connection between players and Madeline. Death is the consistent metaphor of the game, conveying a spiritual atmosphere through gameplay.
Take Elude, the final game in author Doris C. Rusch's series of projects. The whole series is about expressing abstract concepts in games. Doris C. Rusch considered "depression" an abstract concept well worth discussing and made Elude. I think trope is used well in the game and expresses abstractions well. Elude is designed around the concept of experiencing depression, whether the player character can jump, light and blackthorns, call for help, and the whole process simulates…
Although I don't regard "cliche" as harmful to game design, it is quite common in the same genre of games. For example, JRPGs are a series of games concentrating on storytelling and conveying. Nevertheless, most of the JRPGs tend to tell a story where the protagonist finally becomes the world-saver hero. In Pokémon, "I" defeat the evil organization as a child; in Monster Hunter, "I" slay every threatening monster and safeguard the village; in Final Fantasy: XV, "I" not only defend the harmony of the Eorzea continent but rescue the people in another parallel universe as well. Obviously, the Hero's Journey mode has been a cliche in the JRPG genre.
We often feel frustrated and discouraged in real life when…
1. A cliché in games could be that a lot of games are started with saving a daughter, wife or princess. Some games that pop up in my mind are “Resident Evil 7: Biohazard” starts with searching for Ethan’s long-missing wife, “Resident Evil Village” starts with searching for Ethan’s kidnapped daughter. Japanese games have this property even more. For example, different editions of “Super Mario” ask players to save the princess over and over. This plot is kind of old and hard to create a novel experience for the players. Furthermore, games like “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” allows players to explore the world freely which makes players forget to save princess Zelda and spend tons of…