Lesson 8-Violence and Games Flashcards
What was a violent, controversial game?
Splatterhouse. The game gives you a massive meat cleaver which lets you chop the heads off enemies and green goo explodes out of their neck stumps
There was a japanese and american version(american version was toned down)
Painting that created a legacy in the gore visual aesthetic found in games
Francisco De Goya’s Saturn Devouring his son
What genre emerged from the 1980s
The platformer
What is platforming?
Jumping onto, and swinging between platforms
The first platforms had static screens
What is the best known static screen platformer?
Donkey Kong. But the idea of having these screens stitched together, where when you got to the edge of one screen you'd jump to the next, was really kind of a middle ground that took us from the static screen platformer of Donkey Kong, to the scrolling platformer that we saw later.
What are common in platformers today?
Power-ups(ex. mario can have fireball power when he touches the fire flower
What was the advantage of the game, Faith. Why was violence secondary?
End of 8-1
Because the designs of the game utilized on Faith’s stealth and running abilities.
Sega’s Nights Into Dreams was very underreated. But what did it do a good job at? (Think of Kingdom Hearts)
Controlling your character while moving the camera at the same time. It did a really good job taking advantage of these sorts of constraints
What was the controversial game that had a Japanese and American version?
Splatterhouse. The Japanese version was much more violent than the american one.
A massive meat cleaver lets you chop the heads off enemies and green goo explodes out of their neck stumps. Additionally the green blood splattered in the setting stays where it is, and provides a sort of aesthetic for the game.
What is the painting that left a legacy on games?
Francisco De Goya’s painting, Saturn Devouring his son
Violence is a part of how we tell stories, and how they can actually shape a game mechanic. SO which game uses stylized violence but does so ineffectively?
The game, Dante’s Inferno which follows the original epic poem. It could be argued that the game follows the spirit of the original.
ex. Dante’s lover Beatrice is slaughtered in the game. The gory scene is meant to motivate the hero to take action, but its gratuity and senselessness comes off as lazy writing. (female in the refrigerator)
It also depicts Beatrice poorly
From an aesthetic standpoint, violence can
be used within the narrative to set a mood and a sense of urgency within the story
Given our discussion then, the purpose of blood and gore in a game is. A, to induce gut-wrenching fear in the player. B, to give the player a sense of agency as he or she witnesses the incredible power of their avatar. C, to provide hilarious and excessive death animations that amuse the player. D, to add nothing. Publishers force studios to use these elements to increase sales. Or E, dependent upon the way these elements are used in context with the game's genre, story, and mechanics.
End of 8-2-Blood and Gore
E is the most correct answer because context is what matters. The meaning of blood and gore in a game is dependent on, and changes with the context of that game.
What do most games use to keep the player engaged? (This is what you would call a game mechanic)
They use feedback mechanisms. Since games are interactive mediums, players are able to receive feedback, for all kinds of actions like solving puzzles, exploration, treasure finding etc.
But in the context of violence, the feedback mechanism may be good or bad. Such as you are punished for unlawfully killing a citizen for doing nothing at all in Assassin’s Creed.
End of 8-2-Blood and Gore
….
Which game (from the same company as Ultima III) allowed players to kill NPCs with little consequence?
Crusader: No Remorse
The protagonist is an assassin sent to infiltrate a heartless multinational corporation.
The assassin generally kills guards, but what is most troubling is that the player is allowed to kill office or construction workers with little to no consequence. The player is not punished, but rather is rewarded with loot drops.
While the Ultima series has punitive consequences for undeserved violence, The Crusader series upended(basically contrast) that mechanic by giving rewards for killing harmless NPCs
Where did the term NPC first rise in?
In tabletop role-playing games where the dungeon master or game master would control these characters.
What is the reason for displaying two games that contrast each other in relation to feedback mechanisms in games?
To show that games really have no middle ground. The point is that in many games, consequences for killing are unidirectional.
You are either rewarded or punished for killing an NPC
Sometimes, the issues of consequences from violent actions is neither about rewards nor punishments. What do they sometimes involve(in relation to a character/player’s conscience?)
What is a game that demonstrates this element when dealing with violence in games?
end of 8-3-Consequences and Morality
Sometimes they involve making moral choices.
This changes the relationship to the game and gives the player a moral context. They player can choose to avoid or commit act of violence.
The game is Fallout. In dialogue, the player is often presented with the option to talk their way out of a situation or bribe, or attack the NPC to get what they want.
The choice the player makes affects the story of the game.
It is worth noting that these feedback mechanisms are long term, so players have to think hard about their choices
different note: Dishonored is a good game that rewards the player for using non lethal methods to solve puzzles. Rewards for player is that they have better relationships with NPCs
Many games use violence to manage progression.
What is an example of this? And what is the term for this example called?
Practically almost any RPG game since you need to kill a boss to advance in the game.
The term is gating. Gating keeps a player confined to a certain space until they satisfy some condition. Think of the Legend of Zelda, where when Link is in a dungeon, he enters a room. Suddenly there is a gate that shuts behind him. He looks, but he knows there is no escape. He looks back forward, and there is a miniboss in which he must defeat to get the key treasure item as well as make the gates retreat from their blocking position.
Many games use violence to manage progression.
What is an example of this? And what is the term for this example called?
Practically almost any RPG game since you need to kill a boss to advance in the game.
The term is gating. Gating keeps a player confined to a certain space until they satisfy some condition. Think of the Legend of Zelda, where when Link is in a dungeon, he enters a room. Suddenly there is a gate that shuts behind him. He looks, but he knows there is no escape. He looks back forward, and there is a miniboss in which he must defeat to get the key treasure item as well as make the gates retreat from their blocking position.
What is the distinction between passive and active violence?
In Postal 2, the player must, passively view violence throughout the game but the player does not have to actively commit any violent acts.
The player is put into frustrating situations like waiting in a long line at the bank, which encourages them to commit the violent act. Or the player is put into dangerous situations like being attacked by hate mobs. Regardless if the player decides to act violent or not, the story moves on. The violent acts are always optional in Postal 2.
Some game manipulates the plater into committing acts of violence against innocents. What is the term for this?
end of 8-4- Violence and Mechanics
The unreliable narrator. The unreliable narrator misleads the player into believing one thing, when in fact reality is much different. The player does horrific acts of violence for what they thought were ethical reasons.
ex. in DreamWeb, the narrator convinces the plater to commit a series of murders in order to prevent a world apocalypse. What the player does not know, is that the protagonist is undergoing a psychotic episode. By the end of the end, the player learns that they have killed seven innocent people, due to the unreliable narrator. In other words, the player does horrific acts of violence for what they thought were ethical reasons. But these reasons came from the mind of a delusional man.
What is the term for where games try to finesse(make delicate) morality and violence by making the player walk a moral tightrope?
Ethical harm.
In the game Wasteland, Bobby begs you not to kill his rabid dog Rex. If you kill the dog, Bobby attacks you and your party. What if you just let the situation be(in which the rabid dog will probably infect others)
