Pixelating Emotions

So first of all its been a while, I know.  But I'm hoping that I can leisurely keep up posting here through the future even though time has very easily gotten away from me.  A lot has changed in my life and this is something that I would really love to keep up because it allows me a creative release and a place to go into a deep discussions.  I cannot promise a weekly post, but I can promise more frequently than what I was doing previously.  So with that being said, lets get started.

So I really want to cover an issue that has been in and out of the spotlight pretty consistently for the past couple of years but has recently gained a considerable amount of ground.  This subject is none other than: Emotions and Video Games.  Now this subject can be quite a large mountain to tackle, especially when considering its entire scope.  So I really want to narrow it down and just talk about emotions portrayed in video games through the writing in the games.  However, just to hammer how large this subject is I would like to point out a couple of different topics and let you ponder them on your own, but you never know we might cover them later.  So outside of emotions portrayed through writing, video games deal with emotion through attachment to a players character (such as in an MMO), emotion through the artistic direction in the game, emotion through the a concept explored through both game play and story line (and this is different than what we will be talking about today).  As you can see there is a large number of ways games can possibly display emotions.

But as promised I want to look at a display of emotions through writing.  Now, this can be done in a couple of different ways, but at their cores, its all the same.  Emotion through writing is the actions, dialogue, and events of any character(s) in a game makes the player feel something other than an overwhelming sense of meh.  A great example of this is in Gears of War 2, oh yea, spoiler alert here (though that should be obvious), specifically the scene where Marcus and Dom are searching the prison camps to find Maria.  When Dom finally does find her we have a unique chance to experience something deeper than the usual tone of the game.  The way we are experiencing emotion through writing here is the setup from the rest of the game up to this point, and even earlier as well, from the books.  You see, throughout the game the writers hint at 2 very different things: 1) Maria is dead and Dom will find only despair at the end of his long 13 year search, or 2) Maria is alive, living with the Stranded, and a happy reunion awaits for them when he finds her, thus giving Dom hope for the future.  But instead neither one of these happens to be true, and yet both are true.  You see, Dom finds out that Maria is alive, and because of that he fights on only to find her broken, a mere husk of her former self.  Dom is distraught by this, and at the sight of her he realizes that he truly has lost his family.  So he decides that the only thing to do is to remember her as she was and end her suffering.  Now I'm NOT going to get into a discussion as to if this was right, but it really got to me as one of those times where I realized that even a game like Gears of War, has a heart deep down.

Seriously man, the feels.

Another well known example is when Aerith died in Final Fantasy VII.  I'm not going to go into detail with this, because I'm sure we all know what happened.  But, even more importantly, the backlash from the fans was astronomical.  I know people who have sworn off Final Fantasy completely after that, and that's just a start.  Numerous people felt betrayed when she died.  Killing off a main character like that was rarely done in such a big name title like that.

Negative emotions aren't the only thing that writing in games can make someone feel either, multiple games bring a wide range of other emotions to the table.  One of the happiest moments I ever felt was in Kingdom Hearts when, at the very end, Sora, Riku, and Kairi were briefly reunited before Riku and King Mickey had to seal Kingdom Hearts from the other side.  I mean, it was like, finally!!  Sora is reunited with his best friend again!!!  But as we all know nothing lasts forever, and yet again in Kingdom Hearts 2 we get to feel the same thing that we felt before, a overbearing sense of joy that Sora, and by extension, the player has been able to overcome everything in front of them, and prove that the power of friendship and love is nothing to trifle with, and that even the smallest amount of light can shine through the darkness.  And better yet, at the send of the second one we finally get what we were asking for: a happy ending at Destiny's Island.  Moments of pure elation are abundant in Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Heart 2.  And all of them are done through writing.

At long last, a happy ending.

Now there is a second way for games to show emotion through writing, and that is a direct tie into the the characters themselves displaying emotion.  Okay, okay, I'll admit that this one should be obvious, but it is truly easy to overlook.  Most people don't think of the writing as displaying emotion this way because in games all we hear and realize as writing is the dialogue, but this couldn't be further from the truth.  In fact everything that happens is because of a writer.  Think of a movie as a visual book.  We only hear the dialogue of the book but we can see all of the events take place, we may miss out on some of the descriptors, like cool water, or searing pain, but we can take in more information faster this way.  Now lets extend that analogy to considering video games to be interactive movies (I know some people will argue about how this isn't the case, but that's not really the point here).  In a video game we experience everything that we do in the movie, except for the fact that games are usually much longer, and allow a player to play a direct part in the narrative, now if this is a main role or a supporting role depends on the game, but either way, we experience everything that is happening directly.

But what does this have to do with character emotion?  Well honestly the same way that emotions are portrayed in a book applies to a game, as a player we have to do a better job at interpreting these emotions, this is because they're not spelled out for us, but this does not mean that they're not there.  I mean, imagine if instead of playing God of War (the first one, not anything after, we don't need any rage-filled hate monsters here), you were to read God of War as a book instead.  You would not need to interpret Kratos' emotions through his dialogue or his animation in the game, instead you would have a direct look into his mind about what he is feeling.  For example, when Kratos gets impaled by Ares, we as players know that he is seemingly hopeless because he feels he has lost.  We understand this because we can interpret his reaction to this event.  However in a book we might see something like: "And the instant the pilar had impaled him, a wave of hoplessness washed over him as he came to realize that this could be the end of his quest."  As you can see, when directly told something, the emotions of how the character feels is much easier to convey than having to interpret them from their dialogue and actions.

A very powerful moment in a game often needs to be interpreted.

Now something else I would like to point out before I leave you for today is none of these four primary methods of conveying emotions should ever act independently in a game.  Can they, yes, should they, no.  To do so would be to rob the player of an essential part of the gaming experience, the unique element that only a game can allow a player to experience.  A true sense of immersion, and a true sense of experience is gained when developers use all of these tools in unison to create an experience, and not when they use one as a crutch that half heartily gets the point across.  Remember this the next time you play a game, and see if you can start to pick up on what the developers are doing, and then take time to compare it to other games.  You might just be surprised.  See ya next time!

Developers vs Designers

So remember how a few weeks ago I told you something special was on its way?  As I told you, I will deliver.  Here at Breaking The Mold we value education of the general populace about quite honestly many things, from videogames to movies, entertainment to politics.  Now along with that I must also include awareness of issues and the encouragement to form your own ideas.  To us, this is paramount if we, as a society, are to advance and understand more.  It's like GI Joe put it, knowledge is power, and knowing is half the battle.  Think of it, the more we know, the more ready we are to form our own ideas and opinions.  So this is going to be kicking off a series of informational posts about pretty much whatever comes to the table and whatever we feel like.  So without further ado, I introduce the first topic: The Difference between Game Designers and Game Developers.

Okay so why cover this topic?  Well quite simple, many people don't know the difference.  People who play games and discuss games say they understand what the difference is, but in all reality they more than likely don't, and that's just fact.  I will admit it is a thin line and can be very hard to distinguish without looking closely.  But together were going to get to the bottom of it.

We all have our own skewed view of things.

Okay so Developers and Designers often get used as interchangeable words, but they're not, they are two completely separate entities what work in separate departments of a game company.  A good way to look at it is by looking at the words: designers create the rules, sculpt the setting, and see to it that players have the emotional experience they are supposed to.  While on the other hand a developer is in charge of the system that allows a designer to do this, from building the code to maintaining the database.  That doesn't really justify it though, so lets take a bit of a closer look.

Were going to start off with Designers since it does happen to be the more commonly used of the terms and also has the biggest variety.  Now a designer, like I said earlier, is the person that sits down and applies creativity to the game.  Designers design the game.  They are in charge of the rules, what the game does when a player performs an action, and the way the game looks and feels.  They are the artistic minds behind the game.  It is a designers sole responsibility to make sure that every creative aspect of a game is complete and concise, and to make sure that the game is well balanced and fair to all players.  Designers do everything from art, writing, rules, and even plot out the emotional journeys.

Spore lets the players do some designing.

On the flip side a Developer, like I said, is someone who sits down and actually works on the systems of the game.  These are your Computer Programmers, the Systems Engineers, and Engines Developers.  These are people who are constantly looking at code and taking what the designers make and translating that to a working and moving executable.  The Developers are the ones who are constantly staring at a computer screen, and are often the ones who will also be required to stay in late nights to meet deadlines.  All of the interactive physics, AI, hit detection, online communications, and even the scripting are responsibilities of the developers.

These are very easy to confuse and it honestly isn't hard to understand why.  A lot of people think that everyone in the game industry can do anything they want but that can't be any further from the truth.  I've had countless conversations with people where they say that the developers should change rule x, or the designers should have counted wind into the physics engine.  It just doesn't work that way, in order to do even a minor change to a basic element when the project is pretty far down the pipeline is very tough to implement a major change, but that gets down into software development which we wont discuss here.

One final thing that I would like to point out is that all good games are built in a specific way and not just in a manner of "I have an idea so lets run with it".  Usually the designers get to work on the games rules and systems while the developers do their setup processes so once the design documents and specifications are outlines all of the base coding, i.e. objects, data structures, system layout, are all done so the development team can dive head first into the game when the time comes.  Ideally you have your developers working on a project while the designers are polishing the final stages of story, levels, and endgame upgrades/abilities and when the designers finish they start working on the next project so the developers have something to do after they launch their current project.  But things don't always work out this way.  The image below should clarify some of this, the red is designers and blue is developers.

This is just a very brief overview of a few aspects of the game industry, and by no means is it a complete accurate telling of how everything works, mainly because it varies from company to company.  But hopefully now you under stand how these things are done and things are put together in a better light.  Peace out guys.

Coming Soon.....

So sorry for the lack of post this spring, it's been a very busy time for me.  However starting in two weeks I will be starting a new goal and setting for BTM.  It will be something for everybody to further their understanding, refresh on ideas, and generally become a more educated person.  Thats right folks, talks explaining some common misconceptions and revealing some truths.  Be prepared, knowledge is coming.

~The Mold Breaker