Video Games: A Blog Post

My name is Eli. I like video games. I make video games. 

What’s a video game I hear you ask? Well, there’s no need to be ashamed, I sometimes ask myself that very question. When in doubt I like to defer to the definition that The Catamites provides in the Harmony Zone: 

For me, I find this to be a sufficient definition of what video games are, as long as one understands that sometimes, often times, video games contain none of the following: skeleton, red key, score thing, or a magic door. That’s okay I think. 

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I’ve been making video games for a couple years now, and once in a blue moon I accidentally finish one of them. In the event of such a mental slippage I often post the resulting video game here; Crawlspace. If you find yourself with the urge to play one or two, I might recommend: Cabin, Blue Flashes, Vermont, or Crisp Ricies. Though they’re all truly works of art, in their own terrible way. Sometimes one or two get written about by larger outlets, which is truly cool. Maybe one I’ll be my very own video game super star. But probably not until I’m 72 years old working on The Elder Scrolls Skyrim 16: The Las Vegas Chapters. 

Most of the games I make come from personal places; memories, experiences, friends.

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Before moving on to what I’m going to be working on in this class, I would like to share with you a couple video game creators who I love and have inspired me greatly. I've linked to both their websites, as well as specific projects I particularly like. 

Increpare - https://www.increpare.com - Blackness and Stars

Kitty Horror Show - https://kittyhorrorshow.itch.io/ - 000000FFF0000

Loren Schmidt - http://vacuumflowers.com/projects/

Jenny Jiao Hsia - https://q_dork.itch.io/ - Morning Makeup Madness

Robert Yang - https://debacle.us/ - The Tearoom

Catamites - http://harmonyzone.org/Videogames.html

Grace Bruxner - https://fisho.itch.io/ - Witch Game/Bin Game/Bug Game

Each of them deserves your attention, far more than I do. Follow them. Play their games.

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In this class I’m going to be working with Leo Leventhall to make a video game. We intend to make a video game about abuse, and specifically the manipulative process of gas lighting. This is going to be a really difficult project for a couple of reasons. 

1. Making video games is hard. I’ll probably come back to this later, but I’d just to say it now. Video games is hard. Making them is hard. 

2. The game is about abuse, specifically emotional abuse, which is something I don’t have a whole lot of personal experience with. The game will largely draw upon Leo’s personal experience. This is something we’ve talked about a lot, and I will have to be considerate when offering creative design advice without undermining Leo’s experiences or input. I think we’re up to it though. 

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Recently I made a couple google searches researching video games and abuse, and I’d like to share the results with you. While neither of these are entirely indicative of the state of videos games and abuse, I think they paint a fairly accurate atmosphere of how video games have dealt with the topic in the past and the present. 

Google Search #1: “video game abuse” 

The first result you get is about a game made in 1995 by Bungie, the studio later responsible for the hugely successful Halo games. 

Here is a cover of that game: 

This is a brief summary of the plot of that game taken from Wikipedia: 

The protagonist of the game, Nick Vrenna, has been unjustly incarcerated in a prison where the staff are performing unethical medical experiments upon the inmates. A prison riot occurs and an experiment goes horribly wrong. The people inside the prison - except for Nick, who seems to be immune - get infected with a substance called Abuse that transforms them into monsters. With the water supply in danger of being infected, Nick arms himself and fights through the horde to prevent this, and then escapes from the prison complex. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse_(video_game)

Here is a video of some game play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q0SbdDfnFI

Google Search #2: “video games about abuse"

The first result is Wikipedia's List of Controversial Video Games. In the next few results there are various links referencing a recent trailer for the upcoming game Detroit: Become Human. The trailer showcases a scene of domestic violence, between a father and his daughter. The player inhabits the body of an android maid whose choice whether to intervene or not changes the course of the scene. 

This is from the Guardian article about the trailer titled 'How not to turn child abuse in to a game': 

When these game mechanics are married with the theme of domestic abuse and, in particular, child abuse, the obvious implication is that, to escape the violence a victim, or those around them, need only make the "correct" choices to resolve the situation. It's a deeply troubling misrepresentation of the reality for anyone who has suffered from, or who knows a survivor of, domestic abuse. (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/05/detroit-become-human-how-not-to-turn-child-abuse-into-a-game)

Who knows if we’ll fare much better. But I do know that we’ve already promised Anne Haydock that our game will not be a First Person Shooter. 

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Currently the name of the project is: NEW DAD. 

The game opens with the player being introduced to a man in a mask. He is your new dad. When you touch his mask it falls off. Things appear to go poorly from there. However, we’re still in the very early stages of making the game. We spent some time recently beginning to story board out the game/narrative on index cards, but it’s still very much so a work in progress. So instead of going to deeply into the game right now let me talk a little about the production and technical side, oh and I’ll show you a couple screenshots of the prototyping we’ve been doing. Ya know, to satiate that video game appetite I’m sure you have. 

We’re making the game in Unity 3D, a game engine that I have a fair amount of experience in. We plan on making large parts of the games art using hand drawn graphics, or found collage. 

This is a screen shot of a mock up of the opening of the game I did. The meat is not final. None of it is final. 

This is a screenshot of a later part in the game. We struggled for a while getting the 2D and 3D physics in Unity talk to each other, but I think we found a solution. 

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These are a list of Video Games whose name we’ve said about frequently while talking about the design of this game. Take from them what you will: 

-Undertale

-Paper’s Please

-Getting Over it with Bennett Foddy

-Her Story

-A Night in the Woods

I’m sure there are others too, I’ve just forgotten. 

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I think that's all for now folks.