Digital Humanities – Spring 2018

If I had the budget of a triple A developer, I would try to do right by the game Spore. Spore was an incredibly hyped game from the late 2000’s that promised to let you create a race of creatures from cell division, to early society, to civilization, and eventually multi-planet conquest. It was an ambitious game that utterly fell flat on release. Every race of creatures played, and worked in exactly the same way, and the only truly customizable part of the game was how they looked.

I would redo Spore as an MMO with races competing against each other for supremacy of the galaxy. Using today’s technology, it would be much easier to create a game of this scope. I think a game in the vein of Rust, similar to the Last Man Standing game type that is so popular right now. One of Spore’s  many flaws was that it became incredibly repetitive very quickly. They also over-hyped it and released it before it could reach its true potential. I believe that by making players compete against one another for fastest evolution on separate servers, and revamping the different sections of the game to be more fun and have more replay value, the concept of Spore could reach its potential.

Different phases of the game could be incorporated into an RTS-like format with the more advanced civilizations being given different options to keep their lead, while the less-advanced Civs would have comeback mechanics designed to get them back in the game. Factions and alliances could be brokered with the larger Civs and parlayed into additional evolutionary or technological traits.

Spore, as a concept was phenomenal, but its execution was sorely lacking, I believe that this concept should not be abandoned, and with the proper amount of time, money, and dedication, could become the world’s next Fortnite, WoW, or League of Legends.

The game I chose to play for this assignment was Tera. Tera is a Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO)game in the vein of World of Warcraft (WoW) with some distinct differences.

I chose this game because I had a couple friends who played it and wanted me to try the game. I never played WoW when it was popular so this style of game was utterly new to me. The game begins on an island with your character at level one. Like WoW players can choose from many races and classes all with their unique skills and abilities. The game was designed for a Japanese audience so the classes are very odd and made me a little uncomfortable as an American player. However the graphics and sound were stunning. Every environment was rich and full looking, and the sound effects added a lot to the experience of the game. Leveling up was quick, and involved a lot of fetch-quests, yet still felt fairly grindey which is an issue for a lot of MMOs. It is evident that the dev’s put less work into the leveling up and more into the end-game content of which there was a plethora. Unfortunately I did not have time to reach it, but I will after school is over.

What immediately made this game stand out from WoW was the combat system. It reminded me a lot of a MOBA (Multiplayer-Online Battle Arena) game where abilities had to be landed onto an enemy, auto-attacks mattered, and skills and items affected how the game was played. I played as an archer, and hitting my arrows was fairly easy and felt very satisfying. The combat system impressed me, but the leveling up process and in-game quests and interactions caused me to lose interest quickly. Perhaps with more time investment Tera would be a fun game, but overall my experience was rather lackluster.

Overall Tera had good gameplay, and an excellent look. I would recommend this game to anyone looking for an engaging MMO that does not want to attempt WoW.

 

I will not lie, reading Ian Bogost’s “The Rhetoric of Video Games” was difficult.

To me, this article talked about how video games have some beneath the surface lessons that people learn while they play. This article reminded me a lot of the USSR government passport game we played together as a class. That video game in particular was about checking passports and letting the correct people into the country while turning everyone else away. The game is not as simple as that sentence makes it seem. You are a government worker, and you need your job to support the “family” the game gives you. You receive money for every person you correctly let in or turn away, and that money helps to keep your family alive. The people you are turning away often times have sad back stories. The story we always refer to in class is a lady character that says “I’ve been separated from my husband for years and I am so excited to be reunited with him,” but you are not allowed to let her in because the government is not accepting people with her type of passport that day. If you choose to let this lady in, you do not get paid and your family suffers for your choice. Your child may starve, and you may not have a heated house anymore. The game uses rhetorical strategies and approaches to persuade you to make certain choices and to notice that it is not always as easy as it may seem.

I used that video game as the reference because I have never played the game Bogost refers to in his article. From my understanding “Animal Crossing” is very similar in the style of game. It allows you to make decisions on your own, but you are also supposed to be following the decisions the game wants you to make.

I think the rhetoric of video games exemplifies how video games are a part of humanities. There is no one right or wrong answer. There is no necessarily easy choice. Video games allow people to look at all factors in play, without necessarily noticing they are doing so. You are still having fun while playing these games, your mind is just being opened to all of the subliminal work that is done in contribution to the game.

 

Emily Hatch

I am a Potterhead. My generation was raised on Harry Potter. We read all of the books, waited months for the movies to come out, and cos-played at the theaters to celebrate our love for HP. I am still very obsessed with Harry Potter- my graduation cap says “Because Hogwarts didn’t take FAFSA.” When I heard there was a Harry Potter game in the making, I stalked every forum I could looking for a release date. I downloaded this game the first day it was available, and I have not been able to stop since.

This is a narrative based game, which I adore. As I already said I loved reading the Harry Potter series, so anything that reads like a J.K. Rowling’s book interests me. Being the lunatic I am, I noticed that some of the lines the characters use within the game are lines taken directly from the novels and movies. The game allows you to choose a character, male or female, and your name. Naturally I had to play off of the original characters names, so my character is Margie Granger. You begin the game by being sorted into one of the four houses. The sorting hat lets you choose which House you would prefer to be in, just like the sorting hat took Harry’s opinion to heart. After being sorted, you’re guided around the castle to your common room and begin challenges. The challenges are very basic to begin; you are in charms, potions and flying to start your journey at Hogwarts. You learn new spells and get to live the first-year life experience as if you were an actual first-year at Hogwarts. As you are playing the game, you learn the hidden story of (in my game it is my brother Jacob) a missing student who went looking for the hidden vaults in Hogwarts. (Spoiler alert, that is the mystery part of the game).

I don’t want to describe the entire game on this blog post, mostly because I feel like I do it no justice. I have been playing it non-stop for a few weeks now, and I am a third year in the game already. I highly recommend the game to any Harry Potter fan- it will not disappoint.

 

Emily Hatch

For this project, Sarah, Megan, and I created a text-based game titled, “One Student, One Fire.” The story line is based off of the Cortland Normal School 1919 fire that we learned about in Professor Faulkenbury’s section of the class, as we found this one the most interesting. At first, we were planning to make a Scooby-Do like plot line, where the player would discover who started the fire, as in real life it still remains a mystery to this day. However, after discovering that many of our classmates planned on doing the same thing, we decided to take a different approach, which I now find much more interesting.

In the game, you play a boy named Derrick, who is in love with his life-long friend Gabriella. At first, it seems like a simple back-and-forth conversation, until Derrick spots a shady character sneaking into the back of the school. Although there are choices for the player to make on every page, this is the one that makes a substantial difference; the player can either choose to ignore the perpetrator, and walk with Gabriella into the hallway where you may or may not ask her to prom and find the library in flames, choosing to save books in the archive or not; or the player can choose to follow the perpetrator, where you can follow him into the boiler room (or main office where you lose) and discover the man starting the fire. However, no matter what option you choose, you have the choice to save artifacts from the archives and risk your life, or not to care about the artifacts enough to risk your safety, which is of course where the humanities part kicks in.

The process of making this game was really enjoyable. Although it was just a simple text-based game, I found it fascinating that my group and I were able to put it all together to create a cohesive plot and story line, one where the player must consider his/her morals in order to make the right decisions. I loved getting to play our own game afterward, as I got to see our finished product and how different choices would take you down different paths; of course I knew where my choices would take me, but I still played it enough times to get every outcome possible.

In class, I had mentioned that this section of the course changed my definition of a game, and this project really solidified that fact. Although text-based games had never interested me before, having the chance to make my own showed me the time and effort that goes into them, and how enjoyable they can be to play afterward. I am very glad to have gotten this opportunity, and will now look at games with a completely different perspective.

The game that I chose to play which I had never played before is “Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery.” I am a huge fan of the Harry Potter movie series and I was more than excited to explore this new gaming app. The game begins with you getting to create your own character, either a wizard or witch, then you begin to explore Hogwarts. You meet many people along the way and talk to them, where the game gives you multiple options for answers to them; based on the answers that you choose, the plot line varies: you get a different type of wand, you attend different classes, and you belong to a different house! Throughout the game, you attend classes and complete tasks to gain points for your house, and also cast spells by dragging your finger in the shape that appears. The part that I was most excited for in this game was the AR sections, much like “Pokemon GO,” however, you must reach a certain level before you unlock this. I look forward to playing this game until I reach this section and can view my experiences in real life.

I would relate this game to humanities through the choices that you make for your character and the different outcomes that they have. Although there aren’t extreme variations, as I stated above, there are changes made in the story line based on what your character does. This relates to topics in class as the player must make decisions based on their own thoughts and morals, and see how it reflects on their character in the wizarding world; based on one decision you may end up in Gryffindor or Slytherin! It is very interesting to see how the simple choices I make for my character can change her life immensely, just how the choices I make in my own life effect the paths that I lead. I am excited to continue my journey as a witch and see where my choices take me!