CS: How games can change the world

This CS project has asked us to look at how "Games can Change the World". This is a vast project, but after a few seminars looking at how games can teach us something, I was compelled to look further into this. My question is a simple one, How do games teach the player and how can this be used to teach in other areas. Most of the research I managed to find from the incredibly helpful Penny Arcade internet video series, Extra Credits. Other references were used to back up this as a source and to prove some of the higher concepts I want to explore.
I have found that most games, good ones anyway, intend on "teaching" their players something through play whether they intended to or not. Tetris for example teaches mastery over the space given, the control of the pieces within it and, eventually, control over the mindset that allows you to operate on a level above normal conscious thought. Where as games like World of Warcraft use "Skinner Box" techniques similar to those used in gambling in order to give the players infrequent rewards and encourage them to continue playing long past the time when the novelty of the game itself has worn off. The key to these, I believe, is engagement. Game provide a fun, safe and friendly atmosphere where players can experiment with the concepts in the game to effectively teach themselves while the game guides them. A mistake many educational games used in schools across the country make is putting education first. This is a mistake. People, no matter the age, will find it more difficult to engage with something that throws raw concepts at them. An example could be a maths game that asks you to complete written sums in order to proceed to the next level. This will throw the same information a Maths class handout would and expects you to treat it differently because it is dressed as a game. However, the game Portal, manages to teach physics that do not even exist, ultimately making them intuitive. It does this by carefully introducing something new and interesting to the player, mixed with physics that the player is already familiar with, such as a large button that won't stay pressed unless held, cubes have weight, put a cube on the button, the button stays down, in order to create something the player can learn from while playing and experimenting with something they find engaging.
In the essay, the first thing I will discuss will be how these games bring the player into this state of engagement. I have managed to find several techniques, mostly from game design authorities. However, I also want to explore the idea behind "living consciously". This is an idea from psychology and philosophy that looks at how our actions become more automated as we get older, when nothing is new we begin to function out of habit rather than out of purpose. Although this idea has been somewhat diluted by it's overuse in the self-help medium, I believe there is a lot of truth to this principle. Most people in this field say that we should aim to see every experience as novel and new and engage with it as if we are seeing it for the first time. I think some games, certainly, have managed this, if some more than others.
So far I have all the research to start the essay and will gather more as I write. Although this may leave me with a broken and disjointed first draft, I will have all of the information on paper, which should be more than enough to rewrite into something I can be happy with.

Modding: A Brief History

Before this brand new term of uni, in preparation of our new Distribution and Platform module for Contextual Studies, we were asked to make a presentation on something that has changed the games industry in the last 20 years. I chose to look at modding since it's a scene I am particularly interested in. I think the area generally both inspires and requires creativity in an area it is often hard to get started in. Before this project I was vaguely aware of the history of modding and thought it must have affected the industry in some way. Here is what I found in terms of history:

History
The first real mod was for the original Castle Wolfenstein (1981) were a bored (probably) programmer replaced many of the enemies with smurfs. The mod was called Castle Smurfenstein (1983). Although silly it sparked a revolution.

Castle Smurfenstein: The first real mod

In 1990, the developers of Duke Nukem, 3D Realms, noticed that modders were not only making their own levels and content but also making their own level editors to make the process even easier.
Shortly after the release of  Wolfenstein 3D and Ultima Underworld (1992), id Software realised that allowing the audience to modify their game actually extended the game's life. Once the player's had finished the game, they could either play one of the many user made levels, create their own levels or both.

id Software discovered very quickly that the lifespan of Wolfenstein 3D was greatly increased by it's power to be modified by the players.

With this in mind, id Software legally and technically opened Doom (1993) and Doom II (1994) up to modification realizing the full potential it unlocked for players. They did, however, asked that modders specifically used the registered, fully paid for, versions of the game. The community fully supported this request. In-fact, many modders programmed their mods to only work on the registered versions. Many of the mods were so successful that Final Doom (1996) was not only a re-release of the original game, but also included many user-created levels.

Final Doom was an official release that contained user created content beside the official developer's content.

From this point on, id Software was pretty much seen as the head of the mod scene, releasing games almost specifically targeting modders. Quake (1996) was one of the first games released with a 3D level editor made by the developers, as opposed to being downloaded separately and being made by the users. Despite this, many people weren't happy with the official editor and created their own.
Ben Morris created WorldCraft, a level editor designed to work with the Quake engine. He was later approached by the game studio Valve and asked if they could use WorldCraft to make Half-Life (1998) and was later adapted into the Valve Hammer Editor for Valve's Source engine.

WorldCraft, later known as the Valve Hammer Editor.

In the same year, Epic Games released Unreal along with the UnrealEd, a level editor. The Unreal Engine was considered by many to be superior to the Quake Engine, the modders former top choice, in that it was simpler to use, could edit games in real time, had superior graphics and it's own scripting language optimized for game creation. Epic Games also licensed their engine out to other studios on a very regular basis. To this day it is still one of the most used third party engines.
Since then, level editors have become common place in PC shooter and RTS games.
It is because of editors like this that games like Defense of the Ancients (2005) were created, which was created from WarCraft III (2002). DotA was incredibly popular and brought mods to many who were previously unaware of the scene. Many of the people who worked on it were quickly taken up into the games industry.

DotA, a hugely successful game created entirely as a modification of Warcraft III.

More and more now developers are releasing their engines and editors for free so that people can mess with them at will including the Unreal Development Kit, CryEngine 3 and Unity.

How This Effects the Games Industry
 As previously mentioned most of the earliest level editors were built for by modders for modders. It was evident from very early on that these were a much faster way of creating levels. As a result many developers began integrating features from these modder created editors into their own editors. Editors also allowed designers and artists to jump in and actively edit the levels themselves instead of relying on the programmers. Editors also allow "amateurs" to create professional level work without necessarily having professional experience. This also meant that many good modders are hired by big companies such as id, Epic or Valve. 
Developers have started releasing their editors free of charge partially because of this. If people do well at messing around with their free software they can be considered both hireable and ready trained. 
Modding is also well known to increase a game's lifespan. Games that allow modding allow the player to explore player created content as well as the original content, or the player can make their own content for other players to enjoy.
Modding is often a jumping off point for wannabe developers and designers as it allows people to simply rearrange content into something new before experiementing with making their own content. A mentioned before this is greatly helped by the increased number of tools available.
This, in itself, has greatly contributed to the indie market which is beginning to grow big enough to be seen as a real threat to the AAA developers who are now having to adapt to compete with the innovation and creativity that comes from the players themselves.

References

•  Wagner, James Au. (2002). Triumph of the Mod. Available: http://www.salon.com/2002/04/16/modding/. Last accessed 09/01/2013.
• Username: CtChocula. (2012). A History of Dota: Part 1. Available: http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/thread.php?id=802775. Last accessed 09/01/2013.
• Thomsen, Mike. (2010). History of the Unreal Engine. Available: http://uk.ign.com/articles/2010/02/23/history-of-the-unreal-engine. Last accessed 09/01/2013.

Creating a Great Fantasy World

As part of the Contextual Studies area of our course we were asked to create a well researched presentation "Creating Coherent Game Worlds". The brief is deliberately vague in order to explore a variety of topics within this area, from the pedantically specific to the frustratingly vague. I decided to take a more literal view of the brief. I chose to look at how great fantasy worlds are created.

First let me define a fantasy world. It is a world that is made up and completely fictional. It is based neither in faith or science, although many would argue that the former is a form of fantasy. This would exclude worlds like that of Star Trek (Roddenberry, 1966) and Blade Runner (Scott, 1982) since they are loose interpretation or even hopes of what lies in store for the human race and is based around technology or research that actually exists. I would also say that a fantasy world can exist within an interpretation or perspective of the real world, the world of Harry Potter (Rowling, 1995) does this. I also want to point out that fantasy is now mistakenly defined as a world in a medieval type era with dragons, elves, dwarves and goblins. These are just reinterpretations of Tolkien's universe. Not to say they do not have their own original elements and are not unique worlds in their own right, but i do not think they are great. They follow a "tried and true" formula based on how Tolkien created his world, Middle Earth, and, although it works, any creator of an original world not based on Tolkiens' is usually using a different skill set and approach.
Now, how am I defining a "great" fantasy world? What right do I have to do that? How dare I! Well for the sake of the presentation I am defining a "Great Fantasy World" as a world that has been brought into the trans-media and has been enjoyed in one form or another by millions of people.
Although the presentation must relate to games in some way, it is more than a little difficult finding out how the creators of the game actually came up with the elaborate fictions behind the game. This is partially because they are rarely created by one person, and partially because games developers are often very secretive about their methods. So despite some serious searching, I found that there is no reference to how the world Tamriel from the Elder Scrolls series (Bethesda, 1994) was made. As such I have looked at how worlds from other media have been created and, I believe, the same essential process applies. I will try to prove this through a practical experiment later on.
I have chosen four worlds, along with their sole creators, to examine. I chose:

• The world of Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
• Middle Earth  by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Pandora by James Cameron*
• The Star Wars Universe by George Lucas

With these artists and worlds in mind I decided to figure out what they all have that could explain their success. A formula of sorts. I found that they all seemed to share a few specific traits. Although a lack of information at some points leads me to make occasional leaps of faith, I do think there could be something to this. I want to go through the traits one by one and give examples from the four selected worlds.

*It could, quite rightly, be argued that Avatar  is at least partly Science Fiction. This is true, but Pandora itself is completely fictional. In fact it is astromically unlikely that life on another planet will be anywhere near as close to our own planet that I feel justified in saying that Pandora is a fantasy world created for the sole purpose of telling the story. Nothing native to the planet itself is based on a scientific prediction of the future. 
Personal Major Purpose (The Drive)
This is the creator's own personal reason for creating the world. This is, perhaps, the most important of all of the traits as it is likely, without this, the other traits wouldn't exist. This is the drive that drives the individual to create the world. Although these are often channeled into the next trait (The Representation), in order to give the idea structure and marketability. When it is a team responsible for the worlds creation, as it usually would be in games, this could easily be translated into a philosophy that all or most of the team is happy to take on. Although, even if a team leader isn't chosen, one person usually naturally assumes this role. This person tends to act as a conductor of the vision. I would imagine they have their own drives for this. Many of the better worlds are driven by a sort of nostalgia. I desire to bring back something they experienced, often as children.
Examples of this principle can be found as follows:

• Tolkien was very keen in creating a mythology for England since most of ours were lost in the Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Norman invasions. He was very fond of Scandinavian folklore and wanted England to have it's own, complete with heroic sagas. His saga was Lord of the Rings (Tolkien, 1954).
• Rowling seems evidently to be trying to redeem her childhood, with all of the things she didn't have as a child. This can be seen partially through the over use of good father figures in the Harry Potter potter novels (Rowling, 1995) due to a lack of a good father figure.
• As opposed to Rowling, Cameron seems to have more of a drive to recreate his childhood, or elements of it, as it was. He was very fond of science fiction and the study of nature from a very young age and wanted to recreate that feeling of curiosity and wonder in his recent CG marvel, Avatar (Cameron, 2009).
• George Lucas was often quoted as saying he was "creating the films he wanted to see". He wanted to see a contemporary Flash Gordon-esque space adventure that he enjoyed watching when he was younger in the Star Wars saga (Lucas, 1977).

Public Minor Purpose (The Representation)
This is the world's primary purpose, before translation into other media. This is both the media it is initially represented in itself and something that they want to translate to the audience. This could be a perspective on morality, a simple message or even just an experience. This is how the artist(s) want the audience to see their world.
Examples could be as follows:

• Tolkien wanted a heroic saga, which he felt was lacking in contemporary culture. He wrote this as Lord of the Rings, which he filled with his own messages and experience that formed his view of good and evil. The book even contains very strong and obvious environmental messages. 
• Rowling wanted to, and succeeded in, creating a world children could get completely and utterly lost in. A world they felt they could and were a part of. Again, there is a definite personal view of good and evil that is apparent in the book. A view that is perhaps a little more contemporary than the Tolkien's.
• Cameron has stated that he wanted to push the limits of special effects technology and artistic achievement to the limits with Avatar. Cameron also has quite obvious messages about environmentalism and the preservation of culture built into the film.
• Lucas, similar to Tolkien, look heavily to mythology and religious stories from all cultures to adopt a Joseph Campbell-like "Hero's Journey" that would appeal to a huge range of audiences. It holds almost Buddhist principles of losing your sense of self for the good of others and purity of the mind.

 The Building Blocks (The Passion)
This is usually the personal passions and pursuits of the artist creating the world. When creating a world of usually large proportions, the parts of the world that will be the greatest in depth will naturally be the parts that the creator has the most interest in. This is, after all, their world, no matter how much hardcore fans may try to adopt it as their own. This could be anything from painting to a love of warm woolen mittens. The creators also often use their own experiences to form the world's moral system, an often under appreciated part of any game world.
Examples of this include:

• Many of the languages of Middle Earth were created long before Middle Earth existed. Tolkien had always loved languages and often made his own. He would often, in fact, create the names first, often from Old English or Flemish origin, and then build a story around it. Tolkien also based Hobbits off of the rustic people of Oxfordshire. This was his interpretation of what is good and pure in the world, somewhat Amish as it may be. Tolkien also put many of his experiences of the war and love of nature from childhood into his world. The fires of industry, run by powerful destructive leaders who are both charismatic and illusive, burning down the forests is not a hard message to translate.
• As opposed to Tolkien, who often created landscapes with more character than the characters, Rowling had an obvious love of people and their personalities despite her introverted nature. All of the figures in her books are all unique and believable. They make you feel exactly as you she would want you to. This is because they were all based off of people she knew or people she would liked to have known.  She also had a love of classic and contemporary literature. Including works like the Illiad (Homer, 1260 - 1240bc), The Wind in the Willows (Grahame, 1908) and the Chronicles of Narnia (Lewis, 1950). 
• Cameron took much of his inspiration from his love of science and nature he had as a child and pursued as an adult. Between the making of the Titanic (Cameron, 1997) and Avatar, Cameron spent time experience the space program in Russia and in submersibles looking at the deep sea floor for new, weird and wonderful forms of life; many of which must have inspired the world of Avatar. Cameron also has a love of special effects and film-making (surprisingly...). This is what ultimately led him to "push the boundaries" to create Avatar.
• Lucas shows a great love of films. One of the most notable influences is from Japanese director Kurosawa. Kurosawa's film "The Hidden Fortress" we find that the plot is remarkably similar to Star Wars and two mischievous characters that very clearly influenced C3PO and R2D2. We also find the old Flash Gordon films to be a big influence on Lucas. 

 The Details
 This is crucial for a world to hold attention for long enough to be great over a long period of time and be able to be translated to other media. All of the worlds I have mentioned have a painstaking amount of detail in them that gives the audience a crystal clear image of what that world is like. Even something as simple as a map (an almost essential inclusion to any fantasy world) can give the audience a much clearer view of the world they are or will soon be losing themselves in. Even when the details aren't shown in their completion in the primary media, it often shows that the creator knows them by the casual mention of an element that just sounds right.
Examples:

• Tolkien's keen eye for detail shows most in his maps and appendices. In the Lord of the Rings appendices, Tolkien goes into family trees, alphabets and general histories and meanwhiles that would have otherwise been completely left out of the story. Tolkien spent much of his remaining life working on The Silmarillion, which is still unfinished. This book detailed what happened before and after the Lord of the Rings. Even in its unfinished form, it provides a rich source of information for fans wanting to know more about this deep, amazing and fantastic world. 
• Rowling has literally volume upon volume of information about the Harry Potter world that was never used in the book. The vast majority of which has not been released. She has, however, released several books with a little of this information, such as The Tales of Beedle the Bard (Rowling, 2007), Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Rowling 2001) and Quidditch Throught the Ages (Rowling, 2001). A recent resource for some of this information can also be found at Pottermore.com. Her knowledge of the world she created really does show in her books however, even if it's just through a casual book quote that you know is cut from a much larger piece of text. 
•  Although Cameron had a huge team of writers and artists at his side to help him, this does not make his details of Pandora any less important to the audience. In fact, you know that every cg and concept artist will have come up with their own story for each and every plant and animal they spent tens of hours developing. This is obvious in the beauty of the enviroment of Pandora. There is also the Pandorapedia.com which is apparently a simplified version of a much larger tome.
• Lucas, again, did not necessarily write the entire mythology behind the entire Star Wars universe, but that does not make it any less special. Even if what was previously canon is changed or ignored if the film series requires it. The expanded universe is a major part of the Star Wars franchise and has sold many books based on this (sort of) canon made mostly by "licensed" fans. 

The Ground
 The Ground is something, anything that the audience can relate to. This is what really connects them to the world. This can be done with themes, characters, settings or all of the above. Although this is an obvious point that even the most amateur artist will put into their world without thinking, there is a risk that there is a risk of having a world so alien that the audience simply cannot relate. Despite the fact that most people will put in some ground, it still takes skill to have a good ground that really pulls the player into the world.
Examples of such skill are:

•    Despite including many different races to inhabit Middle Earth, they all represent certain types of people and are all easily related to. Tolkien also uses vividly painted descriptions of the landscapes. These make the fantasy elements such as the living trees, the ents, almost a metaphor for a feeling you might get when in a forest. One of the most relatable elements Tolkien uses is his themes. Overcoming evil and temptation, nature over industry and simplicity and adventure isn't always a bad thing. 
• Rowling, quite ingeniously, has a world hidden within our own. She plants the idea that anyone of use may be a wizard, somehow special and seperate from everyone else. This is a great way to pull children into her world. Her characters are superbly written to match people the audience would really love to know or, maybe, already know in a sense. Again, she uses a battle against evil as another ground, something we can all, in some sense, relate to. The "coming of age" element is also especially relevant to her readers since many who read the original book as children will have been young adults by the time the last book came out. 
• Cameron bases almost all of Pandora on some element of the real world. The jungles are very similar in structure to jungles on earth (minus the bio-luminescence). The Na'Vi, the native race to Pandora are also humanoid and have a culture very similar to those we see in certain tribes on earth. Again, Cameron's world preaches environmentalism and the preservation of culture. Nature over Industry.
• Lucas' main characters are main characters are almost exclusively human, those that are not have very human personalities and traits. Although many of the environments are very different to those we might find on earth, such as the Cloud City or the Death Star they are painted or otherwise represented in a way that makes it obvious what it is like and what it feels like to be there. Yet again Lucas's main groundings are in the themes. The films teach selflessness and courage over hatred and anger. Lucas uses the "Hero's Journey" to pull the audience in with a plot structure that has been used for literally thousands of years by cultures all over the world. 

As explained previously, it is extremely difficult to find out the individual motivations of games designers in creating their fantasy worlds. I believe they are solely to create a worlds that works with the game. More and more now games developers hire writers to create these worlds, however, which means they are becoming more and more unique. I think, however, very few have reached this many people and been translated to other media quite as successfully, although many have tried. I think that these methods are just as easily applied to the process of creating worlds for games as any of these other media.  
  

Contextual Studies: Jasper Juul

As a task for Contextual Studies we were asked to read an article by Jasper Juul called  Games Telling Stories. The article covers the difference between narrative and games. The article specifically chooses to separate games as narrative, that is a story telling device, and narrative within games, a film like story told almost as a reward and incentive for playing the game.
My first point on the article is its over-ambition to seem academic. Although I believe that games can, and should, be studied in an academic way, there is no need to entirely conform to language which establishes an academic text. Academic writing, from my point of view, requires two things; overall objectivity and evidence to back up your points. Both of these things can be achieved with engaging language that makes the reader want to keep reading.
Juul starts his article with the argument that everything is essentially apart of a narrative due to the subjective nature of the mind and its way of forming anything into a part of a narrative in order to make sense of the world. He then make the counter argument that "Narratives may be fundamental to human thought, but this does not mean that everything should be described in narrative terms. And that something can be presented in narrative form does not mean that it is narrative." He then goes on to point out the difference between a story within the game and using the game to tell a story. i.e. A game like Half-Life that uses film theory to create a sci-fi story that works with the game is an example of a narrative within a game. Space invaders has no cut-scenes or writing just an overarching premise of an invasion which is told through the game itself. I agree that these are important distinctions to make when designing a game and every game designer should try to make a point of telling a story through gameplay as much as possible.
Juul then makes a point of showing how games translate narrative elements into the gameplay. His main point on this section is that games do not directly translate into narratives. He points out how key narrative elements translate in games, such as narrative events into a simulation with multiple outcomes, or characters into the players position in the game. An example he used for all this was that the recounting of gameplay would be extremely dull, like explaining every move in chess. Firstly I think that this example is kind of redundant on the principal that it still forms a mental narrative while in the act of play in order for your mind to get make sense of the events happening to you, dull or not. I also think that in-game events can be recounted in a certain way. Dungeons and Dragons is a good example of this. People who play this game are often teased on account of saying things like, "...so I used my +5 frost Axe on the troll, I rolled a critical and he exploded!" Although this is admittedly a mix of narrative devices, such as the troll and the axe, game elements, such as the +5 frost and critical roll, are also included and form a part of a narrative about gameplay.
His next argument is that most narratives use the presumption that the story takes place before its retelling, even if the story takes place in the future, it usually still uses past tense. Games are thought of as happening now, due to your control over the events in the game.This is fundamentally true and a very good point. The difference in tense is undoubtedly an important factor in the way the story is told. This does not necessarily prevent it from being a story however.
Juul goes on to talk about the player as a character in the game. He states that the player need be the only character in the game. No character need appear on screen. This makes the retelling of the game difficult. I, again, disagree. I find that, through the players eyes, they are the character. This is a much more powerful perspective and allows for greater immersion into the experience. Again this does not prevent the game from being a narrative in itself.
His final argument is that avant-garde storytellers often disobey the rules above about narrative in order to create a different experience for their audience. Games are no different. However, he then argues that the often interpretive nature many of these avant-garde filmmakers and writers use would take away from the gaming experience. My thought on this is that although certain storyteller chose to mix their avant-garde storytelling methods with interpretive events does not mean that games also have to do this.

Overall I agree that the commonly accepted forms of narratives such as films and books do use many different method that games and so, in that sense, they are different. However, both stories, in all their forms, commonly accepted as being life teaching tools. Games are no different. Lion cubs play to practice hunting and fighting. In fact, tickling is thought to be a human preparation for combat! This means that both games and stories have the same ultimate aims. In this sense, does it matter how different they are? I believe that there is still a narrative whilst playing games, it is simply more immediate. A boxing match described later on will simply cover the superficial details of who appears to be winning and the best guess as to why. A boxer will be experience a much more immediate inner narrative, like a gamer, they will be looking for opportunities to take advantage of and analyzing every relevant detail. Although the narrative is different, it is still a narrative. A much more effective one at that. 

Racing Games; Questions

As a part of a Contextual studies assignment we were asked to answer some questions on a game in a genre given to us, ours was Racing games. We chose fuel because it takes a slightly different approach in terms of freedom given to the player.

How is the game structured?
The game uses a "free-ride" mode to allow the players to ride around and find challenges on a very large map. You can do these challenges in any order you choose to but must earn stars and fuel from each race in order to unlock more map with more challenges to earn yet more stars and fuel. Despite this, the game has not strayed too far from what most other racing games do and still puts a lot of emphasis on the menu system. e.g. When you discover a challenge, you don't have to travel all the way to the challenges location to trigger it. You can just select it from the menu, provided you have already discovered the challenge. This saves the player time in traveling from place to place. 

Do you have to follow a set path in the game?
As previously stated in the last question, the player can choose to complete the challenges available to him/her in whatever order they choose. However this, like most games, creates more of the illusion of freedom than any actual freedom. This is because the game is set up to allow the player to choose from a selection of unlocked challenges but is specifically designed to make sure they can only afford to go on to challenges that are doable at their current skill level. This is a sensible stance to take as a game designer as it prevents players from getting too frustrated. This does offer an interesting solution to the usually completely linear progression of racing games. In the races themselves, there is a definite increase in the amount of freedom given to the player compared to other racing games. The visual clues given (see below) as to where the end goal is allows the player to discover their own routes to that goal. This adds a lot more satisfaction when the player finishes first in a race or beats their best time, simply because they did it their own way.

What does the game look like?
 The game uses a variety of terrains and weather conditions to make an extreme American landscape in a realistic, if slightly exaggerated in detail, style. This, mixed with metal and mechanics of the cars, bikes, buggies and quads racing around, gives, perhaps, the feeling of mans dominance over nature. Above all though, this gives the player the feeling that they're prevailing in the face of the extreme. A variety of other visual elements are used, such as the arrows, which give a optimal direction for the player to go, and shafts of light, indicating goal locations. These are all in place to allow the player to clearly see their end goal without having to follow a predetermined route.

Origins of Fear

After realising that our group had come up with a presentation topic that did not meet the brief's criteria, we decided to pick a new one. We decided a good topic could be that of horror games and how they manage to make us scared. We would look at horror games from the east and west and see how much their culture effects their horror games and where this fear comes from.
We each walked away with a research topic. Jack was to look at the visuals, Juliette the narrative, Liam the gameplay and me, the Origins of Fear i.e. psychology, folk tales and general cultural sources of horror.
Wanting to launch myself into the research as quickly as possible and chose to look into a subject I enjoy and partially know, Psychology.

The first thing I found was that fear is "classically conditioned". They develop fear through association. An experiment performed in 1920 known as the "Little Albert Experiment" (Watson and Rayner) in which a very young child was shown a variety of different "stimuli", including a white rat, to which the child initially showed no emotional response. The child was then shown the white rat again while one of the experimenters banged a metal pipe. This was done on a regular basis until the child naturally associated the rat with the loud noise and became scared of the rat. This does, however, mean that there are some base fears which come instinctually. 
Fears can also be picked up by observing others show fear as shown in the study, "Learning fears by observing others: the neural systems of social fear transmission" (Olsson, Nearing and Phelps). 


I then decided it might be a good idea to look at the most common nightmares. I tried to find something on common nightmares from different cultures to see if there were any differences. Apparently this is uncovered ground (psychologists take note). I found that all of the top 10 nightmares (according to this site: http://urbantitan.com/10-most-common-nightmares-and-their-meanings/) can be found in horror games, films and stories, if not directly then by the supposed root source of the dream:

1. Lost or Trapped
2. Missed a boat or plane (feeling of frustration)
3. Being Chased
4. Failing a test (The feeling that you are being tested on something you shouldn't be involved in e.g. a demon infested town)
5. Nudity in public (fear of vulnerability)
6. Ill or Dying (The loss of a part of yourself (most commonly))
7. Car troubles (just about every 1990's horror film)
8. Bad or Missing teeth (embarassment or Loss of Power)
9. Falling or sinking (feeling overwhelmed)
10. Faulty Machinery (losing touch with reality) 

 All of these dreams or their meanings are crucial elements of the horror genre (although I will get to making specific connections later). 


Feeling I had covered enough psychology, I decided to move onto folklore. The first thing I looked at were Japanese folk creatures (http://listverse.com/2010/01/20/10-bizarre-creatures-from-japanese-folklore/), in the hopes that some would share similarities with modern monsters. Most of the Japanese monsters are weird rather than scary, such as the Makura Gaeshi, a spirit who's sole purpose in life is to move pillows while people sleep. I did, however, find a few that connect a bit more to modern horror. The Konak Jiji is a creature that disguises itself as a child and then cries in the woods. When someone finds the apparent child and pick it up to comfort it, they find the creature paralyses them and quickly increases it's weight until it crushes it's prey. This creature uses the image of an innocent child in a similar way we do today. The idea that something as innocent as a child could be something evil has been used in films like "The Ring", "The Shining", "Omen" and many others. The other monster I found to be a good, but very strange example, is known as the "Shrime". It has been written about only once. A samurai was walking through the forest and glimpsed a man, naked and facing away from him, bending over to reveal a eyeball staring straight at him. The samurai, understandably terrified, ran away without looking back.

Unpleasant illustration of a "Shrime"

The only reason I draw attention to this particular creature, is that is reflects a certain type of grotesque and almost indescribably Japanese creature design. 

A few examples of video game creatures of Japanese Design that I believe show a similar style to that of the Shrime

Western monsters seem to take on a much less nightmarishly grotesque, inhuman look.


Next I wanted to look at some western folklore to compare. Perhaps with bias, I first looked at england's folk creatures (http://kelly-zigler.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/creatures-from-british-folklore.html). I found that many of the feared creatures (the ones that weren't members of the Fae, faeries, goblins, brownies, etc.) are slight variations of the same creatures, with the exception of "Guytrash, the phantom cow with saucer eyes":

• The black dog (Barguest, Hell Hounds, Padfoot) an omen of death, probably stemming from Cerberus, or possibly a deeper fear.
• A "drowner", a creature that pulls it's victim underwater to drown (gindylow, mermaids) a good example of horror connecting with common nightmares.

One I did find that is still quite a scary thought is that of "Black Annis" an old hag with iron strong claws that captures and eats children before hanging their skins on the wall of her cave. This creature shows a definite similarity to "The Creeper" from the film "Jeepers Creepers" only the Creeper was implied to be of demon origin. This got me thinking about the origins of American horror. Most American horror films are based around the idea of hell, a fate a thousand times worse than death. I tried to think of a good example of a period in history this could have stemmed from. The Salem Witch trials perhaps. 

I remembered an episode of QI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj6t0FwJpWw) which had a brief look at the fundamentalism of the American Puritans. The show mentioned how puritans fled england because they were not allowed to persecute others for being "heretics". This way of thinking being allowed eventually led to the Salem Witch Trials and many other acts that come with fundamentalist puritanical thought. I think it is because of this conditioned fear of "fire and brimstone", eternal torture and a definitive sense of what is good and what is evil that lead to horror stories like "The Exorcist", "Omen", "Drag me to Hell" and so on. I believe it is this that eventually lead to the video game horror we see today. The other area of American horror, which seems to be very rare in horror games is the idea of serial killers, the partial paranoia that the killer may really be among us.


Having looked into the western origins of horror from the region, I decided to look more closely at Japan. Not really knowing where to start, I started typing anything I felt relavant to the subject. I eventually discovered "Kaidan", Japanese ghost stories from the "Edo Period" (1603 to 1868). These stories are said to have greatly influenced Japanese horror (http://www.sarudama.com/japanese_folklore/kaidan_modern.shtml). These stories often have a strong romantic element, so much in fact that many of these stories have been adapted without the ghosts. However, in terms of horror, the genre reflects the Japanese view of death as being evil, or more specifically, the decay the comes with it. This is perhaps because of a different view of the afterlife. Japanese Shintoism does not have the same idea of heaven and hell shared by many monothiestic religions. This means that death is, more or less the worst thing that could happen and decay always follows. This is why their stories often revolve around the spirits of the dead, who are often malicious or vengeful. The Kaidan often commonly show elements of the Shinto belief in Kami, spirits. These spirits are in everything. Each Kami has their own will and can be kind or malicious.

 Many modern J-Horror film makers have credited Kaidan as an influence, "Director Yoshihiro Hoshino’s 2004 film entitled “Cursed” tells a far less familiar contemporary urban. From start to finish this tale has a very modern feel to it, but all the classic Kaidan elements are present if you are looking for them.  Even the genre-busting J-Horror films such as Hideo Nakata’s “Ring” or Takashi Shimizu’s “Ju-On” have been said to borrow from the historical Kaidan formula with their geographically-based ghost stories which begin as localized urban legends and then spread as victims of the horror increase" (Foutz, 2008).

Having looked at folk tales I decided to try and find some more modern influences. A game I had been playing as a part of this research (see contextualstudies12.blogspot.co.uk for Liam's report), Amnesia; The Dark Descent, was said to be heavily influenced by the American author H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft has several recurring themes (source: Wikipedia, I own a copy of H.P.L.'s collected works so I can confirm the accuracy of the source).

• Forbidden Knowledge. The idea that some knowledge and the pursuit of it is dangerous. Definitly explored in Amnesia which is heavily lovecraft inspired. Silent Hill is also a good example which shows Silent Hill as a place full of forbidden knowledge. Resident Evil is another good example where characters put themselves in danger by learning more and more about the T virus and it's origins.
• Non-Human influences on humanity. Can be found in many horror and sci-fi games, films and literature. including Alien, Silent Hill, Mass Effect, etc.
• Inherited Guilt. The idea that guilt can be passed down from father to son. Not a popular idea in contemporary storytelling. Not found in many modern horrors.
• Fate. The idea that you can not change your destiny. This could be manifested in games by the lack of control over the situation given to the player in games. This also shows heavily in Silent Hill. The town, Silent Hill "pulls" you to it because of what you have done i.e. what you have done has sealed your fate.
• Civilization under threat. A very common narrative element in games today. Certainly in games like Resident Evil. This gives the player a feeling of epic importance, adding to the feeling that they are under threat, thus adding to the feeling of fear.
•  Rascism. Lovecraft was under the impression that some races were superior to others. Not a popular idea in most media today. Some debate about this with Resident Evil 5.
• Risks of Science. The idea that man may one day go too far. Resident evil is, yet again, a good example. Dead Space and other sci fi horrors often strongly carry this theme.
• Religion. The idea of Occultism. Common in many horrors, although rare in popular horror game, more commonly found in adventure games.

I also noticed that Lovecraft had a definite knack for suspense, something he seems to have picked up from a great influence of his, Edgar Allan Poe.


Poe is considered a master of suspense and, although not strictly a horror writer, he did write "to disturb". I noticed from reading his short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" that his use of the first person pulls you into the imagery a lot more, although it is through the mind of a mad man. The first person perspective is used in Amnesia to a similar effect. The character you play is still capable of going mad making you feel chilled by what you see through the mad man's eyes. Poe also uses very grim imagery, "...a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees - very gradually -I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid my self of the eye forever". This language alone bring (classically conditioned) images of death and general morbidity, as well as a tone that suggests a calm nature, which is especially disturbing when you consider the character is talking about murdering someone. The suspense I mentioned influence Lovecraft and all those influence by him is especially rife in this story. The tone and imagery builds, almost to breaking point. Every horror game does this, often in building waves.

After gathering this research, the group met to collaborate. We talked about how we might go about connecting each of these topics and then putting them into slides. We decided we would focus on 4 game franchises. 2 Japanese and 2 Western. Silent Hill and Resident Evil for Japan; and Dead Space and Amnesia for the West. We found that they all shared very similar elements in gameplay, visuals, narrative and in their influence. We also noticed that where Silent Hill and Resident Evil had all taken enormous amounts of inspiration from western culture, Dead Space had taken a lot from Japanese culture. We split with a much more definite idea of what we were doing. We intend on meeting again to use what we know about the connections in subjects to create a presentation. To help with this I have been creating a mind map to shown the connections. Although the subject is far to big to cover in a mind map there is a lot to be read from the clusters and patterns that form in the mind map itself, shown below.

Green: Gameplay Elements, Indigo: Influences, Turquoise: Themes, Pink: Psychological Elements Viridian: Visual Elements, Gold: Games and Scarlet: Sources.

Hero and their Nemesis Research

Our next Contextual Studies assignment was to create a presentation in a group on the representation on certain characters or environments and how they differ from east to west. Some discussion with my group, Juliette Deforges, Jack Eastoe and Liam Gallagher-Vaes, we decided a good topic would be Heroes and their Nemeses i.e. an opposing (probably evil) person/god/creature that is more or less equal in power to them. We then divided up areas of history between the group, Jack taking between 1900-ish to around 1990, Liam taking between 1990 to present day and me and Juliette taking between 1900 to around 2000 BC.

Something I discovered very quickly during my research was that the good and evil duality commonly taken on-board by people today is a relativley new concept seeming to originate from some forms of monothiestic thinking, "If God is all good and there are bad things in the world there must be a source of pure evil". It is from this that the idea of Satan arose and with it ideals about definitive good and definitive bad (evil). In the west, this can be seen in the stories, myths and legends of the polytheistic cultures. For example, Hercules' nemesis would have been Hera, Zeus' wife and sister, who killed Hercules' family and, through a king, put Hercules through many trials in an attempt to better him. However, Hera is not evil. Like most of the ancient and classical greek deities, they had both good and bad traits. Demi-Gods seeming to be the only ones with more good traits than bad. When we look at a post-christian story, George and the Dragon, we see that the Dragon is a definite symbol of evil, possessing only bad traits, George and his christianity being pure good.
There are a few exceptions to this rule, in Old Norse culture for example giants, trolls and other varients of monsters are feared and the "Bringers of Ragnarok", an event similar to Revalations, showing a definite belief in what is good and what is evil. In this same culture, it is believed that the sun and moon are chased around the sky by "The Spawn of Fenrir", two huge wolves who will eventually devour the sun and moon, bringing about the age of Ragnarok. This shows a more modern representation of nemesis duality, good vs. evil.

In the East a very different stance is taken on the duality of the universe. One of these is the concept of Yin and Yang, which are seen as light and dark not good and evil. It is believed in Taoism that the two must be in balance at all times, if they are not in balance they will eventually balance themselves out over time "like a stone in a pond, the water peaks and troughs but balance is soon restored". This sort of thinking effects how their characters are potrayed. The story "Journey to the West" is the far eastern equivalent of the Illiad in cultural impact and it's main hero, the Monkey King or Sun Wukong, although essentially good, has been restrained from violence and controlled with a magic ring around his head. Similarly, all of the enemies in the story, demons and spirits, are not evil but lazy. They attack the protagonists of the story because they believe eating their flesh will grant them immortality, which seems easier to them than perform a good or pure act that would also grant them immortality.
Another difference in the representation of these characters is that there is no real nemesis. The characters are never in any more danger than they can handle with relative ease. As opposed to other western characters such as Achilles who has an obvious weakness (his heel) and powerful enemies which eventually kill him. This means The Monkey King cannot have a nemesis, since noone is a match for him. However, it has been suggested that Buddah puts them through the trials on their journey to bring them closer to enlightenment. This would make Buddah the closest thing to a nemesis.