Author: Lucy

I enjoyed the process of creating this podcast, The Sims 4, with Kiara. We shared the same ideas and we did really good job in integrating our thoughts and fitting it into our podcast. Furthermore, since we chose the game for the podcast rather than being assigned a certain game, we could design the podcast according to our interests, which was flexible and did not constrain our thoughts. At the same time of playing and podcasting the game, we dig deeply into our game and discover that it had both pros and cons.

Inspired by the different video games earlier this semester, I also wanted to do a Podcast focusing on role-playing game in which players can really escape from busy life, release their burdens, and take all control of their lives. Rather than composing of complicated plots and mysterious settings like the Stanley or Gone Home, my dream game is easy to play, close to real world, and meaningful to the players. Thus, I started to search online which game is most similar to my ideal game. Browsing the websites, I was attracted by pet raising games as well as life simulation game: The Sims 4. Fortunately, my partner Kiara also had that idea and we played the games together. However, we still were not able to decide which one was better and how to talk about a game through Podcast. Thus, we discussed with Professor Morgen about our thoughts and brainstormed the pros and cons of the games. In the end, we decided on doing the Podcast of The Sims 4, a life simulation game which provides the players with life experiences like ever before and like never before.

For Kiara and I, we first planned out the structure of our Podcast, intro and reflection of the process of playing, and wrote the scripts for them. However, we found it was difficult to talk about a game without any thesis and deep meaning behind it. Therefore,Instead of doing the Podcast according to the structure we had before, we discussed the pros and cons of The Sims by referring to some topics in How To Do Things With Video Games, which is written by Ian Bogost. “Empathy”, a topic in this book, best reflects the deep meaning behind the game. When we were playing this game and enjoyed the happiness of living another life, we put ourselves in the characters’ shoes and have the empathy of them. For example, my character Wendy broke up with her boyfriend because her busy life of being a tech-industry woman. I felt blue during those days and tried to come up with some ideas to fix their relationship while still keep her interests in industry engineering. The process of playing the game influences my life. Also, this game also reminded Kiara of some experiences during freshman year. Our own experiences in this game and vivid description of the characters would give the audience a more straightforward sense of it. In addition, the pros and cons of this game enable the audience to get rid of it negative effects and misleading part.

After figuring out all the things we need to include in our podcast, we started our recording part. The easy part was that we could read record according to our scripts; while we needed to find background musics, combine all the sound track into one, and make sure our voices are loud and clear. The Podcast took our hours to finished, however, we expressed our own ideas to the audience and encouraged them play in a more vivid way through voice rather than plain words. The this project requires our collaboration and teamwork, which includes encouragement and understanding.

We did all the things together happily and were both very excited to see our collaboration outcome on podcast website of this class.

Work Cited

Bogost, Ian. “Empathy.” How to Do Things with Videogames. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 2011. 18-23. Print.

 

Wolf In White Van is a novel which tells a story of Sean Phillips whose face is disfigured. I felt it was confusing at first because this story is not written according to time progression. Then I searched some background information and found that the protagonist Sean Phillips has a face disfigurement after a incident of gunshot and suffers from the social isolation. This reminded me of the video games I played before spring break, Dys4ia and Depression Quest, because they both reflects the authors’ psychological suffering through the games. In addition, he receives different treatments from the society before and after the change of his appearance. People do not accept him, as a result, he also gradually alienate himself from the society. Throughout the book, I can feel the sadness and self-struggling of Sean, the same feeling of sympathy as playing Dys4ia. Fortunately, while in the hospital, Sean found a creative and efficient way to release his feelings of loneliness and unhappiness. He write a role-playing interaction game called Trace Italian, which also provides himself a way to interact with real world. Similar to Anna Anthropy, who is male to female transsexual, he created Trace Italian based on his own experience. Thus, video games are also a way for other people to acquire a different life.

 

 

Compare to The Beginner’s Guide, Her Story really caught my eyes from the start. Her Story is a detective video game which is mainly consisted of watching over two hundred different videos to find the truth, which is a new category of game which I have never seen before. In the previous games I played, I simply figured out the truth through to every piece of evidence from Thus, I spent two hours to finish the game by taking notes and did not feel bored at all. In Her Story, I could go into the police office and find as many detail or evidence that can help me see the truth behind the murder of Simon as possible. And I felt that I was really detective.

The protagonists are Hannah and Eve, who are twins but grew up in different environment.I had a hard time figuring out the protagonist Hannah (actually Eve) because I had no background information and they look the same at the beginning. However, as I watched more videos, I gradually found that Hannah may have two different personalities( maybe some disorders because some of her actions were not consistent: tea or coffee, the scars on her face were healed quickly, tattoo on the arms). Until the police found the hairpieces and fingerprint of a different person, I realized that there might be two people who killed Simon together. Then the stories behind the two sisters surfaced: Hannah and Eve were born, grew up in different environments, and fell in love with Simon. I think the plot is the most attractive element in the game. The process of watching the videos and taking notes was a mock detective process. I needed to pay lots of attention to details in their stories and pick out the most useful information and go to the next step. The huge amount of evident was really confusing. However, it interweaves truth with fiction, which is not close to our life but fulfilled maybe most people’s dream as a detective. From my perspective, it is not just HER story, but also THIER stories.

Even though the Beginner’s Guide is also intriguing from the beginning, I became bored in the half way since I was wandering around without doing anything. It is very similar to the Dear Esther, which is simply walking around to observe or enjoy the beauty of an island. Moreover, compared to The Stanley Parable, The Beginner’s Guide is lack of interactions with the players. The Stanley Parable provides the players different choices which can receive different feedbacks; while The Beginner’s Guide was telling Coda’s and Davey’s process of creating a game, which is not as engaging as Her Story.

 

Four people holding a flag with big smiles. Why is it on the wall of a bar? My Unpacking Manuel’s Tavern assignment interpret this photo and investigate the story behind it. At first glance, I was confused by the vague information presented in the photo. As I dived into the stories, I gradually unveiled the secrets in MY ANALYSIS.

In the beginning of the game, I was dropped on an island called Hebridean island as a shipwreck castaway. Thus, my first impression of DEAR ESTHER is that it might be the same type of game as GONE HOME because it is also a first person perspective interactive game with some terrifying elements, like the endless dark sea and loneliness. Unlike GONE HOME, however, DEAR ESTHER did not provide any background information, which made me very confused throughout the game. Moreover, the scope of DEAR ESTHER (landscape of the island) was weigh larger than that of GONE HOME (a house), which made me think it took much more time than GONE HOME. Thus, I was walking around in order to explore the whole storyline and characters.

As I walking along the roads, the gorgeous visual effects intrigued my interest because it did a very good job of depicting an island with lifeless looks as well as lighting effects. Therefore, I gradually enjoyed the “arts” of the game rather than focus on the storyline. The details of rock, sea and even road conveyed a sense of loneliness and depression. In addition, the cave was the most beautiful scene I saw in the game.

The storyline itself was very confusing throughout the game. Some snippets were revealed as I progress. However, these messages were very vague, hard to understand, and seemed very disconnected to each other. When I played till the end, I was still unclear about the characters in it.  Therefore, I feel like the DEAR ESTHER is more like a ‘video’ not a ‘video game’.