Will Crownover
With the help of an enlightened entity you will learn of the path to Nirvana.
9 comments
Comments are closed.
Playing Stories – Fall 2012 – 6424
Playing Stories – Fall 2012 – 6424
Will Crownover
With the help of an enlightened entity you will learn of the path to Nirvana.
Comments are closed.
The illustrations are pretty cool – I love all of the colors, and the Bodhisattva face is strangely expressive. The story felt a little preachy, but I enjoyed the music and the ethereal atmosphere of the game. The dialogue did a good job of conveying the worldly themes of the game, but I occasionally got bogged down with all of the Buddhist terminology that you are throwing at us.
This is like an edutainment interactive story. I like it in general, the art style is fun and engaging and the character, while just a set of eyes and eyebrows, manages to be very expressive. However, while the music often fits, sometimes it can be very annoying. Perhaps think about fading out things like repeating tones.
Yes? I really enjoyed the static face to face interactions. The facial expressions gave a lot of character to the game. The illustration (background images?) were very nice as well. The only thing I would think about in the future is the subject of enlightenment. I do understand it is just a game, but why would an enlightened character come and visit my own character?
This is a nice quick primer on Buddhism, but I wish you had made the Bodhisattva more of a character – I actually thought the face was relatively static. The music did lend things a nice meditative atmosphere though.
Your music and illustrations were fantastic. I like how you used the dissolve effects to simulate motion. The length of the game is really staggering and the information is interesting. I found the questions and responses a bit generic, like it was pulled from a textbook. It is a good introduction to the subject matter, but it did not feel like a real dialogue. You could try fitting this information into a more traditional narrative structure if you were so inclined.
At first, I found myself going through the game as slow as possible because that music is just so peaceful. However, then I felt that it started to drag on a bit. This seems less to me about being a “game” with “interaction” than being an educational tool to learn about Buddhism, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. Visually, it’s a great way to learn, but I don’t feel any real sense of choice other than what facet to learn about next. Is there any way to “not” learn the path to Nirvana by choosing to deny the information being presented to you? That could go in an interesting direction.
The Bodhisattva seemed a lot more like an educational construct than a character. It works in that regard, though.
I enjoyed the color changes through out the game and I definitely feel like I know a lot more about Buddhism. I did not really feel that connected to Bodhisattva though. And there was just a lot of information thrown at me. Your music and sounds fit really well into the piece too. The choices for the conversation weren’t all that interesting to me, it was pretty much obvious which answers would be praised or not.
It looks and sounds good. Not being terribly interested in a Buddism 101 lesson I was looking for ways to challenge the entity rhetorically but I was seeing the world through the eyes of an already converted character.