I’m probably the only person in this class who doesn’t actually play games regularly. Or, you know, ever. I took this class because I’m interesting in experimenting with educational games / using gaming constructs for other purposes. As such, I’m going to have to keep going back to the same couple of games I’ve played through completely: 5 nights at Freddie’s, Ib, Korra, Smash, and Journey. And now, Gone Home and the other assignments for this class. And because we’ve already discussed Journey in class, I’m instead going to focus on the other games (experimentally less interesting).
Ib
Ib falls into the category of scary/horror, which I wouldn’t usually touch with a five foot pole. Ib is made with RPG maker. You are a young girl named Ib who is taken to a formal fine art museum for her birthday. You end up along in the museum at night (although ify you complete the game alive you may possibly discover that is was your imagination, or any one of a number of different endings.) You have to try to survive the night, and you can choose who to help at what time – which determines who becomes your friend, who survives, and what situation you survive in.
The story is reasonably classic. The wide variety of endings is a great feature, if not original. But let me address one of the criticisms the game endures: the game looks like this:
Note the MS Paint style spray paint on the walls that don’t reflect perspective in any way shape or form.
Or this hand-drawn, awkwardly colored version of the protagonist (which is featured throughout the game). These graphics seem off-putting or unprofessional compared to other games. I recall when I played the first time I arrived at a certain stage in the game where you arrive in an area with the antagonist at this point in the game, Mary. The space is designed to look like it’s been constructed by a child, and the childish graphics add to the vibe in a really frightening way. From that point on, the game takes a “Clown of your nightmares” twist and anything that formerly appeared juvenile now seems doubly frightening, especially in contrast to the pixel art the barebones playable blocks of the game are constructed in, which is always perfectly geometric.
On the flip side, this game has such vastly different endings that you want to play the game over and over again until you find them all. In some cases it is evident when a certain action triggered a sequence of events. The choice you have to make are never clean-cut moral choices. The game might tell you that someone will die regardless of what you do, should you continue without them and try to save yourself? Then that person might be absent from most of the game and show up much, much later, usually altered in some way. This makes you reflect on your choices, as they cannot necessarily be blamed on circumstance.
