Archetypes, Life, and Games

Post-Nihilism and Goals in Video Game

 Other than the cycle of expectation, doubt, reality, and relief, there is something else that we can learn from archetype in story. It is the relation between mentor and shadow. Previously, I said that mentor and shadow work to drive moving forward. Without them, the hero in the story will not have a willingness to do an adventure. In our life, mentor and shadow is the representation of good and bad, right and wrong, positive and negative, all the things that work in contrast, with each is located at the opposite side of the spectrum and always fight with each other. In a story, usually, at the end of it we will see either mentor won over shadow or the opposite (most of the time it was the former). Similarly, in our life we always believe or being told that the right would eventually win in the end. If this is the nature of the interaction of mentor and shadow, the right and wrong, where they always fight between themselves and in the end there is only one which become a winner, this create a question. Is it true?

Curiouser, Curiouser

“Curiouser and curiouser," surprised Alice when she saw her body began to grow big, larger enough that even her head hit the roof. words which perfectly fits with the story of Alice in Wonderland, a story full of strange yet interesting situation that intrigue more and more our curiosity. And yes, without the feeling of curiosity, Alice would never eat the troubling cake, and so do we, as readers, won’t continue turn the next pages. Curiosity itself is strange. It could drive us to do a certain activity without the concern of the external value, something that we, as a proud rational being should never think of. However, we always experienced it. When we curious about something, what we really care about is the thing itself, which we want to know more about it. Curiosity actually quite similar with the reason why we play. When we play, we only did it because we found that the play is fun, and it is worth to do, even though we already know it will only waste our time (I believe there are a lot of people object what I have just said, but let’s just accept it, whatever the benefit the play gives to you, it actually less than the other more important activities would give).  Without the feeling of curiosity, or the reason that makes us play, we will feel the activity just as a chore, work, or order. By knowing more about it, I believe we could make a more engaging play or specifically, game. So without further a do, let’s jump into the rabbit hole.

Sword & Shield

Sword & Shield

Only a Story, Really?

Story has been with us since long. Even though there are no track record when the story first emerged, some people speculated that story has history older than the cave painting. We grow and live hearing a story, yet one question remains. Why we’re not bored with it? Why we always crave from story even though we’re already at modern civilization?

Game, Kohlberg, and Kant

Lately, there are many games which include moral choice as one of their features. Games such as Fable, Fallout 3, Mass Effect, Skyrim will determine whether the action that player did is good or bad, and give the consequence based on how well mannered the player in the game. Personally, not only it makes game more interesting and gives much agency to the player, but also I believe it could help the player to measure the morality of every action that s/he did in their lives. Even though currently there are no evidence showed that the player who plays a game with moral choice feature increased in the number of his/her moral action (at least from what I know), I think it’s a good idea to see how exactly some action are seen as having positive or negative moral value. By doing so, maybe we can further improve the moral choice in our game.

Through out my research, there are two theories about moral value that captivated me. They are Kohlberg’s stages of moral development and Kant’s moral philosophy.

Archetype in Video Game

Same as the other medias, such as movie and novel,  archetype usually used in video  game as a guide to create an interesting character. However, just like what I wrote in my recent post (http://questandquestion.blogspot.com/2014/06/only-story-really.html ),  archetype does not only show a different function of character in the story, but also a part of the audience  mind. So, the question is, how we create a game that emphasize on these different part of our mind, the archetype? Is by creating a character with a certain archetype as his/her personality enough?