Memory and Game

Have you played Final Fantasy Tactics? If you have, you must remember how tremendous the number of game element that the game has. Although not every of them is important, but heck, in the end you will try to learn and memorize most of them. Not only in Final Fantasy Tactics, all of the games must have a set of information, whether it the rules or the strategy, that the player must remember. Try to remember how much games that you have played. And if each of them has the information at least a fifth of that Final Fantasy Tactics, the total information that you have remembered must be a billion, or more! And all of them is stored in our tiny greyish brain. Isn’t it awesome? Well, actually, no. Remember again the first time you played Final Fantasy Tactics. If you like me, who played for the first time in the PSP version, you must remember how many section of tutorial that it got. And you can access all of them even at the beginning of the game. At first, I tried to be patience scrolling and watching all the tutorials. But after half an hour, my head start to get hurt, and I went into the state “The hell with the tutorial let’s just start the game!” It shows that even though our brain can store a lot of information, but it cannot do it in one go. This is very important for every game designer. Because by making your player cannot cope with the information that the game provided, it only results with the ditching of the game, or worse, making you as the player’s swore enemy. Before that happen, it would be best for us to know more about our brain.

New Alien! Emoai

New Alien! Tickle or Treat

Somewhere Out There

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.