Cognitive psychology, a technique used and manipulated by many forms of media, such as games, movies or even books.
First by suspending the disbelief of the viewer, and thereby immersing him in an alternate world, the author/creator thus gains control over the viewer’s emotional state. Immersing the viewer in the shoes of the protagonist, and then proceeding to kill off his loved ones or going ahead with a love scene, is sure to tug at SOME emotional part of the viewer’s brains.
Creator’s utilize their knowledge of the human psyche to manipulate it, and when that is done successfully, one can consider it a success. As our whole point of going into these worlds is to be removed from reality, to be taken on a journey, to have someone else controlling or manipulating our emotions.
Thankfully, these creators are using this power to create games or movies for the betterment and/or entertainment of mankind, instead of using this for evil and manipulating our psyches in real life for their modus operendi.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Jackie is an enchantment for ass to ass
Enchantments are everywhere. Dating back to fantasy stories about might and magic, enchantments were usually shown as magic spells or runes that increased a certain aspect about a user. Feet of the Wind would aid a warrior in running, or Berserker’s Rage would pump up his strength to colossal levels.
Like the saying, technological advanced enough would be indistinguishable from magic, thus in this modern day and age, if we brought back what we thought to be everyday household objects, the people of yore would perceive it as magic.
A simple lighter would cause the user to be hailed to be enchanted with fire, or running shoes that ‘enchanted’ a user’s feet like Feet of the Wind would.
A car would be seen as an enchanted mount, or a computer as an enchanted crystal ball(screen) that could reach across far distances to contact another bearer.
Using this logic, we can fully appreciate what is available to us now. Such as the HTI game, or games in general, serve as enchantments to our creativity, giving us a boost in our knowledge and intellect. Same logic applies to the lecturers that teach us, especially for HTI, they serve as enchantments to us directly, a teacher/student relationship.
Like the saying, technological advanced enough would be indistinguishable from magic, thus in this modern day and age, if we brought back what we thought to be everyday household objects, the people of yore would perceive it as magic.
A simple lighter would cause the user to be hailed to be enchanted with fire, or running shoes that ‘enchanted’ a user’s feet like Feet of the Wind would.
A car would be seen as an enchanted mount, or a computer as an enchanted crystal ball(screen) that could reach across far distances to contact another bearer.
Using this logic, we can fully appreciate what is available to us now. Such as the HTI game, or games in general, serve as enchantments to our creativity, giving us a boost in our knowledge and intellect. Same logic applies to the lecturers that teach us, especially for HTI, they serve as enchantments to us directly, a teacher/student relationship.
Giant Robots. Fictionilized and idealized both in western and asian fiction, most notable Japanese for the latter. There is a strange obsession with these metal beings, often times 10 to even a hundred times our sized. What is the logic behind that?
A robot does not have to be necessarily human. A car assembly arm at a factory can be considered a robot, or even a vending machine. Yet in most fiction, giant robots are 99% of the time represented by giant, humanoid destruction machines, with guns, lasers, swords and all manners of weapons being drawn and fired from every limb and orifice. A visual, explosive orgy, if you will. Why is it that they’re mostly humanoid, or resemble as such?
My theory is that we, as humans see ourselves as extremely fragile and weak creatures. This is especially true if you consider our place in the universe, the earth a tiny speck on the cosmic map. Any threat even remotely bigger than us could quite literally squash us as we do bugs. Our countermeasure? Even bigger, metallic versions of us, that are piloted by us.
Humans seek these giant metal gods to help combat these threats. Piloted by human pilots themselves, to give the empty vessels a human ‘touch’, as mere computers, no matter how sophisticated can not emulate the human judgment system perfectly. But I digress. The main point of building the robots in our form, is to emulate the human values we… value, such as willpower, courage and perseverance. A iron body to emulate perseverance, a drive that runs on the pilots hot-blooded screams, or the machine operating way past its performance limit due to the human’s evolutionary will to survive taking over. All these system serve to copy, and magnify immensely what humans have used to survive through the ages.
At its basest form, we create these giant robots as giant avatars of the human being and spirit, fighting these intergalactic threats as humans, taking command of our own destiny, fighting the good fight and piercing through the heavens.
A robot does not have to be necessarily human. A car assembly arm at a factory can be considered a robot, or even a vending machine. Yet in most fiction, giant robots are 99% of the time represented by giant, humanoid destruction machines, with guns, lasers, swords and all manners of weapons being drawn and fired from every limb and orifice. A visual, explosive orgy, if you will. Why is it that they’re mostly humanoid, or resemble as such?
My theory is that we, as humans see ourselves as extremely fragile and weak creatures. This is especially true if you consider our place in the universe, the earth a tiny speck on the cosmic map. Any threat even remotely bigger than us could quite literally squash us as we do bugs. Our countermeasure? Even bigger, metallic versions of us, that are piloted by us.
Humans seek these giant metal gods to help combat these threats. Piloted by human pilots themselves, to give the empty vessels a human ‘touch’, as mere computers, no matter how sophisticated can not emulate the human judgment system perfectly. But I digress. The main point of building the robots in our form, is to emulate the human values we… value, such as willpower, courage and perseverance. A iron body to emulate perseverance, a drive that runs on the pilots hot-blooded screams, or the machine operating way past its performance limit due to the human’s evolutionary will to survive taking over. All these system serve to copy, and magnify immensely what humans have used to survive through the ages.
At its basest form, we create these giant robots as giant avatars of the human being and spirit, fighting these intergalactic threats as humans, taking command of our own destiny, fighting the good fight and piercing through the heavens.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Game
HTI this year has been a lot less structured last year, though no less rewarding an experience.
The ‘game’ we tried to play, unlike a real game, was also a lot less structured, yet it gave us a tenfold amount of space for us to utilize our creativity in covering the various topics and our novums, both fortunately and unfortunately sometimes abusing loopholes due to this. But hey, you can’t say that in itself is also not an exercise of creativity and idea-inspiration.
Like the email last sent out, this game has been trying to teach students the freeform way, using information and knowledge as its main incentive. Which is unlike what most schools have, some say, devolved to nowadays, producing a factory of fresh new workers for the industry to swallow and spit back out as bitter, old retirees, only then realizing they have wasted their lives away in slavery. The information and discussions exchanged were invigorating compared to other modules where the information is drilled into you, instead of you voluntarily absorbing and thus fully understanding it. It is really quite refreshing.
The downside however, is also its upside, which is its lack of tight boundaries. Us as Singaporean students, are already accustomed to this ‘factory’ style of teaching. And thus when freedom is suddenly handed over to us, as teenagers, we are wont to abuse it. This would explain many of the latecomers, late work, late presentation and overall lateness.
However, should we become accustomed to THIS system, I am sure it will be extremely invigorating, and a whole new wave of information-hungry students will takeover our brainwashed sheep of a current generation.
The ‘game’ we tried to play, unlike a real game, was also a lot less structured, yet it gave us a tenfold amount of space for us to utilize our creativity in covering the various topics and our novums, both fortunately and unfortunately sometimes abusing loopholes due to this. But hey, you can’t say that in itself is also not an exercise of creativity and idea-inspiration.
Like the email last sent out, this game has been trying to teach students the freeform way, using information and knowledge as its main incentive. Which is unlike what most schools have, some say, devolved to nowadays, producing a factory of fresh new workers for the industry to swallow and spit back out as bitter, old retirees, only then realizing they have wasted their lives away in slavery. The information and discussions exchanged were invigorating compared to other modules where the information is drilled into you, instead of you voluntarily absorbing and thus fully understanding it. It is really quite refreshing.
The downside however, is also its upside, which is its lack of tight boundaries. Us as Singaporean students, are already accustomed to this ‘factory’ style of teaching. And thus when freedom is suddenly handed over to us, as teenagers, we are wont to abuse it. This would explain many of the latecomers, late work, late presentation and overall lateness.
However, should we become accustomed to THIS system, I am sure it will be extremely invigorating, and a whole new wave of information-hungry students will takeover our brainwashed sheep of a current generation.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Ideation System
My personal ideation system, the way I generate my ideas, varies from structural to random. Usually, one would research on the field of the topic he is given, such as movies and games, and take ideas from there.
However, I sometimes get my ideas from unrelated areas. Such as when I’m supposed to be researching on games and related ideas and I’m watching a cartoon or reading a comic at the moment, an idea would strike me as feasible. Transferring ideas across mediums has always been something that appealed to me, as usually it would not have been done before, or in a unique manner. I can see this being the origin of many movie to game, comic to movie, manga to anime, etc adaptations.
However, I sometimes get my ideas from unrelated areas. Such as when I’m supposed to be researching on games and related ideas and I’m watching a cartoon or reading a comic at the moment, an idea would strike me as feasible. Transferring ideas across mediums has always been something that appealed to me, as usually it would not have been done before, or in a unique manner. I can see this being the origin of many movie to game, comic to movie, manga to anime, etc adaptations.
Life the MMO
I see Life as more of a typical Role Playing Game than any other type of genre, specifically the Massive Multiplayer Online kind, except replace the word Online with Offline. Thus my life would be a Massive Multiplayer Offline Role Play Game.
Before I begin, let me explain the word grind, in gaming terms. Like the grinding of gears, players tire around the hour, just to gain levels and add new skills onto their fictional characters.
Life would be an infinite, endless grind towards our goals. We grind hard for our levels, to pump in experience points towards skills we wish to have and utilize. There is no Maximum or Level Limit in Life the MMO, only a limited playtime, represented by our lifespan, in which many of us try to grind as much as possible, to achieve as much as possible within this short timeframe.
Akin to how I play my MMOs, I do not share this viewpoint with many of the Players of Life the MMO. I don't grind as fast as I can, to achievement the pinnacle of character achievement. I explore the world around me, take in as much as possible. Controlling your character inside an MMO and exploring the world, just basically enjoying the scenary, does not have any beneficial effects, stats and points wise. But the player leaves feeling refreshed, taking away with him imagery and knowledge otherwise unknown to those in The Deep Forest, endlessly grinding away on Level 20 Manbearpigs, their eyes solely locked onto the movement of their experience bar.
I may not be as strong and levelled up as the rest of the Players, but at least I can say I have enjoyed the overall experience more than the rest slaving away.
Structuralism in Game Designing
From what I learnt about Structuralism, it is the method of identifying something, whether it be simple or complex, as an intricate system of interrelated parts. In laymen’s terms, this would be the equivalent to breaking something up into easier-to-digest portions, so that once we finish slowly understanding each part, we would have a better understanding of the whole. To take it slightly further into meta category, these individual parts could also have Structuralism applied to them, further breaking them down into smaller system, and so on and so forth.
To me as a game designer, when examining a game, this would equate to me looking at the game as the different ‘systems’ that make it up, instead of the sum of its parts. Game mechanics, story, graphics, characters, environment, setting, etc. Each part is equally important, intertwined with each other and contributing towards a fantastic experience for the player. Breaking down the game into these fields allows me a better understand of a game’s flaws and good points. I can identify what portion of the game is its strong point, its core element, and in relating it to my own game, build upon its success, and succeed where it had failed.
To me as a game designer, when examining a game, this would equate to me looking at the game as the different ‘systems’ that make it up, instead of the sum of its parts. Game mechanics, story, graphics, characters, environment, setting, etc. Each part is equally important, intertwined with each other and contributing towards a fantastic experience for the player. Breaking down the game into these fields allows me a better understand of a game’s flaws and good points. I can identify what portion of the game is its strong point, its core element, and in relating it to my own game, build upon its success, and succeed where it had failed.
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