La Vie d'Arcade : Écriture

Dans La Vie d'Arcade, le dialogue et les pensées sont représentés à l'écrit. Et puisque le jeu a de l'écriture en français, en anglais, en vieux acadien et en chiac, je me suis trouvé avec un peu d'un problème.

Comment devais-je représenter les langues et les accents à l'écrit?

Lorsqu'une phrase en français contient de l'anglais, le lecteur ne saura pas toujours comment lire la phrase. Par exemple : « La classe de français est point ma favorite. » Le « favorite » ici devrait être lu comme le mot anglais, mais le mot existe en français itou.

Je vais utiliser un système de couleurs pour différencier les langues. Le français, la langue la plus commune dans le jeu, sera blanc pour me sauver de la misère, et l'anglais sera gris. Comme ça, le joueur saura exactement quels mots appartiennent à quelle langue.

Mais dans le jeu, il n'y a pas juste l'opposition de l'anglais et du français : il y a aussi l'opposition du « bon » français et du français Acadien. Pour illustrer les mots et expressions qui appartiennent à la langue acadienne (ou qui font juste point partie du français standard), je vais utiliser la couleur jaune.

Mental Health in Videogames

A friend's blog post has inspired me to think about mental health in videogames. How do videogames represent mental health?

Simulations are comprised of rules, and these rules create either a real or an imagined representation. For example, September 12's simulation creates an ideological representation according to the author's beliefs on America's war on terror. This representational property of videogames seems perfect for showing others how living with mental issues feels, yet there are unfortunately very few examples of videogames that tackle this issue successfully.

Most of the time, videogame characters with mental problems are antagonists. Their condition is used as a justification for their crazy diabolical plans or their extreme violence. This isn't a particularly good representation of mental issues since it teaches that these people are more likely to be violent or bad people. As I discussed in my blog post on violence, I believe that continued exposure to such ideological representations can influence the way we think about the real world.

Image from chud.com

To make things worse, most mentally ill videogame characters, even the rare protagonists, often don't have realistically-portrayed conditions. Most of the time, mental issues are exaggerated in service of the plot.

The fact that people with mental issues are almost never well portrayed is problematic because it conveys false representations of mental illness. Popular culture, videogames included, influence the way we see certain things. If videogames consistently portray characters with mental problems as bad, violent and unrealistically exaggerated, isn't it possible that certain people might start believing these representations?

Image from supercheats.com

While not as widespread as the misrepresentation of women in videogames, the misrepresentation of mental illnesses is videogames is an important problem nonetheless. Is there a solution? Why yes, I think there is, thank you for asking.

We need more sympathetic characters with mental illnesses in videogames, and we need better representations of mental conditions. Instead of learning to fear people with mental health issues, we need to learn to better understand them.

To The Moon is the game that really pushed me to create this blog. My first blog post was about how much I loved the game. This Canadian game focuses on the life of a couple, one of which has a mental health condition. The game is character-driven, and as you uncover the past of the couple, you get to learn about the person's mental issue and how it affects the other people in their lives.

After playing the game, I found I had gained a better understanding of how people with that particular mental condition live and how it affects them and their loved ones. I'm no expert, but I personally thought the game did that particular mental issue justice. Like I said, I'm no expert, but this seems like one hell of a step in the right direction.

Update: I've just played Depression Quest, and it's a perfect example of a game putting the player in the shoes of someone living with a mental health problem, in this case depression. Very effective game.

Videogames can make the player understand people who are different. Videogames have enormous power, and it's a shame it hasn't been harnessed to its full potential in the past. However, with the indie and art games movements, more personal and experimental games are being made each year, just like To The Moon. And that's awesome. Let's hope more games try to fight the stigma surrounding mental health.

Extended reading :

Dys4ia: an autobiographical game about a transgender person's experience 

Depression Quest: A well-written and detailed Twine game that puts you in the shoes of someone living with depression.

Loneliness: the title says it all.

Actual Sunlight: a short interactive story about love, depression and the corporation.

and, of course, To The Moon.

The Swapper (et le lien entre le joueur et son avatar)

L'espace semble être le meilleur environnement pour véhiculer l'isolation. La série Metroid crée très bien cette ambiance, et The Swapper le fait aussi bien. Et les ressemblances entre ces deux jeux ne s’arrêtent point à l'ambiance : The Swapper est même structuré comme un jeu de Metroid. Toutefois, jouer à The Swapper est autant une expérience moderne et nouvelle autant qu'elle est classique et nostalgique.

Lorsque je commence à jouer, je suis immédiatement jeté hors d'une station spatiale. Pourquoi? Je sais point trop. En explorant la surface de la planète étrangère sur lequel j'ai atterri, je découvre le Swapper éponyme du jeu. Cet appareil me permet de créer des clones de moi-même. Leurs mouvements sont synchronisés aux miens. Point longtemps après, je trouve un autre appareil qui me permet d'assumer le contrôle de n'importe quel des clones. Ce sont les mécanismes principaux du jeu.

Afin d'accéder à de nouveaux lieux, je dois collectionner des sphères qui sont cachées sur la planète et sur la station spatiale. Le jeu est construit selon un vieux style de progression, mais les mécanismes novateurs rendent chaque casse-tête difficile et gratifiant. Les concepteurs ont réussi à rendre hommage aux vieux temps des jeux vidéo sans utiliser du pixel art cliché ou de la musique 8-bit.

Je découvre que la station spatiale était en train d'extraire des minéraux de cette planète étrangère. De grandes roches se trouvent ici et là dans la station spatiale. Lorsque je marche devant une de ces roches mystérieuses, l'écran devient flou et du texte apparait. Est-ce que ces roches communiquent avec moi?

Beaucoup des chambres comportent un casse-tête intelligent qu'il faut résoudre pour gagner une sphère. Ces casse-têtes sont très bien conçus et ne ressemblent à rien que j'ai vu avant. Je n'ai pas rencontré des casse-têtes autant amusants depuis Portal 2.

Après avoir progressé à travers la station spatiale, je découvre qu'on pense que ces anciennes roches contiennent de l'intelligence. Ils se faisaient extraire de la planète et ramener à bord de la station spatiale afin d'être étudiés davantage jusqu'à ce qu'une catastrophe s'est produite. Une docteure qui étudiait ces roches pense qu'ils sont conscients, mais qu'ils ne perçoivent pas le monde physique. Autrement dit, les roches contiennent des esprits.

On pense aussi que l'appareil Swapper transfère tout simplement l'esprit de l'utilisateur au corps de la cible (en le cas du joueur, ses clones). Est-ce que l'esprit, ou la chose inexplicable qui nous rend conscients ne se trouve vraiment point dans le monde physique?

En tant que joueur, est-ce que je me suis transféré dans le monde du jeu, comme si j'avais utilisé l'appareil Swapper? En jouant, j'habite le corps vide du protagoniste et je décide ses actions et ses mouvements. Est-ce qu'une partie de mon esprit se trouve dans cette personne pendant que je joue? Lorsque je suis immergé, est-ce que ma conscience n'est point au moins transféré en partie dans le monde du jeu? La relation entre le joueur et l'avatar est très intéressante, et The Swapper m'a porté à réfléchir davantage sur cet aspect unique des jeux vidéo.

Je vous laisse avec une citation du livre You par Austin Grossman :

"But in the middle of all this, there's you, a person playing a video game. For fun, for a challenge, for reasons hard to understand... Your character is always going to be you; you can never ever quite erase that sliver of you-awareness. In the whole mechanized game world, you are a unique object, like a moving hole that's full of emotion and agency and experience and memory unlike anything else in this made-up universe."

The Swapper (and the Player-Avatar Relationship)

Space seems to be the best setting to convey isolation. The Metroid series does it excellently, and so does The Swapper. There's more in common between these two games than their tone: The Swapper is even structured like a Metroid game. Yet somehow, playing The Swapper feels modern and fresh as much as it feels familiar and nostalgic.

I enter the game only to be jettisoned from a space station. Why? I'm not too sure. Upon exploring the surface of the foreign planet on which I landed, I discover the eponymous Swapper. This device let me create clones of myself that are synchronized with my movements. Soon thereafter, I find an augment for the device which allowed me to switch between the clones. These are the primary mechanics of the game.

In order to access new areas, I must collect orbs that were hidden away on the planet and back on the space station. The game uses such an old style of game progression, but the novelty of the game mechanics makes each puzzle feel challenging and rewarding. It's a nod to the olden days of gaming without using clichéd pixel art or 8-bit music.

I find out that the space station was on a mining expedition to this alien planet. Large rock samples can be found throughout the station, and when I pass in front of one, the screen blurs and text appears. Are these rocks communicating with me?

Most rooms hold a clever puzzle which must be solved in order to obtain orbs. The puzzles are superbly designed around the Swapper device and are unlike any other I've yet encountered. I haven't experienced puzzles this fun since Portal 2.

After making progress through in the space station, I discover that these ancient rocks are believed to be intelligent beings. They were being mined in order to be studied further until something went wrong. A doctor who has been studying them believes that they contain consciousness, but lack any perception of the physical world. They contain souls, if you will.

The Swapper device is thought to be swapping the soul of the user to the target's body (in the player's case, his or her clones). Is the soul, or that inexplicable thing that makes us conscious, truly not of the physical world?

Have I, the gamer, temporarily transfer myself into this game world, as if I had used the Swapper device? While I play, I inhabit the empty shell of the protagonist, deciding his or her movements and actions. Does part of my soul live in this character while I play? While immersed, is my consciousness at least partly transferred into the game world? The player-avatar relationship is an interesting one, and The Swapper led me to further question this unique part of videogames.

I'll leave you with this quote from Austin Grossman's book You:

"But in the middle of all this, there's you, a person playing a video game. For fun, for a challenge, for reasons hard to understand... Your character is always going to be you; you can never ever quite erase that sliver of you-awareness. In the whole mechanized game world, you are a unique object, like a moving hole that's full of emotion and agency and experience and memory unlike anything else in this made-up universe."

Fun Free Browser Games

Are you bored? Got a few minutes? Here are my favorite web browser games you can play without signing up for anything or downloading software.

These picks range from interesting art games to fun and challenging games to games that are just plain odd. I'd like to start with the art games, so skip to the last half of the article for more traditionally fun games.

Click on the names to be linked to the games!

Dys4ia

Dys4ia is an autobiographical art game by Anna Anthropy. The game is a great example of how a meaningful, personal experience can be conveyed through gameplay. In the game, the player is put in the author's shoes as she struggled with her transgender therapy. I really enjoyed her book Rise of the Videogame Zinesters too.

Loneliness

Loneliness is a game that represents - you've guessed it - loneliness through game mechanics. I learned about this game during an episode of Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.

Aether 

Aether is an personal art game by Ed McMillen of Team Meat. He talks about Aether in the last half of this video, which is a clip taken from the awesome Canadian documentary Indie Game: The Movie.

MFA Prep Course

Props to Jesse and Jake Waterman for showing me this gem. It's basically a procrastination simulator. And yes, you can double fist smokes.

You Have To Burn the Rope

This is a satirical game that mocks the trend of modern games being too easy and holding the player's hand.

Frog Fractions

I wouldn't call Frog Fractions an art game, but it's definitely not an ordinary game. Why? I won't spoil the fun here, so you'll have to play to find out. The game takes about 40 minutes to complete, so don't give up on it right away. There's a lot to love under the surface of this seemingly simple math game. Trust me, it's worth playing.

Now for fun games!

Kingdom Rush

Kingdom Rush is the best tower defence around, and the PC version is free! I'm a huge fan of both KR games, but the sequel isn't available on PC.

Time Fcuk

Time Fcuk is a puzzle platformer from Ed McMillen of Team Meat. It's a fun game built on a cool mechanic. There's also a prototype of what became the awesome Super Meat Boy, although the retail version is a million times better.

Super Mario Bros. Crossover

SMBC is a fun game that combines classic characters like Zelda, the Contra guys, Samus and Megaman into Super Mario Bros. stages. It's a fun game that (thankfully) doesn't completely rely on its nostalgia factor to be fun. Here's another game that mixes Mario and Tetris.

Surgeon Simulator 2013

Like QWOP, SS2013 is a purposely bad simulation that makes the task at hand hilariously difficult.

Experimental Shooter

From what I've played, this game takes simple mechanics and changes the rules of interaction each round. This challenges the player to experiment and improvise in order to discover what rules have changed or been added each time. This reminds me a lot of what Jonathan Blow is doing with his next game The Witness (which I think looks to be one of the greatest games ever designed!).

Wonderputt

Crazy mini golf! Enough said.

What are your favorite browser games? Let me know in the comments!