Sealab 2021: The chronicles of an ill-fated research station and their lazy employees.
Why is this show so enjoyable? First of all, this genius show follows the deranged Captain Murphy and his quarrelsome research station crew and their laziness both on-duty and off-duty, which leads to plenty of hilarious dialogue. The art style of this is also good because it emphasizes that this is a parody of older cartoons. The actors do a good job of portraying their characters in an old cartoon fashion. Sealab 2021 is not just an excellent parody, but also an excellent show.
If there was an episode that revolved around one of my experiences, it would have to be based off my experience with square trade, where I had to wait over 40 minutes to reach support. In this case, I would be Captain Murphy.
Episode: "Phone line"
Synopsis: When Captain Murphy discovers Square Trade failed to repair the cracks on his iPad, he makes a call to get his issue sorted out, but gets placed in a queue for forty minutes and becomes increasingly irritable and hostile to his crew. After someone picks up, Murphy has to be placed on hold for another ten minutes due to his temper. Eventually Murphy is placed off hold only to discover one minute later that the call center has closed, ending the episode. The scene played in the credits depicts a frustrated Captain Murphy muttering and out of frustration slams his phone onto the floor, with the impact so strong that Sealab blows up.
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: A group of ponies must deal with friendship problems and keep their world protected from supernatural forces.
First of all, I know we have people in this class (or college) who watch shows intended for a slightly younger demographic. Chances are you or someone you know of (similar age) watches at least one of these shows: "Adventure Time", "Spongebob Squarepants", and "Steven Universe". These are all shows not intended for our demographic, but we watch these anyhow. Let's not be so quick to judge by age, OK?
Now, let's move onto the actual show. This show focuses on the adventures of several ponies. "The Mane Six" are six ponies who serve as the focus for most of the episodes. Other episodes put focus onto either the young dragon Spike or a trio of fillies (young female horses) known as the "Cutie Mark Crusaders".
Why the heck do I like this show? For one thing, this is a revolutionary cartoon that breaks the age and gender barriers in cartoons. There is a fandom called "Bronies" who are adult males who love this show (our female counterpart is the "Pegasister"). First of all, the animation and the characters' actresses and design are all high quality. The stories are often times high-quality and cater to the fans interests. Morals are discretely written in the script and not straight-up in the viewers face.
If there was an episode that somehow involved me, this is how I would review it (I would probably just have my OC pony (Buffalo Chicken) guest star). This would be based off my experiences of working at Cedar Point and adjusting to life with roommates who ignored the rules.
Episode: "Strange Bedfellows"
Synopsis: College student Buffalo Chicken summons Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy to help with an inconsiderate roommate. Twilight Sparkle attempts to help by giving advice from her college days which are of no help. The situation gets to the point where Buffalo Chicken uses an obscene gesture and accidentally upsets his roommate. After this poor decision, Fluttershy successfully helps Buffalo Chicken apologize and the episode ends out with Buffalo realizing that many problems can be resolved if he speaks with his roommate.
Archer: A world class spy must deal with his domineering Mother (and boss) and his spiteful (and hardly competent) coworkers.
Before we go any further, anytime I use "Archer", I am referring to Sterling Archer, not his Mother.
Why do I like this show? First of all, I am not a very huge fan of adult shows and this is one of the most inappropriate shows imaginable, so it must be doing something right. Every member of the cast brings their character a spot-on performance and is irreplaceable. The art style is a perfect mix between animation and live action. All of the characters feel like people I know (Except Archer. I feel totally like I am archer). All of the characters work well in a variety of settings. There is a good mix between inappropriate, insult, and meta humor in each episode. Every episode has earned my approval, and in my opinion, it is worth watching each episode.
If there was an episode based off of my experiences, it would be based off my first day at work at Cedar Point, where me and my crew didn't clock out until 1:00 AM.
Episode: "Overtime"
Synopsis: Archer and the ISIS crew are about to finish off another day in the office but Malory accidentally initiates a lock down. Dr Krieger starts working on overriding the lock down, but the crew realizes that Malory set up the lock down on purpose and the lock down will not end until midnight. Archer decides to organize the crew and discuss why the lock down has occurred. Unfortunately, the crew gets into heated arguments about who caused the lock down. It is only revealed at midnight that Malory worked with Krieger to set this up as a team building exercise. The episode closes with Malory accidentally starting up a second lockdown.
JUST A QUICK NOTE BEFORE YOU START!
The book I referenced is "Grand Theft Childhood" by Cheryl Kutner and Lawrence Olsen.
All links are going to be green and underlined (once again, Blogger screws me up!), since goodness knows that Blogger can't show links in preview mode, it will be easier for me. This is an example of a link (It will take you to the Pittcat system, where you can checkout the book I just mentioned). Anyhow let's start!
To be honest, we all knew this was coming (even if it was in the back of your mind). I would make a post about violence in video games. I believe that in class Dr. Justus said not to do it, but I decided to do it anyhow. Why am I still going to do it?
1. I have used this same exact topic for several papers and presentations.
2. I have done both sides of the story, so I could easily construct the exact opposite of this paper.
3. Video games and violence is a hot button issue, but we have replaced video games with Isis/Terrorist groups. (I am focusing strictly on incidents before Isis had gained prominence).
We are not even going to start off by talking about video games this time! I would actually like to draw your attention to an indie film from this year, Hardcore Henry (As much as I would love to put it in here, I will just link to it since it has an age restriction). This film is considered by me to be a "Concept film", as it is filmed entirely in first person. (Yes, Cloverfield did come out earlier, but this is completely first person) This revolves around a hero named Henry, whom is awoken by his wife Estelle in a cryogenic lab (which is floating in the sky (and already we can not take the film seriously)). Unfortunately, the bad guy Akan comes in just as Henry is getting his vocal module, revealing that he is funding Estelle's research, and is about to start killing people. Henry escapes the lab, and becomes the target of a manhunt. This is only the beginning to a 90 minute festival of action. I would also like to mention that you only should watch this if the concept sounds interesting (Enough about the synopsis, onto the juicy stuff!).
So, how violent can it be? For one thing, the action and gore is relatively over-the-top, and is not intended to be a shock. However, there are quite a few moments that gave me a decent shock (and I will refer to these events with a second person perspective):
1. Part of your arm is revealed to have a tracker, and it is removed with pliers.
2. You rip an enemy's heart out, and using pliers, you take a device off of the top.
3. Said device is inserted onto your heart.
4. A guard is held hostage by squeezing his nose with pliers.
5. You squeeze (and pop) a cop's testicle as he is about to rape a girl.
6. A man with a flamethrower sets your vehicle alight.
7. You steal clothes from a skinny dipper.
8. You rip open a body cavity and steal some batteries, which are put into your body.
9. You inject yourself with 2 adrenaline shots (Simultaneously).
10. You write "EZ" on a wall with your own blood.
11. You slam a door on a girl in a helicopter.
12. You nearly fall out of a sky laboratory.
That's one way to get their attention
Why did I make the list in a second person perspective? Look at the list from the first and third person perspective. The film specifically immerses "you" (we refer to "you" as a noun in this paragraph) into Henry. All that you know is that you are named Henry and you are a male. "You" don't even get a voice (In one scene, "you" accidentally grunt after nearly falling from a building)! "You" (last time "you" are used as a noun) become Henry when you watch the film! In my opinion, using "You" as an example is simply effective because it sets the immersive tone, making you feel like this is not just a film, but an immersive experience.
In my opinion, this film tests the limit of how much violence a "R" film gets before it becomes "NC-17". But am I here to talk about films? No! This is just a film that I feel like illustrates violence very well! I could just have easily cited a first person shooter, but you get no control over the character in Hardcore Henry, as if though you are the one who is disillusioned and goes on a blind rage. In first person shooters, the most you get is the ability to move around, shoot, and interact with objects. But now, onto video games. I actually will divide this up into 3 different sections for you guys. Violence in video games, my temper, and video game violence with a connection to mass shootings.
Violence in video games:
Once again, we divide this up into 3 categories: Violence for fun, Violence as a story telling device, Violence a shock factor.
Violence for fun:
One of my favorite games to play when I am bored is "Crazy Taxi". The concept is that you are a taxi driver, and you drive passengers to their destination as fast as possible. This involves daring stunts, such as weaving and bobbing through traffic, drift maneuvers (like in a go kart racing game), jumping over traffic, off-road driving, cutting through parking lots, and pretty much any other thing that would fail your driver's license exam (road portion). Instead of penalizing you for these maneuvers, the game actually rewards you for these, and provided you do not crash your car, you can get a large tip. If you take too long, the customer will lower your tip or jump out.
Why is this violent? If you ever did any of these things on a road, you risk killing yourself and other people, your car would need extensive/expensive repairs, and the cops would probably skip the ticket and send you to the police station.
The taxi driver was probably high
Another game I like booting up from time to time is Grand Theft Auto, where players are given the option to go on rampages as they wish, and can be started up by just about anything. Rob a convenience store, cause a traffic hold up, stalk girls, or straight up murder civilians/cops (the list is far longer). Depending on the severity of the offense, players will get a wanted level, indicating how badly the cops want you gone. Wanted levels can be escalated provided your actions give the cops a harder time or you commit even more offenses. There are 2 ways to escape. Getting killed/arrested, or hiding (such as in the underground sewage system).
Why is this violent (with this game, the question is completely redundant)? The title of the game is "Grand Theft Auto". That is the crime of vehicle theft. As if this was not enough proof, you get to kill anyone, infiltrate military bases, perform torture, steal large quantities of money, and just about any other criminal activity you desire!
Let's try that rampage again!
Why I do this: Sometimes, I just feel better when I unleash my temper in a game, where there are no real-life consequences.
Violence as a story telling device:
I only bothered to choose one example, since for this category, one example is actually plenty.
Said example is "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2". If you scroll back a few posts to my top 10 games, this actually made the number 5 position on my list.
Let me give you a quick rundown of 3 events.
1. You partake in a terrorist attack in Russia, and thanks to your participation, the USA gets dragged into a war with Russia.
Suddenly, I feel like doing the mannequin challenge.
Because Lego is the only good way to find a good photo without having to embed another video.
The third event is actually from the first Modern Warfare, where a nuclear bomb obliterates 30,000 soldiers. This ties into the second event, as the rogue general was intending to take vengeance personally.
From this game is one quote that summarizes the importance of war, and makes me realize all of the violence of the game was necessary:
"This is for the record. History is written by the victor. History is filled with liars. If he lives, and we die, his truth becomes written - and ours is lost." -John Price (or whoever wrote the lines for Modern Warfare 2.)
Violence as a Shock Factor:
Has your Mom ever walked in on you playing a violent video game? My mom has walked in on me playing "Dying Light", in the middle of slaying zombies (she had intentions to vacuum). I decided to have decency and pause the game while she was vacuuming in the room, as the game was considerably gory. "But it's just zombies!" "Well, at least turn off the screen if this is what you to want ruin your brain!" She has a fair point. Just because it is zombies it does not suddenly become excusable. Same thing goes for Doom and Wolfenstein with their Demons and Nazis! Germany did not take well to either of the games, temporarily banned the first two Doom installments (But Bethesda convinced them to lift the ban, as well as get the 2016 "Doom" into Germany uncensored)and as any intelligent human being would assume, they have also completely banned Wolfenstein up until a heavily edited version of "The New Order". The expansion pack, "The Old Blood" was edited similarly(They actually supposedly did not have a problem with violence against Nazis, but instead, Germany is very sensitive about the Swastikas being used).
Going back to the subject of your Mother, sometimes, violence is exploited. Look at this advertising campaign for "Dead Space 2", where EA showed a focus group of mothers Dead Space 2 game-play, and recorded their reactions. Click here if you want to view the reactions.
My temper
This will be discussing my temper during video games. I have gone as far as to scream at other people in the room, slam my feet on the floor, throw controllers, kick walls, and even throw phones. All of this is thanks to our friend frustration! Do you recall the Friday where we went down to the zone to play games for our class? No? That was because you skipped class (your loss, you payed for that class)! While we were on the racing cabinets, I was relatively frustrated. You could easily see me white-knuckling the steering wheel, and almost kicking the wall above the pedals. Why is this? Some people/AI were getting unfair advantages, such as side-slamming me, and even using my car as a launch pad! Not all of this is their fault, as sometimes things will happen like I miss a shortcut (or my car slams onto the edge of a shortcut), or my car might land a jump backwards (and correcting a botched jump landing costs me enough time to push me from first to last). Even when I am at home, I am guilty of cursing at siblings due to lag, slamming controllers after having moments of "But I shot first!!!", flipping the bird for just about any reason, or even force quitting matches where I am at an obvious disadvantage. Why do these? No one likes to lose, and everyone has a temper.
In fact, the game you play does not matter. This morning, I was trying to play Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare online, and failed miserably at getting more than 3 kills in a match. Out of rage, I flipped the bird, and decided to quit to a better game, Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed (good Mario Kart alternative). Everything was fine, except I could never finish one track in first place (courtesy of a shortcut near the end which I can not nail, but the AI always pulls flawlessly). I tried at least 13 times. Once again, I expressed my anger using nothing but one finger(This contains a middle finger gesture from a cartoon, but if you are offended by finger #3 or #8 in the air, don't click on it).
Michael Carneal (Heath High School shooting): Used a method of only shooting each person once, as he had done in video games to optimize his score (which explains how he hit 8 students with the 8 bullets he had, but only killed 3). (Kutner & Olson, 193-195)
Common video game franchises among 13-year-old children
Boys: Grand Theft Auto Madden NFL Halo NBA Tony Hawk NCAA Need for Speed ESPN Medal of Honor The Lord of the Rings Girls: The Sims Grand Theft Auto Super Mario Brothers Tycoon games Mario Solitaire Tony Hawk Dance Dance Revolution Mario Kart Frogger
Among the boys, one theme that the researchers noticed was that several of the games had a complex plot (Grand Theft Auto, Halo, Medal of Honor, The Lord of the Rings). However, since these are 13-year-old children in question, it is more likely that they are playing to release their violence. This was a poll from 2004, and at the time, these were the common franchises. If we were to conduct a similar poll today, we would get far different results (Minecraft and "Call of Duty" would certainly appear). Apart from Grand Theft Auto, it appears that a trend among girls is playing games for the sake of playing games (and today, we would likely get a load of mobile games such as Candy Crush). (Kutner & Olsen, 91-92)
What is my conclusion?
Does playing Madden make you an NFL player? No.
Does playing Portal make you a lab rat? No.
Does playing Sonic suddenly make me a talking animal with super speed? No.
Does playing Rock Band transform you into the world's best musician? No.
Does playing Mirror's Edge give me the ability to run on walls? No.
Does playing Uncharted make me a treasure hunter? No.
Does playing Grand Theft Auto make me a criminal? No.
Does playing Call of Duty (or any other military themed shooter) make you a soldier? No.
I GET THE POINT!!
Violence in video games is a release valve for pressures in life. Remember when I mentioned about Breivik threatening a hunger strike due to having only a Playstation 2? He also complained about only being given games like "Rayman". Apparently, other inmates were getting more mature games. This man would only settle for a violent game. This is the only killer I will link directly to video games. He was trained by games, and demanded games while incarcerated. The other incidents had video games as contributing factors.
Let's conclude with this: Violence in real life being caused by video games? It's an afterthought. It is possible that video games can cause violence. What part causes the violence? The desensitization. I shoot thousands of living organisms (monsters, animals, humans) each year. If there is anything that is causing violence today, it would be extremists, but that issue is absolutely nothing I feel is needed/appropriate to be discussed on this blog. I do not mean to cause any controversy. I hope if you take away just one thing from reading this, it is that violence is essential to games. Games are not essential for violence.
I have not abandoned my (non-existent) followers! I have returned for a bonus round after a long summer of working at Cedar Point (Awesome benefits by the way, like free admission to Cedar Fair parks like Cedar Point and Kings Island, 20% discount on most purchases, and getting into the park as early as I please!). This is not a post about the best summer yet for me, but for a Digital Humanities midterm. If you are here from the Digital Humanities class, I would like to warn you that I tend to joke around in my posts. One of my running gags is (for very good reason) harassing Call of Duty. Feel free to poke around the other posts while you are here!
Quickly, think up the worst video game plots you have ever played through. AND GO!
Here are the first three that came into mind:
1. Call of Duty
2. Call of Duty
3. Call of Duty
(For those who would just like the straight answer, this is the actual list.)
1. Any Call of Duty after Black Ops 2
2. Mirror's Edge Catalyst
3. Halo 3
Now let's think of the best video game plots you have played through. AND GO!
1. Uncharted 3
2, Grand Theft Auto V
3. Quantum Break
To be fair, I did say plot. But what can distinguish a good story from a bad one?
1 word: "Interactivity"
You have a predefined start, and in most cases, a predefined end. Sometimes, you will run across different events, and other times, you will encounter the same events. You can scoff and be like "Well I died 100 times in Battlefield Hardline and you died 200 times in Battlefield Hardline and we get the same ending!" Battlefield Hardline is a linear game, and you will take the same path to the same ending every time. Sure, I might have died, but does that make a difference? Each time you die in a game, you are just pushed back a little bit on the storyline. Since we do not have the time to explore all of the technicalities you can throw at me, we may as well move on to some examples.
In Quantum Break, you have the same start and ending. However, it is considered interactive since you get to choose how to move the story. For most of this, you will be playing through action scenes. 4 times, the game will give you junction points, and you will switch to the antagonist's point of view, where you make vital choices affecting the plot. For instance, the first choice you make will determine who comes to rescue the protagonist, as well as how a private military group is viewed by the public. In the end however, you will end up with the same ending.
Another notable example is Titanfall, where there is a fixed multiplayer playlist rather than a story you experience solo. Players are assigned to either the IMC or the Militia faction in each round, which is either attrition (Team Deathmatch) or Hardpoint. Dialogue heard in match depends on the previous winner, and when it comes down to the final match, you always end up the same way.
Other times, you have far more control over the story that you are being told. In fact, you are virtually telling the story yourself!
One particularly good example of this is The Stanley Parable. In this game, you play as Stanley, a typical office worker who has a narrator breathing down his neck constantly, but you can choose to disobey/strongly tick off the narrator. The game will lead you to a certain ending based off of how obedient you are to the narrator. In the main ending (you obey the narrator for all of the game apart from straying a few time), you have the option of shutting down an inactive facility, or choosing to activate it. Should you choose to shut down the facility, you win the game and the narrator lets Stanley be on a happy note. If you choose to activate the facility, the narrator stops narrating the story and starts harassing Stanley by making the facility self destruct.
Hey look! A spoiler!
Another noteworthy example is Shadow the Hedgehog (the 2004 game), where the game focuses on Shadow's quest to discover what sort of character he is. Does he take a friend's death to his heart and go on a rampage, or does he choose to honor her wish that Shadow works for the overall good? Most levels present three objectives (Hero/Dark/Normal), and only one needs to be fulfilled to continue, but every objective will lead you to a different level. This chart (from Wikipedia) should help me explain the concept in a far more intuitive way. Each objective is represented by a line, and each white box is next level. On the far right is the final boss you fight.
And it even incorporates your decisions for you!!
One other example I would like to point out is The Stakeout, an interactive narrative I built. I am actually not going to focus on the plot, but on some of the mechanics used to force readers to pay attention. One of the earliest possible failures is the classic "It was just a bad dream" joke ending. I purposefully wrote the ending with little details to leave readers unsatisfied and get back into the story. I also incorporated a short puzzle into the story that would catch speed-readers in the act: You have to radio your supervisor while there are enemies in surrounding rooms, and the 2 branches are exactly the same, except one contains a period and in the other an exclamation point. If the player chose the exclamation point, I play with them by letting them have one more choice, and then a guard catches them due to shouting. I did include one other trap, where I give the player the choice of turning off the power. Since I mentioned earlier on that there was fair weather, only players who paid attention would pass this point, while the others would default to linking stakeouts and bad weather and thinking bad weather would conceal the sudden power outage.
I caught them red-handed!
Since I have probably bored you enough for one day, let's look at a lighter subsection of interaction in video games, the nonstandard ending.
-In Shadow Complex, your car is right outside of your confinement. Interact with the car, and the protagonist will just drive off. "Eh, plenty of fish in the sea!"
-"Call of Duty" penalizes campaign players who shoot their teammates with an instant death and a "FRIENDLY FIRE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED" (What was I forgetti- Just returned to me! Call of Duty still sucks. Good luck with Infinite Warfare, Activi$ion). In fact, there are plenty more ways to fail in Call of Duty games, with mission failure (outside of death) messages giving players helpful hints such as "You were killed by an exploding barrel. Red barrels will explode when shot." (The original photo down here was taken offline so I replaced it.)
WINNING IN SHOOTERS 101: ABSOLUTELY NEVER EVER SHOOT THE RED BARRELS!
-In Rayman 2, players must traverse a cave to retrieve an elixir for a friend. Once Rayman defeats the guardian, the guardian offers them either eternal riches or the elixir. Choose riches, and an obese and happy Rayman is shown a tropical island, but players are sent back to the dungeon to rethink their choice. Until the elixir is chosen, players will not continue. (Some ports/versions skip this part)
-In Far Cry 4 Pagan Min attempts to introduce himself over dinner, but receives an important call. Players have a chance to escape, but if they stay put for about 15 minutes, Pagan Min returns and asks how the Crab Rangoon tasted, and gives the player a shortcut to their secondary objective. "Maybe now we can shoot some goddamn guns".
-Curse at a host in any "You Don't Know Jack" installment enough times. The host will close you out to desktop.
-In Battlefield 4, players must sacrifice one of their allies to keep their ship safe. Take too long in your decision and your ship is destroyed.
In real life, we have a lot of influence over how things play out (I do my classwork> I get good grades> I get degree> I get a good job> I get good money> I get a wife> I get a family> I get to see a family prosper). In video games, choices are very limited to the significant ones. Regardless of what you choose, have fun watching it unfold.
As this
semester of college draws to a halt, it's yet again time to adopt a new
identity. This time, it's a new digital identity. As I take a look back
over my blog, I start to realize how much sarcasm and humor I have been
injecting. I realize that this is my blog. This is a digital manifestation of
me and my thoughts of video games. Even though I always see some level of good
in everything, I can't help but feel the need to find the holes and plop a
needle inside. I also recognize how fond of technology I am, but everything
will have a flaw of some degree. I notice in several of my blog posts how I
make jabs at modern technology like a humorist, but always take the time to ensure
that everything with the humor aside can still make sense. All of these add up
to me becoming an online humorist (honing in on technology). Specifically, this identity was strongly
inspired by Cracked. Specifically, this site inspired me with the
way that it can make articles humorous, yet at the same time, isolating humor
from their articles doesn't make them any less fulfilling. They inspired me to write with a humorous tone in my blog, and overall helped me to create my identity.
With
this blog, I wanted to make something unique. One of the first essays we were
assigned to read was Mark L. Samples “What’s Wrong with Writing Digital
Essays”, which pointed out to me that my blog didn’t have to be formal. I of
course felt like writing an actual blog (or diary, as I see them) would be too
dull, and I didn’t want to bore myself while writing. I decided to take my
inspiration from Cracked, a website which often writes (in a formal fashion)
about the humorous side of life. They inspired me with the way that they aren’t
afraid to exploit America, regardless of how known the issue was. Take a look at their article on comically misfortunate incidents in war or
their Photoshop contest on exams to fix incompetency. All of
these inspired me to start venting on my blog, but in a humorous style. One of
my earliest blog posts on video game staples that were once accidents, I used a
humor style strongly resembling Cracked, which used exploitative humor, subtle
humor, and photo based jokes. For exploitative humor, I was mentioning how
gamers fascinated with Lara Croft’s rack created a modification to make her
completely nude, and instead of doing the usual favor of putting a link in
parentheses, I told viewers to get lost if they were expecting me to point them
to the download. For picture humor, I continued my tradition of using captions
on photos, such as in the last photo, I joked about text orientation. In the
area of subtle humor, I took a vein similar to Cracked and added in their
signature style of sentence extension. This is seen when I describe a
purposefully lazy game developer, and made it sound like after finishing up
with testing the game, heading straight to town to blow his paycheck. Basically
my blog took a strong likeness to Cracked and it ultimately ends out amusing
for me when I decide to reread my entries.
As for
my projects, I wanted to make my projects sophisticated, and unlike my blog, I wanted all of them to look like they were created professionally. One of my first projects
that I was proud of was a survey constructed for a speech class. The purpose of
the survey was to tailor my speech on media piracy to my audience. For this, I
created an online form that mimics market research surveys (and there is also this sheet containing all recorded answers). The tricky part of
constructing this project was making it easy to understand, but at the same
time formal. The form I constructed reflects the formal part of my online
behavior, as it shows how formal my writings can be, but also at the same time
how much understanding of a subject I can have. For projects in this
class, one of my best works was my interactive narrative ("The Stakeout"). This was designed in
the classic vein of a Choose Your Own Adventure novel, and my take on stealth
games. A major portion of the game was oriented not on telling a story, but
rather using the mechanics to tell the story. For instance, the first possible
ending was the classical “It was a dream” (because it has a history of flaring up gamers and makes them feel unsatisfied), which I used to force the players to
be adventurous. Another good point is that for a puzzle in the game, the only
difference in choices was a period replaced by an exclamation point. If the
player chose the option with the exclamation point, the game would continue on
into another choice designed to look like they did nothing wrong, but
regardless of their following choice, they would get caught by a guard.
Overall, this game demonstrates my ability of manipulating the digital medium
into making viewer’s wake up and start paying attention. While we were looking
at sample projects for the interactive narrative, "Fitting the Pattern" caught
my eyes. What it did was it redefined (one of the things the interactive
narrative so that rather than using a branching narrative, the story actually
invited the player to take turns with simple motions such as cutting off cloth
for a dress or bobbing a needle, and as actions were completed, more of the
story was revealed. This narrative inspired me for my next project to redefine
generative narrative. This project was “The Infinite Road Trip”, a modified
version of the “Taroko Gorge” poem. Taroko Gorge is a generative poem which
generates itself by picking from a predefined pool of words. Since I am not
exactly a poet, I decided to revamp the code so that it would tell a story
rather than a poem. My intention for this was to give viewers a look into my
mind, since I have ADHD (Autism). I wanted to vent out my mind, and this
project was the ultimate dumping grounds. According to my professor, I did this excellently, and to her, it was a digital writing should do. It should be your
mind. All of my writings dump my mind. From the sick humored mind of mine to my
opinions on video games to my various projects throughout the year, everything
reflects me. My entries are designed by me so that it is bearable for me and
fun for a viewer. My projects are designed to innovate and point to what needs
to innovate. My blog is designed to be a place where nothing generic happens.
Digital writing is not supposed to be boring (unless it is a research paper).
This blog is not supposed to be a webpage with words on it. It is the picture
of how I view video games, turned into a thousand words they say pictures are
worth. -Jacob Bacci
My handiwork:
1.The
Generative Narrative Project- For this project, I chose to take the
Taroko Gorge self-generating poem and modified it heavily to tell the story of
what I feel like when I am on a road trip. As a person with ADHD (Autism), road
trips can make me feel extra squirmy and bored. That alone justified a theme,
since to me, a road trip feels like nothing more than an infinite cycle, and
since Taroko Gorge is designed to be a poem with an infinite cycle, I dived
into the code and made several adjustments that turned the poem into a story.
My intention with this was to share how I feel on road trips, and as my
professor noted, this project is a well-made look into my mind. This reflects
my online personality when it comes down to creativity, as I turned a peaceful
poem into a frantic poem about mental distress. Initially, I was planning on
rearranging the code, but since I already pulled most of it apart, I felt like
it would not be worth risking corrupting the entire project, and my professor
stated that she felt the project was done very well and pointed out several
parts which I did not intend, but ended up helping the project in a way beyond
what I imagined.
2. The
Interactive Fiction Project- For this project, I chose to make a text based game based on a
typical stakeout. I did not have any particular inspiration for this other than
the flash game Stealth Hunter and the classic "Choose
Your Own Adventure" book series, respectively promoting the theme of
stealth, and the type of path I wanted the story to branch into. I used a
different style of thinking for this project where the only abrupt endings were
used as a way of leaving players unsatisfied and make them try harder if they
wanted a more fulfilling story. For instance, the first possible ending was the
classic "It was all a bad dream" joke ending, which I used as a
device to redirect players into a more adventurous route. The only change that
I made to the project was correcting a misspelling in a choice. This can easily
tie into my online personality since it shows my love for telling a thorough
story with humor, which can be seen in several of my past blog entries.
3. (External Project #1) Accidents in Gaming (Blog Post)- This
post was designed with humor in mind, and also seemed to be the easiest one to
inject with irreverent/exploitative humor. I chose to modify it to have a sense
of humor and style similar to Cracked, and ultimately ended out making it more
sophisticated, but also ended up making the humor sharper. Ultimately, this
post seems to be one of the best posts for showing off the humor I incorporated
into my online personality, and the writing style used here is also noticeable
in many of my blog posts.
4. (External Project #2) Survey on Media Piracy- For a previous course
in Public Speaking, one of our speeches required that we aggregate data from a
variety of demographics. I created this 3-page questionnaire based off of how
market research companies usually format their surveys. This form was intended
to help me adjust my speech so that I could present the important statistics
and facts to students in my class. I decided to clean up the form in order to
alleviate any confusion the original form caused. This link will take you to the responses that I have
recorded (Several of the options may have not been chosen, as
there were additional choices added in to keep the form up to date.). This can
tie into my online personality as there was a great attention to detail in
making my form appear to be formal, yet at the same time, it would be clear and
concise, and I always tidy up my work to avoid loose ends.
The articles which
inspired me:
1. Fitting the Pattern- This was one of the
sample pieces our class explored as a way preparing us for our interactive
narrative. While this is an interactive narrative, it is not an interactive
narrative in the vein of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, but
instead I viewed it as a sort of video game, since user actions helped the
story to progress. What really inspired me about this was how it added a new
picture in my mind to how I view interactive narratives, especially with how
the story only goes as far as the user wants it to go. On my next project, the
generative narrative, I took the generative poem "Taroko Gorge" and I
reworked it into a generative story "The Infinite Road Trip" based on
the concept of a story that never ends. Overall, this narrative helped me to
think outside of the box, and inspired my projects to take some level of an
unorthodox approach, and they ended out being hits.
2. What's
Wrong with Writing Essays-This Mark L. Samples post introduced me to
the various ways I could be creative in writing. It was with this essay
that I realized that I did not have be writing with the formality of a research
paper (but of course I chose to keep my blog's formality within reason,
especially since this was more or less a series of articles). This essay tied
into my online personality in the way that it inspired me to write my posts (or
articles) in a humorous fashion so that anybody who takes a look at the article
can feel thoroughly amused and overall helped me to keep humor as my fashion,
leading to my online personality as a humorist.
Overall, thank you for
looking at my portfolio. If you want to look at the rest of my blog entries,
you should hopefully be able to tell that I am not a comedian, but a humorist
who enjoys poking fun at various problems with video games. I hope that you
find my spin on digital writing to be unique, and that it might inspire you!
