A Rashomon, named after Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film, is a story repeated several times from different characters’ perspectives. Each retelling adds more information from each character until, in the end, a full story emerges. The Rashomon effect is a psychological phenomenon wherein multiple witnesses view the same event but describe it with different or even … Continue reading The Ludic Rashomon
Continuing from my previous thoughts, Spec-Ops and Hotline Miami, perhaps the two most visible “violent games about violent games,” have player-characters who only use violence to interact in the world. While Spec-Ops is far more on-the-nose about how destructive that attitude is, both put the player in a scenario where violence is the only language they have to communicate … Continue reading …When All You Have is a Hammer
As interesting or as varied as many characters are in Exit Fate, the raw numbers tell a pretty compelling story. The fact that there are so few non-white non-men suggests that white men belong in the Elysium army more than anyone else. Again, the player is managing an institution that quickly and obviously becomes far … Continue reading Representation and the Power of Media as Discussed through Exit Fate: Part 3: Consequences of Misrepresentation
The thing to take into account is that the fictional world of a videogame (or a whatever) is not the only language of a piece. There is also the language around the piece, what the audience brings to and understands from a game. Exit Fate is not isolated from the rest of the world: in fact … Continue reading Representation and the Power of Media as Discussed through Exit Fate: Part 2: Representation and Language
I love Exit Fate. A lot. It’s weird, clever, sentimental, dramatic, subversive, funny and charming; its characters are endearing, believable and dynamic and its world comes alive with details. I can’t recommend enough that you go to the creator’s website, download the free game (available for Mac, here courtesy of a programmer named Barış Şencan), support … Continue reading Representation and the Power of Media as Discussed through Exit Fate: Part 1: on (Mis)Representation
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