Thanks to Critical Distance

I'd just like to thank Critical Distance for including me in this week's "This Week in Videogame Blogging" feature.

You can see the post here.

Journey and the Epic

Journey, developed by thatgamecompany as part of a partnership with Sony, is one of my favorite games ever made. Despite being short, simple, minimalist, and offering virtually no challenge, it has had the biggest impact on me of any game I've ever played, and I'm hardly the only person to say things like that. Among the many reasons already given for why Journey is so great, I'd like to add a new one: Journey is actually the simplest, most universal epic poem ever written.

The Romantic Dead

I wrote a little bit last week about my experience with TellTale's The Walking Dead and the rise of what I've come to call "film-games." In that post, I also talked about The Last of Us, another of my favorite games of all time. The two games share a surprising amount of similarities (while feeling like entirely different games), but one that particularly catches my attention is that both are works of Neo-Romanticism.

Moby Dick, Democracy, Participatory Culture, and Games

"Call me Ishmael," Moby Dick begins, establishing the identity of our narrator for us and giving us an introduction to his character and particular voice as he will be telling us this story for quite a while and we should be comfortable with him. Moby Dick is a book full of strong characters--Queequeg, Ahab, Flask, Starbuck, Stubb--each of these character seem particularly individual and powerful in their own right, just as we feel we "get to know" Ishmael, we can "get to know" the other characters and understand their desires and quirks. However, the story isn't about any one of them, its about (and exists because of) all of them combined.

Not only does Melville craft each of these characters expertly to allow each of them their own voice and personality, but the very form of Moby Dick is broken up into distinctive "voices" of different literary genres. Interrupting Ishmael's regular narrative come dramatic monologues (ch. 37), encyclopedic articles (ch. 32), affidavits (ch. 45), as well as histories, articles, and more. Indeed, Moby Dick is designed on a formal as well as a textual level to break up any overpowering voice. In fact, freedom of speech and choice may arguably be what Moby Dick most values, as the ultimate tragedy of its ending comes from Ahab drowning out everyone else with his power and desire.

"That's Not a Game!"

A couple nights ago around 2 a.m., I finally finished season 1 of The Walking Dead by Telltale Games. When I credits stopped rolling and the epilogue tag showing little Clementine alone in the countryside faded out, I stumbled in daze back to my bed. Before I could roll over to sleep, I couldn't resist the impulse to put my arm around my sleeping wife and hold her tight for a moment. Perhaps more than any other media I've ever encountered, The Walking Dead opened my eyes to my relationships with other people, especially my wife and family. I was intensely grateful for the love I've been so lucky to feel throughout my life, and the forces of order that have made the path of my life relatively smooth and easy. As I felt all this, I concluded that The Walking Dead is really one of the greatest games I've ever played.

Except there's one problem. The Walking Dead isn't a game.

Plaid Hat Had My Same Idea

Image from Plaid Hat Games

On Wednesday, August 14, 2013, I opened a new page in OneNote and wrote the beginning ideas for a post-apocalyptic survival game that I tentatively titled From the Dust. I recently posted this in my new tumblr Every Day a Game, where I post a game idea every day.

In that concept idea, I wrote this:

Co-op--goal is to rebuild civilization in the city (build all the shelters), but have separate motives? Could lead to personal+co-op victory double win condition? 

Yesterday, Plaid Hat Games, one of the coolest tabletop game companies around, really, announced a new game Dead of Winter. Look at this from their announcement post:

Dead of Winter is a meta-cooperative psychological survival game. This means players are working together toward one common victory condition--but for each individual player to achieve victory, they must also complete their personal secret objective.

With this and the AC4 Moby Dick reveal, I'm feeling pretty good about my game design ideas lately. I'm very intrigued with what Plaid Hat is going to do with this idea. This next quote has me especially excited:

Dead of Winter is an experience that can only be accomplished through the medium of tabletop games. It is a story-centric game about surviving through a harsh winter in an apocalyptic world. The survivors are all dealing with their own psychological imperatives but must still find a way to work together to fight off outside threats, resolve crises, find food and supplies, and keep the colony's morale up.

Dead of Winter looks and sounds amazing. I'm glad Plaid Hat is making something so similar to my idea so I can play it without having to make it myself! It'll be interesting to see how it works out.

I Was Right!

A couple months ago I posted an open letter to Ubisoft about how and why they should put Ahab and Moby Dick in Assassin's Creed 4. Well, turns out either they listened to me, or they had the plan all along (probably the latter, but still).

Well, turns out I was right! You can indeed hunt the Great White Whale in AC4. And you kind of have to be an Ahab to ever find it. One article I read said you "may" see one in 48 hours of gameplay. However, if a friend finds one, he/she can choose to share the location with you in-game and the location will show up on your map as well. You have to act quick, though, because the location remains on your map for only 24 hours after it pops up (24 real hours, not gameplay hours).

And that's not all--once you do find the Whale, he's no easy kill. One video I found showed a player only bringing Moby down on his 16th attempt.

So no Ahab character like I suggested, but in reality, the white whale adventure in AC4 is a pretty accurate adaptation of the obsessive hunt from Melville's classic. (Just listen to the guy in that video--you can tell he's become obsessed with killing this whale.) The Assassin's Creed series has always prided itself on making history a "playground" but it's good to see them incorporating literature as well.