Before in this field there was a quotation from a song...Now it shall be this : Sometimes when you look back at your past, there is nothing left to do but smile...and wish you could go back in time and break your own nose...

петък, 26 ноември 2010 г.

Something, that might just be worth while

Well..Here is something I wrote a few days ago... First time I was writing something "fictional" in english. I might never finish it so I could as well post it here, if anyone reads it all comments are welcome...


Burning. The smoke was slowly scenting the room with the aroma of ashes and regrets.
-NO! – he screamed.
-No regrets… – he whispered.
“That was the whole point – this was about anything but regrets.”
The thoughts belonged to a man. The reddish glow of the fire that lid the room did not allow for his age to be recognized. The almost noble steadiness of his movements, however revealed someone who was way beyond the middle of his life, but was yet not familiar with the sorrows of old age.
The room was not modest, but calling it extravagant would be an insult to this man.
A massive fire place was the center piece of it .The black marble from it was made stood untouched.
The only sign of any ornamentation came from the letters carved on the part arching the opening.
“Cinerem cineri” – Ash to Ash.
The fireplace with its morbid epitaph was actually the only memory of the crematorium that the house used to be in a century long gone. Only a few old coals were covering the metal grid at the bottom. It was cold.
The fire was coming from a small ashtray on the desk.
It was throwing enough light to reveals the bookshelves, covering the walls on both sides of the fire place from top to bottom. The only 3 other pieces of furniture in the room were a wooden desk, a comftable seat and wooden cupboard with glass windows. Besides the desk lamp the chair was the only other “modern” object in the room. It and the desk were done in the same modest, yet solid colonial style as the bookshelves.
The cupboard was empty – It wasn’t a few hours ago. Its contents – a whole universe of memories, faces and stories were now burning in the ashtray. Only a few items remained on the desk – those that he could neither burn from the world or from his mind. He would take those with him.
The man looked around….He often mused why he chose this exact room for his cabinet. Was it his almost childish fascination with those aspects of life and death that people prefer to leave to priests and grave-diggers?
Or was the very idea of being so openly exposed to mortality another of his acts of defiance against God.
The man smiled. None of it mattered anymore. Believing or not he and those around him never managed to escape the world that the idea of god had lead into.
He thought he could – all those years he was so sure he had managed to avoid believing. And for a while he even managed to do it. Until today…Today he realized that everything he had done was polluted by fate. The very act of his defiance, of the things he put himself and others through in order to show their freedom from that omni-potent shadow-t just revealed how deep within that shadow they all were…
The others were in their rooms most likely –everyone and each one losing the battle with their own private hell of rationality…Or maybe in the common room – pretending that nothing had happened and it was all part of The Plan…
He wondered how Claudia was doing…The others would do fine, but she was different.
He no longer belonged here. He knew he was wrong. The Plan no longer served a purpose – It was just an excuse…And God – God existed – he just didn’t care…And him and the others – they just pretended they didn’t.

The man looked outside – the sunset was slowly turning into inky twilight…The branches of the autumn trees were raining their death leaves, making it seem like the sky was raining golden arrows on the black soil…

In the distance a church bell rang…Slowly the a memories came along…
Some 30 years ago – it had all started with a church bell….

It was a golden summer. The fields seemed to stretch eternally to the point where the horizon seemingly bent and joined them…A 10 year old boy with brownish hair was sitting on the grass and looking. The sky seemed so far – so blue, yet so distant. Same could be said about the boys eyes.
He was day dreaming of adventure – the average boyish dreams where a Jedi fights a pirate to save the kingdom…or something like that…
Behind him a church bell was heard. The boy sighted – he knew what that meant. Day dreaming had to stop and be followed by an hour long sermon. And what was worse he had to listen, so that he could answer The Questions.
His parents were not religious, but they understood religion as an important base for the young mind to have. “So that you know we got here” as his father said it. That was way after every sermon the kid’s father would ask him questions about what the minister was talking about, what it ment and even if it made sense or not and why ?
If the boy answered he got some nice small present…If not the father would just sign and say “Son – I am disappointed. How would you learn to think, if you don’t understand what it is to believe ?”
Saying this to a 10 year old made no sense, yet his father always did it.
Even though the kid was pretty smart for its age, the idea of what his father meant went only as far as “I am disappointed”. No one likes to disappoint their parents – at least not at first.
His mother’s motivation was a lot simpler. She just wanted to make sure her son and daughter knew the traditions and how to honor them as part of the community .Understanding why those traditions were for her was work of the church…
-Damien, Laura! Time to get inside. The sermon is starting.
Their mother was calling…Always the same words…Week after week. Even 30 years later he could still record that neutral, mannered yet caring voice his mother had when saying the words…

The boy got up , brushed off the dusty powder from jeans and ran towards the voice.

The bell was ringing in a deep metallic voice…

"What is a man ? A miserable little pile of secrets!"



The quotation in the title of this entry is probably one of the most famous video game antagonist lines. And it is not there by chance, I assure you.
In this entry I planned to finally talk about a gaming related topic – the presentation of Evil in Games. More specifically “the evolution of presentation of negative and a-moral actions and antagonists in games. “
Video games have come a long way from Bowser (Super Mario) to Liquid Snake (Metal Gear Solid 4) and mentioning how this progress happened and why is sure worth making a note about.
Especially since titles like Grand Thief Auto, Red Dead Redemption and The Witcher managed to blur the line between moral “moral” and “amoral” Non- Player-Character so much that (exactly like in most modern works of media) there is no longer such categories as “good” and “bad” character.
Because of such titles game ethics is no longer about good or evil , but about characters with idealistic “moral” view on ethics against such with “practical” morality – ethics in direct relation to their current goals.
The differences are normally presented in how far and how complex the relation between amoral actions and positive motivation is. The case refers to the presentation of characters and their motivation, not to the player freedom of moral choice.

The change of the presentation and the motivation of the different characters in a story, is naturally related to the evolution and sophistication of game plots.
As gameplay grew more sophisticated, so did the need to motivate the player to “experience” and chose to invest their time and effort in the gaming segment itself. When lacking the competitive drive there is only one option left:
Other than creating a successful game mechanics that is creating a plot and story, that are both extensive enough to cover and justify all the gameplay elements, but also deep and intriguing enough to “charm” the player to finish the game.
Thisrequired characters capable of supporting a complex plot structure.
Of course simple, “one dimensional motivation” characters (and villains especially) had one crucial limitation. Bowser stealing the princes again and again could work for a simple(even if perfect) platformer(Super Mario series) , but could Dracula just being evil and waiting for you in the last room of his castle, provide enough motivation for the player to explore over 200 different rooms of the said castle, just to reach and defeat him(Castlevania Series)…
“Ad hoc evil characters” did not allow for the plot structure to be broken out of the standard narrative shape – a game that has a story based on one dimensional antagonist only had a limited “life span” that lasts as long as the villain and his direct goal are compromised. It could not intrigue the player ,which meant it only had a limited “novelty” value before it’s plot stopped being a motivation, no matter how well presented it was.
Thus for such a game to be successful a very strong game play core was needed, which is in fact a lot more expansive to create and realize.
On the other side, just like an intriguing story can maintain interest in a rather blandly written book, so an engaging story can perfectly motivate a player to experience an otherwise not so well distinguished game core. A perfect example for that would be Legacy of Kain :Blood Omen 2 , which was vastly criticized for how bland it’s gameplay was.
However due to its heavy emphasis on story AND EXACTLY because of the way the negative (evil) characters such as Kain, The Sarafan Lord and even the minor bosses are portrayed and developed with their motivations inside the plot was positively received both by critics and the audience of the series. http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/bloodomen2/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary%3Bread-review

So back on track , the need for more complicated plots was born from the inability of every title to posses the innovative creativity capable of supporting itself(Blood Omen 2 is for example the basic action adventure with no innovative mechanics or twists whats ever) ,and the attempt to still win the player over in the context of what has already been created.
In laymen’s terms a “complicated plot” means only one thing – “Plot twists” For those to happen a very simple thing was needed to justify their presence – motivation on the side of the perpetrator of the twist.
Naturally for this twist to sound reasonable, a set of qualities for the character needed to be set and shown. His emotions to be explained through his “story”, that would hint of such a possibility actually making sense to the player.
So simply put – for the antagonist to surprise the player, and for character interaction to change while the plot developed the game needed to explain “Why?”…And thus the motivated, “active” villain was born.
First as simple explanations before the final boss battles (Dracula in Castlevania), than with several appearances and confrontations during the game itself(Gannon – The Zelda Series) and finally as fully developed NPC characters along the main cast.(Sephirot in Final Fantasy 7) The villain no longer was a simple beacon that marked the end of the game – he/she was an active agent to make the game happen for the player –of explaining and motivating the actions the player had to take, in an environment where the game was no longer a simple “kill’em all” routine.

To be continued with the 90’s ,the role of horror games ,the role of violence and player actions judgment and GlaDOS…


Music of this entry:

Covenant - We Stand Alone

Ashbury Heights - Ashes in her Breath

Yade - Hunter

Qntl - Ludus