Class Activities

The game I chose for Show and Tell was Hollow Knight.

This choice was very simple for me to make as this was one of the only Indie games I got stuck into due to its beautiful old-school cartoon style, ambient music, and passive storytelling. The gameplay of the game itself is also something that kept me going as everything felt extremely fleshed out and smooth, giving it a quality even higher than that which can be seen in big studio games. The fact that all the DLC also come included in the game is incredible as it only costs 15 euros.

The extract which I chose to present was the descent into the abyss, which I thought was one of the most breathtaking moments in the story where the player truly understands their meaninglessness in the world’s story as they come across a large pile of corpses all resembling very closely the main character.

In almost all video games, players have to follow a set of rules or instructions. If they deviate from them, chances are, they will lose the game. Loved, however, is a unique exception. An indie platformer game made by Alexander Ocias, Loved begins with the question, “Are you a man, or a woman?” If you choose man, the game will respond, “No, you are a girl.” If you choose woman, it will tell you, “No, you are a boy.” Following this, the game asks if you need instructions to play. If you respond no, it will tell you that you will fail. From the start, you will understand that the narrator does not want your best interest. The platformer part of the game soon begins and the narrator’s text will occasionally reappear on the screen. Here is where the game gets truly interesting. The game world is black and white, with minimalistic art and eerie music playing in the background. Often, the narrator will tell you to do a certain task, such as touch a statue or take a certain path. If you listen to the narrator’s instructions, the game world will change into a detailed version of itself. The narrator will hauntingly tell you that you’re doing a good job. On the other hand, if you refuse to listen to the narrator, the game world becomes more colorful. The narrator will try to demean you each time you do, but it might be better to simply ignore it. The game is very short. It takes 5-10 minutes to complete one run-through. Depending on how you play (listening or refusing the narrator), the game will give you a different ending. If you consistently listen to the narrator, in the end, the narrator will tell you that it loved you. If you refuse frequently, it will ask why you hated the narrator. Though there are several interpretations for it, Loved is meant to be a game about dealing with abusive relationships. The narrator’s text can represent inner thoughts that stop us from achieving our potential. It wants you to follow a set path and not deviate it from it at all. Each time you do, it scolds and demeans you. It can also describe an abusive partner that forces you to act a certain way. When you beat the game by refusing, the narrator is clearly hurt, showing a personal connection to the player. By the end, you might have feelings of guilt, despite the narrator’s clear desire for control. Overall, Loved is an experience that comes with a bag of mixed emotions. Though short, it is thought-provoking and leaves you to question what it means to truly love another individual and yourself.

For my indie game, I chose Super Seducer, a dating simulation game by self acclaimed “dating guru” Richard LaRuina. I love this game for its ironic value. The game itself it created by a man who believes himself to be an expert of love, and thus the entertainment comes from the ridiculous options he includes in the game. To see such a man who prides himself as a love expert do something ridiculous, like sneak up behind two girls sitting on a couch in order to woo them. Ultimately the game acts as a look inside the mind of a fool who considers himself an expert and the ridiculous actions he believes people may think would be rational responses in a normal interaction.

I chose Doki Doki Literature Club by Team Salvato. It’s a game masked as a typical Japanese dating simulator. After multiple hours of gameplay, things start to get a little weird and twisted, and you get the sense that it’s not a regular dating simulator. Part of why I consider this not only an indie game but an art game is that Team Salvato acknowledges video games’ abilities to be an art form and a way to express things not available in traditional media.

Spoilers ahead:

The game gets super twisted and self-aware. One of the characters has the ability to manipulate the other characters’ game files and she begins deleting their files- killing them in-game. She eventually gets one-on-one with you, the player, and the only way to progress the story is to delete her file from the game.

I chose this video with this timestamp because it shows a section where the character within the game is extremely self-aware. She mentions the fact that she gets shy when people are recording her, “knowing” that the gameplay is being recorded.  (Lots of profanity in this video)

So I’m a bit of a musical theater nerd and as such, one of my favorite shows is the hit musical “Hamilton” by Lin Manuel-Miranda. I consider the show itself to be a sort of appropriation of historical events, however that’s debatable. The depicts the founding fathers at the formation of our country, but shows them through the lens of a modern American perspective. One of the most important points in the show is right before the Battle of Yorktown, the battle which ended the Revolutionary War, in which Hamilton and Lafayette meet each other and declare “Immigrants, we get the job done.” a line which undoubtedly sparks cheers and applause from the audience. The line inspired a group of rappers, gathered by Manuel-Miranda, to create a song for the “Hamilton Mixtape” a collection of pieces by outside artists inspired by or drawing directly from the musical. This song appropriates numerous lines from the show, most obviously, the line “Immigrants, we get the job done” to add to the song. The juxtaposition of the line with the rapper’s lyrics of the hardships they faced as immigrants makes a clear political statement about the standards we hold immigrants to despite their hardworking and determined nature.