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Silent Hill is truly a series built primarily around psychology, and the usage of implicit horror -the stuff we don't realize is terrifying until later-. One thing every game in the series has utilized effectively, is exposing the player to controversial and/or disturbing content. The application is evident in the first game, where a young girl (whom is the main focus of the game), Alessa, is: raped by her father, told by her mother that she deserved it, beaten severely, burned until unrecognizable (but still alive), tied up in a straight jacket, kept barely alive in an abandoned hospital for ten years, and eventually sacrificed by her mother to a demon. The use of controversial stimuli can also be seen in many of the creature designs. All of this serves only to make you feel superbly uncomfortable and worried.
Shattered Memories managed to create a very immersive game-play. This was due to the game periodically halting in order to ask you a few psychoanalytical questions, in an attempt to tailor the game-play, cosmetics, and symbolism to fit your own personal nightmare. This was incredibly cool, especially because all of the other games are built around the nightmares of whatever characters happen to be in that game. This was the first time something like this had been tried in a horror game, and it worked!
Possibly the most confusing and difficult to grasp thing about the series is not that the town of Silent Hill is alive in some sense, but rather that the town exists in many layers. There's the Real World, which is just an average american town with people going about their normal lives. The Fog World is where lost souls end up, and where the town can use the most of its power; the people that end up wandering this world are confronted by manifestations of their repressed sexual tensions, their sins, their guilt, and their fears. These manifestations cruel in nature and grotesque to behold, are brought forth by the mystical properties of Silent Hill itself. The last official world is the Other World, in which the town is barren and mostly in waste. This world is sometimes considered to be "Hell" in the SH universe. Besides the main three worlds there are numerous, extra, temporary planes of existence, such as the multiple levels of dreams and awareness' explored in a few of the games. Having all of these worlds to juggle and make sense of can be daunting, and is intended to make you unsure of what exactly is going on, leaving you unprepared.
Coming back to Shattered Memories, every once in a while, the game-play will cut out, and you will be sitting in a room, across from your therapist. During one of these instances, your therapist brings up the subject of the monsters you've been killing, and asks about your enjoyment from killing all of them (This moment is well into the game, far enough that you've killed hundreds of these monsters). In response you simply say "well, I've only killed monsters". Which is true enough, plus there's the fact that they were trying to kill you first. But when your therapist replies to your last statement with "They look like monsters to you...", it comes as a huge shock. What if the things you've been killing aren't monsters, what if they're people and you're just insane (not unlikely in SH), slaughtering hundreds of innocent people. This could really affect your mind, milling this guilt trip over in your head, unsure whether or not to keep killing these "monsters", yet any hesitation not to could spell death.
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Thursday, May 2, 2013
Amnesia: the Dark Descent Research Summary
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Amnesia: the Dark Descent is an excellent survival horror game, being perhaps one of the foremost examples of the genre done /right/. The game itself is very immersive, in one of the simplest ways possible: through the controls. Movement is quite simply "WASD", "L-SHIFT", "CTRL", and "SPACE", and to look around you just use your mouse. But that's not all the mouse is used for, you can also interact with most loose objects in the game (as well as doors, drawers, cupboards, etc.) by clicking on whatever and moving the mouse up/down/left/right in order to manipulate what you grab. To use doors, for example, you click on one and then either push or pull with the mouse, depending on how the hinges are oriented. For a wheel/knob, you click on one and then move the mouse in a circle in the direction the object needs to be rotated. The whole thing is so incredibly simple, yet it adds such a great immersion factor, you actually feel like /you/ are the one in the game opening doors.
Any sane human being has a healthy fear of the dark, or at least what may be lying within it. Your avatar, Daniel, has a very unhealthy fear of the dark, as prolonged exposure to it deteriorates his mental state, causing him to slowly go insane. Luckily, re-entering light restores his sanity. It is this very struggle to maintain his sanity that places Daniel in most of his predicaments. Darkness is, sadly, /not/ the only thing that causes sanity lapses, witnessing unsettling events around the castle, like a spooky mist swirling in and out of a room, will do the trick as well. The third and final of these mental hazards is not strictly /mental/; the offender in this case, is an assortment of randomly-spawning, randomly-roaming, horribly grotesque, giant, MONSTERS. You heard me, monsters. Just looking in one's general direction causes your reality to warp.
Monsters, no problem, this is a survival horror game, there's bound to be a shotgun or something around, right? Nope. You are utterly, and completely defenseless, and the monsters can kill you in one swift motion. This is what ties together all the other elements, which are cool and well developed on their own, but now take on much greater significance. So since you can't fight back, your ONLY options are run, hide, or die. Dying is a no, so that leaves run or hide, you aren't guaranteed to get away if you run, so your best bet is to hide. Regrettably the only place you can hide from the monsters is in the dark, but by being in which you lose sanity, as that happens you breathe harder/faster and you start to grind your teeth. Both of these help the monsters notice where you are, but you can't fix it by turning on your light to get rid of the betraying sounds, because in the dark your lamp is like a beacon drawing the monsters right at you. In the end, you literally have to sit in the dark, slowly becoming crazier and crazier staring at the floor so as not to behold the monster, and just /pray/ that the beast passes by quickly.
The game's ambient soundtrack, apart from background noises and atmospheric death-cries, is terrifyingly similar to the sounds created by the monsters. As if their random generation and patrolling, let alone their EXISTENCE, was bad enough, now you'll never be able to tell if those heavy footsteps and deep growl belonged to an actual monster or if it was just background noise. In reality you encounter very few of the monsters -maybe 10?-; but with the /constant/ playing of the would-be warning noises, combined with the randomness of their spawn system, you could very well end up psyching yourself into thinking there's a beast in the room you're in, plunging you into full stealth mode. Even though, save you, the room is completely empty. /That/, is the full extent, the psychological power, that Amnesia is able to conjure.
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Amnesia: the Dark Descent is an excellent survival horror game, being perhaps one of the foremost examples of the genre done /right/. The game itself is very immersive, in one of the simplest ways possible: through the controls. Movement is quite simply "WASD", "L-SHIFT", "CTRL", and "SPACE", and to look around you just use your mouse. But that's not all the mouse is used for, you can also interact with most loose objects in the game (as well as doors, drawers, cupboards, etc.) by clicking on whatever and moving the mouse up/down/left/right in order to manipulate what you grab. To use doors, for example, you click on one and then either push or pull with the mouse, depending on how the hinges are oriented. For a wheel/knob, you click on one and then move the mouse in a circle in the direction the object needs to be rotated. The whole thing is so incredibly simple, yet it adds such a great immersion factor, you actually feel like /you/ are the one in the game opening doors.
Any sane human being has a healthy fear of the dark, or at least what may be lying within it. Your avatar, Daniel, has a very unhealthy fear of the dark, as prolonged exposure to it deteriorates his mental state, causing him to slowly go insane. Luckily, re-entering light restores his sanity. It is this very struggle to maintain his sanity that places Daniel in most of his predicaments. Darkness is, sadly, /not/ the only thing that causes sanity lapses, witnessing unsettling events around the castle, like a spooky mist swirling in and out of a room, will do the trick as well. The third and final of these mental hazards is not strictly /mental/; the offender in this case, is an assortment of randomly-spawning, randomly-roaming, horribly grotesque, giant, MONSTERS. You heard me, monsters. Just looking in one's general direction causes your reality to warp.
Monsters, no problem, this is a survival horror game, there's bound to be a shotgun or something around, right? Nope. You are utterly, and completely defenseless, and the monsters can kill you in one swift motion. This is what ties together all the other elements, which are cool and well developed on their own, but now take on much greater significance. So since you can't fight back, your ONLY options are run, hide, or die. Dying is a no, so that leaves run or hide, you aren't guaranteed to get away if you run, so your best bet is to hide. Regrettably the only place you can hide from the monsters is in the dark, but by being in which you lose sanity, as that happens you breathe harder/faster and you start to grind your teeth. Both of these help the monsters notice where you are, but you can't fix it by turning on your light to get rid of the betraying sounds, because in the dark your lamp is like a beacon drawing the monsters right at you. In the end, you literally have to sit in the dark, slowly becoming crazier and crazier staring at the floor so as not to behold the monster, and just /pray/ that the beast passes by quickly.
The game's ambient soundtrack, apart from background noises and atmospheric death-cries, is terrifyingly similar to the sounds created by the monsters. As if their random generation and patrolling, let alone their EXISTENCE, was bad enough, now you'll never be able to tell if those heavy footsteps and deep growl belonged to an actual monster or if it was just background noise. In reality you encounter very few of the monsters -maybe 10?-; but with the /constant/ playing of the would-be warning noises, combined with the randomness of their spawn system, you could very well end up psyching yourself into thinking there's a beast in the room you're in, plunging you into full stealth mode. Even though, save you, the room is completely empty. /That/, is the full extent, the psychological power, that Amnesia is able to conjure.
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Bioshock Research Summary
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Bioshock, as a series, utilizes a great many psychological "tricks". Such as the player's illusion of free will, or in this case total influence over the avatar's actions, so brilliantly employed in the first game. This seemingly complex task was achieved rather simplistically your guiding voice, the one man who isn't trying to kill you, sends you places and asks you to do things, using the phrase -later revealed to be a classically conditioned aural trigger for the avatar- "would you kindly?".
Then there's also the fact that when confronted with the moral choices these games are fraught with, quite often choosing the "good" path will land you the same consequences as if you had embarked upon the road of evil. This is fully realized in the second game, where after protecting the creatures known as "little sisters" you may choose to harvest them, or escort them to safety. Upon harvesting the poor girls, a fearsome entity known as a "big sister" will spawn and attempt to disembowel you. Naturally, one would assume that bringing the poor girls to safety would subvert this terrible danger; one would be wrong, the "big sister" still has a good chance of showing up and slaughtering you, all the same.
The developers also managed to get players /personally/ invested in the many characters of the franchise. First was your guiding voice "Atlas", he said his wife and child had been taken and when he asked you for help, you accepted because it was on the way to your objective. Next is all of those little sisters if you chose to help them, because they help you later; once out of rapture, you adopt them, raise them, send them to school, and they come back for you on your deathbed. Then in the second game, the protagonist is the object of adoration, as he is a former "big daddy" (a monstrous, brainless mutant, charged with safeguarding little sisters), and capable of so much more. Finally, in Infinite you turn your focus upon Elizabeth whom does not merely earn your pity and treat you with much kindness, she also helps you; she tosses ammo your way when you're low, she helps guide you along, and she's always /there/ for you.
In practically every action game existing today: enemies exist everywhere, they know exactly where you are regardless of line of sight, they always attack on sight and in unison, and even if your avatar is not alone they all attack /you/. In Bioshock Infinite, this constant is not the same reliable crutch of which gamers are so accustomed. Instead, while hostile characters maintain their numerousness, they do not all attack at the same time as one another, nor is there a constant distance you must maintain to remain undetected. As a bonus, too, hostile "mobs" are not so easily, at least immediately, distinguished from the occasional neutral or even friendly individuals; so you may never be /sure/ whether a preemptive strike would be in cold blood, or eventual self-defense.
All three games take place in outlandish, complex, vast, beautiful, and -most importantly- straight up impossible cities. Bioshocks One and Two both took place in the underwater city of Rapture; a city based upon Ayn Rand's Objectivist ideals, where by the sweat of one's own brow greatness may be achieved. All of this free from the societal strictures imposed upon the sciences, on the wanting grounds of morality, or flimsy apportionment edicts asserted by Communism and Capitalism alike. Rapture was the dream city for artists and scientists alike, but not as much so for the workers and common-folk innovation and discovery were highly valued, celebrated even, whereas construction and maintenance were seen as simple and ordinary, merely a stepping-stool for the great. This differentiation between the ascribed values of various forms of work fueled a growing resentment in the lower class, and ignorant snobbery in the upper class, plunging the city into chaos. Now, Bioshock Infinite takes place in the floating city of Columbia. The city itself is a large conglomeration of individual buildings and complexes, held aloft by giant propellers, within a close enough proximity to one-another to be tethered. All is well in Columbia -in stark contrast to Rapture-, just a bustling metropolitan sky kingdom. Until /you/ show up. Shortly after entering the city you meet Elizabeth, whom you agree to assist, and the pair of you are painted as targets; only now does all hell break loose within the city.
In summation, the false feeling of control, when exposed, makes you question everything leading up to that point, compounding upon the likely pre-existing feeling of unease/worry. Being punished for being "good" really makes you wonder if you truly were acting on the side of righteousness, and will probably cause you to weigh any choices much more carefully from then on. When you become invested with a character, you tend to want them to stay alive and well, so you probably won't take as great or as many risks, slowing you down and making you ultimately more vulnerable. Breaking the norm on enemy placement and behaviour can really confuse, and thus demoralize, you, especially with the uncertainty of who is/will be shooting at you. Finally, exposure to, and having limited exploration of, these fantastical cities -since we know they're impossible in our reality- can really get you pondering the true nature of reality, exercising your imagination, and further endearing you to the game.
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Wednesday, May 1, 2013
This Last Week, in Summation
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Today I Researched the psychological "tricks" used in the Silent Hill franchise.
I learned about how effective exposing the player to controversial topics can be as a tool, and how you can use guilt as a trick to get players to hesitate long enough to mess up and possibly die.
I spent roughly 3 hours picking through articles and getting this stuff
This is the article I used the most
http://mindhacks.com/2007/05/03/psychoanalysis-of-resident-evil-and-silent-hill/
I used this article a fair amount
http://outsideyourheaven.blogspot.com/2010/09/sexual-nightmares-in-silent-hill.html
And I used this pdf a bit
http://gameplay-archive.org/documents/Boyce_SilentHill2(2011).pdf
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4/27/13
Today I wrote up a nice summary of the research I completed yesterday
I didn't exactly learn anything new, but I reinforced freshly obtained knowledge
I spent about 2 hours typing up my summary
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4/29/13
Today I looked into what careers are possible with psychology in the gaming world.
I learned that only Valve explicitly hires psychologists. The requirements are reasonable, and the pay is very heavily bonus based. But, if I can do as I plan and graduate from Digipen, then I should have no trouble getting hired up by any major video game company, in fact they would most likely be looking FOR me.
It was really difficult to find any relevant information so this took me about 3 hours.
This would be my course catalogue
https://www.digipen.edu/academics/degree-programs/bs-in-computer-science-and-game-design/course-sequence/
This is an article on the work environment at Valve
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/187296/
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5/1/13
Today I researched where exactly psychologists stand in the development process.
I learned that psychologists help make sure a game will remain fun and relevant, and not become tedious or boring. They also work towards making games so fun, almost to the point of addictiveness (especially with MMORPG's). Another thing they do is run tests, having subjects play a game while having their brains scanned, in order to figure out which parts/moments of the game are exciting and which are boring.
This activity ate up a whole 2 hours.
I used this one for the last example
http://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2010/11/game-on.aspx
This wasn't so much useful as it was simple affirmation
http://article-library.psychologyandspirit.com/development/20110918-005436-Role-of-Psychologists-in-Video-Game-Design
This article was interesting, to say the least
http://indiegraph.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/psychology-and-game-design/
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