3rd Year Log 1

Tuesday 16/10/12

The last 2 and half weeks had been full of research towards BA7 & BA8’s final project. After seeing the past years documents and circling with ideas, I came up with an original game concept that revolves around the theme of paintings (both the verb & the object). The concept is about a black and white world with no season (almost trying to portray the moon if it had a civilization) that has portals/ gateway in them that leads to various world/ realms of the surreal. The protagonist is the only person in this grey starting world and he/she is able to enter the various realms by jumping into ‘paintings’; the easiest way to explain this is to imagine looking out the window without the window and wall, its just a normal scenery, but once that’s put back in and divides the view into sections, you will discover different compositions and ‘paintings’ in those cropped-out/ framed areas. These so called ‘paintings’ or realms contains a surrealistic take on the real one behind it; often exploring sub-themes such as; romance, comedy, horror, action, etc. However the overall style of the game will be very influenced by the Modern Art Movement which includes; surrealism, cubism, paranoism, pop-art, psychedelic art and so forth, I believe I will be discussing this countless times as I go along and explore it from the research point of view.

The game will then focus on player going back and forth between the real ‘grey’ world and those surreal paintings, at this point there is yet to be a proper narrative or puzzle and design that can justify the reason for my concept, I will further explore that after doing more environmental concepts to dive into the atmosphere. However it is very clear to me that this game will represent immersion and senses of awe in exploration filled with mystery and strange creatures and even mind provoking scenes. The current art direction will be so on the surface it features styles of Van Gogh or Dali or Chirico which are more calming and more passive surrealism, however as we get deeper into the game the art style gradually morphs into a more bizarre, kinetic, almost disturbing like Francis Bacon’s paintings and the downright mischievous like Marcel Duchamp’s work.

I will create a beautiful realm, and then destroy it to bits. (ooh scary)

The game’s working title is ‘Box Of Paintery World’ (referencing Dark Souls)

Essentially, what this project is; is just an excuse for me to read up/ watch a lot of Modern Art influenced movies, documentaries, books and learn how these artists rationalize the process of turning their often daring ideas into a real piece of art. It will also allow me to draw tons of different environmental concepts and bizarre creatures at my own will without being stuck into a norm. This will in turn be a diverse portfolio for me and all that knowledge can then be applied in my future jobs.

I have been into Modern Art (especially Surrealism) ever since my first exposure to this terminology during college few years back, however there weren’t many chances for me to utilize it at the time and eventually steered clear from it, not knowing that this movement have reached its contagious crystallization; its everywhere! In Comic! Films! Advertisings! Architectures! Games!!! (which I will talk about in much greater detail below). So since I have not been that knowledgeable about Modern Art I watched this documentary I found on YouTube that to me act as a deeper exposure of which I will then explore even more individually.

I will research and discuss the followings

-       Modern Art Documentary

-       Influenced in surrealism/ modern art in today’s media

-       History of Game

Modern Art Documentary, a complete guide

This is a documentary that I found on YouTube and it touches upon how the movement came about, its purpose and features many artists that made impacts in that world.

There were a few aspects on how this movement evolved or transit from different eras; the one responsible for this conception was a Post-Impressionism French artist called Paul Cezanne, “The Father of us all” as claimed by Pablo Picasso, who is well know for his Cubism. Another aspects was the Spanish War which conceived ‘Guernica’ paintings, one of which made famous by Picasso depicting the horror of war and act as an anti-war symbol for many artists during the time; they were simply reflecting what was happening at the time, and the result was a fuse between frustration and creativity, a piece of art. In many ways though, this could just be a product of what artists really are in nature; they want to move on and see things in different lights all the time, to be excited again by something different and full of personality. Painting a photographic picture of a room with everyday object it a chore and mundane, however twisting and warping around and with the help of clever compositions, you get work of art like ‘Persistence of Memory’ by Salvador Dali, a self proclaimed genius that was often work described as ‘Hand-painted dream photographs’ blending a sense of surrealism into a realistic scene.

‘Guernica’ by Pablo Picasso

Looking at Dali

Salvador Dali

I then watched an interview of him (also found on YouTube) and try to work out how he worked things out into his drawings, which was unfortunately wasn’t discussed much here, the interview is more of a publicity event and its done well to depict Dali as a very eccentric person. However I was able to learn about his influences that comes oddly enough from a different realm altogether; Modern Physics. Although at the time of interview he was exploring the theme of Religion, the man had been interested in things like Anti-Matter, Cosmology and Psychology and even going on about how “Death is sublime and unbeautiful, but also erotic” and further added that he was indeed contradictory of his own ideals and that he was a paradoxical man.

The Persistence of Memory (La Persistance De La Memoire)

The Enigma Of Desire – my Mother, my Mother, my Mother

(L’enigme Du Desir – Ma mere, ma mere , ma mere)

Girrafe on Fire (Girafe En Flammes)

More Modern Artists, their works and some of their quotes;

Vincent Van Gogh

 “I don’t paint the world as I see it, I paint as I imagine it.”

-Vincent Van Gogh

 Giorgio De Chirico

The Anxious Journey

Melancholy and Mystery of a street

The Red Tower

Tragedy of Serenity, paintings by Giorgio De Chirico (above). which influenced the game ICO. (below)

More artists that were featured; Mondrian, Francis Bacon, Francuzi, De Silva, Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Ruschenberg and so many more, all coming from different sides of the same core; Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, Paranoism, Graffiti, Abstraction, Kinetic Art, Expressionism, Pop art, etc.

So In conclusion, I see this movement as an extension in one’s ideals; a form of self indulgence in an artistic approach that could be dubbed as brilliant or even bizarre by many. One of the artist in the Documentary claimed that all he wanted to do was just to immerse himself in another world with no rules, detached from the mundane and unsatisfying reality, again this could be viewed by anyone in 2 ways; adventurous or just as an excuse to escape responsibilities.

In relation to this project, my work contains analogies and metaphors of exploration and being in a haven, of being free from just 1 reality, for eg. Jumping into paintings, the ‘black and white’ and mundane ‘real’ world and such. This project is an extension of my ideals therefore in that sense; my work is in spirit, a piece of Modern Art (at least that’s what I’d like to think). Which is an aspect that I will cover next.

Influences of Modern Art in today’s media

It is immense, both visually and in spirit, International Films such as Donnie Darko, Requiem of A Dream, Sunshine, 2001: Space odyssey, Pi, Big Fish, Edward Scissorshand, Girl Who leapt Through Time, Paprika. Comics done by Steve Ditko, Kago Shintaro, Alan Moore (will also look into these guys more some time), tons of Digital Photography today has taken the theme of surrealism and of course games. Some of the more notably influenced Games are; ICO, Alice Madness Return, Papo and Yo (most recent one to date) and even Classics like Super Mario series or Zelda or Tetris even. Visually, surrealism plays on the idea of perception and representations, by this definition alone its is safe to say that all pixel based games are Surreal because they represents images which are usually unique to the person seeing it. Nowadays games are graphically enhanced and although the vagueness had been polished to fine details, I believe it is losing too much personality, simply put in my opinion; if every game are going to be realistic then there is no point in immersing yourself in games or movies anymore, there has to be an element of surrealism in it, be it in the plot or visually or musically and such. So it has been unreal looking back on how Modern Art had affected the world as we know it, all this time it has been everywhere, just as subtler versions of it.

However I believe a Video Game is still a Game and not meant to be Movies or Installation art disguised AS a game, without sufficient interactivity and right engagement from the players, then there isn’t a point in making it, part of the beauty of playing games also comes from the satisfaction of beating a challenge/ puzzle. Similarly in Modern Art movement, creating a piece is sometimes considered as a struggle and that’s what art is all about, a struggle to get to a higher understanding. All these aspects creates an immersion which I consider to be the core of everything, this is the aspects that made me started drawing, playing games and music altogether and I believe that I could create the same to others.

History Of Video Games

Another video I stumbled upon in YouTube. It talks about how the first games came about to how different companies emerges and became the industries that they are today, it explores Games like Pong, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, etc and companies such as Atari, the Oliver Twins and Darling Brothers colab, Nintendo, etc.

Here are some Trivia that I’ve learnt along the way;

-Atari was named after a move in the Game Of Go, when you’re about to take over your opponent’s tiles.

-Atari’s Pong’s origin was controversially from Ralph Baer, who invented the Magnavox’s Odyssey

-Activision is a product of Engineers and game designers that came together after being neglected in Atari (due to the company being sold to new regimes.)

-The Oliver Twins created Road Runner when they were only 12 years old

-       The twins collaborated with Darling Brothers who were also young designers and worked through post mails to prevent companies monopolizing their sales profit

-They created ‘Dizzy’ which is massive contribution of game design (games are now created by gamers FOR gamers!)

-Nintendo used to be a traditional card game seller

-Mario was initially Jump Man in Donkey Kong

-Shigeru Miyamoto believe that games draws out emotions from people, and he claims that his games are reflection of his childhood

-Legend of Zelda was inspired by his childhood exploration when he stumbles upon a massive lake on a mountain

-Miyamoto wrote his own music

-Tetris, the Russian originated game comes from the Greek word Tetra which means 4 and Russian puzzle called Pentanamos.

-Tetris was originally written to test computers

Looking at Shigeru Miyamoto’s work, it’s not that difficult to say that he was a real Modern Artist in his own way, maybe different visually but very true to it spiritually. The game Mario Bros always contains different ‘worlds’ that has different themes and personalities to them, memorable characters, satisfying challenges and most of all interesting design and visuals that are definitely out of the norm; mushrooms that makes one grow, massive pipes that you travel in and out of, floating boxes full of unknown surprises, platforms made of clouds and much more. The same applies in Legend of Zelda, except he added a simple aspect of the protagonist that is able to empathize with the audience even more, a boy.

Of course looking at our world today, the games that are widely popular seems to have evolved even more; to 5 minute ‘fast-food’ games which are usually in the smart-phone platforms like Temple Run, Angry Birds or Online Multiplayer like COD or WOW which are also brilliant but with different intention. However there are also still surprises emerging from time to time, whether they are downright pleasant or not is irrelevant, because atmospheric games like Journey, ICO, Papo & Yo, Dead Space, Dear Esther, Lone Survivor, Portal do make a difference in the industry by keeping the expressive side of gaming alive. Of course there are tons of other immersive games such as GTA, Skyrim, Dishonored, Borderlands that I enjoy as well but I just think games could be much more than just entertainment.

Specialism

I began this project with the focus on creating a concept that allows me to explore different areas that I haven’t been too while at the same time letting me focus on my specialism; which is 2D concept drawings. So I came with this theme of dreams, not in as in a goal, but as in that world that you live in every night in your subconscious. Sure the theme of dream is mystifying as it is, however it is really both scientific and a cosmic thing as I find out, and get more and more fascinated by it.

So I began by listing down different sort of dreams or myth about it, as many as possible, some of them are as follow

Nightmares

- being chased

- trapped on a spot

- going thru a maze

- suffocation

- drowning

- falling from high place

- trapped in dream (limbo)

- Sleep paralysis

Good dreams

- wet dreams

- flying free

- lucid dreaming

Neutrals

- past memories

- visions of future

- mash up recollections

- Abstraction

- vision from others

- Interference from real world

(heat, cold, movements, water, noise)

- Looking at others/  happenings

- Analogies (animal, objects)

Myths

- Alternate reality

- Alternate reality (waking up)

- omen/ lucky charm

- Alternate vessel

- Analogies

- cross dreaming or intertwined dreams (online?)

- hit the ground before waking up causes death

- message from the dead

and with all these possibilities I already know that the limit to creativity in this project is boundless.

So then I came up with a story about a girl; initially named spelled Narcy but was then later changed to Narcie in order to prevent mispronunciation. Narcie is sort of an Alice in wonderland figure, very curious, but less playful. She’s a little bit like Paprika (character from a movie of same name that inspired Christopher Nolan’s Inception) in terms of being a peculiar person, but also less playful.

Above is Narcie during development.

Above is Narcie’s final look. Her design is based on Hayley Williams of Paramore and the most striking feature is her tangerine hair. She wears clothes and accessories that were designed after a dream-catcher.

The game is about how player takes control of Narcie to walk through different dreams/ levels and see how she deals with them. Level always starts and end with Narcie on her bed IN her bedroom IN the level, there is NO real world; YOU ALWAYS WAKE UP IN A DREAM. The main goal of the game is to get Narcie from the start to the end of every level/ dreams safely. Since its based on dreams, anything can happen and this affects the gameplay. While its mostly platforming and puzzle solving based mechanics, it may also involve more fancy maneuvers such as flying or fighting.

I will be presenting my work in SWF form, its basically a Game Concept Document that includes developent, character, narrative, music, environment, meaning behind and etc, I will also be submitting a PDF copy. Some of the artworks that I put on the document are as follow.

This is my thumbnail for environment and scenes.

This is one of the finished scene/ enviro artwork, ‘Narcie & The Steam Train’. The level represents Narcie desire to escape from her nightmare, its simply a chasing level that is designed to be intense but also full of surprises, the train itself resembles a caterpillar that can bloom into a butterfly after passing a tunnel. More to be explained in the page below.

This is another finished piece about ‘Narcie & the Flying Boxes’ which are actually floating bedrooms.

This is the logo design for the game.

Lastly there’s music. The music in this game for the most part will be sort of spacey, cosmic, chill out, think Pink Floyd or Death in Vegas' slower tunes, or the game Braid where it simply uses classical piano pieces, but also, there'll be more intense ones as the story gets deeper in Narcie's head, it'll turn into a more sinister sound like in Silent Hill series, I have composed an original acoustic song depicting a scene where Narcie is traversing through The Flying Boxes level, could potentially be the main theme of the game.

I also made another one which accompanies the SWF file called, ‘Dreamwalk’. I also made a mini flash animation for Flying boxes that can be watched here http://epiclone.deviantart.com/#/d4z2rb3.

Lastly here are the things that I came across and some of my influences that helps in weaving this project together.

Portfolio

 I will be creating a portfolio that is catered more towards finding-work condition, although in my opinion I wouldn’t do too much of a difference if its for any other reasons. I stick to a few basic rules that I discovered and will discuss about.

To start this project I had to look at some other portfolio websites as a point of reference and analyze the reasons that made these portfolios good or bad.

The first few websites I looked at are solely from artists that does 2d digital artworks, which is closer to what I’m in the process of making. http://marcsimonetti.artworkfolio.com/gallery/234825, http://www.jessevandijk.net/, http://www.ryanchurch.com/, http://www.artstorm.net/ These are 4 concept artist portfolios that are very professional and looks really sharp, all of them uses different layouts and arrangement but one thing in common is all of them had big piece of art to show off starting from the very first page; that tells you what their style or best works are like. I was thinking of doing this similarly on my site, however since I am also going to be making a show-reel, I will be using that instead on the very first page.

Next I looked at websites specifically on 3D artist for reasons that they uses show-reel more often for animations and also because 3D artists are still pretty much in the same line of what I do. http://www.artstorm.net/, http://www.andreiszasz.com/, http://www.timbergholz.com/ Again, all of them seems to vary, but one thing is still true that an enter page might be unnecessary and also all these websites had dark backgrounds (because it seems to contrast with the artwork more) which is something that I will be using on my site too.

Next I looked at completely random portfolio sites, http://www.becomeknown.co.uk/ http://www.koendemuynck.com/, http://www.ch3mical.com/, http://couchkumaras.com/, Most of them hardly had any text and never had to use more than just a few pages and buttons. So I think this is also one aspect of a good portfolio; to keep it really simple, not to keep too many things on the screen at a time, keep it easy to navigate.

There are 2 examples of sites that I would specifically avoid to make, because they are simply too crowded and finding my way through these sites turn out to be a pain. http://www.ashleywoodartist.com/ and http://www.cassius.com.au/category.html they may be great artists, especially Ashley Wood, however that webpage is in reality very hard to navigate in.

For my show-reel I looked up at quite a few on You-Tube again as reference. I thought I’d just put myself in the shoes of those people in the company who looks through portfolios to find good artist to hire. First up is from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCeImMZ3XXQ an artist called Johnson Ting. He may be a great artist, however the first problem is really the first thing that everyone should be wary about in making any portfolios; time. Its simply too long (more than 4 minutes) and I don’t have all day to look through all this portfolios on you tube so therefore I’ll ignore it and move on to a new one; which I think is precisely the same thing that people who does hiring would feel. The thing is he spent too long on each drawing, but I think the idea of the show-reel is not to show people the real artwork, but instead to give people our impression of it, our style. When people are interested, they will ask for more and will be bothered to look at it on our portfolio anyway.

Next http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03dl3HWWiaM&feature=related , this person’s portfolio is done under a good time (1 minute 30 seconds) so I think this is a good range to have the video finish at. However one main problem with this show-reel is that its completely silent, there isn’t any music which makes its more bearable for many cases. Comparing that to this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVytWA0Y57I by Jordan Ross, he had his whole show-reel done in animation, like a journey to his various work and most of all he had music that goes with the video. The best part is that, his drawings isn’t very amazing however the whole video was so interesting, almost like a music video that it made it worth the while to watch it. However I do also think that at times it might have been a bit too visually tiring and the movements distorts the quality of the real work.

With this things in mine I finished my own portfolio http://www.wix.com/epiclone/elbert-lim-2012 with the show-reel at the front; which is about one and a half minute long and paced in different rhythm to keep viewers from getting bored, with music ‘Any Colour You Like’ by Pink Floyd which seems to suit it very well. My sites includes 5 main buttons, home, gallery, music, about and contact. The galleries are scrollable and most importantly expandable, it is also made of 3 buttons, digital illustrations, graphic novel, and miscellaneous. Games soundtracks and other music can be found on the music section. Links to my other sites and email are all in the contact. The whole design is just straightforward, simple, easy to navigate design, professional looking and most importantly, functional.

My portfolio is done on WIX, which utilizes a very useful page editor that you can mould into pretty much any site you want.

Can Games Change the World?

It has always been a debate, an argument about what this phenomenon called ‘Video Games’ has been, are and will be doing to the world. It has always been an issue about whether it is an activity that wastes time for youth versus it actually contributing in any better way. I will explore some of the issue in this nature by looking at 3 different game designers that had a talk on TED; Jane Mcgonigal, Brenda Bathwaite and Gabe Zichermann. I also will be discussing in more details about a few games regarding this issue. Lastly, looking beyond all that I will also give my view on the real question, which is ‘Can digital games change the world?’.

So first of all I’ll start with the talk made by Jane Mcgonigal, “is a world-renowned designer of alternate reality games — or, games that are designed to improve real lives and solve real problems.” As quoted from her own website. Her purpose of the talk is to let people be aware that games are and had been a growing phenomenon which had a large number of kids participating in; as she explained in detail, ‘10000 hours’ are being put into playing games on average to some of these people’s life, a similar total of hours applies to years of educations and also ‘to be a virtuoso’. This of course raises the question of whether or not it is a good or a bad thing to spend time on this thing we call ‘video games’, which she tackles differently. Jane Mcgonigal steered the interest to what we can get out of this situation; an its here to stay so might as well embrace it attitude. One of the key things that she mentions are as follow; the people that spent their 22 hours a week dedicated to playing World Of Warcraft (WOW) which is parallel to having a part time job are ‘Happier working hard than we relaxing.’ Which I think is absolutely true; she dubbed this the ‘Blissful Productivity’ which is something that people at work need, or just in general life; a positive look at problem solving, working with each other while all the while it is a fun experience to be doing or at least to make it not feel like a hassle and simply make it easier and a more pleasurable experience; this is also backed up by a story about the Kingdom of Lydia which uses a dice game to survive 18 years of famine, in short it ‘let people escape real world suffering.’ as again quoted from the talk. So basically games had been designed not just for fun, but might also be for more noble reasons some of which Jane Mcgonagal had already been taking part in, such as creating alternate reality games that simulates the world condition in grim scenarios like oil depletion and how the people that plays it can contribute as a whole and work towards a solution for survival. In reality it is still just a bunch of people spending their time on an hypothetical situations, however in a bigger picture these are the people that will help solve real life problems which also brings my point to another talk on TED by Gabe Zichermann, “He is the chair of the Gamification Summit and Workshops, and is co-author of the book “Game-Based Marketing” (Wiley, 2010) where he makes a compelling case for the use of games and game mechanics in everyday life, the web and business.” as stated on The Gamification Blog.

Similar to Jane Mcgonigal, Gabe Zichermann touched on the fact that games are not at all useless or a waste of time, in fact it is proven that games do indeed increases one’s various skills, reflexes or multitasking capabilities for example. Digressing slightly, he even mentioned that juggling for 12 weeks apparently increases brain matter simply because the act of learning makes one smarter, but this brings this discussion to 2 points; first which is the fact that we should embrace gaming as a tool or form of learning and bonding, secondly it is about using ‘gamification’ on work; how this can be used to again solve problems and even making money. To elaborate on the first point, he touched on 5 things that is a key to problem solving; which are, “seek novelty, challenge yourself, think creatively, do things the hard way and network.” Which he then relates to how a good game is actually made, which again is parallel to the other talk which also emphasized how it can be used for learning, this also relates back to solving real life problems with games. Gabe Zichermann touched upon ‘gamification’, which is basically applying games to learn or help people learn. It can also help to shape society and cleverly enforce rules such as in his anecdote about the speed limit that was made into lucky draws. One of my favorite quote from the talk had to be when he discussed about how video games are said to cause children to have A.D.D and he said, “‘is it that our children has A.D.D, or is our world too freaking slow for our children to appreciate?” which sadly is true and it is not wrong to say that gaming gives the different type of education that children need, but it is definitely not a negative thing if it actually made them think faster and be more creative.

Another talk that I saw was from Brenda Brathwaite, an American game designer and developer which talk is the most relevant to what I’m about to discuss on some games. Brenda Brathwaite brings up the question of whether a game is simply just a ‘game’ or does it actually symbolizes something deeper, an understanding perhaps between people? Or cultures? Or emotions? She explained this in a few ways and one of them is about a baseball games; how the Red Sox won and how many people were deeply affected by it even when none of them are actually even participating in it. Another story that she had was about her daughter who could care less or even misinterpret a black history at first but then experienced an emotional ride of the Middle Passage through the usage of a board game Brenda created, this in turn affected Brenda herself and her husband and was definitely a powerful experience for all of them. She also then talked about how games can also bring people together to share different culture and experience.

This brings me to discuss about several games that I think are great examples of those contributions mentioned above. There are many games that have already been applied to the Army or for political purposes; flight simulations, driving simulations, live action battle simulations; they are all simulations, make believes, games. Even First Person Shooter (FPS) games that had been in debates of brainwashing kids to be more violent and serves to propagate and get people to work for the arm forces; whether this is true or not, the truth is it still does contribute to people that plays them in many ways such as team based communications skills, hand and eye coordination and perseverance in completing a task, just to name a few, this could all always be applied to something less violent of course. There also games that serves as a therapy or even to improve health like Flower by That Game Company which is a very relaxing game or Wii-Fit where players can spend a few hours on and possibly lose a few pounds in the process. Games like Metal Gear Solid series, Mount & Blade, Grand Theft Auto, Assassin’s Creed, Way of the Samurai series are all a source of interactive information on culture, historical happenings and even the future itself.

Puzzles based games like the Portal series or Plant Versus Zombies (PvZ) especially, are games that always start as a simple puzzle and slowly evolves into a ridiculously challenging yet addictive form of game-play. The cleverly paced learning curve allow players to get into the game while at the same time not being intimidated by it like how some retro games are for example ‘Ghost & Ghouls’ which is ridiculously hard from the start; Portal and PvZ let the players feel good and smart for solving each and every puzzle or level, which is also humorously mentioned by ‘Wheatley’ a character from Portal 2, saying that it is an ‘Itch’ that needs to be scratch each time, he is referring of course to the addictively-satisfying puzzle based game-play. They even have a slogan that says ‘Thinking In Portal’, this established that we are able to learn something new and perceive the world differently and solve all these problems presented in the game, which is if we refer to what Gabe Zichermann mentioned about increasing brain matter as we learn, playing these games definitely did that. Games like Demon Souls, Darksouls, or classic old school games such as Mega Man, Mario, Sonic, Metroid and many more features levels which requires patience, determination and most importantly limited amount of life to complete.

There is a Television series in Japan called ‘Gamecenter CX’ hosted by their Chief Shinya Arino; this a show where Chief Arino will play through some of the hardest classic retro games that were on Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) or Super Nintendo (SNES) and many other retro consoles, the goal is to show the audience the ending of all these different games under a certain time limit. Although it may sound like a silly TV show where you just watch another person plays a game, it does not take long for any viewer to realize that the difficulties presented by each of this games requires so much perseverance and dedication to conquer. On one of the episode Chief Arino had to endure and 8 hour repetitive battle against just one terribly difficult level, which he then managed to overcome and finish, and that gave him such a boost in his later episodes saying things like how after all that ordeal, one could pretty much endure and overcome everything; even in real life, in other words, he leveled up, pun intended. These types of games require players to be very careful, not to go ‘Rambo’ and mindlessly running and gunning across the level, it requires precision, timing, focus and most of all, patience, these games forces players to learn from their mistakes and not to repeat them again. So it is only natural that in time, people who are constantly exposed to these conditions will develop a personality based on those positive aspects.

Then there are also games like, Out Of This World, Journey, ICO, Limbo, which makes one experience storytelling and emotional ride like no other. These are the games which combines the aspects of being in a trip of reading a novel but having the visual impact of watching a movie while at the same time it engages the body and mind like in a game of football or chess (bar being as competitive, as the nature of these games tends to be more about working with others and not to work against). It even inspires musically; personally some of the game soundtrack I came across exposed me to a bunch of different music genres, such as the jazzy, swing tunes in L.A Noire, songs from different radio channels in Grand Theft Auto series or even simple 8-bit legendary tunes like Mario or the witty pop rock tune in Portal. Like mentioned by Brenda Brathwaite, “it is a Powerful experience”. 

With that, it brings this discussion to the real question of whether a game can be persuasive and change the world. In my personal opinion, from what I gathered, games are already shaping the world. Video game is a powerful tool that if used right definitely benefit the world just like what Jane Mcgonigal is striving to achieve. It brings people of different status, races and backgrounds together. What is really happening is that some people are not yet seeing this impact or are still in denials; still seeing video games as that troublesome cartridge that you have to blow before inserting it on the console and creates 8-bit visuals with cheap and funny sound effects. Video game is ultimately a history in a form of interactivity; each era and culture is defined by its technologies and products; whether it’s the games or the players.

Bibliography:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameCenter_CX

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Brathwaite

http://gamification.co/gabe-zichermann/

http://janemcgonigal.com/play-me/

http://www.ted.com/talks/brenda_brathwaite_gaming_for_understanding.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/gabe_zichermann_how_games_make_kids_smarter.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html