Blog Post 10: The Best of the Showcase

At the DTC Showcase, there we numerous video clips shown to us that we made by groups of students in other classes. Some of them were quite well done, while others were decent overall, but there were still a small handful of rather incomprehensible videos created. There was also the group of our classes games waiting outside the showcase room, one of which I have chosen to discuss. The game in question is one I played on Monday and was quite intrigued by, one boardgame called "Draco's Quest."

Draco's Quest interests me so possibly because of the unique concept that it holds. To play, one picks a dragon token, a player token, and draws a "dragon card." Depending on what character you draw, your dragon token, which moves around the board, gains a special ability. You explore around the board, originally only able to move 2 spaces per turn, and only 1 in you enter or exit a special form of terrain. While exploring, you pick up food tokens around the board by walking onto them, which are portrayed as black hexagons. At the end of your turn, if you have two food tokens, you can use them to "level up" your dragon. On top of this, there are 10 levels overall, and reaching certain benchmarks on your leveling progress results in you gaining an additional movement space. There is also a "random event" pile, which is gotten from picking up a food token with a silver dot on it's underside. Possible events range from positive, such as a free food token, to negative, such as losing a food token, to horrendous, such as Lord Cthulhu the Deep One interrupting the game and attacking everyone for a loss of a level. The game itself has several win conditions that I can recall. These conditions are to be the only surviving player, to have the highest level when the game ends, and I believe reaching Level 10 before anybody else.

Aside from interesting me in terms of game play mechanics, Draco's Quest also linked to several of the things we had spent time learning this semester, most likely due to the fact that it was created by a group within the DTC 375 class. The one that first leaps to mind is the concept of "value" from the Weatherford reading. While it seems strange because there isn't an actual currency in the game, the term value still holds true due to the player's desire to collect more food tokens for their dragon, which they can lose or gain through a variety of events. It creates a desire of sorts in the minds of the players, therefore creating the concept of value about these little black hexagons meant to represent food.

It can also be said that the concept of "pranks" from Bogost also has it's place in the game. Recall the above comment about Cthulhu being a possible random event card? It's not the only ridiculous event card on can pull. Others spring to mind in the form of the WSU Creamery technically being part of the game through said random cards, and one that I actually drew into myself was a card that described you being so shocked by your best friend introducing their latest romantic partner to you, a chicken, that you actually lose your next turn.

Blog Post 8: Bogost Observation

In what we have read in Bogost so far, he has covered the concepts of art, empathy, reverence, music, and pranks. Of these, I'm going to be covering the discussion of pranks in this blog post.

Bogost starts his discussion of pranks by stating that by definition, "Pranks are a type of dark humor that trace a razor's edge between amusement and injury." (Bogost, 37) In simpler terms, pranks are inherently funny due to a combination of risk and reward for the one performing the prank, and the varying ways the target can react in response to the successful execution of a prank. Bogost uses examples from video games such as SimCopter and it's inclusion of "himbos," a bizarre term used for the male bimbos which Jacques Servin programmed into the game to simply walk around and interact with others. Additionally, he shows that the entirety of games can be a prank, such as Syobon Action, a pseudo Mario clone that outright punishes the player for following traditional genre conventions of platforming games.

To extend upon Bogost's writing, I feel the need to discuss the nature of relationship I share with numerous online friends. Specifically, while we get along, none of use hesitate to relentlessly mock and prank one another, though the latter tends to appear far more commonly than the former. This particular story is a prank of sorts I pulled without the intention of it even being a prank, and was just trying to sound as ridiculous as possible. What did I do, you may ask?

I told my friends I was hired as the school cafeteria's official "Pancake Puncher."

To my friends, it makes sense that I punch these into existence. No, seriously.

To iterate, during a somewhat serious talk about jobs, I decide to make my friends laugh by saying I was hired as a "Pancake Puncher" because the school's pancakes were too fat to be considered pancakes, so I had to punch them into shape. The others expressed interest in this statement, and encouraged me to keep talking, at which point I thought they were playing along. Only close to 10 minutes later, after one of my friends left for the night, did I discover that yes, my friends thought I was serious.

As it turns out, they had come to associate me and the exceedingly bizarre happenings that occur to me on an alarming basis as average, and were willing to believe almost anything that flew out of my mouth. In this case, one of my friends actually went to see if he could find a job as a Pancake Puncher somewhere. You have no idea how much I wish I was making that statement up.

Such an event, in retrospect with this reading of Bogost on pranks taught me something seemingly fundamental about them. If you can cast a haze of the bizarre and insane around yourself at all times simply by what happens in your day to day life, you can weave the most ridiculous, pointless pranks into reality simply because your friends and family will have seen and heard stranger things from you. In simpler terms, if the circumstances allow it, you can weaponize the concept of "Truth is stranger than fiction" whenever you feel like playing a prank on your friends.

Blog Post 7: Online Examination

For the anthropological study of online social media subculture, I chose a rather unique topic. That is to say, the Youtube channel "NISLT," a collaborative video blog of sorts focused around various aspects of the Team Fortress 2 online community.

The member of the group are, of course, focused around the channel owner "NISLT," and consist almost exclusively of members of the Team Fortress 2 player base. These people also submit videos of their game footage to the channel owner in hopes he will eventually upload the clip, with minor edits and credit given to the submitter for all to see. These clips, while varying in content and theme regarding the actual game play with each video, always follow a set layout. A title card, followed by the start of game play with the player being introduced, the events of the footage, and an end of episode screen linking to other recent videos.

The community of players is essentially what one would come to expect from people who focus around a central, competitive game: Completely bloody insane. Looking to the video comments, one can find that some people are actually antagonized and told to leave simply because they post a comment on each video, or even by posting a strange running gag of sorts for the channel. That is to say, the phrase "best *blank* EU," with the blank being something related to the video in question.

Not all members of this community think along those lines though, as there seems to be a much less vocal but supportive group of people who are willing to accept and encourage the type of video goer listed above. This can be seen by the usually staggering number of "up-votes" a comment receives. This signifies a rather divisive split in the channels community. Those who are there purely for the videos and are seemingly irritated by the joking nature of the comments, and those who think of the comments as a place to be free and have fun even if ti only remotely relates to the video in question.

The chaotic mishmash of a community that always seems at war with one another, while odd in existence and concept, could be viewed as a natural result of being based on the Team Fortress 2 game. While a long running FPS, it has become more or less infamous for how insane general game play has become. Hats are the core of the game, guns are viewed as near worthless, and a simple frying pan that's bright gold in coloration could run you $5000! To have a community that is anything but completely off it's rocker would honestly violate what the game has become in modern times.

Blog Post 3: The Interface of the Game

In the weekly reading of McLuhan's The Medium is the Massage, there is a rather interesting statement towards the end of assigned section.

"The instantaneous world of electric informational media involves all of us, all at once. No detachment or frame is possible."

Now a question arises: While can be viewed as true in the time period the book was written in, the late 1960's to be precise, does the phrase still hold true in modern times? And, more so, does this message hold true for the current entertainment medium of video games?

As a fan of video games myself, there is quite an assortment to choose from for discussion within the blog post. For this post, instead of discussing a "traditional" game, I will look at and comment on a somewhat recent game that started on the PC, and proceeded to take the gaming world by storm. The game I speak of is, of course, Minecraft.

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Minecraft is a rather unique game played from a first person perspective. So unique, in fact, I don't even know what to properly classify it as, save for the two obvious elements of "multiplayer" and "adventure." In it, you can manipulate the world however you please. You can say, build a quaint little house for yourself.

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...Or a massive castle.

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Or maybe you're just completely bloody insane and install a series of mods that let you strip half naked while wielding a tiny sword and riding atop a noble unicorn.

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Needless to say, Minecraft is a game of endless possibilities, both online and in single player. As mentioned in the above, still completely bloody insane picture, skilled players are capable of making "mods" for the base game, which add or change existing content in some way, and post them online for other players to download and make use of themselves. This behavior alone I feel helps prove McLuhan's message at the top of this blog entry. In Minecraft, players are always working together in some way, somewhere. As you read, it's incredibly likely a duo of expert builders just made a life-sized replica of the Buckingham Palace in Minecraft and are currently celebrating. Or a trio of bumbling adventurers fell into the same lava pit that has murdered their hopes and dreams for the past week. Maybe a single person just finished updating his popular mod pack, and put it up online for the rest of the player base to finally enjoy.

In Minecraft, detachment from the frame, or from other players, simply isn't a thing. Even solo, you are more than likely to borrow concepts from other players. The fact that Minecraft became as big a thing as it is today proves that McLuhan's point has managed to withstand the test of time.

Blog Entry 2: The Uses of Money

Money is easily the most powerful driving force in the modern world, as it has been for most of recent history, and will most likely continue to remain as such into the foreseeable future. Of course, even as a rather universal concept in function, how different individuals or groups use and think of money can wildly vary. One fictional example is the movie Goodfellas, in which instead of asking for a precise total of money, character Karen Hill instead indicates the thickness of the stack of bills she wanted to go shopping with. Obviously, this isn’t how most people think regarding money. In this blog post, there will be coverage regarding the differences in how an individual student, in this case myself, compared to Pullman natives, professors, as well as other students.

First and foremost, money is always something that I need to be wary of whenever I am required to spend it. A native to the Pullman area would most likely head down to a local grocer and buy various food items, as well as any professor. For myself, I hesitate to purchase even a .20¢ packet of ramen. This is because as a student, I already have very little spending room, with both a minor amount of cash available to me and a current lack of income. Additionally, as a student I have access to the resident dining halls, which allows me to make use of cash deposited into the account by my parents to see me through the semester. This allows me to purchase food whenever I desire, provided I head down at the correct time, while not directly impacting the amount of cash in my bank account. This makes it a bit pointless to purchase anything from a grocery store, seeing as I already possess a means to get similar products.

Secondly, for what money I do spend, I have resigned myself to use it only when I need to purchase a necessity not already available to me. This means I do not bother to spend cash on things such as treats for myself, items for my own personal entertainment, or things I already have access to. This means, unlike most other people, who more often than not occasionally purchase something for themselves despite not truly needing it, I avoid such things due to budget issues. Admittedly, this is a rather difficult concept that I occasionally grapple with, as I am a gamer at heart, but needs go before relaxation no matter what. I must admit though, I was overjoyed to find out part of the DTC 375 curriculum was to purchase one of three games, of which Papers, Please was something I had my eye on for quite some time.

Lastly, as a student, I feel like I spend very little money overall compared to the general populous of students. Sporting events have never been something that’s caught my attention, so I have yet to attend even a single game held on campus grounds. The only times I visit on campus shopping areas like the CUB is when I have no choice left on that day, such as falling asleep prior to dinner, and awakening only after all the dining halls have closed for the day. Even the vending machines strewn about the various buildings rarely see my attention, and even then my rare business tends to only consist of buying a cheap snack to help my low blood sugar, or a caffeinated soda to help keep me up for the next few hours. To say I have a minimalist spending routine would be quite accurate as of this moment, with myself only being willing to doll out for the bare necessities, and nothing more.

…Though I will confess that once I have a source of income and some money to fall back on, I would be much more willing to spend some money of some of the more entertaining aspects available to me.