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Low poly hunting shotgun based off of Mad Max

984 triangles, 1024 x 1024 texture

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8XDnn

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another longform essay

This one is about Little Inferno, and how it expresses the alienation we face in the real world.

Little Inferno and Alienation     

first posted on https://glasswalker.github.io

When I was a teenager, I spent a lot of time exploring indie video games to get an idea of how far indie can really go. I took advantage of cheap sales, and Little Inferno ended up being bundled into one of my purchases. The allure of the game pulled me in, and quickly the basic premise of the game got me hooked. You set physics objects on fire. Being a juvenile delinquent, I was already predisposed to wanting to set things on fire. Through all of the therapeutic gameplay, the game has an inescapable message that it’s trying to get across: the alienation and Neoliberalism in our society is overwhelming.

You play as a child, in a nearly dilapidated building, with a deluxe heavily marketed fireplace to keep you warm. The town is seemingly in shambles and the weather is always described as completely bleak. Throughout the game, you pass letters between a girl who expresses a lot of alienated or disturbing behavior. You progress by consistently buying new items with the money you earn from burning old items. The game ends with you burning down your house, and walking into the corporate headquarters and confronting the CEO of the company that creates the fireplaces. It’s a very minimalist  story; yet, its complexity shows through its emergent gameplay.

Before I can contextualize, it’s important to properly express what I mean by alienation. There are many different ideas of what alienation entails; for the purposes of this essay, I’ll be referring to Karl Marx’s theory of alienation. The general premise of his theory is that people lose the ability to determine their own lives and destinies when they can’t see themselves as one who makes their own decisions, to judge the nature of their actions, define relationships with people, and be responsible for their work, well being, and personal property. In the game, you have no real agency. Your existence is reduced to burning things in a fireplace for your own sustenance. You’re virtually powerless in a doomed town, with other disenfranchised and psychologically tormented children.

Neoliberalism is another really vague term. It can represent a lot of things, from foreign policy to socio-economics. To me personally, it’s more of a viral attitude of Capitalism. Some of the more well meaning Neoliberals want to keep a free market while doing enough to compensate the basic needs of citizens. But to me, it’s more of a poisonous consumerist mentality that consuming can solve your problems. In the game, the corporation essentially capitalizes the leisure activity of burning items in the fireplaces, that they own. In Neoliberalism, everything is an enterprise. And the therapeutic veneer of burning stuff merely masks a cycle of labor and profits. The game makes it visibly clear how this directly affects the children of the game.

Little Inferno through its minimal approach manages to express a lot of these things without overtly stating them. Your entertainment is necessary labor, stripping it of real authentic enjoyment. Children with no agency lash out and burn down their houses. Uncaring CEOs only use the suffering of their customers so they don’t have to experience it themselves. Genuine relief and catharsis are nothing more than compartments of labor, removing all authenticity of the act. The bleakness of society is drowned out through the optimism of consumerist solutions. The game really doesn’t have to say a lot, because the mechanics and visual storytelling of the game express enough on their own.

When I was a teenager, I couldn’t put my finger on why this game was so appealing to me. Now that I’m slightly older and have more context for the world, I feel like I can appreciate the game much more. Of course there’s the possibility that all of this was unintended by the developers; though, this doesn’t matter that much. The meaning someone gets out of a video game is always going to be different, especially in that emergent gameplay will result in personalized experiences. Little Inferno is about taking back control to me. Most importantly, it’s about knowing how we lost our control and agency.

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Have not posted in a long time

Well.. I just haven’t been in the habit of using tumblr. So I guess I’ll post a few longform essays I did since the last time I was here. Also im going to try to post more art I made and generally use this tumble more. Neways...

The Blackwell Legacy, A Haunting Vignette     

first posted on https://glasswalker.github.io

      The Blackwell Legacy opens with an uncomfortably familiar western ritual. Mourning the loss of someone barely known. You’re given a bold first impression of the main character, Rosa. Bitter, cynical, isolated, and alienated. The first part of the game continues with a tornado of familiar issues people tend to face in real life. Uncomfortable forced socialization, reconciling hereditary medical problems, dealing with a boss that doesn’t respect you, and being reminded that you’ve lost the will to pursue things you used to love. Rosa not only is alienated, but has no agency with society at large. By the end of the first act, I felt deeply uncomfortable, like the game was staring into my soul.

No portion of the first act was as impactful as the scene in the psychiatric ward. It builds exposition of the series by bringing up the mental health history of Rosa’s relatives. The doctor warns her that Dementia is a very likely possibility for her in the future, and could start to manifest at any moment. It goes on to explain that her relatives were both extreme cases, sedated their entire lives at risk of having extreme and violent outbursts. By this point in the game, my heart was sinking and I was drifting in thought about my own family history and future complications I’m going to have to face; although, not anything nearly as bad as what Rosa is faced with.

Following the unfolding of the first act, the focus directs itself back towards the psychiatric issues of Rosa. She goes through the affects of her relatives, revealing a lot of erratic behavior in her aunt that had passed away at the beginning of the game. It filled me with great relief to know the fate of Dementia is more of a metaphysical misunderstanding, as it’s revealed that she and her relatives were all gifted with the powers of a psychic medium. The infamously uncouth ghost Joey reveals himself to Rosa and attempts to contextualize the history of her relatives.

In low fantasy, this is usually the point at which fear and doubt are dispelled to lay out the journey of the protagonist. Joey may have answered some questions and initiated the call to action, but his avoidance of answering critical questions only gripped me with more fear of what might happen. Joey is never forthright about how Rosa’s relatives ended up permanently hospitalized. He has a knowing urgency in his tone, trying to usher Rosa through her new job as a medium. Joey has seen consequences; he doesn’t want Rosa to experience them like her relatives before her. I’m haunted by thoughts like these about the people I love. While making my way through the second act of the game, my mind is drifting, thinking about guilt, loved ones, friends, and regret.

Rosa’s quest throughout the game is fairly straightforward. With the help of Joey, she has to find a way to help a ghost pass on. The ghost is associated with a string of college student suicide attempts. Attempting to learn the identity of the ghost, Rosa unveils a deeper issue of a malicious ghost compelling the suicides. With the aid of a girl who survived, Rosa and Joey both solve the mystery, release the ghost of the first victim, and absolve the soul of the malicious ghost, the Deacon.

By the end of the game, it gives a lot to reflect on. Sure, Rosa is a little more self actualized as a result of her psychic awakening. She has socialized more with the people around her, and has more confidence in her abilities as a writer and journalist. She’s building towards something better, as we all want to. The grim reality of her life still haunts her. Joey still doesn’t have the nerve to let out whatever disturbing truth may be behind the hospitalization of her relatives. She’s still constrained by a lot of external forces in her life. The Blackwell Legacy uncompromisingly reminds the player of real problems; and for that, it deserves to be celebrated.

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15/15

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Sit back for a moment and listen to this oddly intriguing, slightly haunting tune from an incredibly unfair PlayStation game. Right next to the most fitting artwork

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Vampires rule the night, but their numbers are dwindling.

Revisiting an old favourite (:

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Day 2 of #3December Companion Cube from Portal

“The Enrichment Center reminds you that the Weighted Companion Cube will never threaten to stab you and, in fact, cannot speak.“

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CCTV crow

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And once again here are my favorite pokemon

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I kind of had to redo my blog and delete all my posts.

To reintroduce myself, here’s a little img that explains me a bit.