For the April Symposium, we’ll discuss The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, with David leading the discussion. The main thing that I’d like to talk about is how the fact that it’s a sequel affects the game, in both positive and negative ways. But if we want to talk about other stuff (e.g. the physics engine), then that’s great, too!
Discussion over Discord at 8:30pm EDT / 7:30pm CDT / 5:30pm PDT.
The March Symposium will be on Genshin Impact, with Tony leading the discussion. Quoting Tony:
Developed by miHoYo from Shanghai, Genshin Impact has captivated both Chinese gamers and a global audience since its debut in 2020. This online RPG open-world game is freely accessible across multiple platforms. But its incorporation of a Gacha system and regular monthly updates, introducing new stories, characters, and mechanics, has propelled it to become one of the most profitable games in the industry. The game’s rich narrative and intricate gameplay mechanics have also sparked academic interest, leading to the development of various courses in universities (for example, CMU’s Genshin Impact Theory Crafting 101). Due to the extensive storyline that requires dedicated effort to traverse, and with monthly updates continually expanding the game world, our discussion for March will focus on the following key points related to the game’s form and gameplay:
The Symposium will be on Thursday, March 7 at 8:30 EST / 7:30 CST / 5:30 CST, voice chat over Discord.
We’ll return to the genre-bending Marvel’s Midnight Suns for this month’s symposium, in large part because I have to get ready to give a talk about it in the middle of March and I’d like to gauge symposiasts responses to the way I’m planning to discuss the deckbuilding mechanics. I chose Midnight Suns for the talk because I was asked to focus on a relatively current game, and because the card mechanics at least have a reasonable amount of intersection with my principal research interests at the moment, which involve cooperative adventure games (my term), in particular The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, Arkham Horror: The Card Game, and Marvel Champions: the Card Game.
Thus, the central question I’m hoping we’ll consider on Thursday is, How does the deckbuilding in Midnight Suns intersect with the thematics of superheroism in the Marvel Universe? Corollary questions include:
This Thursday at 8:30 Eastern/5:30 Pacific. Conversation on Discord.
Our inaugural Symposium for 2024 will be on Dave the Diver, on January 4. Ariel will be leading the discussion; quoting Ariel:
For January, we will be discussing Dave the Diver. In particular, I’d like to discuss how the gameplay interacts with the overt themes. Comparing it with Endless Ocean on the Wii seems particularly apt, but other games may also serve as useful references. Action-adventure and roguelike games, for example, offer a useful comparison for the exploration portion. Overall, do Dave the Diver‘s many eclectic elements come together into a cohesive whole?
We’ll meet at 8:30 EST / 7:30 CST / 5:30 PST on Discord.
A look through the reviews and media coverage of Lies of P (2023) shows a frequent term: “Soulslike.” A quick search of the PlayStation 5 coverage via Metacritic, for example, shows the term appearing over 30+ times across the reviews aggregated there. And for those who have invested dozens of hours in the Dark Souls series of games, the resemblance is easy to see. The design of entire sections and several boss mechanics in Lies of P (2023) echo other games like the introductory area of Dark Souls 3 (2016) and twisted streets of Bloodborne (2015) with small improvements and tweaks along the way. Yet, as many reviews have also pointed to, the framing of Lies of P (2023) is very unlike is sister and cousins within the genre and its sub-categories. It is based on an existing story with even the beginning of the game explicitly naming the author of The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883), Carlo Collodi, as an inspiration for the game’s world and narrative presentation.
Yet, Lies of P (2023) is not a retelling of the Pinocchio story. It is both much darker in execution and lighter in many thematics. Where the morality of The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) intersects with the necessity of a postlapsarian society of the genre, the tropes and common themes of Soulslike games overrides the far earlier exploration of the complexities between father and son; between societal expectations and individuality; and, of course, the role lying plays in many relationships. In many ways, this is the problem with Lies of P (2023): it inherits from multiple sources and, at times, also copies their own lesser sins. As part of the larger family of Soulslike games, it also embraces the same frictions to player progression and mechanical expression. Like its sisters, it is in many places difficult simply to be difficult because the genre demands it be so. From The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883), it borrows from many characters, re-enacting their own storylines and, in some cases, the same tragic ends told again.
For our December 2023 symposium, let’s consider Lies of P (2023) within the following set of questions:
Let’s gather again on Thursday, December 7, 2023 at 8:30 EDT / 7:30 CDT / 5:30 PDT with voice chat over Discord to discuss.
The survivalism at the heart of 11 Bit’s Frostpunk is far from a triumphant indulgence of rugged individualism. Cold and desperate, the settlers that collectively attempt to forge a New London in the midst of an unthinkable blizzard are confronted by inevitable sacrifice. In this city-builder, it’s the player’s choice as Captain to decide what will be left behind and explore what — if anything — can possibly be built in its place.
We huddle around the fire on Thursday at 8:30 EDT / 7:30 CDT / 5:30 PDT with voice chat over Discord to discuss.
For our October Symposium, we’re discussing Pentiment. David will be leading the discussion; I imagining that the theme of the game alone will lead to quite a bit of discussion, but I’m also curious to talk about how the game compares to other games in related genres (e.g. visual novels, detective games).
From Captain Quasar, who’ll moderate our discussion.
While the other members of the initiative have their nostalgic games that reminded them of a certain era, a la Mario or Mega Man, I had Supergiant Games’ Bastion, released in 2011.
It was quite a mature story for the age I played it at, dealing with an interracial conflict that leads to the quasi-apocalypse, with added themes of morality and found family. Obviously, I was more interested in my choice of weapons and the funny man with a raspy voice that I most certainly tried to imitate with little success. I recently made another return to Bastion after I finally repurchased it on steam to round out my Supergiant collection, and the playthroughs I did reaffirmed my love for every aspect of the game, recognizing how it shaped my tastes in art, music, and video games as a whole.
However, I was stopped in my tracks near the end of my first replay by my realization of the most obvious allusion the game was trying to make, one that made me slap my face out of disbelief for how I could have missed it for 12 years straight: how the game was an allegory for American-Japanese relations and the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
How does Bastion present a 21st century American perspective on what happened in 1945? Does the fast action the game features present Ludonarrative Dissonance with its themes? And did anybody cry during that one scene in the game? Because I certainly didn’t, stop asking.
On Thursday, September 7th, at 8:30 Eastern and 5:30 Pacific, this critical issue will be hashed out in the secret backchannel of the VGHVI Discord Server. See you there!
The question I keep coming back to as I try to get to the end of my apparently endlessly ongoing playthrough of Marvel’s Midnight Suns is, alas, probably going to sound boring at best and trivial at worst, but I hasten to add that I don’t mean it in a boring or a trivial way. You guessed it, I imagine: genre. Just what the Hell is this possibility space that confronts us, full of RPG storytelling and exploration, genre-crossing collection and crafting, and above all deckbuilderesque-but-tactics-inflected card-based combat, segmented according to a twenty-four cycle during which it’s apparently not possible to hang out before you go beat up some Hydra minions, and not possible to craft after you come home victorious?
I mean, who cares, if it’s fun? — and the vast majority of it is, for me, very fun. But where games are concerned, genre is a matter of the kinds of choices afforded to the player, and Midnight Suns has some fascinating sets of choices, arranged and afforded in some fascinating ways.
So, since you know card games are a thing for me right now, let’s at least see if we can nail down the card system and how it relates to other games, both card and not, that seem worth comparing. Is all the thematic RPG stuff just an elaborate exegetic frame for the deckbuilding?
Then maybe we can take a look from the other way round: how effectively does the card-based combat serve as a set of metaphors (the set, too, being in itself an overarching metaphor) for the BIF!, POW!, and KKKKKRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAKKKKKAAAAAATHHHHOOOOM!!!!! of Marvel Universe whacking contests? What are the specific pleasures and meaning effects of Midnight Suns’ combat system, and how do they relate to the pleasures and meaning effects of other Marvel platforms? How does all of that help (or fail to help) the player tell their own version of Hunter’s story in the MU?
Conversation on Discord at 8:30pm Eastern/5:30 Pacific!
Hi-Fi-Rush (2023) stealth-dropped during the Developer_Direct stream from Xbox on Jan 25, 2023. Within a week, IGN, PC Gamer, and PC Mag had praised its art direction and soundtrack. However, many, like PC Gamer, have noted how its rhythm mechanics can be frustrating over longer periods.
For this symposium, let’s consider the past in conversation with the present. Hi-Fi Rush (2023) is drawing from a longer history of “stylish-action” games like the combat heavy Devil May Cry series and platformers like the Racket and Clank series. Yet, by incorporating a rhythm-based mechanic, it is also invoking a past across series like Gutiar Hero and Rock Band through which players are asked to perform against a pace set by the game for the best results. It is also in direct conversation with the more recent Metal: Hellsinger (2022) and its own rhythm-based combat set in the first-person perspective.
Let’s chat about our own thoughts on Hi-Fi Rush (2023) this coming Thursday, June 1, 2023 starting at 8:30 EDT / 7:30 CDT / 5:30 PDT over Discord.
Video Games and Human Values Initiative 