Video Games and Human Values Initiative

This month, we’re talking about Hollow Knight. The two main questions that I’d like to talk about (including how these questions relate to each other):

• How we feel about the range and rhythm of uncertainty in the game.
• Where Hollow Knight fits in a genre context.

Discussion on Discord, 8:30pm EDT / 7:30pm CDT / 5:30pm PDT.

This month’s Symposium, led by Pat, will be on Invisible, Inc.  Quoting Pat:

This week we will be looking at Invisible Inc., from the creators of Mark of the Ninja.  It makes for an interesting comparison to Into the Breach.  Both games are technically in the same genre, that being turn-based strategy.  And certainly, both games are difficult and require a lot of tactical thinking. But there’s a huge difference in the kind and amount of information each game provides to its players.  There are many aspects of Into the Breach which are unknown: map layouts, enemy decisions, random rewards.  The player has several different means of anticipating those things, however, and so we might call them “known” unknowns.  Invisible Inc, on the other hand, conceals more than it reveals, thus giving the player “unknown” unknowns.  We’ll talk about the meaning of the two systems and the design philosophies they reflect.

We’ll meet this Thursday at 8:30pm EST / 5:30pm PST.