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7/12/2018 6:57:36 PM
13
Favorite example of mechanics as metaphor?
Good evening everybody! This is Aifos coming to you alive from London, where—huh?
Jonathan: “Pardon the interruption, but I’m Doctor Jonathan Reid. I’m investigating the epidemic, and I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”
Oh, a doctor? Haven’t seen a doctor round these parts before! Well, except Kokonoe.. She doesn’t seem to keen on healing people, though!
Regardless, Dr. Reid, I’m afraid I have a post to run! No time for chatting with doctors!
If you’re unfamiliar with the term “mechanics as metaphor”, well then first off y’all need to be watching more Extra Credits, but essentially “mechanics as metaphor” refers quite simply to mechanics that act as metaphor.
For example, your “intelligence” stat in Dark Souls. Functionally, you increase intelligence, you increase sorcery damage. However, it’s a representation of how smart your character is.
Now, that one’s a pretty blatant metaphor, but some are a bit more crafty, and creative. What are some of your favorite examples?
[b][u]Tl;dr? Here’s my point![/u][/b]
Favorite examples of mechanics as metaphor?
My answer;
[spoiler]The XP system in Vampyr. For those unaware, killing regular enemies gets you a pretty miniscule amount of XP. So little in fact, that by natural progression of the game, you’ll be way underlevelled for just about everything.
This isn’t some sly tactic to push microtransactions, though. See, you get large amounts of XP by drinking civilian blood. The more you learn about a citizen, and the healthier you keep them, the more XP you’ll get when you betray their trust, and mercilessly murder them in a back alley somewhere.
Now, what is this a metaphor to? Why, it’s a repeesentation of a vampire’s bloodlust! The game can be fairly difficult at times if you let everyone live, and some people are right jerks. Sometimes it becomes so very tempting to sink your fangs into their neck.. But, with enough willpower, and determination, you can make it through the whole game with everyone alive, which mirrors how a vampire can do the same thing.
It’s a really brilliant system. Especially since at the beginning of the game, you don’t really need the extra XP, so your bloodlust steadily grows as the game progresses, and enemies begin to outlevel you.[/spoiler]
That’s all for now, folks! Jambuhbye!
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4 RepliesOn a scale of 1 to 10 how mad would you be if I said extra credits sucks
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1 ReplyWait... that’s how vampyr works? ... holy shite... that’s a cool mechanic.... I might get the game now.
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2 RepliesEdited by KingdeKobra: 7/14/2018 5:05:47 PMTitanfall 2 story. BT and Booker over the course of the campaign build a bond. Which is reflected in how useful his A.I. becomes when in auto pilot. Another good one is the Mob of the Dead cycle and The Cycle as a whole in COD zombies.
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5 RepliesOh, I have just remembered Cultist Simulator. That game is steeped in the metaphor of what your characters go through. You begin with nothing but a job and dreams. Dreams of somewhere that has no walls but a forest outside the walls. You know there’s a way you can become something greater, but you don’t know how exactly. As you dip into the unknown, you must also maintain your mortal self. Complications, rivals, health issues, and your own mind will hinder you. Time will always be a factor to account for. Organization can fall apart both in your character’s path and your own table with which you weave their course in life. Discovering that which must not be discovered is rarely an easy task for somebody with little more than dreams to go off of.
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2 RepliesAifos, I don't want to discourage you - you please do you - but what's with the preamble in every thread?
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1 ReplyMonster Hunter 4 Ultimate comes to mind for me. The game was all about this one monster called Gore Magala, and how it brought chaos to many ecosystems by spreading the frenzy virus. As the name suggests, the frenzy virus made any monster that was infected by it go on an a violent rampage, and then later kills it. Now if you get infected, a bar starts slowly building up over time. If it gets full, then you get a debuff that stops natural health recovery and you take additional damage from frenzy infested attacks. If you manage to hit a monster enough times before the bar fills up, then you overcome the virus and gain a boost to your crit chance. This means that the virus makes you as aggressive as the monsters it infects.
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3 RepliesEdited by Ninja_Lazer: 7/13/2018 3:08:35 AMBioshock comes to mind. The choice of wether to harvest or save the little sisters is pretty spot on. Really makes you question how far you would go for power, and if what you use that power for justifies it.
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3 RepliesBloodborne’s regen system for health. The frenzy one undergoes in desperately attempt to regain health is not unlike the concept of the beast within.
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3 RepliesEdited by LahDsai: 7/13/2018 1:02:37 AMKatamari is one big metaphor for consumerism. The more you collect, the more you want. Your desire for more and more snowballs as you obtain more and more needless stuff. When you see that one unobtainable thing on the horizon, you just want it that much more. You make a mental note and keep coming back to it until it's finally in your possession and then... IT'S NEVER ENOUGH! You need MORE! Roll it BIGGER! And in the end we are NEVER satisfied! We feel guilt not for our addiction but for our inadequacy. We will never stop until we have ravaged the cosmos of all it has to give!!!
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3 RepliesEternal Darkness is just one big mechanic.
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4 RepliesDestiny’s raid mechanics. They push you to work with your team, instead of doing your own thing in say a strike. On top of that, the raid mechanics are always different raid to raid, and each mechanic is unique. Other games may try this, but Destiny does it best. That’s the one part of the game I know will do well, is the raid mechanics.
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15 RepliesWhenever I play a game, I always view its mechanics as an actual thing within the game's universe, so whereas most people scream "Smash Bros is non-canon!" I use Smash Bros as an excuse to think about the massive shared Nintendo universe, where Samus, Link and Mario are all aware of each others' gam... I mean lives. So I guess my vote for favourite "mechanics as metaphors" is my imagination. [spoiler]Though admittedly, I sometimes take this too far, like when I began thinking about Mario and Dark Souls being in the same universe.[/spoiler]
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2 RepliesThe first clearest example I can think of this comes from that read on [url=https://spacebiff.com/2011/11/01/the-most-frightening-game-of-the-year/]Atom Zombie Smasher[/url] I read some time back. The depiction of the zeds and humans as dots, the scoring system, the music, all are designed to evoke a disconnection from the efforts you command. That eventually what matters most isn’t that rescue quota you have, but the reduction of zed numbers and territory. Fitting, considering the story of your nation’s president that’s told through the vignettes.
