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Bea is the latter half of the two relationships that Mae invests in as she retreats home from college. The two of them were friends prior to her leaving, but only to an extent. Their relationship was strained. By spending time with Bea, Mae is learning about two forms of ontology: relational and foundational ontology. The relational ontology refers to the meaning inherent in relationships. The foundational ontology could be understood as being a world view. It is the philosophy by which meaning is given to an object (such as meaning in life being derived from love or fame). Both of these ontologies lay a groundwork for Mae to potential restructure the world into a new and stable form. Bea and Mae's Relationship Overcoming the Past In order for a new relationship between Mae and Bea to begin to form, Mae must first move past her outdated view of their relationship. This process is mostly undergone in the beginning of the game. After having gotten drunk and made a fool of hersel

Gregg is one of the few entities connecting Mae to her old lifestyle. Possum Springs has undergone a radical change, eliminating the meaningful relational nucleation sites. Mae’s relationship with Bea is strained at best and aggressive at worst. Not even her family remains in the same position they were in before. Yet Gregg still exists as his wild and wacky self. Mae uses Gregg to try to return to her old lifestyle of crime and abandon. In her attempts, the worst parts of Mae’s old lifestyle surface. In her interactions with Gregg, Mae is shown that her old lifestyle is empty and abandons it for good. Characterizing the Old Lifestyle The old lifestyle that Mae is trying to return to is characterized by its vapid and destructive nature. One of the most common threads throughout Gregg’s storylines are crimes. These come in various forms, whether they be stealing animatronic heads from a supermarket or breaking into a haunted house. All of Gregg’s crimes are characterized by placing

“At the end of everything, hold onto anything” (Night in the Woods). When all meaning has dropped from the world and even the mere act of leaving ones room is terrifying, is that not the end of everything? Night in the Woods asks the question of what one should do in the face of an ontological crisis of world shattering magnitude. Mae, the main character, suffers a psychological breakdown that leads to a dangerous and nihilistic outlook. Her inability to cope with this new outlook causes her to seek meaning in places that were once meaningful. However, Mae finds that her past has physically disappeared and the only path back to meaning is by creating new meaning. The Nature of Mae's Crisis Mae suffers a serious psychological break prior to the beginning of the game. It is described by her as seeing everything as “just shapes// just like this moving bulk of… stuff… nothing was there for me anymore” (The End of Everything, NitW). Mae’s crisis is a breakdown of the meaning of

Everything is a philosophy expressed through play. Perhaps more strictly, it is an interactive tool to better understand the philosophy. The player can move from the farthest reaches of space to the deepest depths of the ocean and the tiniest grain of dust, experiencing the world from the perspective of, well, everything. The gameplay is simple. The player exists as an incorporeal consciousness that passes from object to object taking control of each of them. In doing so, the player either ascends or descends through the universe depending on the relative sizes of the entities. That is the majority of what the player will do as they traverse through the world. In addition to body-hopping, different entities can talk to you by presenting thought bubbles (quite literally) to the player. Some of these are more important and present the player with both objectives and sound-bites from a philosopher named Alan Watts. Beyond walking… well… tumbling around that is the jist of it. Now, t

Detention is a horror adventure game that was released by RedCandleGames. It follows the story of a girl who has been plunged into a desolate and horrific world with little to no explanation. The game is filled with Taiwanese folklore and history. What we will be focusing on here is the visual aspect of the storytelling throughout Detention, as it is a brilliant example of how game visuals can tell a story. Examples of Detention's Visuals The first thing to understand is that much of the visual storytelling throughout Detention tells a story that otherwise could not be conveyed. The player is a character who has suffered from trauma induced amnesia due to the experience of betraying her school to the authorities. The story occurs in the character’s own mind-scape as she tries come to terms with her actions. Much of the visual storytelling is expressing the nature and extent of the trauma that the character is facing without ever having to say it. The Lingering With that

Contents The Player's Place in the World The Five Alternatives to Labor The Final Cycle For such a short and simplistic piece, Every Day the Same Dream is capable of expressing an entire existential crisis. It uses mechanics as storytelling in a way that few other games have achieved. Every small detail tells its own story from the simple visuals to the use of color. Every Day the Same Dream attempts to show the degrading nature of the monotony of modern life through the avatar’s crisis. The Player's Place in the World The first thing that has to be considered is the game’s expression of the world. The player’s first interactions with the world are two fold: visual and auditory. The visual interaction comes in the form of a grey-scale landscape. There is nothing exciting (for the most part) about the world. It is simple, being composed of few, defined polygons and colored as simply as possible. This is no accident. The simplistic nature of the visuals makes everyt

The concept of being immersed in a game is a common idea in gaming culture. People would usually refer to some game with gorgeous graphics and lore the size of a duffel bag. While, without a doubt, immersion is created by great graphics and herculean lore, there is another form that it can take. There is a form of immersion that is created by the presentation of a puzzle. To explore this different type of immersion we will examine the game Sethian, a somewhat obscure indie title that represents this form of immersion superbly. Two Forms of Immersion However, before we start talking about Sethian , we have to understand what the more conventional form of immersion looks like. This is the immersion of beautiful landscapes, empathetic characters, and good lore, or what we will call narrative immersion. Narrative immersion is “the experience of being drawn in - even transported to a fictional world through storytelling” (What is Immersion 0:27). There are two key parts to this definit