It seems as though the game is telling a story about the potential dangerousness of the outside world, and seeking shelter with those you can trust and who care is an important rule to live by. The game starts the player outside during a violent earthquake and once the player interacts with the nearest sprites they tell the player to seek shelter to escape the earthquake. The most immediately available shelter, though, is not very welcoming. The interior is strange and confusing with little, unfriendly cherry people zooming about and unapproachable furniture that immediately seats you at a table if you try to interact with it or sends you straight to the door leading back outside. Once you leave this house, the subsequently nearest one is Dr. McDonald's, an unsightly house locked from the inside. To be completely honest I fail to guess at the meaning of this visual symbolism, though it was funny for some reason. After attempting to enter the haunted McDonald residence, the next nearest and final shelter awaiting the player is the one where the game ends. Once inside, you as the player can interact with all the hearts inside who welcome and embrace you and congratulate you on finding a shelter from the earthquake where you can be both safe and comfortable. In conclusion it seems as though the game aims to convince the player that it is rewarding to spend time looking for some sort of shelter that is safe from the outside but also within from harmful forces.
Prompt 1: Describe how the shape of the space influences the feeling of play.
In the game “The Vill”, the initial outside space is organized in a narrow, linear fashion. When the user follows the rough terrain that’s being shaken from an earthquake, they’re presented with two houses. While the earthquake, houses, and outside terrain are all analogues with real-world experiences, the game quickly contrasts this when entering the first house. This red house gives the player the feeling of uneasiness or almost hauntedness similar to Boo’s Mansion from the Mario games. The exit of the house also gives this feeling of hauntedness with the large, eerie mansion doors that act as the exit to the house. The space of the house is discrete and gains the haunted feeling from when the player tries to move into certain places of the house, only for what feels like a ghost to forcefully guide the player to different parts of the house. Inside of this house, the user can go up the stairs; however, once the user tries to go back down the stairs, they just collide with them and are unable to go back down until eventually, the ghost forces them to. While the red house exerts a mysterious and abnormal feeling to the user, the purple home further down the terrain employs a homely and safe feeling by surrounding the player with actors that are the same sprite. As well as there being no ghosts nor abnormal experiences occurring in the purple house, allowing the player to freely explore the inside of this house.
Prompt 2: Drawing on Doris Rusch's account of games as expressive media, describe how the abstract rules simulate some real world system.
“The Vill” is quite the village, with cute little heart people, and houses full of moving and talking cherries. It’s not exactly real life or matching the real world but there are real world problems and life-like interactions. We step in to this role of surviving an earthquake, and while it’s not the only option, I as a player walked into the first house I could find. This house may have not been the best choice though, as like the family in many mansions in the real world may not welcome me, I was also not welcome in this mansion. The cherries present would tell me I shouldn’t be there and in certain parts of the room would send me to other parts of the building. I definitely did not feel welcome, even though it was during a hurricane.
I took my leave but the shaking continued, so I tried for another house, not unlike I would if I was scared in this actual situation. You can imagine my disappointment when the next house was locked and abandoned. To be honest, the dialogue almost sarcastically saying “what a shame” matches how I feel, as I would be a little scared to go in such a house ever, let alone in an earthquake.
The final house was full of my neighbors, who had such nice things to say, and I was able to properly explore the house. Even if some places are abandoned, some are off limits, there are often people happy to look out for you and provide you with somewhere safe, I guess it just takes some extra time to look sometimes. Overall, while the village has some quirks and some of the circumstances are not realistic, I find that it reminds me of my experiences in a small neighborhood composed of a variety of people.
Prompt 5: Describe an emergent story from your play experience that wasn't intended by the designer (so far as you know).
The memorable moment in the game is where my avatar first enters the game and the screen started to shake hardly. And when I start to move to the left, the screen sometimes stop to shake for a while, and when I moved out of that area, the screen started to shake again. The first red house is also memorable since when I move to the left side of the screen, the game compulsorily moved my character to the chair area. And the different areas on the left correspond to different chairs on the screen. For this game, I would recount the game to my friends that this game requires you to find a safe place to avoid the earthquake. The earthquake is manifested as the shaking effects of the screen, and the houses on the side of the road are your experiences and journey to find a shelter. The event that the designer was not intended for is that I moved to the last house directly, which is the shelter, when I played this game for the first time. I did not go to the first red house, but I chose to hold the right arrow key until my avatar cannot move forward anymore. Moreover, I kind of experience the game backward since my order of entering is the house is the last house, middle house, and the first house.
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Prompt 3 :
It seems as though the game is telling a story about the potential dangerousness of the outside world, and seeking shelter with those you can trust and who care is an important rule to live by. The game starts the player outside during a violent earthquake and once the player interacts with the nearest sprites they tell the player to seek shelter to escape the earthquake. The most immediately available shelter, though, is not very welcoming. The interior is strange and confusing with little, unfriendly cherry people zooming about and unapproachable furniture that immediately seats you at a table if you try to interact with it or sends you straight to the door leading back outside. Once you leave this house, the subsequently nearest one is Dr. McDonald's, an unsightly house locked from the inside. To be completely honest I fail to guess at the meaning of this visual symbolism, though it was funny for some reason. After attempting to enter the haunted McDonald residence, the next nearest and final shelter awaiting the player is the one where the game ends. Once inside, you as the player can interact with all the hearts inside who welcome and embrace you and congratulate you on finding a shelter from the earthquake where you can be both safe and comfortable. In conclusion it seems as though the game aims to convince the player that it is rewarding to spend time looking for some sort of shelter that is safe from the outside but also within from harmful forces.
Prompt 1: Describe how the shape of the space influences the feeling of play.
In the game “The Vill”, the initial outside space is organized in a narrow, linear fashion. When the user follows the rough terrain that’s being shaken from an earthquake, they’re presented with two houses. While the earthquake, houses, and outside terrain are all analogues with real-world experiences, the game quickly contrasts this when entering the first house. This red house gives the player the feeling of uneasiness or almost hauntedness similar to Boo’s Mansion from the Mario games. The exit of the house also gives this feeling of hauntedness with the large, eerie mansion doors that act as the exit to the house. The space of the house is discrete and gains the haunted feeling from when the player tries to move into certain places of the house, only for what feels like a ghost to forcefully guide the player to different parts of the house. Inside of this house, the user can go up the stairs; however, once the user tries to go back down the stairs, they just collide with them and are unable to go back down until eventually, the ghost forces them to. While the red house exerts a mysterious and abnormal feeling to the user, the purple home further down the terrain employs a homely and safe feeling by surrounding the player with actors that are the same sprite. As well as there being no ghosts nor abnormal experiences occurring in the purple house, allowing the player to freely explore the inside of this house.
Prompt 2: Drawing on Doris Rusch's account of games as expressive media, describe how the abstract rules simulate some real world system.
“The Vill” is quite the village, with cute little heart people, and houses full of moving and talking cherries. It’s not exactly real life or matching the real world but there are real world problems and life-like interactions. We step in to this role of surviving an earthquake, and while it’s not the only option, I as a player walked into the first house I could find. This house may have not been the best choice though, as like the family in many mansions in the real world may not welcome me, I was also not welcome in this mansion. The cherries present would tell me I shouldn’t be there and in certain parts of the room would send me to other parts of the building. I definitely did not feel welcome, even though it was during a hurricane.
I took my leave but the shaking continued, so I tried for another house, not unlike I would if I was scared in this actual situation. You can imagine my disappointment when the next house was locked and abandoned. To be honest, the dialogue almost sarcastically saying “what a shame” matches how I feel, as I would be a little scared to go in such a house ever, let alone in an earthquake.
The final house was full of my neighbors, who had such nice things to say, and I was able to properly explore the house. Even if some places are abandoned, some are off limits, there are often people happy to look out for you and provide you with somewhere safe, I guess it just takes some extra time to look sometimes. Overall, while the village has some quirks and some of the circumstances are not realistic, I find that it reminds me of my experiences in a small neighborhood composed of a variety of people.
Prompt 5: Describe an emergent story from your play experience that wasn't intended by the designer (so far as you know).
The memorable moment in the game is where my avatar first enters the game and the screen started to shake hardly. And when I start to move to the left, the screen sometimes stop to shake for a while, and when I moved out of that area, the screen started to shake again. The first red house is also memorable since when I move to the left side of the screen, the game compulsorily moved my character to the chair area. And the different areas on the left correspond to different chairs on the screen. For this game, I would recount the game to my friends that this game requires you to find a safe place to avoid the earthquake. The earthquake is manifested as the shaking effects of the screen, and the houses on the side of the road are your experiences and journey to find a shelter. The event that the designer was not intended for is that I moved to the last house directly, which is the shelter, when I played this game for the first time. I did not go to the first red house, but I chose to hold the right arrow key until my avatar cannot move forward anymore. Moreover, I kind of experience the game backward since my order of entering is the house is the last house, middle house, and the first house.