Gameplay Journal Entry # 8- Arise: A Simple Story.

Gameplay footage above by Youtuber, Shirrako.

Games can have many goals in the end for its audience. For some games, it is to allow the player to just play for the sake of playing. As for some, an experience is more the goal than the game its self. Meet Arise: A simple story, a experience that does not need words to prove its point. The player plays as a grown man, and from what I witnessed he gets a warrior’s burial. The player goes on a journey through lush landscapes, aided with the ability to move time forward or backwards to solve puzzle, which I found pretty neat.

According to A game Design Methodology to Incorporate Social Activist Themes, “Games are a cultural medium, and like other cultural media, carry embedded beliefs within their representation systems and structures, whether the designers intend them to or not”(Flanagan, Nissenbaum pg1). The game seemingly shows the journey of this man as he goes through a type of afterlife, whether that was the intention of the creators or not. This experience seemed like it was a way to show the audience or the players a take on afterlife and in a sense, to comfort them with the topic. Its definitely a powerful message the game delivers, even in the portion I have witnessed myself. Society has always been wherry of the topic of death, as it frightens us to think we fade away eventually. Experiences like these can help with those thoughts, and make the idea of death a bit less scary.

Flanagan, M., & Nissenbaum, H. (2007, April/May). A Game Design Methodology to Incorporate Social Activist Themes [PDF]. San Jose, CA, USA: CHI 2007 Proceedings.