Hi internet – I moved to a new apartment this week and we just now got internet access again. I’m using this week to catch back up with all my various virtual environments and projects.
Lately playing: Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time, which I am probably going to totally finish this week. I broke it out for a short seminar in my school on environment and Level Design and how the story from Zelda relates to Joseph Campbell and The Hero With A Thousand Faces. It’s very interesting how Ocarina does some of the classic heroic tropes directly, including for example the “Belly of the Whale” which is enacted very literally! It makes me wonder if this was considered during the design of the game or just the sort of coincidence that happens from it being a popular heroic trope.
I also picked up Fable II yesterday, and it’s actually interesting the parallels these two games have when it comes to setting a heroic story, and also what is done differently. So far Fable II is a bit of a weird game in some respects, particularly in how I interact with townspeople. The people seem too “simlish” to really develop any meaningful interactions with them; I haven’t found anyone there that I feel strongly enough about to try to date or marry for example, but I am still early on in the game. The economy of the game is also pretty illogical. Then again, so is the economy in Hyrule, where money is typically found by cutting down bushes. I get the feeling that Fable II included crates and barrels that I can break, but which have nothing of use in them, partially as a way to poke fun of the constant crate and jar breaking in Zelda which is useful for grinding cash.
Some sound and fury is being made about the City of Heroes community academically again. It makes me want to write a paper about the positive things about that community. I wonder if I would be heard.
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