Kyntt Stories Critique
September 9th, 2008
Knytt Stories is an independently produced game by Nifflas, you can download the game for free here (Should be the right address, can’t see the site over here).
Knytt Stories is a petite platformer containing a selection of separate ‘stories’ loosely based around the adventures Juni; a young, seemingly frail girl. When you download this title it comes with a tutorial and a main story called ‘The Machine’, the stories then come from additional content by the developers and fans which can also be downloaded from the website. Kyntt Stories is basically Nifflas’ previous project ‘Kyntt’ with some more sophisticated updates or so it seems, I’m yet to play much of Kyntt yet.
The following is a critique of ‘The Machine’; the game that comes with the download but since all of the stories use the same template, the critique basically covers them all.
The Love of the Land – Zelda: Twilight Princess
September 6th, 2008
When I first bought my Wii back on release, December 7th 2006, one of the three games that I bought with it was the obligatory “must buy” Zelda: Twilight Princess. After a few days of holding off, I worked my way into the game’s first dungeon, caught myself on a puzzle, stumbled and then submitted the game, along with my years of finely honed Zelda-mastery to the shelf.
A week ago(as per when written), a year and a half after release, I finally booked the time for a long overdue return to the land of Hyrule and have a few, noteworthy observations to put forth.
The Love of the Land
Something that became significantly apparent as I made my way through the first part of the game – exchanging requests for items in a series of obstacles designed to warm me into the new gameplay additions – was how in tune the Zelda franchise is with the natural environment.
Link’s home village of Ordon contains subtle clues to the village’s native roots. The topography of the land is ruggered with a small river making its way through the heart of the village. Villagers work in harmony with the land, tending cattle, generating small amounts of power through a water wheel and planting foot to eat. Animals play a significant part also, particularly in your first time acquaintance with village life.
Off the top of my head, here are a list of examples where the game allows you to interactive with the local fauna:
-attack and float in air with chickens
-ride your horse Epona
-use Epona to round up goat-like cattle in a timed mini game
-play a context sensitive sub-game preventing your cattle from escaping the ranch
-play a music note with a horn-shaped plant to call forth an eagle
-then use that eagle to swoop on a monkey
-knock down a beehive for the bees to attack a dumbfounded villager
-fish in the river
-nurse a villager’s pet dog
-attract the attention of a pet cat by catching fish
-return to the village as a wolf and talk to the animals
As you can see, there is a wealth of opportunities that the game provides you with for connecting to the environment ad the creatures of the earth.
As the game picks up and you find reach the first dungeon, more of this connection is unveiled, the use of the the macabre twilight world is a good example of this. Before I go on though, for people unfamiliar with this series, the dungeons are a staple of the Zelda series which can best be described as capsules of gameplay which advance inventory and teach new tricks by applying inventory to labyrinth styled puzzle situations. They often make up a the bulk of the game’s challenge.
The actual happenings which first summon you to the dungeon converge with the distress of a local family of monkeys, many of which are imprisoned within the dungeon. One of the monkeys, assumingly a female – distinguished by a red flower behind the ear – makes a silent compromise with the hero in that if he rescues her other family members, then her and her family members will exchanges their collected services to guide Link through the dungeon. As a player, it’s hard to directly notice this occurrence taking place as the monkey has no language to tell you so (beyonf the pointing and squeals). At the end of the dungeon, after uniting the whole family, they chain together to form a rope for Link to swing across, providing him access to the stage’s final boss. It’s at this stage that, for many I suspect the connection will chime in and the results of your actions realized.
As you can see the connection between man and earth are subtly implemented expressing an important relationship that runs deep with the lore of the franchise. Applying this thought to other entries in the series conjures up a plethora of relative examples. The various animal/elemental themed races such as Gorons, Zoras and Dekus, the light and dark words (a metaphor for natural vs industry?) and the long gone tradition of chickens and what’ll happen if you abuse them.
The Power of Language in Games
September 3rd, 2008
Language is a powerful tool. The overall significance of language regarding current art forms moves along a sliding scale dependent on the medium in question. Books survive only within the context of language, language is often crucial but by no means an essential part of music and film – as in games – is perhaps the least important. The further removed words are from creating the actual experience (and onto visual, rhythm and gameplay cues) the less significant the role of language appears to be.
Despite this paradigm, the youth of this medium (video games) places a heavy reliance on language to often fill in for the role of gameplay. We use narrative to create context in ways that gameplay cannot currently achieve. As gameplay evolves though so will its ability to self narrate the experience. We can already see this taking place with the role of context sensitive actions (Resident Evil 4) and in game narrative (Halflife 2) as examples. Hence, over time the heavy reliance of language disappears, changing its role to being another tool in the game design tool box. Ignoring the foresight though, language shall always be significant in games much as it is to movies and music. I want to use this article to explore several past examples of the diverse use of language in games. This isn’t intended to cover the complete history of language in games but rather a few noteworthy posts along the path of application.
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