The “Hero’s Journey,” as Campbell terms Whatever the reason is, this persevering In particular, MtGO is actually superior to it, is the timeless tale of the reluctant Myth is fascinating. It is one tie that truly its paper counterparts in two key respects: hero, plucked from his or her everyday binds, not just current day cultures to each existence to save a people/relic/lover other, but to those of the distant past. And 1) It actually enforces the game rules. Think of your favorite book. And now, from the clutches of a shadowy evil. Our this is why we turn our eyes to the myth in (Except in high level tournaments, most recall your favorite movie. Last, what is hero is helped along his way by some games in this week’s issue of The Escapist. games of Magic involve rules errors your favorite game? Compare each of ancient talisman, or perhaps an older Join us on our journey, and enjoy! unnoticed by all players.) them: Are they similar genres or different? figure, often male; he is also often How about setting, same or different? spurred along his way by the thought of Cheers, Now, think of the basic story structure – his ever-changing beloved. He sets out, the pattern of events, not the actual battles foes, solves puzzles, and finally events themselves. Are those similar or ends up in a battle with the Evil, and different? I’d be willing to bet that while comes out the other side a changed the answers to the first two questions will man, seeming older, wiser and reunited be rather varied among a given group of with saved people/relic/lover. people, the answer to the last question will be, overwhelmingly, “Same.” Familiar, yes? Pretty much the story behind every RPG ever created, and To the editor: Allen Varney, as usual, Why? certainly many books and films, isn’t it? makes a fine job of a hot topic in We don’t really know why this is so. “Trading Web Cards.” Humans seem to tell the same story, Perhaps it’s echoes of our day to day over and over. Whatever the specifics lives, from hunter gatherer times when But on one point I feel he (probably may be, whatever the setting, from we go on our first hunt, to now, when we inadvertently) paints a distorted picture. whatever culture the stories hail, we find land our first job. Perhaps the sequence Wizards of the Coast’s Magic the similarities running through most myths. of events happens to trigger just the Gathering Online These similarities were distilled by right series of chemicals in our brains to Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero keep us enthralled, time and time again. game may be seen by a few grumpy with a Thousand Faces, (on which the Perhaps it is some manner of collective tournament players as riddled with bugs, title of this issue plays) though they consciousness showing through bribery and lag but for the vast majority have been in use for millennia by orators (Campbell was a student of Carl Jung). of players these are seldom-important and scribes the world over. details of a very playable game. 2) You can actually find opponents at In response to “’Fun’ is a Four-Letter take away from an event. You can be any time of day or night. Word” from The Escapist Forum: The engaged by a movie, a game, a lecture, point that “fun” is subjective is the a book, a work of art, a conversation, - Dom linchpin of the whole debate. While some music, sports, or simply by relaxing on games will be “fun” for some, they’re a the couch. If we can get people to think In response to “’Fun’ is a Four-Letter chore for others. Because of this, you about being “engaged” by the games Word” from The Escapist Forum: can say that a single title is BOTH fun that they play, then we can put the Someone watching a movie has to and not fun. In this situation, you can’t products of the industry on a more equal actively take an action to stop the film. claim victory for either point. footing, perception-wise, with movies, The film has to be so disturbing, music and literature. challenging or boring that the viewer I think that gregking’s point of likening decides to switch the player off and do moves to games is true at a base level, - Scopique something else instead. but in the end, we watch movies and play games for the same reason. HOW In response to “’Fun’ is a Four-Letter A game, on the other hand, requires the we perform each of these actions is Word” from The Escapist Forum: The player to actively interact with it. inconsequential, since, at the point word “game” itself is becoming such a It just has to be disturbing or challenging where we feel that we aren’t “getting our broad term these days that it enough to make the player sit back and money’s worth” from either medium, we encompasses something yuppies do to it’s lost them. That’s a lot less leeway quit. If a game isn’t interesting me for kill their time to the serious and than films have. Still - it’s no reason not whatever reason, I stop playing. If a dedicated connoisseurs to the elite “pro” to try striking that tricky balance. movie or TV show isn’t interesting me, gamers ... or whatever they’re called. I’ll get up, go to the bathroom, get The feeling of “fun” manifests differently I heartily agree that games should something to eat, or just stop watching. to each type of people within these engage people on a more mature level, categories. but they still have to keep the players To that end, I suggest that rather then interacting or they become nothing more focus on the term “fun” we use But hey, if you want to convince the than a movie themselves. “engaging”. “Engaging” is a term that senior management board how much means different things to different ‘fun’ is in your game, simply apply - gregking people based on what they expect to numbers to this formula: (Number of Guns + Average Size of been pushing the same point for years in I’m just a bit resistant to the high-low Breasts + Maximum Player Ego more private circles. One can try to art debate. And I think this elusive non- Boosting Level) / Tediousness broaden the meaning of ‘fun’ until it fun gaming is already happening. Silent Factor = Level of Fun encompasses any meaningful experience Hill games are exhausting, tedious whatsoever, but it becomes pretty clear ordeals, but could they be any other way? - Branded on analysis that this is not how people It doesn’t seem to threaten their potency, use the word when they talk about however that should be described. In response to “’Fun’ is a Four-Letter games being fun. They mean something Word” from The Escapist Forum: quite a bit more specific, even if what More sensitive language will, as a side Maybe Warren stood to close to the they mean remains frustratingly vague. effect, encourage more subtle and varied Nintendo marketing bullhorns and the kinds of expression, including stuff that corresponding media parrots at E3? - Walter K is distinctly not fun, but good on some other level. I hardly think his characterization of the In response to “’Fun’ is a Four-Letter current state of game design is accurate. Word” from The Escapist Forum: - david_hellman The idea of, “we need to make more ‘fun’ Warren’s resistance to the “fun factor” games,” attitude in the industry is simply produced the question, “what can games a result of the success of the Nintendo make us feel BESIDES ‘fun?’” DS and Xbox Live Arcade. What they are really saying is we need to make more For me, the even more immediate cheap games that are addictive and question is, “can’t developers describe anyone can play, so we can expand the their work with a bit more market and generate more revenue. It is sophistication?” What about suspenseful, just easier to distill that idea into a exhilarating, hilarious, riveting, giddy, single concept, namely “fun.” smooth, etc.?

- heavyfeul Replacing “fun” with “engaging” or “compelling” is pointless. Those words In response to “’Fun’ is a Four-Letter sound kind of rugged and intelligent Word” from The Escapist Forum: right now, but overuse will render them Warren is pretty much spot on, and I’ve as flaccid as “fun.” One of the problems that confronts us as history. Virgil’s Aeneid is a great example we try to refine the way we critique of this type of historical refinement, and videogames is that we can’t seem to it’s a great place to start if we’re going agree on how the medium relates to to draw any similarities between gaming other forms of art. Comparisons to film and art forms of the past. and television fall short because they’re passive entertainment whereas The Aeneid centers on an eponymous videogames are interactive, which is the hero, Aeneas, who escapes from the key element that makes videogames so clutches of the Greeks during the fall of culturally significant, yet hard to liken to Troy and travels all over the anything we’ve analyzed before. Is the Mediterranean before he arrives in Italy, medium entirely new, then, or can we gets re-married, and founds a city that gain something by comparing will found a city that will found Rome. videogames to older forms of art? Bear in mind, the Rome in which Virgil writes the Aeneid conquered Greece and In order to answer that question, we Carthage well before Virgil was born, and have to look further back than movies, now faced newer enemies on its frontiers. television and even books, back to when unraveling a story was nearly as Sounds a bit like Halo, if you relax interactive as playing videogames. The your ears. majority of myths, fables and religious stories were originally passed down The Halo series centers on a semi- across generations by storytellers robotic super-marine called the Master drawing entire communities into the plot Chief, who manages in the first game to to create a more immersive, memorable save the galaxy by preventing a coalition experience for those who listened. of religiously-motivated alien beings Eventually, those stories were crafted called the Covenant from destroying it by into actual books, anthologies of activating the Halo - a ring in space hundreds or thousands of years of verbal intended to imprison another alien life- form, the Flood. In the second game, the notably in Rob Reiner’s film A Few Good Master Chief performs more or less the Men: “Unit, Corps, God, Country.” same feat, with the notable twist that he is aided by one of the Covenant (the Aeneas is a strange hybrid of a Greek Arbiter), who the player gets to play in hero and a Roman general; the Master certain sections of the game. Chief is a strange hybrid of a Marine and a battle-robot. Their hybridization We are to the Flood and the Covenant as presents an interesting correspondence Virgil’s Roman audience was to the in itself, but more interesting still is the Carthaginians and the Greeks. Through way their mixed mythic provenance Halo, American culture is to our real affects how we view their struggles with enemies as the Romans were to theirs their respective enemies. The Covenant through the Aeneid: in a ceaseless forces in Halo very memorably call the cultural struggle to imagine them as Master Chief “the Demon” in much the both alien and destined to be defeated same way that Dido, jilted queen of by us. This correlation arises from a Carthage, demonizes Aeneas as being deep and important similarity between made of stone when he refuses to show the interactivity of the epic tradition and human feeling. In both works, the the obvious interactivity of the action/ principal character, with which the audience adventure game. identifies nearly exclusively, is made semi- human in order to make that character a Both works arose in cultures that value a more perfect defeater of the enemy. specific kind of martial prowess. For Rome, it was the prowess of the And make no mistake: Both works are legionaries and their generals, prowess about securing the self by defeating the bound up - at least in propaganda - with other. Halo is a little more obvious in this the celebrated Roman virtues that center regard, as the entire universe is at on honor and loyalty; for America, it is stake. Even the most cursory glance at the prowess of the storied United States the Aeneid and its historical context, Marine Corps, memorably bound up in a however, shows us how similar it is to very similar code, expressed most Bungie’s masterpiece: The Rome of

Virgil, and of his audience, and in unfamiliar to his audience, who therefore particular of his audience-member-in- interact with the work as their ideas of chief, Augustus Caesar, would not exist what’s going to happen engage with without Aeneas’ struggle to figure out what the epic poet has in store. where the heck Italy was. Both Halo and the Aeneid tell a story about a more- Are there any closet-gamers inside the than-human hero defeating enemies who Beltway to compare with Augustus? If would be too much for ordinary people so, they should note that modern critics like us - enemies who nevertheless bear wonder if Virgil really was a huge an important resemblance to the ones supporter of Augustus (at the end of the we and the Romans face in our Aeneid Aeneas abandons some of his respective presents. Roman virtue), and that playing as the Arbiter in Halo 2 tends to make you think Even though Joe Roman (or, if you that maybe the enemy has a point from prefer, Publius Romanus) isn’t pushing time to time. the thumbsticks to move Aeneas around nor choosing the bits of dialogue to tell Roger Travis is an Associate Professor of Dido that he’s skipping town, Publius Classics at the University of Connecticut. Romanus interacts with Aeneas in precisely the same way Joe Sixpack interacts with the Master Chief.

The interactivity of the action/adventure game is actually an illusion developers employ to generate a feeling of immersion: You identity yourself within the scene and therefore become a part of the scene mentally. Additionally, Virgil, like every other epic poet, is reshaping the myth he tells in ways that are Regarding the pacifist first-person call him “Newbie” – was a huge fan of shooter I designed in 2000-2001 to Deus Ex. (He pronounced deus “dee- teach Hindu principles of non-violence us.”) Newbie contacted DX designer using the Unreal Engine, you may justly Warren Spector, who referred him to me. feel skeptical. The project attracted me because there’s tons of good game material in Indian This Hindu non-shooter was conceived culture. Everybody knows about Thuggee and produced entirely by – nobody ever assassin cults, but we never hear of the believes this part – recent graduates of many Indian martial arts, nor Kundalini the Maharishi University of Management yoga, nor the siddhi powers of legendary in Fairfield, Iowa. Yes, really. In early yogis. As for India’s history, you could do 2000, a gaggle of upscale white games about a dozen empires, like the American 20-somethings with fresh MUM Gupta Dynasty, the Mauryans under animation and graphics degrees thought Ashoka, Vijayanagara, the Mughals or it would be fun to create a computer the British Empire in the time of Gandhi. game based on Hindu teachings. Funded India today, a rising world power, could by the young heir to a chain of furniture inspire games about tangled political stores, who scraped by on a parental scandals, Kashmiri separatism, inter- allowance of half a million dollars a year, caste tension, the children’s films and they licensed Epic Games’ hotly stories of Satyajit Ray, Bangla bands, anticipated Unreal Warfare engine – six Bollywood musicals and so on. months’ allowance right there – and set to work. The MUM people, though, wanted a story inspired by Hindu mythology that After these enthused neophytes spent illustrated the Hindu principle of nine or 10 months learning the editor nonviolence, ahimsa. In other words, and designing some levels, it eventually having spent $250,000 to license one of occurred to them they might need a the most kickass, muy-macho, hyper- game design. The team’s producer – I’ll adrenalized deathmatch shmups on the planet, the Maharishi disciples wanted a God grants you the opportunity to But the puzzle idea didn’t fly with the game where you could only win if you ascend to a new life – perhaps even to MUM team. Newbie the producer wanted never killed, injured or damaged anyone the celestial court of Vishnu. an ambitious, innovative triple-A design or anything in the game. Anything at all. like Dee-us Ex. “Searching for enlightenment, you *** journey through the mysterious astral *** realm called Mandala. Hanuman, Rama Well, OK. I bought a stack of books and and Vishnu encourage you to solve their A nonviolent shooter presents hit the web. In the dark age of 2000, puzzles and reward you by teaching you interesting, if not necessarily sensible, Year 1 B.W. (Before Wikipedia), I found ever higher states of consciousness. design challenges. We decided on a story no Hinduism portal, but there were sites Through each state (each game level), of demonic invasion in mythic ancient like Hindu Books Universe, Hinduism you strive to please the gods by India. Gameplay would permit violence Today magazine, Kamat’s Potpourri and demonstrating cleverness. Along the and perhaps even reward it in the short the Saiva Siddhanta Church in Hawaii. I path, you encounter gurus and demons, term, but violence would pollute your stumbled on oddities like Saranam helpers and thieves, and a rich array of karma and ultimately complicate your (“Hindu Puja and Ritual Services”) and creatures from Indian mythology. long-term progress. utterly jaw-dropping stuff on About. com’s Alternative Religions page. “Your quest to realize enlightenment will This was indeed ambitious, not to say take you through the eight states of foolhardy. If you’re facing powerful Because few of the Maharishi grads had consciousness, each with a characteristic adversaries but must circumvent them relevant experience, I first pitched a gallery of fascinating puzzles. When you nonviolently, obviously the game needs simple puzzle-based design inspired by overcome ignorance, you ascend to that always-tricky feature, a stealth model. the 1993 Trilobyte bestseller The 7th Vishnu’s celestial court as a rishi, a The game also has to judge your actions. If Guest. This approach aimed for a venerated sage. Quite a trip for a monkey!” you trick two demons into killing each humorous, upbeat tone: other, what is the karmic effect? OK, not much there for an Unreal “As the game begins, you are a humble Tournament fan. Yet, six years on, I still Fortunately, the Hindu theme offered monkey who has gotten lucky. In an think there’s a market for a free-roaming other, equally interesting gameplay. We incident drawn from Hindu myth, you 3-D puzzle game – an Unreal Big Brain had elephant riding. We had Vedic performed a service for Rama’s consort, Academy, if you will. abilities: astrology, Ayurvedic healing, Sita. As a reward, Hanuman the Monkey breathing (meditation), herbalism, Gandharva Veda music, architecture even a pig, dog or worm. The game is ambition of this design, but they set to (which let you purify demonic areas) and winnable in any human form, but your it. Some months later, when Newbie sent yagyas (rituals). During the game, you current incarnation governs how much samples of the team’s work, I could acquire the siddhis of clairvoyance, people and other beings will tell you in understood why the Maharishi University levitation, invisibility, shrinking and conversation, the price you must pay for of Management has its current strength. Your aim was to achieve pure equipment and so on.” reputation in art and animation circles – consciousness by cleansing your six that is, none. The level design was chakras in ascending order. But your The storyline starred a young female halfway decent, but the graphics, well ... current karma (depicted as a gray pall sneak-thief, Kendi, who was as over your character’s silhouette), if it karmically low as you can get and still be Newbie finally understood his team covered any chakras, prevented you human. Aided, for mysterious reasons, wasn’t ready to tackle a Deus Ex. He from cleansing them. So you had to by a demon named Venadatta, Kendi grudgingly had me adapt the story to the remove karma by completing quests travels from a Himalayan valley across original puzzle-based approach. Now, the before you could purify yourself. the gigantic carcass of the fallen dragon player was the goddess Indrani; Vritra, through the city and palace of Venadatta used corrupt soma to strip her The coolest feature: King Vasudev, up the legendary World- of her powers, then threw her down to Axis of Mount Meru, to the palace of the Mother Earth. Indrani proceeds across a “During the game, you may die gods in the celestial city of Navagraha, (sharply reduced) number of levels, repeatedly, but this doesn’t end your and from there to the demon realm of progressing linearly by solving puzzles adventure. Through reincarnation you Asat. She’s looking for the long-lost that, we hoped, would be integrated resume play in your next life; the mortal hero Anagha, a Brahmin who more or less gracefully into the setting. storyline’s mythic war is assumed to aided the gods many years before. It By locating gurus, she gains siddhi continue unabated for generations. Your turns out Anagha is dead, and, owing to powers that help her return to her palace. karma at the time of death determines a contrivance too complicated to There, she solves puzzles to purify polluted your next incarnation. If you have summarize, Kendi herself is his mortal areas and opens the way to Venadatta, purified yourself and spread reincarnation; Venadatta the demon is whom she can drive out by tricking him enlightenment, you may return as a rich another aspect of her own spirit. into drinking his own corrupt soma. merchant or Brahmin priest; if you have defiled yourself with violent actions, you The MUM team expressed With that, I was done. My final check may instead become a lowly peasant or understandable reservations about the cleared. No one called again. Presumably, the furniture-store heir, with Hindu shooters or in a hundred One big problem is a lack of skilled having spent well over a year’s allowance likelier ways, India will eventually workers. The Image College of Arts, for not-so-much, finally pulled the plug become a force in gaming, as audience, Animation & Technology in Chennai, in early 2001. developer and, increasingly, as buyer of “India’s first digital media college,” is Western studios. introducing game design classes this It all happened just this way. If I lie, may year. Wonder if they need an American I be reborn as a worm. Currently, India is a minor outsourcing instructor? Some rash student may destination (in the game industry, that conceive a nonviolent Hindu shooter, and *** is) that pulls about $50 million annually someone should be there to slap him in console and PC gaming, and a little and wrestle him to the ground I never got to visit Fairfield. Though the more in the mobile space. So far, there’s producer told me of his team’s happy life only one Indian MMOG development of 20-minute Transcendental Meditation shop, Level-Up, which is a branch of a Allen Varney designed the paper-and- sessions twice a day under MUM’s twin Philippine company that licenses the dice roleplaying game (2004 edition) and golden domes, I didn’t apprehend the South Korean game Ragnarok Online for has contributed to computer games from spectacular weirdness of the Maharishi India, Brazil and the Philippines. But Sony Online, Origin, Interplay and community until much later, when I Indian gaming is growing fast, Looking Glass. found a long list of Maharishi articles piggybacking on the exploding animation compiled by the cult-hunting Rick A. business. In September 2006, the Ross Institute. Note the September 2006 Association of Bangalore Animation Los Angeles Times story, “A lotus amid Industry staged its first conference on the Iowa corn” by Carina Chocano, about animation, visual effects and gaming. the glitzy new MUMburb under Onetime developers have become construction outside Fairfield, Maharishi publishers. Just as large Indian Vedic City. companies outside gaming are going global and taking over foreign firms, My Hindu shooter originated in Iowa, Bangalore game publisher Dhruva among Americans. Technically, the Interactive plans to quadruple in size experience says nothing relevant about within three years, and is looking to India in gaming. Still, it was a peep into acquire game studios in China and the future; one way or another, whether Eastern Europe. No mortal man can sway the Fates from their editorial course. Endless debates about whom to talk to for a mythology issue rang through the halls, but the winds of fortune carried us endlessly toward one man: Stieg Hedlund, Design Director of Gods and Heroes at Perpetual Entertainment. His credits include the Diablo games, as well as StarCraft and an unreleased Lord of the Rings game, and then there’s his current project, which consists of gods and heroes in combination. Preliminary conversations with an unnamed source revealed, “Stieg has probably forgotten more about mythology than most people ever know.” And the course was set, as we are acutely aware of the consequences of defying Fate.

With his background in mind, I asked where he saw himself on the team, since Design Director is a rather vague title. “I guess I relate to guys like Stanley Kubrick,” he answered, “in that he’d grind lenses instead of being content to sit in the director’s chair. I’m from the old one-designer school and went on like that even after it became fairly unworkable.” He’s a very hands-on guy, he says. “I work directly in our tools and feel that I need to know how to do anything that anyone on my team can do. I’ll also intervene on any level I feel I need to, to get the right experience in the game; my team respects how hardcore I am, and I try not to step on too many toes.”

Asked about his reputation as a mythology guru, he quipped, “That’s hard to say specifically; you should just understand that I’m impossibly wise,” before getting more serious. “The books that I still own and have had from a very early age — as far back as I can remember — are D’Aulaire’s Norse Gods and Giants and The Monkey King. Sure, I had Dr. Seuss as well, but myth was where my head was at growing up. That never changed, and by high school, I was into some pretty esoteric stuff, especially since a good friend of mine’s mother was a Jungian analyst and got me interested in Joseph Campbell, among other aspects of Jungian psychology.” While he didn’t have much to do with the main goal was to entertain, and we’d “Really, Campbell was just a cultural story aspects of StarCraft and the first bend the timeline or pantheon if we anthropologist who started to see similar Diablo, he did work his background and needed to achieve that.” themes cropping up across diverse love of history into Diablo II. “In the groups and began to question the story for Diablo II, I made a lot of To rebuild Rome, they turned to the reasons behind that,” he continued. “18th references to real-world things in any classics. “In the case of Gods and century philologists did very much the case, albeit on a symbolic level. I drew a Heroes, I referenced The Aeneid and same thing and developed the now lot of source material, from Sufism to Metamorphoses pretty heavily. As far as widely accepted notion of Proto-Indo- the Albigensian Crusades. It’s both the translations, my concern tends to be European. Campbell could find no such relatable as well as more meaningful. If more for accuracy than anything else, socio-linguistic thread, and so was led to you create something that’s entirely and I’ll consult the original texts if I have conclude that the materials of myth were novel with no relationship to reality, it any questions about that.” Since he’d inherent to the human experience; so probably won’t resonate with people. mentioned Joseph Campbell earlier, I long as the human experience is There needs to be some level of the asked him for his thoughts, figuring relevant, so is his work.” familiar with a twist.” Campbell was a mandatory stop for anyone dabbling in classical mythology. “I While Campbell is a valuable resource, Gods and Heroes, then, is a logical have tremendous respect for Joseph he shouldn’t be the only one. Hedlund progression, though it’s an “Inspired by Campbell,” Hedlund said. “And his work is says, “Additionally, I don’t think the … ” rather than a “Based on … ,” timeless. Some people have tried to world of comparative myth begins or because “the worlds of history and myth reduce the hero’s journey into a formula; ends with Campbell, and the broader are really very separate, except in the like the hero needs to meet his mentor study of anthropology and ethnography context of myth as justification. … Right here, and now he should be reconciled also interests me. I have a whole away, our goal was to blend the two in a with the father. But I think like any other bookshelf at home, [and] while it seamless way in our world, so that what formula, this can end up being pretty contains nearly everything by Campbell, the ancient Romans believed became empty. Campbell has discussed mythic [it] is also full of Frazer, Levi-Strauss, real and present, instead of at some themes in the context of great writers like Dumézil and Malinowski, among a great other place or time.” While they enjoyed Cummings, Mann and Joyce … but he isn’t many others. [But] I really think I am using the myths and history, they did offering a roadmap, just pointing out the where I am today because of Campbell. have one constant goal in mind, he says. ways these guys tapped into that material. While it sounds a bit new-agey, his “We were always very clear that our advice to ‘follow your bliss’ was meaningful to me when I was deciding inevitable in the millennia of telling and “People just expect the domains of each what to do with myself, and games are retellings. I asked if Perpetual tried to god to be clearly defined, as well as that certainly that for me.” focus or unify the narrative at all. “Yeah, whole crazy ‘good and evil’ thing.” there is a lot of really disjointed stuff in Hearkening back to our earlier Getting into the wider appeal of the myths, and even some direct conversation, he said, “One of the mythology, he continues: “Myth contradictions.” He cited one example in reasons I referenced The Aeneid earlier resonates in a lot of successful works by particular, saying, “My favorite example is that Virgil unifies withThe Illiad and, people who have internalized it. Baz is that Juno bore Vulcan by herself to get to a lesser extent, The Odyssey to make Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge is an awesome back at Jupiter for giving birth to Minerva a continuous narrative of gods and example. Christian is drawn into the alone, and Minerva was born when mortals that runs right up to Imperial Bohemian world by Toulouse-Lautrec and Jupiter developed a massive headache, Rome. That’s why Virgil was Dante’s idol a narcoleptic Argentinean. Now, this is so he called for Vulcan to chop his head — he took a bunch of unconnected very entertaining and engaging on the open to relieve the pain.” Contradictions incidents and turned them into a single surface level, but it also really works well enough to give a designer a headache of cohesive story of the mythical on the symbolic, mythical level: The his own. justification of the Roman State, and dwarf is small physically because his Dante tried to do the same thing for power is not of the physical world, and “One of the things you need to take into Christianity with his Divine Comedy.” the narcoleptic spends more time in the account about the myths is that there subconscious world of dreams than he are regional differences, as well as Building the character classes for the does in this one.” changes through time.” He mentioned Roman world is no less challenging. the many different cults of each deity “Essentially, we wanted to create One of the problems that materializes before continuing, “Every goddess is a character classes that people could when working with 2,000-year-old myths goddess of fertility somewhere and at understand on the level of an is the contradictions and elaborations some time. The gods of Greco-Roman expectation of a certain type of myth are additionally very ambivalent gameplay and then make sure we pay with their good and bad aspects.” His job off that expectation,” he began. “This was winnowing that all down, and also sounds simple, but I think it’s important: taking into account cultural I can’t tell you how many games I’ve considerations on this side of history. played and had to restart repeatedly because I had to play the game for a flames, cloud, rain. Additionally, lesser sources. Often, we’ll read or see things while to figure out that the character gods appear in person sometimes, and and say, that’s just cool and we need to wasn’t what I had every reason to think there are plenty of those. Eventually, a use it; so there’s really a lot of back and it was.” I sympathized here, being a player might see a god, but we want to forth between those two methods.” member of the You Re-rolled Again? make that a moment with a lot of impact Club. He continued, “Although we’ve when it does happen.” The willingness to submerge himself in done a Roman spin on all of the myth isn’t something mandated by character classes, tying their abilities I was curious about that source material Perpetual, he says. “I’ve always felt closely to things from the source he mentioned, asking him if the team duty-bound to know the subject matter material, the Gladiator is easily the most buried themselves in the myths and inside and out. But I think even more uniquely Roman class. What’s great legends of Rome, or if they just took important than that is to understand about the Gladiator is that everyone has what they knew and winged it. “We have people and the world. I’ve studied an image of him.” piles of books and DVDs, as well as philosophy and psychology extensively, plenty of frequently-visited websites,” he as well as pop culture, which I think is When it comes to getting the gods into says. While Stieg himself was the initial one of the most important ways of the world, he says, “There are various “font of knowledge for Roman culture, understanding people, as the ultimate ways that we do this. If Pluto is walking Greco-Roman myth and myth in context of the games as well. People around in the world, then he becomes general,” he soon found challengers for sometimes think it’s weird that I’m as just another character. Instead, we the title, though he retains a trump card. likely to quote NWA as Shakespeare, wanted to keep the gods interesting, “I do continue to be the dead language and it’s not by accident.” mysterious and otherworldly, and there expert of the bunch, however, since I’m were plenty of ways to do this that are not sure how many people in the world One of the problems with building suggested through the source material.” could write dialogue in Etruscan.” When characters to be god-powered heroes He mentions the numerous ways gods they have to wing it, the team “often seems to be, well, they’re god-powered talk to mortals in classical mythology, [makes] decisions based on the fact that heroes. I asked him how they such as “through their priests and our main goal is to entertain, and then compensated for the fact that their oracles, through their attendants in the go back to the myth, history or whatever, player characters are blessed by the animal world as well as creatures of and try to marry what we’ve invented gods. “That’s certainly the challenge of myth and through natural phenomena — with something appropriate from these characters who are demigodly,” he answered, though he turns to mythology when Jason yokes the fire-breathing ways to speak of thieves, bandits, for an example of coping with that oxen by using an ointment, he still has assassins and other shady characters. I dilemma. “If there’s a snaky-haired gal to figure out how to defeat the Sparti, think this, together with various literary whose gaze turns folks to stone, you get past the Sirens and Talos, and so on.” sources, paints a picture of Rome as a need winged sandals and the cap of dangerous place. There is this marginal Pluto to deal with that. Typically, in the Moving from the people to the Roman population that is unwilling to fit into myths, there’s more of a one-to-one culture itself, I figured it just wouldn’t be Rome’s structure of laws, classes, taxes relationship between magical challenge Rome without murder, poisonings, and order in general, and so they live and magical solution, and the gods politicians and fiddling while the city outside of the accepted society, but [are] either provide the solution or at least tell burns. But I was curious, and asked how still very real and present in the culture.” the hero where to go to get one. That’s far they were going into the dark side of what really changes — instead of classical civilization. “I think those are Adapting that culture could be tricky, Perseus nicely handing the sandals and the kinds of things that a lot of people especially as most players would be cap back to Mercury when he’s done expect in a game about Rome, so we unwilling to learn Latin to play a harvesting heads, in a game, he’s going brought as much of it in as we could. videogame. Fortunately, “My basic take to continue to use that stuff anytime he We’re shooting for a T rating, so on adapting Roman culture to the likes.” In planning for their demigodly obviously, we couldn’t go fully HBO or videogame setting is that it’s important players, they “needed to keep escalating anything like that.” However, he cites the to not have any pain involved for the the challenges: There are always larger Rogue class from the game as the player,” he says when I raise the issue. and more powerful obstacles in your embodiment of the darker side of Rome, “We as the game developers will take way. Looking at myth, we’re really saying, “Now, sure, plenty of RPGs have the pain: We’ll learn Latin, we’ll read looking at epics, the tales of Hercules a Rogue character, and we certainly Roman cookbooks, we’ll study classic and Jason, The Odyssey and The Aeneid named the character so that people architecture, and then we’ll take all of in particular, as the source for this. So could get an idea of what he is about, that stuff and marshal it into an but this is one of those cases where we experience of pure entertainment.” No really spun the class based on our fiction learning of dead languages will be and setting. Just looking at the lexicon involved, but “you can sit back and enjoy of Latin, you’ll find a large number of the fruits of our labor, which come in the form of a consistent and highly detailed the “Inspired by … ” theme, he adds, to flex creative muscles. Stieg responded, world that’s flavored by all the research “There are certainly locations that are “I think it’s essentially similar to other we’ve done. There are a lot of things in based on historical places, but they are creative endeavors: I think the ‘nothing the world that people will recognize — not linked in a ‘real world’ way, and the new under the sun’ saying is true, so that’s one of the great things about the [way] places themselves are presented really creating comes down to the subject matter: Everyone knows is similarly fantastic.” choices you make about which material something about it. And we will include you include or don’t include, and how things that bare out of our time frame Drawing the line of when to go historical well you frame and present it and use it because they are so iconic. The Flavian and when to go legendary proved to get across your own stories and ideas. Amphitheater (better known as the “difficult at first,” he acknowledges, but The great thing about our source Colosseum) is a good example: Our “we had the general sense that we material,” he said, “is if you’re going to timeframe is well before this structure was wanted the actual city of Rome to be borrow from something, this is some built, but it’s so emblematic of Rome and fairly historical, since its glory comes not pretty nice stuff to borrow from.” so cool that we’ve included it anyway.” from being mythical, but the reality of this magnificent metropolis. And then, The physical world of Roman-era Italy the lands farther away from the city In 1972, Shannon Drake was sent to has gotten similar treatment. “There’s would be increasingly given over to the prison by a military court for a crime he certainly a lot to explore,” he says, creatures of myth. This also made sense didn’t commit. He promptly escaped though it’s not quite Google Maps- to us as matching the world view of the from a maximum security stockade to accurate. “Our world map is pretty far ancients — far away from home, strange the Los Angeles underground. Today, from a satellite picture of modern Italy. things exist.” still wanted by the government, he Instead, we present the world as the survives as a soldier of fortune. If you Romans would’ve recognized it: If you go While there is a lot of material to work have a problem, if no one else can help, a few miles, differences in terrain, with in Roman history and myth, there’s and if you can find him, maybe you can architecture, and color palettes are so much material that I wondered if it hire Shannon Drake. exaggerated to reflect how close to was a hindrance. While the Romans had home people would remain throughout a god for everything — making it easy to Perpetual Entertainment is a client of TAP their lives in those times, and how figure out who is in charge of what - Interactive, a division of Themis Group. different things would seem to them if they also had a god for everything, they left their homelands.” Continuing which I assumed would make it difficult The countdown began: 10...9...8... been touched by who knows how many other hands. Not magical, by any “Where is it?” account, but it has its own certain charm.

7...6...5... But back to the quarters. Unlike home systems or the PC, where you’d “I dropped it!” ordinarily have to cheat to keep surviving, your relationship with the “Dammit!” arcade is honest. You give it more quarters, it allows you to continue 4...3...2... breathing - honesty.

Quick! But what about those quarters? The other day, I was pumping some into a machine 1... across from a movie theater when I was struck by something: the possibility of clink immortality. Not in the metaphysical sense, but in gaming. “Whew, we got it.” Consider that prior to the late ‘90s the Sound familiar? Anyone who’s been in an majority of games on consoles were arcade and fought with the machine’s dominated by a market oriented in Japan unbearably short countdown to put a and overseas. Religious values there bevy of quarters into the slots has been versus here in the U.S. are quite stark: in this exact situation (though I toned We have a 77 percent Christian down the language a bit). Though arcade population, they have an 84 percent dual attendance has declined, there’s still Shintoist/Buddhist population. In Japan, nothing quite like it. The smell of the 0.7 percent identify as Christian, similar place, the sticky floor, the machine that’s to the Shintoist/Buddhist populace in the U.S. (1 percent). It’s quite obvious that birth-death cycle not unlike that of the religious beliefs. One of the most famous both countries are concerned with very search for enlightenment and Nirvana in of which is C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of different spiritual origins and planes, yet Buddhism, no? Narnia, which espouses Christian beliefs ThereThere areare manymany there is little to any religious quarrel in in a mythical setting. Could Zelda be examplesexamples ofof usingusing regard to gaming. Examine the stories of some of our most doing the same with Buddhism? I “ and allegory cherished games: The Legend of Zelda: couldn’t find much of anything on game metaphormetaphor and allegory Most disagreements are over violence, Ocarina of Time offers us the view that designer Shigeru Miyamoto’s religious toto communicatecommunicate blood, sex and profanity, but never Link’s universe was created when three affiliation (other than vague connections RELIGIOUS BELIEFS religious meanderings. But why? After creator goddesses gave life to the world, in his games to Shinto legends), so I can RELIGIOUS BELIEFS all, the greatest part of the gaming leaving behind the Triforce, an object only speculate. experience is being able to keep going, made up of three golden triangles ” to “continue.” Short of being the greatest arranged to create an upside-down Regardless of whether that’s true, it of all gamers, everyone has used triangle in the center of it. Three is a seems that sweeping legends and vast continue screens and save points to sacred number in many religions, of worlds of myth are commonplace in come back from their destruction. course. In Christianity it represents the many of the best games. Final Fantasy Whether you misjudged a ledge and Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In Buddhism, has often produced games that caused Mario to fall into the lava pit or however, it represents the Three Jewels, emphasize universal oneness and were blown apart by Combine troops or “Triratna” (which can look quite interconnection, such as the Lifestream marching from Black Mesa, restarting similar to the Triforce). It shows that you in FFVII or Gaia in FFIX. Xenogears goes fresh and new has been a part of gaming fully accept the teachings of the Buddha, in a completely opposite direction, saying from the beginning. hold him up as an enlightened teacher, that humanity was the creation of an and support those who share the same alien technology that produced us so Consider the meaning of that. More ideals. In the world of Zelda, the Triforce that we could power its escape eons importantly, consider the meaning of grants the desires of the man who later. All this, yet Harry Potter gets flack arcade games, letting you keep going as possesses it. Its location is purported to for having witches and wizards. long as you have the right requirements be in “The Golden Land,” which Link (in this case, money). Feeding those briefly reaches after a fierce battle with Perhaps this is simply the result of quarters one after another into the Gannon at the end of A Link to the Past. gaming being less socially integrated machines is like prolonging existence, than film, television, or literature. With ascending each “level” until you find your There are many examples of using the increasing influence that gaming is grand reward at the end of the road. A metaphor and allegory to communicate having on the collective psyche, that can’t be too far behind, and with it things, then we’ll happily never have to comes controversy. We may have never worry about any of these issues. connected religion and gaming before in any strong way, but that day is arriving But if that’s the case, I’m happy to soon enough. worry.

Is this a bad thing? Hard to tell. I think it’s Tom Rhodes is a writer and filmmaker positive in the sense that it allows us to currently living in Ohio. He can be examine our preconceived notions about reached through [email protected]. the world, God, and religion in general, like all good art can. One should always try and explore things like that with an open mind. It could only be negative in that it further denigrates a (recently) mainstream medium that is trying to find legs among the general population. After all, if there’s concern that violence in games can have undue influence on the youth, imagine what would happen if the manic media reported that it’s converting children into Shintoists.

Ultimately, these weighty issues are ignorable if the game is fun to play. Until I sat down to write this article, I hadn’t considered what all that mythology meant, let alone appreciated that it may have greater implications. However, if Roger Ebert is right, if gaming is merely a lengthy distraction from more important I was in the third grade when I created the motivations of the competitors purely my first and last videogame fan fiction. to the player’s imagination. It plumbed the hidden motivations of the nameless driver from Excitebike who, it These story-free games, unsurprisingly, just so happens, was actually Mario, are not the most popular subjects in the transported from the Mushroom realm of user-created videogame fan Kingdom into other NES games through fiction (whose stories are often called a secret warp pipe. The page-long story “fanfics” or “fics”). That title goes to ended on a dramatic cliffhanger, as the back story-filled epic roleplaying games final jump of theExcitebike course hurls like Kingdom Hearts, Pokemon and Final Mario into another secret warp pipe, Fantasy, each of which have thousands setting up an entire series of Mario-in- of individual stories archived in other-games stories that, to this day, FanFiction.net’s extensive games section. remains unconcluded. The site even contains a few hundred fan-created stories pasted on top of the It’s been said that videogames, like paper-thin official offerings for games pornography, need some sort of thin, like Doom, Street Fighter or Kirby’s disbelief-suspending story on which to Dream Land. rest before getting to the hardcore action. How true this statement is But that doesn’t mean fan fiction for depends on the story and the game, but story-free games doesn’t exist. Indeed, there is a class of games it undoubtedly FanFiction.net includes dozens of stories does not apply to – those without any that have been created from whole cloth story. These pure games might have an to describe games that have absolutely implied back story (“A bunch of guys get no existing back story, including some together for a motorcycle race ... ”) but that would theoretically discourage by and large, they eschew mythos for fictionalizing altogether. pure man vs. other competition, leaving Take, for example, the adventures of “The militia ‘divide and conquer’ [reviews], even if they are ‘flames.’”), a Fred, a Minesweeper flag who thinks propaganda always makes sure to response to boredom (“I have no idea longingly of his family just before his include something about ‘defending your where this came from. I was very, very destruction, or the story of the Queen of home’ against the beasts, who are bored one day.”), a need to be part of a Spades, who is freed from her Solitaire- always committing some horrible crime group (“Odd, but when I saw that there based prison, when she magically against humanity. A Super Saucer takes were fics for solitaire, I had to write changes places with the person out a transit tug, and now no one in something along those lines.”), a need to controlling her. Even the games Orion’s Belt gets fresh cheese in for challenge oneself (“I told myself: hey. themselves can take on human another month. Kill them! Herd them like Tetris. You can write a story about characteristics, as in the story of Windows cattle away from the supply lines! In Tetris.”), or even as a way to give Solitaire giving birth to a baby Spider effect, military propaganda is saying, meaning to an otherwise meaningless Solitaire (complete with a pacing Bill ‘Grab a can of pesticide and meet me existence (“This may very well be the Gates just outside the maternity ward). outside.’ The thing is, there’s a clear world’s firstFreecell fanfiction. It may be difference between quelling a plague of my only contribution to the human race, While many of the stories are obviously locusts and smashing a hornet’s nest.” as well.”). just thrown up on a lark, pigeonholing fics as tongue-in-cheek parodies does a If the whole idea of creating a story for a Some stories weave tales of love and disservice to many more serious game that has none sounds like an loss for in-game characters that are little offerings. While fan fiction about epic English-class writing prompt, that’s more than window-dressing, such as the games is often constrained by the because sometimes it is. “This was silent dancers in Dance Dance existing back story, writers use the originally an English project of mine” Revolution, or the near-silent stars of relatively blank slates of story-free writes “The Almighty God of Paper” in an games like SSX Tricky and Crazy Taxi. games to create everything from thought author’s note for his Iliad-inspired Pong Think about what this means: These experiments on a Lemming’s existential fanfic “Taken to Epic Proportions.” hundreds of people aren’t simply crisis, to examinations of Tetris as a (“Legend has it that the crisp ashen orb expanding the stories for well-developed metaphor for communism, to politically- holds great destructive power.”) characters, but crafting fully-formed charged treatises on the nature of war, stories to fill in the empty, stereotypical such as this one from “Asteroids: Where The motivations for other tale-spinners shells whose most compelling in-game the Stone Falls” by Luke Rounda: of story-free games should be familiar to dialogue amounts to yelling “Atomically anyone who was ever an angst-ridden supercool” when pulling off a massive teenager: a cry for attention (“I live for jump. If there’s a better testament to strong visual character design in games, a common thread, as are the limitations of time into a creative and artistic outlet. I can’t think of it. of games that continuously repeat Alternatively, many of the lighter-hearted (“Humans have created a concept/But, stories could be read as a challenge to the Other times, the stories focus on the in truth, even infinity ends,” writes one idea that games need to be something players rather than the games Tetris-inspired poet). A writer going by more than a set of rules and an interface themselves, as is the case with many of the handle K Project seems to be the for exerting control over them. the DDR fics available. Often, these are form’s standard-bearer, writing strictly simple descriptions of the writer’s metered sonnets about five separate However you look at it, it’s apparent that experience with the game, but story-free games so far. these stories fill a hole that at least a sometimes they expand into full-blown small segment of the internet felt needed fantasies about drawing crowds and And it’s a poetic ideal that seems to be filling. Without some sort of story or receiving the acclaim of passing arcade running through the heart of all these mythos backing them up, these games throngs. Addiction is a common theme to story-free fanfics – a need to assign fade to nothingness at the edge of the many of these player-focused tales – meaning to what are essentially screen. But in the realm of fan fiction, writers sharing real or imagined meaningless games. Most videogames the game only ends when your inabilities to draw themselves away from and pieces of art, even the awful ones, imagination does, and what happens a particularly compelling game (“She felt continue a storytelling tradition nearly as when you go through the warp pipe is so cheap, like some sort of Freecell old as man himself. There seems to be a yet to be determined. whore!”). Even when the stories aren’t strong desire among these writers to add ostensibly about the player, they can these story-free games to this tradition. Kyle Orland is a video game freelancer. often offer a disturbing window into the He writes about the world of video game inner life of the author (“But here I am, These are games that were never meant journalism on his weblog, Video Game forgotten, like a silent whisper in the wind to be more than simple entertainment - Media Watch. on a cold winter night surrounded only by games that never even made a slight ocean. … Where did I come from?”) pretense towards being more than they are - and yet these stories are Many fanfic authors use story-free attempting to do just that. In a way, they games as a jumping-off point to wax could be seen as an effort to justify the poetic on the Zen nature of play; the hours and hours spent sitting in front of a futility of playing an un-winnable game is screen, transforming a consumptive waste EDITORIAL PRODUCTION BUSINESS Executive Editor Producer Publisher Julianne Greer Jonathan Hayter Alexander Macris

Content Editor Layout Artist Associate Publishers Joseph Blancato Jessica Fielhauer Jerry Godwin Russ Pitts Jason Haile Gregory Lincoln

Contributing Editor Lead Web Developer Director of Advertising JR Sutich Whitney Butts Susan Briglia

Research Manager Web Developer Chairman of Themis Group Nova Barlow Erik Jacobson Thomas S. Kurz Tim Turner Contributors Shannon Drake IT Director Kyle Orland Jason Smith Tom Rhodes Roger Travis Allen Varney

Issue 66, © 2006. The Escapist is published weekly by Themis Group, Inc. Produced in the United States of America. To contact the editors please email [email protected]. For a free subscription to The Escapist in PDF format please view www.escapistmagazine.com