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MOLOCH: Developing a German Expressionist Puzzle Game ____________________________________ A Thesis Presented to The Honors Tutorial College Ohio University _______________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation from the Honors Tutorial College with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Communication ______________________________________ by Joseph M. Cox April 2017 Table of Contents Section 1: Abstract 1 Section 2: Personal Statement 3 Section 3: Culmination of Work and Contribution to the Field 4 Intermedia Translation 4 Directing and Filmmaking 5 New Media Installations 5 Experiential Creations 6 Alternative Games 6 Section 4: Game Overview and Demo Overivew 8 Section 5: Visual Style and Sound 11 Section 6: Narrative Adaptation: Intermedia Translation 20 Expectations 20 Faithfulness 22 Application to Thesis 24 Section 7: Narratives and Emotional States in Games 28 What is a Game? 28 Narratives in Games 31 Zinesters 31 States in Gaming 33 Section 8: Production 36 Design 36 Asset Creation 37 Installation 42 Additions 43 Section 9: Conclusions 47 MOLOCH: DEVELOPING A GERMAN EXPRESSIONIST PUZZLE GAME 1 Abstract MOLOCH is a game about internal struggles between passive content consent and critical views in systems where digging deeper can lead to darker truths. A top-down three-dimensional game with simple directional movement puzzles, MOLOCH places us behind a desk as a shift manager in a dystopian company. Throughout the game, the player will be confronted with the binary of efficiency vs. morality. The game encourages us to increasingly hurry our managed workers, but is the company’s goal and corporate approval worth the amoral work we force? Are we ok with the system’s tactics aimed at keeping us complacent? MOLOCH takes inspiration from Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis and from the German Expressionism art movement at-large. Increasing anxiety over the networked world’s discordant relationships between humanity and the physical world and the rise of social inauthenticity and near endemic individual alienation highlight the intentions of MOLOCH (Klaas, 2016). Adapting a rich history of prior art is critical to the tonal and thematic success of MOLOCH. David Freeman, designer and writer, states that one of the keys to creating a rich world is through adding history (Freeman, 2003). Adding backstory to MOLOCH through ancillary materials, and injecting the sentiments of Metropolis facilitates a rich history. The precise adaptation necessary for analytical success spans visual and audial assets as well; without proper signifiers the tone of the game will be lost due to a lack of thematic cohesion. This aspect will be accomplished through continual examination and inspiration of prior art. MOLOCH: DEVELOPING A GERMAN EXPRESSIONIST PUZZLE GAME 2 Coded in Unity, MOLOCH will be released for PC, Mac, and Linux and is played with the mouse and arrow keys. Minimal controls allow game testing on touchscreen devices. The prototype, MOLOCH Zero, was created in GameMaker and is available as a downloadable PC game. Target audiences are casual indie game players as well as the art game world. MOLOCH: DEVELOPING A GERMAN EXPRESSIONIST PUZZLE GAME 3 Personal Statement Through study of integrated media, it is apparent that a solitary line of thought does not convey successful storytelling; it is created via an intricate, complex, and, at times, profound web of ideas united through observations, thoughts, and research. This integrated approach is a sound method to storytelling. And so, I have embraced and adopted this creative process to produce the new media content of MOLOCH, my interactive game project. As a beginning, compelling narratives are derived from rounded experiences and a thirst for getting to the bottom of things. They include tangential exploration around the topic with sustained focus on the project. This approach to integrated media involves determining which media are most effective for a project narrative, experience, and/or feeling. Application of this contextual approach has evolved across my academic career through the creation of games, films, albums, new media art, and physical installations. Time management is paramount to approaching and learning integrated media methodology. The confidence of imagination, the enjoyment of craft, and the understanding of tangible goals increase development time in any production. Yet, this concept of taking time to understand every facet of the space is critically important in my approach to any serious project. MOLOCH: DEVELOPING A GERMAN EXPRESSIONIST PUZZLE GAME 4 Culmination of Work and Contribution to the Field MOLOCH represents the culmination of my work over the past four years. From intermedia translation, directing and filmmaking, alternative games exploring mind states outside of flow, new media installations, and self-reflecting experiential creations; MOLOCH is a professional endeavor that incorporates focus areas in an interconnected context. Intermedia Translation In autumn semester of my sophomore year, I engaged in a tutorial with Media Arts and Studies Professor Eric Williams to finally attain an answer to a question that had been shadowing me for years, namely – what are the hallmarks of successful media adaptations? More specifically, when disregarding monetary success, what are the hallmarks of a successful adaptation from critically acclaimed, certified “good” literature (comic book, short story, and novel) to feature length film? When examining why a “good” literary source could fail critically as film, I encountered Garfield. It was challenging to comprehend the production errors of Peter Hewitt’s Garfield: The Movie that resulted in a previously well-loved comic book release turning 15% fresh-on-rotten- tomatoes sour as a film (Rotten Tomatoes, 2004). Exploration of successful literature to film adaptations led to the conclusion that treatment of three key components portends success. These areas include character expectations, audience expectations, and tonal expectations. These elements appear to fill a critical niche that must be met, individually and collectively, and the components work in unison to create a cohesive film positioned MOLOCH: DEVELOPING A GERMAN EXPRESSIONIST PUZZLE GAME 5 for success. This same method can be applied to assess other intermedia translations as well. Directing and Filmmaking My initial scholastic interest was filmmaking – namely cinematography. Following completion of coursework focused on the theoretical foundations of filmmaking my interest expanded from cinematography to directing. In time, my interest in directing moved beyond talent directing; aligning with art direction and world building. I realized that an interest as aesthetician overtook the appeal of technical camera work. Albeit the visual quality of a film is equally important to other qualities, the ability to reproduce what the Hollywood film industry sees as polish or marketability is not a priority in my multimedia projects. In the past I strived to avoid using the term “director” because of its connotations as the “idea guy;” a person who has ideas and will not actualize them in any meaningful way. More recently, I have used the descriptor “digital and physical storyteller” to identify the role because it more closely adheres to my interests across media platforms. New Media Installations New media installations have become a focus of mine over the past several years as well. Following an interest of museology, I enrolled in the Museum Studies Certificate program. I have made a point across my work in games and films to construct installations that support showings. These enhance creation of a concrete gestalt, creating a smooth transition in the liminal space between the viewing space and the work itself. My curation interest began as rejection of the idea of framing or putting artifacts on MOLOCH: DEVELOPING A GERMAN EXPRESSIONIST PUZZLE GAME 6 pedestals. Making objects and content approachable is hugely related to presentation. Encouraging an audience to interact or gravitate towards a work usually boils down to how uniquely compelling and interesting it is compared to the artworks physically collocated. Experiential Creations Many of the pieces I’ve created are inspired by lifetime experiences. My workflow tends to re-contextualize an event that I have experienced and moves it into a media space that affords engagement of a larger audience. Experiential narratives have become increasingly popular in recent years evidenced by growing numbers of such work and consumers’ burgeoning interested in being challenged (Patti, 2016). Yet, they garner criticism for being unoriginal or unauthentic. My approach to experiential narratives is to obfuscate the story in order to generate audience interest in the experience. This professional project, MOLOCH, derives from the same place; it is a culmination of experiences at the Tokyo Game Show, admixed with current events, filtered through the lens of German Expressionism. Alternative Games I have worked on over forty games in the past five years and have attended and participated in a variety of media-related industry events. Through venue interactions, hands on experiences and academic conferences I have immersed myself within a critical niche of the independent gaming industry. Video games have advanced to a point where designers strive for a flow state in their creations. Foundationally, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s flow is colloquially referred to as the “optimal experience;”

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