Anti-gameplay

Often times video games have contradictions between gameplay and narrative. Story and gameplay are handled as two separate entities entirely, both progressing on their own as the game unfolds, but often times there is not much dialogue between the 2.

For an example: in Tomb Raider(2013) the theme of the game is how a young woman is able to overcome all odds in her fight for survival. Early parts of the game quite successfully portray her struggle as she is stumbling forward. Lara is hurt and vulnerable in every scene, shivering by the bonfire, barely surviving every encounter with the baddies and so on -- but then just in a time frame of one scene, Lara gets her gun and slaughters a company of bad guys. From that point on there is a clear shift in focus towards gameplay and making players feel empowered by their killing skills. Narrative themes are set in background, not only that, but these new gameplay elements contradict narrative entirely. The game is clearly not about survival anymore, because you can easily dispatch an army of enemies without breaking a sweat. Similar unfoldings in video games happen all the time. There needs to be an even flow of rewards and new skills that players acquire in order to keep them playing and satisfied in this age of instant reward. Games are often times still first and foremost about gameplay, even more story driven games. This trend in video games, where gameplay contradicts narrative, is called ludonarrative dissonance.

Now what does all this have to do with Fear & Hunger? If you played the teaser demo, you might have been annoyed by certain features and design choices. The game explains nothing. You have to test things by trial and error to find meaning to items that are seemingly useless often times. There are one-way dead ends, with no means to continue the game. There are infamous one-hit kills with next to no warning to them. The whole gameplay system is kind of an anti-RPG system; instead of gaining EXP after every battle and becoming stronger over time - you lose limbs and come closer to being crippled after every encounter with monsters. The anti-gameplay elements serve a purpose however, they're not there just to annoy players. They are there to enhance themes of the narrative. The dungeons of fear and hunger are supposed to be oppressive and hopeless, where bigger forces decide your fate. Characters are meant to survive against impossible odds.

In a way all the anti-gameplay elements are there to create the opposite to ludonarrative dissonance: to create ludonarrative resonance. Things are made uncomfortable, so that the player wants to stay away from the same dangers as the playable character would. Anti-gameplay elements are supposed to make the player feel paranoid about every choice he or she makes and perhaps look for alternative routes for survival, maybe just to make the player run from the battles? I hope it all adds to immersion in the end, which in turn seems to be one of the strongest factors in creating horror experience.

Now all these fancy terms and talk don't mean that these elements are perfect as it is. Teaser demo was there to test out all these features. I'm going to be listening to the feedback closely. I'm going to be working with the balance, making certain things more fair and trying to come up with new ways to introduce more anti-gameplay elements in the future. It is pretty interesting subject imo and indie games are an ideal testing grounds for it.

I just felt like explaining the design choices behind certain elements as it's clear not everyone cares for them :P

Thanks to everyone who gave the demo a shot~!! I'm feeling pretty excited in continuing my work with the game ^.^


oh and check out RagnarRox from youtube who has an awesome analysis on ludonarrative resonance!

I'm going to hell with this game~


Hi everyone~! I decided to write a blog post here, because my progress with the game has been so slow lately and I want to keep this page updated. I have been busy with my school projects for past months and I’ve barely been able to spend any time on Fear & Hunger. BUT I have found the solution! I’m in the middle of writing my thesis work and I decided to write it about this game. And feelings of horror and anxiety in video games in general. The final form is still shaping up, but I’m pretty motivated. So in order to clarify my thesis and my ideas, I’m going to be posting my thoughts here. Do mind that it’s all still very much work in progress and I don’t even know yet what it is that I want to tell.


So yes. I’ve had this moral dilemma with this game for a while. The themes and narrative contain some really disturbing material. It’s safe to say I’m going to hell because of it… but I was probably going there anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Still, I did have urge to censorship my own game or at least make things more vague, but certain people talked me out of it and now I’m just adding all the monstrosities I had planned and some more. Just to paint picture; Fear & Hunger contains sexual violence, child abuse, drugs, a lot of gore, nudity, etc.

There is the age-old debate about what kind of matters video games (and other mass media) can contain. What can we show to children without them getting traumatized and scared sh*tless. Of course one could say that we got age ratings for that reason, but everyone knows they are not followed and pretty much every single 8-13 year old has played GTA. Most of the gamers usually want to deny the effect games might have on us. ”Games don’t make killers - those people were f*cked up from birth” - but isn’t it pretty much the same as ”Guns don’t kill people - people kill people - with guns”?

The truth is - most of the studies do prove that anxiety, horrors, violence and such do have effect on us. Research has been consistent that fictional stories have great impact on people. Fictional stories influence how we see the world, what kind of moral choices we make, what we fear and what causes anxiety in us. All this happens on subconscious level without us maybe even realizing it, or without our consent. The bigger the immersion to the media, the bigger lasting effect it has on us. I mean how can people think that we could somehow isolate our entertainment material inside our head from the real matters? Put all the nasty stuff to ”don’t care”-folder and be done with it? We are picking influences up non-stop in our daily life, from advertisements to news broadcast.

There are bunch of studies by Joanne Cantor on the matter. During 1997-2000, she arranged a research where hundreds of college students were interviewed. They were asked about any frightening experiences they had had with mass media. The kinds of experiences that left a lasting impression on them. The research show that most of us are traumatized by fictional horror at least on some level. 75% said they had experienced anxiety because of horror movies, by the extent that it affected their behavior if they were in a situation similar to the movie. For example going on camping trip after seeing Blair Witch Project. 46% said they suffered from insomnia because of fictional horrors. 1/3 of the subjects said the effects were long lasting. Many of the effects following subjects all the way to their adult life. The interesting part of these studies was that it didn’t just include horror fiction. It was all mass media. Meaning real life horrors seen from news and documents didn’t have as big effect as fictional material.

Jonathan Gottschall comes to a conclusion in his book The Storytelling Animal, that when we see something that is supposed to be real, like news, we have this barrier of criticism and skepticism. But with fictional stories our minds seems to relax and lower their shields. We embrace new ideas more easily and in general our minds are more vulnerable. It might have something to do with the immersion and how much we empathize with main characters and villains. Generally how big of an emotional connection we make to the story. I could continue writing how empires and kingdoms of the olden days (and why not modern as well?) used stories and religions to control masses, control our moral values, etc. and we’d get a full circle on ”I’m going to hell with this game”- title, but that’s besides the point. This text was supposed to be about horror games.

So yes. Games are indeed affecting people. Isn’t it our responsibility to upkeep good values with games then? The most common defensive argument on why all this sh*t is fine with video games, is the freedom of expression as artists. Art knows no boundaries - why should games? If we are ever to take video games seriously as an art medium, we need to break some borders. I do believe this is true - but whenever I think of my own game in making - I’m not so sure if this is art really. Sure there are artistic merits to be found, I’ve seen tons of effort in crafting this thing - but art? I’m not there yet. The thing is - I’m afraid it’s all for the joke. The events happening in the game are so absurd in their shock value that it becomes humor of sorts. Even if everything is very much straight faced in the game. It’s not much different from the offensive shock humor running rampart in memes and youtube today. So there comes my dilemma. I can’t justify all the macabre themes in the game to myself. Still I’m going to stay uncompromising. Maybe just to break some borders of my own mind and hopefully this will get me closer to the art form. Maybe the next project will actually have some grander message?


Sorry about the rambling, it’s not the most coherent text as I just vomited the writing in 30-45 min and my english isn’t perfect either… But if anyone has ideas about the subject, I’d be more than happy to hear them! ^.^