He was a monster
They were mesmerised
She was a Titan
These are the sorts of metaphors we use all the time in literature
Open any piece of fiction and you'll see a phrase like this within the first couple of pages
In games though, this can also be literal
Before we begin, please welcome Jack McGee who's doing guest art for this episode. Thanks jack
This whole episode is going to be about the fact that in games something can be metaphorical and literal
at the same time
This is important because so often we the community whether it be the players or critics
miss the metaphorical and only see the literal denying us a richer experience and hamstringing what developers can actually deliver
At the same time the development community often forgets to think about the metaphors the literal elements of their games deliver
Robbing their audience of the depth they crave
But before we can solve this we should probably give a few examples to make sure we're all on the same pages
Imagine a character in a game that's a vampire
Well, the fact that they are a vampire of course means they are a vampire, but that's not all it means
What are the characteristics usually associated with a vampire?
They're parasitic, blood sucking and predatory
In a piece of literature if you said "That man is a vampire"
Often it's those qualities, not the fact that the person you're talking about is a literal vampire, that you'd be expressing
And everyone would know exactly what you meant
But in games the fact that the character is a vampire also means they represent those qualities
If our vampire is secretly the head of the local merchant guild
we're using the metaphor inherent in the fact that they are a vampire to make a commentary
We're saying that these merchants are vampires. At least in the metaphorical sense.
They're blood sucking or leeches
If you were to swap things around a bit and have the vampire fighting against the local merchant guild
with the peasants supporting and hiding them you're now making a slightly higher level commentary
You're basically saying even the vampire is less vampiric than these folks
Now, let's take a few more complex examples from film and comics
Superman's fortress of solitude for example is in actual fortress
But it's also representational
It's actually more important as a metaphor for the inner life of the character who posseses it
than its capacity as a physical defensive structure
Simply by Superman having a fortress of solitude somewhere in the Arctic
We can instantly come to know a lot more about him as a character
No, extra text space has to be taken up trying to tell us about Superman's inner life to give us this
And because of it we don't need any excruciating dialogue hitting us over the head
with the fact that the strongest person in the world is also vulnerable and alone
In the alien films the aliens are face-hugging, chest-bursting parasites
They also happen to be what the earthbound mega corpse strive for
Most of the film's revolve around, and most of the problems in the film are caused by, agents of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation
trying to acquire and use these destructive monstrous creatures
The nature of the creatures is used as a metaphor that tells us about the corporate greed in this dystopic sci-fi future
Silent Hill 2 always stands out as the best example of this idea in games
Utilizing the fact that in games the literal and the metaphorical can overlap
For instance, the killer mannequins that are just four pairs of legs
are absolutely a representation of the main characters frustrated sexual desires
But they're also really killer mannequins who are out to murder you
In the Yakuza series Kiryu literally has a tattoo of a dragon on his back
But symbolically the dragon in Japanese culture represents wisdom and protection
it represents being a guardian
Meanwhile, Nishiki literally has a tattoo of a koi on his back
But that koi also tells us about his character
The koi is a symbol of striving
In the myth the koi can become a dragon
But only if it doesn't give up
If it continues to fight the current rather than choose the easy route and go with the flow of water
In the end this tattoo tells us what Nishiki could be and foreshadows what he will become
If we think past the literal in our games and think to what those literal elements might represent
we can convey so much meaning that we'd never be able to fit in if we had to cram it into the text of the game
It also gives us the option to deliver information in a subtler way
Without the laborious character expositions that make so many games drag or feel cheesy
Now how to achieve this on a development side isn't actually that hard
It just involves forethought
It involves knowing your characters or what you're trying to say with a particular part of your game early enough in development
that you can create assets around those ideas. And in truth, this is probably just good practice
We should generally think through our characters and the things we're trying to say with our games earlier in cycle
Sure, some of it will get cut and changed as the game goes on
But you know what?
That's no real loss
You'll still build better characters and you'll still get neat character designs,
enemies, locations or narrative arcs out of doing so
The other approach is a little looser
But it's probably where we'll have to start in modern development
Every time we're about to start sculpting a model or designing an enemy we should ask ourselves
Why?
Why is it THIS particular thing instead of something else?
What does its nature or its design say?
That costs us nothing and provides more depth to our games
And if you don't think players will dig to that depth
If you don't think that they'll think about it to that level
Oh, do I have a wiki for Silent Hill or Bloodborne I'd like to show you
If it's there your players will find it
And on the other side
As a community, as players and as critics we should give developers the benefit of the doubt
We should assume there's meaning there that's not 'reading too much' into things and it won't in any way spoil your games
Because even if it's not the designers intent by doing that maybe from time to time
You'll find something in a game you might have otherwise overlooked that will be truly meaningful to you
And if any of you watching this have any other good examples of places
where the literal and the metaphorical overlapping games
Put them in the comments section below
We love getting those types of discussions started
Until then, see you next time