Investigation of Psychological Maps, Manipulation of Psychic Territory and Moral Reflection
Game worlds, thick with symbolic and metaphoric potential, easily slide in and out of psychic territory. They serve as apparitions of character fantasies come to exciting and horrifying life, and implicate game characters as psychotic; as creatures lost in a dream of their own creation. In such a playing field, reversals are inevitable. The villain substantiates the role and purpose of the player character, but the player character has given rise to the villain, who would have no need to exist, without the curiosity and hunger of the player character for exploration and interaction. They are, arguably, facets of the same psyche. As Lefebvre reflects:
Mental space – the space of reductions, of force and repression, of manipulation and co-optation, the destroyer of nature and of the body – is quite unable to neutralize the enemy within its gates. Far from it: it actually encourages the enemy, actually helps to revive it. (354)
Eventually, the player character is faced with either accepting self-annihilation (in whole or in part) or coming to terms with the apparition. The game world, as catalytic phial, inculcates character confusion and/or moral ambiguity, by engaging the symbolic properties of its structures. Few games, however, have made the most of this. For instance, both Alice and Sanitarium depend on cinematics to illustrate player character confusion, indecision, or fear. The environments give us the option to consider the characters from a psychological vantage point, but they never require it. Finally, game play necessitates little moral reflection.
A few games have ventured into this territory, however. Myst IV Revelation (2005), for instance, provides an excellent example of game environments that move beyond aesthetically intriguing symbolic structures, to demanding dynamic player investigation, engagement in, and manipulation of their psycho-symbolic properties. As Jencks points out in his book Towards a Symbolic Architecture:
While blatant meanings may momentarily cloud the intellect they can also – as Abbot Suger argued in the twelfth century when defending the use of Gothic ornament and stained glass – lead the mind to higher levels of organization. (Jencks, 228)
The original Myst game stunned curious game players world wide in 1993 with rich visuals and an inventive story. Since then, the Myst phenomenon has grown, expanding into new and ever-more mystifying territory. In every game the player plays himself/herself, an adventurer and long-time comrade of Atrus, one of the last of the D’ni people. The D’ni were a vainglorious race of extraordinary intelligence, eccentricity, and life span, who discovered the Art of writing books that served as gateways to other worlds. Atrus, so captivated by the Art, neglected his two sons. Angered by their father, his sons raided his library, and plundered the worlds he wrote. Atrus was eventually forced to imprison them in separate worlds, from which he devised no method of escape. Later, Atrus and his wife Catherine had a third child, a daughter named Yeesha.
Myst IV Revelation focuses on three book worlds: Spire, Haven, and Serenia. Each possesses unique geography, architecture, and ambience. Each proves to be a metaphor for the character constitution of Atrus’s three children. For instance, the writers of the official Myst IV Revelation site describe Atrus’s son, Sirrus, as a “perfectionist who’s focused to the point of obsession…. Calculated and patient…. His calm exterior hides tons of bottled-up anger.” Sirrus serves his life sentence on the world of Spire. The castles, specious structures that ultimately prove empty and fruitless (Fig. 15), are metaphors for Sirrus’s pride. The caverns that riddle the castle foundations symbolize the cold, twisted contours of Sirrus’s mind (Fig. 16). The only obvious power source on the planet is lightning, which strikes at random, much like Sirrus’s anger. On the other hand, the official site describes Atrus’s other son, Achenar, as expressively and excessively emotional. In pictures and in person, he is a hairy, unkempt beast of a man. Achenar lives out his sentence on the world of Haven. Haven is an island wilderness, on one end rocky, pelted by waves and haunted by sea monsters (Fig. 18); on the other, a jungle livid with avians, simians, felines, and dinosaur-like creatures (Fig. 19). Indeed, it is a wild, ferocious realm, symbolically capturing the soul of Achenar, a wild, ferocious man. Finally, Yeesha is described as: “inquisitive, intuitive, and compassionate…. She sees beauty in the smallest things.” (MR site) In other words, Yeesha is the family angel. And Serenia is Yeesha’s world. It is an Arcadian vision of dappled skies, lucid waterways, ghostly butterflies, bubbles and flowers that drip honey (Fig. 21). The air melts with voices, chimes, and flute. Every detail poeticizes the sweetness and warmth of Yeesha’s nature. Even Yeesha’s intuition is symbolically implied by the unusual nature of the technologies of the people of Serenia, who tap into the realm of dream and spirit (Fig. 22). Bartle summarizes:
Breathtaking panoramas and glorious palaces can generate feelings of awe and wonder. Misshapen creatures and ruined buildings can make an otherwise normal situation seem unpleasant. Beauty represents success, ugliness failure; beauty goodness, ugliness evil. It operates at different levels (the superficially beautiful can be ugly deep down, and vice versa), but the symbolism remains the same. (649)
But beyond making effective use of symbolism and metaphor, these worlds are littered with messages and journals left by Sirrus, Achenar, and Yeesha. As Greg Kasavin explains in his review: “…you can look forward to discovering and reading through the various main characters’ journals during the course of the game and discovering their ambitions and their secrets along with some important clues.” As the player investigates, it becomes clear that Sirrus and Achenar have spent their years of imprisonment devising plans for the downfall of their father. At the same time, their years have changed their attitudes and inclinations, suggesting that, while both remain dangerous, both may have come to know the error of their ways. For, instance, Sirrus has developed an obsession for carving familial likenesses in crystal (Fig. 17), suggesting a yearning for the security of a family he has never known. Achenar, on the other hand, after almost decimating Haven’s simian species, later comes to regret his decision, and befriends them (Fig. 20). This may harken to a hunger for familial reconciliation as well. The Myst method of information distribution and disclosure colors player understanding so ingeniously, that, when the game approaches climax, and the player is given a chance to free Yeesha from Achenar, the player is gripped by true confusion, consternation, and indecision. All this, without need of mechanical dialogue telling the player how to feel. The game then takes the psycho-symbolic possibilities of environment and environment manipulation a step further. If the player chooses to, rather than free Yeesha, they might enter the realm of dream. Here the puzzles, quite literally, involve the pure manipulation of symbols (Fig. 23), so as to put Yeesha’s mind in order. At the same time, the player reassembles their understanding of the entire story, and what their ultimate role is.
