Game Environments: Arenas of Self-Salvation or Facilitating Virtual Approximation for Compassion?
Whether we consider the player character and villain as distinct entities with identities in virtual danger of becoming each other, or whether we consider them as extensions of each other to begin with, seeking reconciliation within a virtual placenta (the game world), every game is essentially an exercise in self-salvation in a self-centered universe. This is because all game environments exist for the player character that explores or invades it. Without the player character, the existence of the world is of no immediate significance to the player as a player. If the player character is faced with any dilemma at all, it is how to be reconciled with the environment he/she explores or invades. If the character can find reconciliation with the world and come to use it to his/her/its advantage, there is hope for the character. But might there also be something salvageable about the villain, which as the ultimate foe, is also the ultimate interaction the environment supports? In an exploration-based game-scenario, in which the villain is encountered through the environment, rather than as a virtual character, the villain is potentially rendered salvageable by suggesting that it is the mystery that separates the player character from the villain that is the real villain. Once the mystery has been resolved, understanding might be allowed to flow between the two parties, resulting in a virtual approximation of compassion. After all, as Lefebvre points out: “Misunderstanding… nourishes attitudes of listening and expectancy.” (212) A confrontation-based game-scenario situated in an environment symbolically rich might provide creative clues about the villain through metaphoric vehicles, or provide, virtually and metaphorically, new viewpoints on the villain and his world. Such devices, if critically employed, could provoke player confusion, guilt, or despair at the possibility of destroying their foe. Such an environment might also offer up unique alternatives to violence.
Another excellent example of a game that plays upon issues of self-salvation, moral choice and player sympathy is The Longest Journey, which received wide acclaim when it first entered the market in 2000. The player assumes the persona of April Ryan, an eighteen-year old art student making her way in an exotic cyber-punk future colored with self-maintaining fake plants, holosculpture, and Bingo pizza. Despite the myriad high-tech wonders, there is something amusingly familiar about her campus ventures (Fig 25). April is no ordinary art student, however.
…nightmares… plague her sleep: vivid and sometimes violent images and apparitions of a fantasy land ravaged by Chaos itself. (Fig. 24) When elements of this dreamland begin to manifest themselves in her waking hours, she learns that something is very, very wrong. (Stewart)
April stands at the fringe of two universes, Stark, a universe of technology and science, and Arcadia, a universe of magic and dreams. While Arcadia and Stark stand in contrast with each other on many fronts, they are haunted by a common threat, the Vanguard, who hope to gain possession of the powers of science and magic and become gods. As April, the player must forestall their schemes by finding the imprisoned guardian of the Balance and reinstating him in his tower between the two worlds.
Although the player has limited control over how the character April relates to the world, and to the other characters she encounters, April is called to different behavioral choices depending on whether she is in Stark, or in Arcadia. In Stark, April is a punk. She tampers with police information and surveillance cameras, flirts with the guards, and seems incapable of responding to anyone or any situation without profanity or sarcasm. In Arcadia, however, April is the wide-eyed wonder-struck farm girl destined for great heroism, and interacts with its inhabitants, except in a few cases, with respect and kindness. Apparently, these environments extract two distinct manifestations of her character. But beyond that, Stark and Arcadia easily function as world-sized manifestations of April’s split character. Stark is April’s dark cynicism, anxiety, and hopelessness symbolized by sidewalks peopled with drug addicts (Fig 26), haunted by invisible technologies, and troubled by discriminatory politics, which determine city infrastructure (Fig. 27). Arcadia, on the other hand, embodies April’s sense of wonder, her hunger for adventure, and her caring potential, with its fairytale vistas (Fig. 28), its puzzles steeped in mythology (Fig. 29), and its curious, enchanted inhabitants (Fig. 30). Moreover, cinematics and game dialogue make it clear that April’s challenge is not merely the salvation of universes, but personal reconciliation with her troubled past and dysfunctional family.
A lot of April’s experiences focus on self-discovery as much as they do about progressing to the next screen, or triggering the next large event. It’s almost foreign to have a main character in a video [game] ask questions about their mortality and existence, but April Ryan’s humor-driven look at life seems to be able to pull off such topics, without… blurring… TLJ’s strong gaming focus. (Lopez)
Inner reconciliation is only the beginning for April, however. The Vanguard has found a way to control the next Guardian of the Balance, by splitting his nature in two. In Stark, he is a cold, calculating machine of a man. In Arcadia he is pure chaos energy. At first, destruction of both appears to be the only answer. But at the climatic moment, the universe is saved, not by destroying the Guardian, but by healing him. The process of healing proves to be the ultimate interaction the game offers. First of all, it demonstrates the culmination of April’s skills gained through total mastery of the environment. She must capture the chaos cloud and use it as strong medicine against the machine-man Guardian. Moreover, in the process of healing the villain, the hero finds healing herself.
