#oxenfree is the best media ever for this reason actually

[copepods]

there will never be a trope as cool as “supernatural entity communicates thru and/or fucks up technology.” when the angel/ghost/Creature burns the power out or talks thru the radio or makes the signal go haywire i jump and scream and clap my hands

[yahargul]

leo’s list of horror media

this list is just my personal favorite things to watch when i’m in a spooky mood and i wanted to share this list with people who are looking for scares that don’t rely solely on jumpscares or gore! (ofc it’s horror, so this isn’t a violence free list and i encourage you to look up everything before diving in if you have things you specifically don’t wanna see)

movies/tv:

as above so below this movie is like, “what if lara croft, instead of raiding tombs, got trapped in the paris catacombs?” not only is this movie incredibly creepy, but it’s also heavy on the characters and their journey through this hellscape that reflects their fears

the final girls a parody about the 80s slasher films when a group of high school students find themselves teleported into a movie called camp bloodbath. this movie is actually really heartwrenching, sweet, and pretty funny.

you're next this is another play on the slasher concept, but played a bit more seriously. a family is attacked during a wedding anniversary...except one of the guests is trained in survival. this movie is fucking amazing

the orphanage look, children in horror movies are terrifying end of. the story that slowly unfolds here really stuck with me long after the movie ended. i don’t wanna say more than that just...watch it.

haunting of hill house i wasn’t gonna put things here that i felt were already really popular, but i’ll make an exception here. if you were looking for a reason to watch this show and you haven’t already, it’s time to do it. like a lot of my horror recs here, while this show is genuinely creepy, it’s the characters that really pull you in as you see how the house has affected them  

scream trilogy last slasher parody i swear, but i think we’ve reached the point where people haven’t seen the original scream and you’ve just gotta. please watch scream. sidney is probably the greatest horror protagonist to ever exist, and she was a direct criticism of the violence inflicted on women in 80s slasher movies. (i’m gonna make a sidenote that there are some startles in the trilogy but a lot of them are fakeouts and i personally dont find ghostface scary but ymmv) 

the curious creations of christine mcconell this is a cute crafting/baking show on netflix filmed like a sitcom similar to 90s sabrina. learn how to make peanut butter bones and sew a dress while christine talks to herself and her pets try to commit murder! 

games: 

anatomy anatomy does so much with it’s concept and keeps the tension so high while doing very little. you are someone who has stumbled into a house late night and unable to leave, listen to the recordings left in different rooms. just...play this game. 

oxenfree this is probably one of my favorite games, hands down. you play as alex, who is partying with her friends on a deserted military island and inadvertently opens a portal to...something. the art direction, music, and dialogue in this game are top notch. 

the last door would you like to be the 19th century gentleman protagonist of a gothic horror novel? well look no further! this is a pixelated point and click horror trilogy that’s right up your alley. 

paratopic i don’t even know what to say about paratopic. if you want a game that’s completely surreal, doesn’t really explain itself, but leaves you with a completely unsettling feeling, play this. 

bloodborne okay i know i don’t have to put bloodborne here. but i’m gonna put bloodborne here. it’s just too well crafted, the atmosphere is too good, the music is too good, the way the entire universe just goes off the shits in the last half of the game is too good. it’s like how could i not rec the best thing i’ve ever eaten?

youtube/podcasts/etc:

this house has people in it this is a 10 minute video that aired on adult swim around 4am and it’s weird as fuck. there’s further videos/audio/text logs if you want to delve into the arg (and theres a masterpost, warning cause the audio logs get LOUD) but the video itself stands on its own just fine. watch this family fall the fuck apart 

daisy brown this youtube series is about a girl who lives with a monster her father created. turn on closed captions for this one (edit to warn: this series deals heavily with themes of abuse, mostly emotional, but if you are up to watching it you will not be disappointed)

caughtnotsleeping i get that slenderverse stuff is mostly over with now and this youtube series sadly never finished but this still remains one of the best series i’d ever seen. the puzzles, the mystery surrounding the protag, and the scares were some of the cleverest i’d seen

alice isn’t dead the fact that this podcast didn’t blow up like wtnv is an actual crime. support black lesbian truckers trying to find their not dead wife or perish 

emily carroll’s through the woods a collection of short horror comics, beautifully drawn and incredibly haunting  

[joyful-soul-collector]

33/11/11 Tag

Rules: Answer the 11 questions of the person who tagged you, make up 11 questions, then tag 11 people to answer them. 

Thanks for tagging me @azawrites, @tracle0, and @ren-c-leyn! I decided instead of making three separate posts, it’s be easier to just put ‘em all in one spot.

Questions from @azawrites:

1. What makes you get up and write?

Whenever I have time really. If I have free time, you’ll catch me in front of my laptop, tryin’ to figure out a scene

2. Where and how did you get the idea for your wip (or past project)?

For AR, I was inspired by a webcomic called Patrik the Vampire, as well as a lot of tumblr posts about aliens reaction to random human stuff. 

3. What was the first thing you wrote?

I wrote a story about a girl who could make her imaginary friends come to life! She had two, Poofles, a giant grasshopper lookin’ thing, and Robo, a robot with a big feathery plume coming out of his head. Both are actually imaginary friends I had when I was younger. She fought crime with them!

4. Are any of your ocs based on someone you know?

I dunno about based on, but a lot of my OCs have similar traits to me. Jace is definitely the one who is most like me.

5. How long do you plan a project before you start writing it?

I'm not sure. I find that if I plan for too long, I lose interest. I tend to write and then peice a plot together as I go, and then I go back and edit it to the plot that I’ve thought up by the end. I’m not sure that’s the best way to go about it, but that’s what happens lol.  

6. Which books shaped your writing style?

Definitely Ready Player One and Harry Potter. I’d also say a few comics like Saga, Sweet Tooth, and Ultimate Spider-Man also helped. Both helped me develop how I do my characters and worldbuilding, but novels helped me more with the actual style.  

7. What’s your favorite oc quote?

Something Jace says: “Everyone has their own version of everything. Their version of fine, of giving up, of happy, and sad, of angry, and calm, of life in general. It’s just that mine is a little more… specific.”

8. Would you like to work as a writer, or have another career? 

Writing would be fantastic. If I could just write novels for the rest of my life and make good, sustainable money off of that, it would be a dream come true. I’m just not sure how possible that is honestly. 

9. Describe your writing space

We have one of those L shaped couches, and I sit right in the corner. Feels like a nice hug.

10. What are you reading now?

I’m reading the comic Saga, by Brian K Vaughan. Fun Fact: Jace was named after him, though his last name is spelled Vaughn.  

11. What do you do when you’re not writing?

I go to school, take care of my little sisters, and scroll on tumblr endlessly. 

Questions from @tracle0:

1) What’s the first book you remember reading? 

There’s this picture book called There’s A Hole in My Pocket, and that’s a first one I remember. It had little elephants, it was so cute.

2) What’s the first book/story you remember writing? 

I wrote a story about a little girl who could make her imaginary friends come to life!

3) What’s a piece of media (book, series, film, whatever) that you go back to when you’re sad? 

Avatar: The Last Airbender and Ready Player One.

4) Can you draw parallels between your OCs and characters in published fiction? If so, list a few (or all of them I’m not your boss)

I can’t think of any at the moment, though I know I’ve taken inspiration from my favorite books and shows.

5) Think of an OC. Any OC. Now express their general mood in their story in one (1) emoji.

Hazik: 😇

6) What’s a plot point that makes you cackle when you think about it because omg it’s such good writing?

There’s a chapter that’s got lil Jace in it. There’s also one for Hazik, but I like the Jace one better. I call them my Back To The Future chapters. 

7) Have you ever done an Accidental Smart in your writing? If so, what?

I apparently wrote a bunch of stuff while I was hella tired at like five am. I barely remember doing this because I’d stayed up real late the other night too, so I was even more tired that normal. I opened the doc a day later and there was the entire backstory of why Hazik was on Earth.

8) What songs do you associate with your stories? 

AR goes with: Mimir from the God of War 2018 soundtrack (at the more serious moments), To All of You from the Life Is Strange soundtrack, and Anyone Else But You from the Juno soundtrack.

9) Are you better at dialogue or description? 

Dialogue definitely. 

10) Have you ever gotten better at doing something because you put it in a story and had to research? If so, what? 

Better at reciting facts about scar types, and 

11) Have you had a drink of water recently? Go on, drink some water. It’s good for you.

Nope! Thank you for the reminder!

Questions from @ren-c-leyn:

1. Favorite literary device?

Motif. There are quite a few in AR, so ya know, might wanna look out for that ;)

2. What is the hardest thing for you to write? (setting, details, dialogue, ect.)

I cannot do setting. Sometimes I accidentally write everything except where the characters ARE, and they’re just talking heads in a place only my brain can see.

3. What is the best advice you have ever gotten?

If you look at your old writing, and see that it sucks, that just means you’ve gotten better.

4. Is there a detail or particular bit of description that seems to come up in your writing a lot?

Colors. Red in particular. Also, the phrase “Amazing, actually.” These are totally not motifs at all. Pay absolutely zero attention to them.

5. Name a trope you love and will read/watch to death.

Angsty person with a sad backstory gets a nice happy ending

6. Is there any writing advice that kind of stole your motivation and made you feel bad instead of helping?

My friend can be blunt, and I asked her to read on of my things once and she got on one of the lines that I really liked and just tore into it. I didn’t end up deleting it though, her reasoning wasn’t good.

7. Do you do anything creative outside of writing?

Not really. 

8. Favorite fairytale?

Jack and the Beanstalk!

9. Do you like playing visual novel games?

Yeah! I play Choices and The Arcana all the time! I’ve also played Life Is Strange and Oxenfree, which aren’t technically novel games but they are story oriented.

10. Where do you tend to get your best ideas from?

Watching movies and TV shows 

11. Scariest part of writing for you?

The part where other people edit it. I’m always scared they’re gonna hate it. I want people to edit it, and I want them to give their honest opinion, but some people can be more mean than helpful. 

My questions and people I’m tagging are under the cut!

I’m Tagging: @tracle0, @quirky-squid, @masksandmadness, @alexis-writes-sometimes, @albatris, @gabbysmadness, @txintedsxint, @timetravelingpigeon, @thel3tterm, @necromancymajor, @kai-writesstuff

My Questions for you all are:

1. What is your favorite OC quote?

2. What’s your favorite font?

3. Which OC has the saddest backstory? (or the least happy?)

4. Which OC has the happiest? (or the least sad?)

5. What’s a vague spoiler for one of your WIPs?

6. Do any of your WIPs carry the same themes? What themes?

7. What are your favorite character/situation tropes?

8. What do you like most about yourself?

9. Which on of your ocs is your favorite character to write?

10. What is the longest you’ve ever written for?

11. Favorite food?

[ludokratia-blog]

Inside The Magic Circle - En

Magic Circle is not a circle that pulls rabbits out of the top hat.

The Magic Circle is not necessarily a circle, actually, the magic circle is not physical, it is a place where we create and believe in what it has to offer us, it is not visible and it is not tangible, but it exists when you are playing.

The term Magic Circle was created by Johan Huizinga in his book Homo Ludens, in it he explains that the magic circle is a consecrated place, should be reestablished the playground area and materials to start to play the game or ritual. Then the player enters the arena, playground, board, magic circle.

Time later, in the book Rules of Play by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, quotes again the Magic Circle as a place where the game occurs. The magic circle is created and the player enters inside it when the game starts.

In a lateral form, for instance, think in a chess game. There is a piece of wood with tiles and symbolic pieces. The game starts, the magic circle is created and this piece of wood becomes a battlefield that requires strategies from a general, the pieces become warriors and victory become your only goal.

But the Magic Circle is only about games?

No. Since ancient times the magic circle is created to engage us in stories that even though we do not know if it is real, and sometimes we know that is not real, but we believe and forget the real world that we live in. Rituals, traditions, stories around the campfire, theater, always losing who we are to be, manipulate, create and destroy other things.

To create myths and tales that will be told to others like a experience and move civilizations with this only engagement with the circle. Moving on to other generations with the same ritual that was first passed.

But for developers/Game Designers, the main question is “How do we bring the player to the Magic Circle?”, and even more “How do we keep the player in the Magic Circle?”.

First: Environment.

Imagine play Journey in the middle of a building of a house, or play a game that requires full attention but with your favorite TV series is passing. Well, you will being taken out from the magic circle all the time, and maybe you will not even understand what happened in the game.

The same story told by your friends or grandparents around a fireplace and told in an amusement park will not be the same experience.

A ritual to start the game will be necessary. The game VA-11 Hall-A : Cyberpunk Bartender Action starts with a warning saying : This game is best played getting comfortable. Grab some drinks, some snacks, and enjoy! This game is telling you how should be the ritual to get the best from this game. Other example is a horror game like Silent Hill, Resident Evil or Outlast, play it with friends making jokes and at the sunlight, that will ruin the tension that horror games want to pass. But the magic circle in horror games exists and comports in different ways, I will talk about that in another moment. Every ritual to this process will bring another very important part.

Second : Immersion

The immersion is the moment that you are submerged from head to toe inside the magic circle. Is that moment when some friend put the hand in your shoulder, you are pulled back to the reality and you remember that the real world exists.

Going back to the book Rules of Play, in a moment it quotes about Immersive Fallacy which is the idea that the pleasure of a media experience lies in its ability to sensually transport the participant into a illusory, simulated reality, so that the player truly believes that he or she is part of an imaginary world.

A clear example of this could be FPS(First Person Shooter) genre, these games have the First Person Camera because the player can feel powerful, with a gun in his hands, putting the player in the place of the soldier. That helps to get more immersive.

The immersion have a strong connection with the controls too. The power of send a command through a button and the character answer to that command is really important to have that connection between player and game, so be careful to not make the player frustrated with some Delay of the character when answering a command.

But something should not be done.

Third : The Big Pink Elephant

By the Title, you must have had a sense of what it means.

When the player is fully immersed, the coherence must be maintained. If not, the player will be out of the Magic Circle automatically.

Imagine a game about an indian in a forest, surviving of wild animals,  managing thirst and hunger, weapons to be crafted, AND SUDDENLY an OVNI with zombie nazis down from the space with the President of the United States as hostage.

That is a Big Pink Elephant, where it should be not in that context, dissonant to the game, that takes the player attention, he will look to other side or look confuse in some way. This moment the player you be launched out of the Magic Circle.

Seems absurd? But in games, a pizza explosion, wrong translation on HUD, a visible bug or even a simpler thing could put the player out of this world.

But, weird as it seems, The big pink elephant can improve the player immersion. If well made it can bring easily the player to a better fantasy world, and the player will look for more incredible things.

I will use a movie for this example. One of the most memorable scene in the movie Dumbo is the Pink Elephant Parade. It is the most out of the common and psychedelic scene in the entire movie, but probably is the easiest scene to remember.

But remember, always value the context. Even this weird scene from Dumbo have a motivation and reason.

The necessity of something fantastic is because your life is sooo boooring.

Fourth : Boring Life

You know, play a game about work 8 hours a day, get paid and then spent on the rent repetitively, without anything different from your real life, is not a game enjoyable to play. As much as it seem like real life and with nothing interesting, some games like Papers, Please uses political tensions and moral decisions to make the game interesting.

There is always Exceptions, there is a game called Euro Truck Simulator that the player need to drive from point A to point B making a delivery, respecting the streets, maneuvering and parking in the correct place.

But usually the games use a door to show you a new world, something fantastic that you have never seen before, unique characters, with interesting stories, charming and motivations beyond real life.

This is the why the players really like to play games like Battlefield, Hotline Miami and GTA, you can do things in another world that it is not possible in the real life, where the consequences, like kill someone does not apply to real world. You will not be going to jail for killing someone in GTA.

One of the simplest way to achieve this is in the first minutes of the game. Use something that call the attention of the player with something fantastic or an objective extremely clear. Like mario games where is very clear that you will need to save Princess Peach, Earthbound where Ness need to defeat Giygas or Shadow of the Colossus where you should defeat every single Colossus. All those games bring an adventure that is impossible to real life.

Another incredibly effective method is to create a mistery.

Fifth : Mystery, questions and the search for answers

Have you ever watched a bad movie, but finished it just because you want to know how it ends? what is the villain motivation? if the monster is defeated or the princess will be saved? That’s because the human being is curious, we need to know from the more complex things to the more simple ones. And if he do not have the answers he keeps mulling over, wanting to know the true ending. That is why there is so many fan stories about what would happen next. Movies like Inception or Halloween ends up with doubts so the viewer continues to think about the movie, discuss with friends and wait for the sequel to, maybe, have the answer to that question.

The truth is that they do not want to know the truth, but the feeling of curiosity say that he need the answer. The mystery is enjoyable to the human being. And in games it is not different, actually, that is the flashy point.

Take the example Oxenfree, an adventure game where many teenagers goes to a mysterious island. So, what part catches the player’s attention?

The island itself is something to be explored, the player want to know more about the island, why is it not inhabited? Why nobody goes there? Why are they going there? The dialogs, in each speech of Alex there is an information that says something about the characters, not only for Alex, but each one of the group. Beyond that, there is moments that subjects are left behind in exchange to go to another place, and the place goes “Hey, but I want to know what is happening back there too...”. Replay Factor is here and will make the game live longer.

But the most important from all of this is what is not yet said. Something weird happens with codes and speeches to the player, the radio of Alex makes a confused communication that will not be explained until the end of the game. The curiosity of the player will keep until the end and this is the motivation to the player to continue in this adventure

Sixth : FLOW

A good gameplay makes the player to enter FLOW.

FLOW, concept in psychology proposed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, it is a mental state which the player is fully immersed. It is the balance between Difficulty and Skill of the player, but if the game became too difficult or the skill of the player is much greater than the difficulty, the player will go to the Anxiety or Boredom Field, removing the player from the magic circle or even the game itself.

That is my recommendations, if you have any critique, doubt or problems in translation, send me a message. Next time I will be posting the A&B, I will talk about immersion again, but a different type of immersion.

See you next time

References:

Johan Huizinga - Homo Ludens: a Study of the Play-Element in Culture.

Katie Salen Tekinbaş, Eric Zimmerman - Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals

Extra Credits - S7E23 - The Magic Circle - How Games Transport Us to New Worlds

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - Flow : Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life