The Longest Journey - A Heroine's Tale

Warning Plot Spoiler



Click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsQlh48qO-Q to view the video if you cannot see the above

YEAH!! found a Heroine's Journey told as a videogame

I'm over the moon that I not only found an example of a Heroine's Journey in videogame format but was able to play through the entire game(with assistance from the online walkthrough). The game is called The Longest Journey (TLJ) and it is going to become the template for me to build my Heroine's Journey from.

SPOILER WARNING - Plot (compilation from various sites)

Between science and magic, between order and chaos between Stark and Arcadia there is an ancient balance. For thousands of years the Guardian of the Balance has preserved the Divide between the twin worlds (Stark the solid world of logic and technology that most of us consider to be "reality." Arcadia is the chaotic world of emotion and magic). But now the Guardian has abandoned his tower, the armies of Chaos are advancing and the fate of the worlds is in the hands of one person...the reluctant heroine April Ryan, who at 18 years old leave her repressive home environment and seek her fortune as an art student in Venice, a bohemian slum located in the heart of the sprawling metropolis of Newport. With the power to pass between worlds, April is tasked with restoring the Balance between the two dimensions, before Chaos overruns both worlds. To achieve her goal April must come to understand both worlds (or at least understand herself in both contexts) to achieve lasting balance. As she comes to understand the worlds around her, she solves puzzles to move the plot of the story forward. The creatures, and humans, with whom April interacts vary widely. Some of them add depth to the story, such as the enigmatic Cortez, who does his best to provide some guidance to the struggling protagonist. Others provide breadth, helping to fill out our image of the twin worlds. What makes the game stand out is the believability of the young heroine. Though as a teenager in Stark, April has futuristic technology at her disposal, she still has to deal with many of the same problems students have today. She also has mundane problems with her parents, which become clearer as the story progresses. April does not have any experience that would prepare her to deal with being dropped unceremoniously -- in her nightclothes, no less -- into a magical quest. This is rather refreshing. Most heroes in this style of fantasy adjust to their circumstances far too easily. April never feels terribly heroic; she does heroic things because they are necessary, and she has the courage to resist her doubt and fear. In so doing, she teaches us about our own courage.

TLJ offers 40 hours of fantasy/Sci-Fi gameplay, including all the side conversations divided into 13 chapters. The player controls a single character (April Ryan). TLJ is a third person exploratory graphical-adventure game, also known as an "interactive movie". Such games are more about characters and stories than about the technicalities of interaction. There are no challenges of manual dexterity -- no high-speed chases to maneuver through, no shoot-outs to survive. Adventure games provide their challenges in the form of intellectual puzzles and clues hidden in the environment. As noted from the previous post Adventure games foster judgement, observation, process thinking and reasoning.

Things I would change in the game

• The plot was linear, the quests all needed to be completed in a pre-ordained order and most of the quests could only be completed in only one way. This to me, if transfered to an educational game would feel too much like a regular skill and drill transmitted exercises. I would open up the plot so that items could be collected in any order within a chapter and could be used or combined to move the character through to other chapters. If the order does not fit the story arc then the object could be returned to the inventory to be used again in a more appropriate spot, yet other chapters have been opened and new information is gathered.


• I would vary the puzzles which are required to be completed to move the game forward. For the most part they were comprised of figuring out which objects could be used where and if more then one object is needed how they can be fit together. There were a couple of exceptions e.g. figure out the hieroglyphics on the statue so they align to make a communication system. This required more reasoning than just placing a key in the door to make it open.


• There was no way April could be injured or die. If she didn't do something quickly there were no consequences, or the player tried to make her do something that could hurt or kill her April would refuse. I would have the game in three modes one with timers and levels where April could get hurt and loose lives, the second with no timers but the character could still get injured if the wrong choice is made or would have to double back in order to get out of trouble (this level I would even consider making more interactive having the character confirm the player's choice if it doesn't slow down game play). The third mode would keep the game as is.


• I would make the cut-scenes shorter and intersperse them more so that the same information is reveled to the player just in more frequent smaller doses I found myself wanting to hit escape to skip back to the game play, but knew if I did I might miss important information.

The best thing the game did was provide choice of conversational alternatives, and I would definitely do this as well. Have April go back on her word, or be rude and their were consequences to the story moving forward.

I wish I could bring TLJ into the classroom and use it to show that commercial games can be used educationally, the way Kurt Squires assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison did with Civilization III; however, the game is rated M17 for language and sexual innuendo so I cannot.

The next post will show how The Longest Journey fulfills the criterion of a hero's Journey as per Joseph Campbell's model.

Interesting Prensky Article

I reference this article during the Neuroplasticity seminar. Clicking on the add will allow you to zoom in and read it.

Music and Sound Considerations

I have not played many videogames but the few I have played the music various between annoying (puzzle games) to tolerable but uninspiring. Should the project see fruition and not just concept I would employ a gentleman I met at the Immersive World Confrence, who specializes in video game music. I would like to see the music in the game act like it does in film as a que or to set mood and atmosphere. I see the music reflecting the setting for example this clip would be played during one of the Medieval quests. Please note it takes a moment for it to start after you click the play button

Lick The Maypole by the Mediaeval Baebes Rose album

Click Lick The Maypole if the player is not working for you.

Initial thoughts on curriculum links

I see the screen divided up into three sections

• The top would have all the "statistics" e.g. item gathered during the quest, health meter etc.
• The centre part of the screen would be the game play area
• The lower part of the screen would have captions, as characters speak the words are on the screen, this way the player both hears and sees the words as they are spoken.

As not to interfere with game play vocabulary would appear in the statistic section so players could return to that part of the screen to look up any words they did not understand. By returning to the vocabulary screen players will get additional clues to help them along their quest, in this way both reading and vocabulary acquisition are taking place while playing without interfering with playable elements of the game.

The game could have two options and automatic diary option where all conversations are recorded for the player to return to in order to move forward and/or a diary that the player can write in by pausing the game and putting in conversations, clues etc. in their own words to refer to at a later time. Players could connect in a classroom setting and message clues to each other as well, thus giving an additional writing components. Players could also blog and make suggestions for game improvement or expansion.

Social Studies which incorporates grade 3 pioneers, grade 4 medieval times grade 5 ancient civilizations will be the backbone of the game. The Heroine will travel through time and interact with objects and people in order to move game play forward. For example the player will have to search through a medieval village and speak to the various denizens in order to find an object or acquire information. In the process the player will find out about life in a medieval village.

Math subjects (geom entry, data collection etc.) are incorporated into the game as the player gathers clues or attempts to fire a crossbow at a tree/tower so she can cross a ravine or climb the tower to sneak into a window, or while helping to repair a water wheel etc.

Various habitats could be explored as the character is shrunk or grows during her quest; the human body can be explored as it was in the film the Fantastic Journey as the heroine is shrunk and searches for an object inside the human body.

These are just initial thoughts. I have not began a design document or taken a close look at curriculum expectations in order to come up with a comprehensive plan of what would work and what wouldn't without making subject matter feel like it is being "dropped in."

Confrence: Interacting with Immersive Worlds

I attended the above confrence on June 04-05. It was a great confrence, with my biggest regret being that I wasn't a clone or a triplet so I could be in more then one session at a time.

The confrence was divided into 4 streams:

Theory of Immersive Worlds explored:

i. the theory of interactivity, from perspectives such as narrative and gameplay (ludology);
ii. analyses of the cultural and psychological effects of immersive worlds.

Creative practices in Immersion examined interactive new media art, and its exploration of new idioms and challenges in immersive worlds.

Immersive Worlds in Education examined the application of immersive technologies to teaching and learning.

Immersive Worlds in Entertainment examines entertainment applications of immersive technologies.

The four keynote speakers at the conference were:

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - spoke about Flow and the Phenomenology of Immersive Environments. He explained that flow is the phenomenon of being immeresed in an activity to the point of enrapturement or entrancement. That once an individual is in a state of flow they lose all sense of time, they are so caught up in what they are doing that there is no future or past just and extended present. Flow is critical to meaning making. The following diagrams show how flow is situated between boredom and anxiety and the cycle of flow as one learns a new activity or task

Arousal the state just before flow is the optimal position for learning to take place. Apathy is the least condusive state to learning - watching TV is an activity listed under this state. Prof. Csikszentmihalyi, then went on to list the 6 conditions which foster flow.

1. Attention is focused on a limited stimulus field. There is full concentration, complete involvement
2. Action and awareness merge – only participant not both participant and observer e.g. don’t think about where your fingers on the piano just playing
3. There is freedom from worry about failure – feel unstoppable
4. Self-consciousness disappears – ego which is presented to the world disappears
5. Time is distorted
6. The experience become its own reward - not expecting anything from the activity accept the activity itself – valuable for its own sake

In flow there are clear goals every step of the way and feedback is immediate.

When he was asked if there is a difference between cerebral and physical activities in relation to flow he said though he had not specificly set up his research to look for difference he also did not note any differences, the 6 conditions were found in both types of activities.

Chris Csikszentmihalyi - directs the Media Lab's Computing Culture group, which works to create unique media technologies for cultural applications. His presentation was entitled - No Do-overs: Technology and First Lives. He spoke broadly about ethics in technology and the convergence between technology and art.

James Paul Gee - Author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy spoke about the 7 core principles that make a video game motivating for learning.

1. Psyching out – how rules can be used for your advantage to accomplish goals to which you are personally and emotionally attached
2. Micro-control that gives rise to either embodied intimacy or an extension of power and visio
3. Experiential learning that meets all the right conditions for learning from experience
4. Finding and using Effectivity (skills) Affordance Matches between Bodies (given by micro control) or Tools and Worlds – invitation to action
5. Modeling and using Models to make learning from concrete experience more general and abstract
6. Player-Enacted Stories or Trajectories
7. Modding as adaptive rather than assimilating

Prof. Gee questions if serious game can have all 7 properties, and if not which properties are the most important, and should be kept in mind while designing serious games.

Gee says humans use the above principles daily in the "real world" however their control/agency over them is being eroded ,thus good videogames which employ these principles are addictive because they return the control and agency to the player/character.

Denis Dyack - Founder and Preseident of Silicon Knights, closed the confrence with a discussion on convergence in the gaming industry, called The 8th Art. Dyack said film is called the seventh art and videogames are the next step in the convergence of all other art forms (books, film, TV and radio), hence the eighth art. Dyack went on to discuss how despite technology rapidly changing it is having less and less of an impact on games themselves, i.e. developers don't have to worry about being outpaced by the technology resulting in bigger and better content instead of "technological tricks". Dyack predicts that the Internet will ultimately take over gaming hardware by digitally streaming software directly to the end-user in realtime thus eliminating piracy. Women make up 25% of the current gaming market, further the SIMS was one of the all time highest selling games with these two stats in mind Dyack sees a bright future for women in games both as players and developers.

In terms of education the strongest concept regarding videogames is their abilities to let learners make mistakes and "do-over" rather then penalize them for their mistakes.

Additional References

Alam, Junaid. (2004). What is a galaxy without stars: drop the sexism, bring the women. The Escapist, 17 Retrieved 01 June, 2007 from http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/17

Banet-Weiser Sarah. (2004). Girls Rule!: gender, feminism, and Nickelodeon. Critical Studies in Media Communication.21(2) 119–139

Crawford, Chris. (2004). Women in games. The Escapist, 17 Retrieved 01 June, 2007 from http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/17

Do Rozario, Rebecca-Anne C.(2004). The princess and the magic kingdom: beyond nostalgia, the function of the Disney princess. Women's Studies in Communication; 27(1) 34-59

Grigsby, Mary (1998). "Sailormoon: Manga (comics) and Anime (cartoon) superheroine meets Barbie: global entertainment commodity comes to the United States" The Journal of Popular Culture 32 (1) 59-80

Melling, O.R.(2001). Chronicles of faerie:golden book of faerie. Toronto: Puffin Canada

Pullman, P.(1995) His dark materials:northern lights. London:Scholastic

-- (1997) His dark materials:the subtle knife. London:Scholastic

-- (2000) His dark materials: the amber spyglass. London:Scholastic

-- (2003)Lyra's Oxford. London:Scholastic

Ruberg, Bonnie. (2004). Women monsters and monstrous women: representing the feminine in survivalist horror. The Escapist, 17 Retrieved 01 June, 2007 from http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/17

Schott, G and Kambouri, M. (2006) Social play and learning. In D. Carr et al, Computer games: text, narrative and play. (pp 119-132) Malden, MA:Polity Press.