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Latest Topics

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Player Agency or Illusion? Examining Moral Dilemmas in Narrative-Driven Games

The writer could analyze how games like The Last of Us Part II and Disco Elysium tackle moral decision-making. Do these choices genuinely empower players, or are they crafted to create the illusion of control? By exploring the narrative techniques behind these dilemmas, the piece could shed light on how game designers manipulate player emotions to craft deeply impactful experiences.

  • Good topic,I have learnt something knew from it. – betounic 3 days ago
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Bridging Realms: How Arcane Strengthened the Connection Between League of Legends and Its Lore

This article could explore how Arcane expanded the League of Legends universe, focusing on how the series enriches the game’s storytelling. It might analyze how the show balances accessibility for non-gamers with deep nods to League fans, and what this approach means for the evolution of narrative-driven gaming.

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    Depression Quest: 10 years later

    Depression Quest in 2013 is a Twine engine game made by Zoe Quinn. The game / interactive fiction
    dealt with the difficulties of living with depression. Although, it was praised by the more mainstream gaming media for its depiction of struggling with mental health, the game also sparked polarizing reactions, and became a focal point for the online culture was. It was particularly of note as a justification for the harassment campaign Gamergate in 2014.

    With that in mind the author can explore the value of the game as a game and delve into how did this game challenge traditional gaming norms at the time? What does its critical and consumer reception reveal about the the world of indie game development and the modern social media landscape?

    • My corrections didn't save. Depression Quest in 2013 is a Twine engine game made by Zoe Quinn. The game / interactive fiction dealt with the difficulties of living with depression. It simulated this by presenting the player with prompts and then restricting their possible answers. Although the more mainstream gaming media praised it for its depiction of struggling with mental health, the game also sparked polarizing reactions and became a focal point for the online culture wars. It was particularly of note as a justification for the harassment campaign Gamergate in 2014. With that in mind, the author can explore the value of the game "as a game" and delve into how did this game challenge traditional gaming norms at the time? What does its critical and consumer reception reveal about the world of indie game development and the modern social media landscape? – Sunni Rashad 4 weeks ago
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    The New Collectathon--Too Much to Do?

    Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are newer Legend of Zelda games that feature open world mechanics and the return of the collectathon, in a sense. A collectathon is a type of video game where there are items and objects to collect in order to either progress in the game or obtain an upgrade. An older example of a collectathon would be Banjo-Kazooie or Jak and Daxter. In Breath of the Wild, the collectathon element of the game is Korok seeds, except there are about 900 to collect in the game. Tears of the Kingdom increases that number.

    The topic taker should see if this newer collectathon element is too much to do for the player. The topic taker is free to examine other newer forms of collectathons than the two mentioned in this topic. Research points to include:

    – The time it takes to do these collecting elements

    – The reward for completing the entire collection

    – Player feeling about the collecting element in the chosen game or series

    – The topic taker is free to also include an element of the psychology behind why collectathons work, if they wish.

    Links to get you started:

    Breath of the Wild Wiki: (link)

    Tears of the Kingdom Wiki: (link)

    An Explanation of Collectathons and how they transformed: (link)

    A brief list of modern collectathons: (link)

      Taken by JM (PM) 2 months ago.
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      The Requirement of Hard Mode in Video Games

      The topic taker should analyze the requirements of some trophy lists to beat games on the "Hard" Difficulty and/or unlock special items or extra difficulties in the game. Examples that come to mind are Final Fantasy Remake and Rebirth, Kingdom Hearts III, DOOM, and the God of War series. The topic taker is free to include other games to the list that they may know about–the list serves as a jumping off point to get the topic taker started. The topic taker should consider the following for their article as well:

      – Is completing a game on Hard Mode enjoyable?

      – Is requiring finishing a game on a Hard mode restrictive or prohibitive in any way?

      – If someone chooses to play at difficulties other than hard mode, does that mean they are more or less of a gamer in the eyes of the game's community?

      – Should Hard Mode be a requirement for getting certain items or cutscenes or trophies, or should that content be available regardless of the difficulty?

      The topic taker should address these points with research and examples from the games they choose that is relevant to the points. If desired, the topic taker can look at the psychological research done on this subject and how it affects players' self esteem, if the research exists.

      • I think that it’s worth including as a separate item a description of hard fashion through an analysis of the creativity of the FromSoftware studio – MagnoliaDunbridge 4 months ago
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      Replayability in games: is it really necessary?

      Replayability is a measurement of how much fun a game is to play over and over again – how much new content there will be on each playthrough, how much you can vary your playstyle, how many different endings or paths the different quests/stories have for you to explore each time. It is something it is generally considered good for a game to have, especially in certain genres. Many players want to be able to play their favourite games again and again, but with enough variation that it is never boring.

      However, replayability is something that cannot be (and isn't) pursued in every game. Many story focused games are not particularly replayable, as their goal is to focus on telling one very good or in-depth story – and to focus on replayability could take away from that. There is also the fact that to make a game very replayable takes a lot of time and effort to code and design all the different playstyles/endings/quests etc. This is time and effort that may be needed elsewhere or would possibly be better spent polishing the main game. Not everyone plays again and again after all, so is it really so crucial to ensure that every single playthrough is entirely unique?

      This article would delve into the concept of replayability, exploring whether it is truly important for games to be infinitely replayable or more important to create a good experience the first time round.

      • Very nice! As a longtime player, may I particularly suggest Hogwarts Mystery for examination? The developers added a replay option within the last year or so, so that players could change their houses or relive certain moments if they wanted. The downside though, is that replay kicks you all the way back to first year, and you lose access to anything you've won or purchased. It's a conundrum for sure. – Stephanie M. 1 year ago
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      • A very interesting topic! Although I don’t think every game has to be replayable, replayability is certainly a feature unique to the game as a storytelling media. If there is only one possible storyline, novels, anime, or film allows the producers to polish the story even better because those media have a better control on the pace of the stories than games. However, Baldur’s Gate and Elden Ring cannot be easily transformed into other media, because they have various possible ending. That is something only possible with games. – AlisaN 11 months ago
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      • Cool point, I've found that replayability has a bit of a personal edge for me. Replaying games at different stages of life is way more of an experience than any new game plus content or add-on. – jsmilo 11 months ago
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      Storytelling in Roguelike Games

      The topic taker should explore how roguelike games can be used to tell complex stories. Specifically, the topic taker should consider The Binding of Isaac and similar games that use its roguelike mechanics, like unlocking new characters, new powers, or new stat boosters to tell a multi-layered story. For example, in The Binding of Isaac, clearing a run usually unlocks a new ending to the game, and then opens up a new path and/or character for the player to choose.

      As always, the topic taker is free to include other roguelike games they know of that use the game mechanics to tell a complex story in their analysis. Things to consider would be as follows:

      – The story gets told in various parts, in some manner, as referenced with my example above.

      – The roguelike offers a story in some way, so, this excludes things like Brotato, to my understanding.

      – The topic taker is free to add in whatever elements they might need for this article. For example, the topic taker, if focusing on The Binding of Isaac may consider looking into how the religious elements in the game tell a deeper story. Or, if the topic taker chooses to include Hades in this analysis, they could include aspects of the Greek Pantheon that highlight elements in the story and/or mechanics.

      – The topic taker can consider the merits of comparing and contrasting two different roguelike games to see if storytelling is similar or different between them, but, given the nature of roguelike games, I would advise limiting this article to two games.

      Here is a link to the Wikipedia for The Binding of Isaac for topic takers who may not be familiar with the game or its mechanics: (link) Binding of Isaac is,to OS X, and Linux.

      • Hades is a really interesting case study for this topic. A lot of the story is told through multiple runs/run ins with characters, as well as multiple times beating the final boss. – Sean Gadus 5 months ago
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      Analyzing Evoland: A Touching Game about the History of Games, or a Retro Gameplay Nightmare

      Evoland I and II are games by the indie developer Shiro Games and were released in 2013 and 2015. Evoland was inspired by older games in series like Final Fantasy and Zelda, and, it somewhat takes the player through a bit of video game history in its premise. The gameplay, despite the shifts in playstyles that took place, flowed well, according to a reviewer. Evoland II definitely builds on the premise of capturing the feeling of how older games played, and has more mechanics in it than the first game. However, it could be said that there are too many mechanics that contradict and break flow.

      For this topic, the topic taker should look into reviews on both games to see if these games set out to capture a truly nostalgic feeling while adding their own twist to the genres the games were influenced by or if something about the older styles of gamplay simply don't mesh in the modern era of gaming.

      The topic taker can consider the following avenues of research for adding foundation to this analysis:

      – Consider the history of the video game industry and the limits of technology that affected game mechanics and graphics and whether the current technology is too good to correctly capture how older games played.

      – Figure out what the developer intended for their games, if possible, and if they achieved that intention.

      – See if there are any other games similar to Evoland that mixes up different kinds of genre and gameplay and see if they are successful or if they fall into the same problems as Evoland.

      – If the topic taker has played Evoland and Evoland II, they are free to add in their personal experience with how the games felt as it relates to this topic.

      Here are links that might help the topic taker start their research:

      Evoland: (link)

      Evoland II: (link)

      • They were both on sale for the summer and I almost bought them just so I could write this pitch. – Sunni Rashad 5 months ago
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