Friday 9 November, 2018

I managed to commit the last sins of Wrath and Gluttony. It took me while to find the right dialog option, but in the end I only needed to kill a dude and eat all his pies. The confession and subsequent ending weren't terribly surprising given the timber of the game up to that point. I am glad that I gave away all my possessions to the beggar and apparently chose the right dialog options to have John give me the real talk, which felt like it probably doubled as the developer's manifesto.

Despite the messages in the ending, I was paying more attention to the copyright element of the game, given the recent lectures. There are a few moments in the game, like when the character is talking to the lawyer and asking for legal advice, that allude to the difficulties and pitfalls of creating a game using clipped out pieces of classic artwork. Though I don't know the specifics of it, and honestly the legalities don't much interest me. The element I was piqued by was the fact that, while I did recognize a handful of the paintings used in the game, the vast majority were brand new. Though I suppose the original creators would have perhaps preferred a more flattering means by which to experience their work, the fact that I'm seeing their work at all is really only by virtue of the game. This is an element to the read/write cycle that is perhaps not always fully explored or given much credence. I like art well enough, but not usually enough to go to prestigious galleries or study the classic works in books or the like. However, having played this game I now have a passing familiarity and surface-level relationship with many artworks I would not have otherwise. Locking down works with copy protection and the like almost always means that it intrinsically remains within its home medium. As accessible as that medium may be, there will always be a contingent of people that do not engage with it for one reason or another. Having greater freedom of adapting and transposing work across mediums means that the messages encoded in those works can spread the their branches further. Surely some things are lost or changed during the transcription process, as is certainly the case in Four Last Things, but I do think there is still significant value in that use of existing works.

You provide great insights throughout these gamelogs, such as your comments on the satire of Christian morality, the meta commentary provided by the sloth sin gameplay moment, and your discussion on transcribing and using existing works in games. You’ve got a lot of good material here to work with when choosing what to write about for your OPA.