Play Session: Lost Pig

Lost Pig

Lost pig is a text based browser game released back in 2007. It is an interactive fiction about an orc named Grunk attempting to find a pig. The story is told from Grunk's point of view through his own words and worlds alone, with no pictures. As a result, the text have a cave-man feel to it. As you journey to find the pig, you discover a lost underground shrine and solve puzzles.


When I played it, it  was fun. The replies from Grunk about some actions were especially funny. I didn't get pretty far, since the riddles were a little bit hard and I didn't feel like going through every action trying to solve the puzzles. So I looked up the walkthrough to the game and found the answers. Did not finish the game but i do want to.

What Games Teach us

"Games don't usually have a moral. They don't have a theme in the sense that a novel has a theme.” -Raph Koster, Theory of Fun for Game Design

Like how he says how games evolving, games now are evolving to the point where they are starting to have a theme similar to novels. A theme is basically a broad idea, message, or moral of a story. A video game named Bioshock, released three years after this book was published, has a theme. It has an engaging story and that story comments on religion, culture, and life in general. The game is based on Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, where she advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge and rejecting all forms of faith and religion. In the game, as a result from a philosophy based on Ayn Rand's, what was intended as a utopia for mankind, turned into a dystopia.

“I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.” -Andrew Ryan, Bioshock

"What is the greatest lie every created? What is the most vicious obscenity ever perpetrated on mankind? Slavery? The Holocaust? Dictatorship? No. It's the tool with which all that wickedness is built: altruism. Whenever anyone wants others to do their work, they call upon their altruism. Never mind your own needs, they say, think of the needs of... of whoever. The state. The poor. Of the army, of the king, of God! The list goes on and on. How many catastrophes were launched with the words "think of yourself"? It's the "king and country" crowd who light the torch of destruction. It is this great inversion, this ancient lie, which has chained humanity to an endless cycle of guilt and failure. My journey to Rapture was my second exodus. In 1919, I fled a country that had traded in despotism for insanity. The Marxist revolution simply traded one lie for another. Instead of one man, the tsar, owning the work of all the people, *all* the people owned the work of all of the people. So, I came to America: where a man could own his own work, where a man could benefit from the brilliance of his own mind, the strength of his own muscles, the *might* of his own will. I had thought I had left the parasites of Moscow behind me. I had thought I had left the Marxist altruists to their collective farms and their five-year plans. But as the German fools threw themselves on Hitler's sword "for the good of the Reich", the Americans drank deeper and deeper of the Bolshevik poison, spoon-fed to them by Roosevelt and his New Dealists. And so, I asked myself: in what country was there a place for men like me - men who refused to say "yes" to the parasites and the doubters, men who believed that work was sacred and property rights inviolate. And then one day, the happy answer came to me, my friends: there was *no* country for people like me! And *that* was the moment I decided... to build one." -Andrew Ryan, Bioshock

 

What I’m trying to get across is that games are still evolving. What the book says that games do not have right now, it will have later as they continue to evolve.

Are you a werewolf?

Are you a werewolf? is a social game played with cards. It is played with up to an unlimited people, odd numbers are better. There just has to be enough cards for each person. Each player is dealt a card, determining if they are a Villager, Seer, or Werewolf. J and K are Werewolves, Q is a Seer, and all else are villagers. There is also 1 moderator.

The game alternates between night and day phases. During the night, the Werewolves secretly choose a Villager to kill. Also, the Seer, if still alive, asks whether another player is a Werewolf or not. During the day, the Villager who was killed is revealed and is out of the game. The remaining Villagers then vote on a player to lynch, in attempt to kill a werewolf. That player reveals their role and is out of the game.

Werewolves win when there are an equal number of Villagers and Werewolves. Villagers win when they have killed all Werewolves.

When I played, I was a werewolf. A random villager got lynched the first day and during the night, the werewolves killed the seer. Around, the 3rd or 4th round, the other werewolf got lynched, leaving me. Somehow, i made it to the end and the werewolves won.

Games in my life

To me, video games are more than just a past time. It has developed into a way of life.

Video games were one of the inspiration for me becoming an artist. In the beginning, I wanted to design video games. Now, I make wooden props of weapons seen in video games.

Like myself evolving as an artist, video games have evolved into something more. Now, games have in depth stories. No more are games being played just to pass the time. Games have become something like movies, but also a little more than that. With movies, you are just an observer of the developing story. With games, you are an active participant in the game, being part of and having a certain amount of control over the story.

I like to watch competitive game play. I treat competitive game play like how other people treat sports. Still, most people don't see competitive video game play as a sport. They still see it as a pass time for children. They do not know that people can make a living on just playing a video games. There are many tournaments out there today with big prize pools. There aren't tournaments for each and every game, just the ones that can be played competitively, such as Starcraft and League of Legends.