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Using the Dark Souls series as an example, I examine how a frame of 'monster of excess' can be used to read giantness in digital games. The monster of excess finds a paradigmatic example in the giant, an age-old mythic figure still prevalent within digital games. Many elements are directly borrowed or translated from other artistic forms such as fi...
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This chapter will seek to demonstrate that the process of appropriation also irrevocably inscribes the aesthetic parameters of a cinematic-historical way of thinking into our historical consciousness . Building on theories of the phenomenological relationship between the spectator’s body and the world, the first section develops a model of incorpor...
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... This can provide a ground for academic discussion in areas like ethics, narrative theory, and even mental health. It is possible to understand player experience and video games in general by examining these games [3][4][5][6]. Consequently, analyzing the Dark Souls games can help in the understanding of game design, storytelling, and player psychology. In this study, we analyze these games with the help of concepts from game theory. ...
This chapter examines the application of game theory to the Dark Souls games, which are critically acclaimed action role-playing games known for their challenging gameplay. Using game theory as an analytical framework, in this study, we use important concepts such as sequential decision-making, iterative learning, risk management, information asymmetry, and meta-learning to assess the Dark Souls games. In these games, players face high-stake strategic choices from combat encounters and boss fights to resource management and multiplayer interactions. By analyzing the Dark Souls games with concepts from game theory, this chapter can provide an understanding of the strategic decisions that define the game. This also allows us to understand how players navigate complex, high-risk scenarios in gaming, which may be applied to real-world decision-making as well.
... According to Ford, player experience can be affected by level design and bosses in the Dark Souls games [39]. According to the results of the referenced study, these types of games invoke a sense of futility in the player which can arise due to both level design and the size of bosses: it is easy to get lost in the environment, while most bosses are presented as much larger entities than the player's character. ...
The Soulsification process emerged during video game development and it influenced both player experience and industry practices. This phenomenon began to manifest following the commercial success of early Souls games such as Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, which are renowned for their punishing gameplay difficulty, complex level design, and methodical combat mechanics. This process reshapes the design of video games by making them similar to those mentioned above, and it is increasingly adopted by developers. Consequently, they become so-called Soulslike games which are influenced by FromSoftware’s Souls series. To understand this phenomenon, the number of Soulslike video game releases is analyzed. Furthermore, to understand player opinions about these games, a questionnaire was created and completed by 100 participants. The results indicate that the Soulsification process commenced in 2014, persists, and will likely continue into the future. Similarly, players generally embrace this genre and report an overall positive experience with it. These findings can inform the development of future Soulslike games.
... In its broader sense, nature in excess can refer to anything perceived as natural, including human features. This is partly the subject of my work on giants (Ford, 2019a(Ford, , 2020a(Ford, , 2020b, humans or humanoid beings whose size and proportions are in excess of normal human limits. Often what excess does, particularly in a human(oid) context, is take traits which are normally desirable or idealised and take them to excess, demonstrating that these otherwise positive aspects also need boundaries. ...
This dissertation outlines a mythological framework for understanding how games produce meaning. The central question is: how does a mythological approach help to understand the way games make meaning? I first theorise mythology as it applies to games and play. This is expressed through a cycle showing how mythology is embedded into the production of games as well as how it impacts the playing and interpretation of games. This is then operationalised as a method for the analysis of games. I call my theorisation and analytical approach mytholudics. With this established, I apply mytholudics in ten analyses of individual games or game series, split into two lenses: heroism and monstrosity. Finally, I reflect on these analyses and on mytholudics as an approach.
Mythology here is understood primarily from two theoretical perspectives: Roland Barthes’ theory outlined in Mythologies (1972/2009) and Frog’s (2015, 2021a) understanding of mythology in cultural practice and discourse from a folklore studies perspective. The Barthesian approach establishes myth as a mode of expression rather than as an object, a mode that is therefore prevalent in all forms of media and meaning-making. This mode of expression has naturalisation as a key feature, by which the arbitrariness of second-order signification is masked. Otherwise arbitrary relations between things are made to seem obvious and natural. Frog’s mythic discourse approach understands mythology as “constituted of signs that are emotionally invested by people within a society as models for knowing the world” (2021a, p. 161). Frog outlines mythic discourse analysis as a method which focuses on the comparison of mythic discourse over time and across cultures.
Barthes and Frog broadly share an understanding of mythology as a particular way of communicating an understanding of the world through discourse. From this perspective, mythology is not limited to any genre, medium or cultural context. It can include phenomena as diverse as systems, rules, customs, behaviours, rituals, stories, characters, events, social roles, motifs, spatial configurations, and so on. What is important is how these elements are placed in relation to one another. This stands in contrast to certain understandings of myth which may position it as a narrative genre or a socioreligious function of ‘primitive’ societies. Games consist of the same diverse elements arranged in comparable configurations, and so this perspective highlights the otherwise hidden parallels between mythology and games. Therefore, a mythological approach can help us to understand the game as an organising structure in which different and diverse elements are put into relation with one another in order to produce meaning.
To develop this framework, I argue for analysing games as and through myth. Games as myth means viewing the game as an organising structure that works analogously to mythology. Elements are constructed and put into relation with one another within a gameworld, which the player then plays in and interprets. Games through myth means seeing games as embedded within cultural contexts. The cultural context of development affects the mythologies that can be seen to influence the construction of the game, while the cultural context of the player affects how they relate to and interact with the game and the mythologies channelled through it.
With the theorisation and methodology laid out, I exemplify the mytholudic approach by applying it to ten analyses of individual games or game series, split into two chapters of five analyses each.
The first considers the games through the lens of heroism, defined as the positive mythologisation of an individual. To help with comparison and understanding, I outline a number of hero-types, broad categories based on different rhetorics of heroism. These include the hero-victim, the hero-sceptic, the preordained hero and the unsung hero. The examples analysed are the Call of Duty series (2003–2022), The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios, 2011), the Assassin’s Creed series (2007–2022), Heaven’s Vault (Inkle, 2019) and Horizon Zero Dawn (Guerrilla Games, 2017).
The second considers the games through the lens of monstrosity, defined broadly as a form of negative mythologisation of an entity. Like with heroes, I outline a number of monster-types based on where their monstrosity is said to come from. These are the monster from within, the monster from without, the artificial monster and the monster of nature. The game examples are Doom (id Software, 1993a), the Pokémon series (Game Freak, 1996–2022), Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (Ninja Theory, 2017), Ghost of Tsushima (Sucker Punch Productions, 2020a) and The Witcher series (CD Projekt Red, 2007–2016).
Finally, I synthesise these two lenses in a chapter reflecting on the hero- and monster-types, all ten analyses and the mytholudic approach in general. I argue that a mytholudic approach helps us to understand how games make meaning because it focuses on the naturalised and hidden premises that go into the construction of games as organising structures. By analysing the underpinnings of those organising structures, we can outline the model for understanding the world that is virtually instantiated and how they are influenced by, influence and relate to models for understanding the world—mythologies—in the real world.
... Regarding level design, most of the "Souls-like" games have an interconnected and openworld map that can be perceived as giant [16], whereas in Nioh: Complete Edition, the player has to choose a level from the level selection screen. The 2D games share this interconnected open-world, but they are called "Souls-like Metroidvania" games. ...
The "Souls-like" role-playing video game genre was inadvertently created due to the influence of the "Souls franchise". However, each game has different twists which can be new gameplay mechanics, graphical style, etc. while maintaining the core elements of the "Souls franchise". The goal of this study is to understand which gameplay mechanics are more liked by comparing reviews of these games to each other. Thus, different game design elements and game mechanics are investigated in 21 "Souls-like" video games to see how the users reacted to them and whether they positively reviewed them. All (993,932) reviews were scraped from the Steam webpage regarding these games in the middle of April 2021 using the steam_reviews Python package. These reviews contain the playtime at review, whether a positive or negative rating is given, and a textual component among others. Overall, 11 various game design elements and game mechanics were set up for the investigation: the setting, graphical dimensions as well as style, level design, and whether there are difficulty settings, multiplayer features, upgradeable weapons/armor, equipment durability, in-game map, extra penalties upon death, and a classic level-up system. Based on data distributions, either the t-test or the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test was used for the analysis. The syuzhet package, which uses Natural Language Processing methods, was used in the statistical program package R along with the NRC Emotion Lexicon to evaluate the textual parts. According to the results, a slight-to-moderate correlation exists between positive reviews and the users' playtimes: more playtimes mean a larger chance of having positive reviews. Significant differences also exist in the percentages of positive reviews among these games: Hollow Knight is the most liked game. Out of the investigated 11 factors, significant differences Multimedia Tools and Applications https://doi. Hungary exist among all of them: drawn graphics (96.48%) and 2D style (95.61%) are the two most liked factors, while pixel graphics (87.11%) and a futuristic setting (86.74%) are the two least liked ones. Almost every factor can significantly affect all eight basic emotions (anger, anticipation, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise, trust). The exceptions are graphical dimensions, weapon/armor upgradability, in-game map, and extra penalties upon character death as no significant differences exist in case of trust (p = 0.85), anger (p = 0.24), sadness (p = 0.21) and disgust (p = 0.095), respectively when the average sentiments per review were examined. Future "Souls-like" game design and development can be influenced by the results as game developers can more easily choose from the factors they want to implement or whether they want them at all in their games.
Video games act as engines that communicate aspects of experience through player interaction. We argue that this communication of first-person experience (qualia) is unique in its ability to interact with a player's mind-body in a potent and observable way. Unfortunately for designers and researchers, many of the desirable traits of video games are not inherently measurable via traditional, quantitative means-they are emergent properties dependent on the perspectives with which they are observed. This paper investigates the work of video game designers as it relates to phenomenology and embodied cognition and lays out a path for future researchers and designers to leverage phenomenology as a foundation for video game creation. We offer that the intersection between embodied cognition, game design, and phenomenology suggests a path from descriptions of conscious experiences (qualia) to real, distributable design recommendations in video game design and study.
The aim of the article is to analyze how space in the video game “Dark Souls” affects various aspects of the interactive text, especially its plot and gameplay. The author focuses on the role of space in the narrative structure of the game, using storyworld concept, analyzing architecture, and the importance of items and their descriptions in constructing the narrative, which is crucial for the reconstruction of story points and also a proper understanding of the game’s religious motives. He goes on to focus on the storyworld events generated by gameplay, describing how it is influenced by space arrangement.
