Get Me Out of this Stupid Void | Semi-Ramblomatic
Added 2024-12-26 17:05:41 +0000 UTCThis week's episode of Semi-Ramblomatic is now available!
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Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice needs to be mentioned here as an example of capturing the experience of altered mental states. The audio aspect especially was very effective. There is more to work with than just visuals. Games seen fairly bad at depicting altered states in general. Thinking of it just now i'd say, for me, David Lynch movies “get” bad psychotropic experiences the best. Not games.
Paul Hofmann
2025-01-19 15:40:47 +0000 UTCPsychonauts 1 had a good use of mental game void - Milkman level was threatening you at all times to fall off because he was unstable; Sasha was more mentally stable, so his void had a stable gravity field
JoCo
2025-01-12 14:59:36 +0000 UTCVery meaty subject, I like it, but it is always not evil. I can see how designers might want to use it to have good section of game narrated while player can do something. I think Arkham example is good design, but it won't work for all games.
Pēteris Krišjānis
2024-12-28 09:43:47 +0000 UTCThe more realistic and personal hallucinations also do a much better job of actually getting across the character's own mindscape; Silent Hill comes up naturally given the theme that the titular town basically themes itself after the particular baggage of whatever poor sap has stumbled into it this time. In Batman's case, it always ends up back with his dead parents both to demonstrate how much that's a fundamental foundational of his mind and why he's Batman, and as a handy bit of exposition because inevitably there'll be people playing the game not entirely familiar with Batman, and for those who are to set the tone and establish this particular take on the mythos. When everyone treats the mental world as the exact same motif it ends up feeling pretty dull and counterproductive to the whole point of an inner mind that can take any form. Psychonauts comes to mind as a game I'm pretty sure doesn't have that kind of cop-out.
Swift Justice
2024-12-27 02:16:17 +0000 UTCCity of Heroes mentioned! And yeah, if anything it also weakens the use of it as a cliche for trippy mindscape when it's already used for so many other things.
Swift Justice
2024-12-27 02:01:27 +0000 UTCSpace whales are a mainstay of trippy sci-fi after all. And they tie heavily into the themes of the games and all. You're basically communing with your patron god, aren't you?
Swift Justice
2024-12-27 02:00:49 +0000 UTCIf anything I thought that the floating void segments were popular because they're cheap and easy to do. Most of them quite noticeably consist entirely of reused assets and an abstract skybox.
Swift Justice
2024-12-27 01:53:36 +0000 UTCHe’s British, so I can only imagine that it would be filled with beans and eels.
Dave Phetteplace
2024-12-26 23:37:11 +0000 UTCYahtzee lost me when he said he doesn't like his mom's lasagna. What kind of monster is this?
KingDead42
2024-12-26 18:35:40 +0000 UTCOddly, most of the games I play with weird floaty void stuff...that's just reality, no ambiguity or hallucinations there. That's just how the world gets in places where you need to fight stuff sometimes. Either "naturally" (Shadow Shard, Coldharbour) or because someone broke something by dropping parts of a moon or building a tunnel to the afterlife. :)
Dave Van Domelen
2024-12-26 18:21:46 +0000 UTCI remember Control had these voids, but they tended to be short and made sense for the game plot. I also know a lot of games that used voids to stretch out plots that were too short. I wonder how many game companies had shouting matches between the writing staff and the art departments over these issues? Writing staff: The game needs to be longer so we're adding a "void" segment. Art Department: So we get a ton of new asset work because you writers couldn't write a simple "B" plot?
Ariane Barnes
2024-12-26 17:57:25 +0000 UTCReally enjoyed this one, as somehow this trope is one that’s flown completely over my head! The only time I’ve personally seen The Void used was (rather effectively imho) in the Dishonored series, in which it doesn’t symbolise the character’s mental breakdown but is instead a very real place with its own lore and a backstory that intersects with the outside world. I do find it pretty interesting how The Void is portrayed in such a similar way (floating rocks, ruined buildings, otherworldly light) to evoke such different emotions. Final shoutout to dishonoured 2 for including singing whales swimming through the void - it somehow just… fits?
MarvoMundercup
2024-12-26 17:48:53 +0000 UTCIs the fully ramblomatic this week our yearly laugh at an industry that never learns anything? (Tee Hee Hee)
Timothy J Eberle
2024-12-26 17:28:32 +0000 UTC
