Blog Post 2

Overview

This project will be evaluating the extent to which the video game Rain World presents ecocritical themes. Since video games have become so popular in recent decades, in addition to enormous improvements in graphics and immersion, it is all the more important to analyze how games represent the environment and portray environmental messages. Throughout my exploration of Rain World, I have been observing the environment and have recorded a large number of creatures, plants, weather events, regions, and greater ecological concepts. After considering the appearance, representation, and gameplay mechanics of these elements, I analyzed them using my adaptation of Joy Kumral's seven criteria for an ecocritical game. Ultimately, I hope to find that Rain World is a highly ecocritical game that sets the bar for realistic environments with dynamic ecosystems in video games.

(Rain World)

Progress

At the time of writing, I have a total of 100 entries! Although this is roughly half of what I expect to have, my data collection is going well and I am on track to finish before the end of February. I have just started Spearmaster, the seventh Slugcat of nine that I will be playing. So far, I have observed some interesting trends in my data. Overall, there is a nice spread over most of the tally categories, but there are certainly some that have many more tallies than others. For example, the category, "The Environment is Dynamic and Changing," contains tallies from the vast majority of entries, whereas the category, "The Environment is Not Dynamic and Changing," contains only a few tallies. Considering the extremely complex creature AI and the large-scale timeline that exist behind the scenes, this distribution is expected. On the other hand, Criterion #4 that deals with the accuracy of the game's natural environment has a much greater spread of tallies. This comes from the fact that the majority of creatures, plants, and landscapes in Rain World are very weird and all contain a degree of fictional elements. It is the intensity of these fictional elements that determines whether something is mostly accurate to real-world nature, misrepresenting it, or just completely fictional.

This is a screenshot from Obsidian Notes, the program I use to record my data. Here, connections between entries are visualized where larger nodes indicate a greater number of connections. Notice how large and central, "The Environment is Dynamic and Changing" is compared to "The Environment is Not Dynamic and Changing" that is much smaller and towards the right edge.

Challenges

Although my data collection has been going pretty smoothly, the speed of my gameplay is quickly becoming a limiting factor. To get the best understanding of Rain World's environment, I want to have personal experience with everything so that my analysis is based on what a player actually experiences. However, playing through Rain World takes a lot of time. Unexpected encounters with predators, not having a sufficient level to enter a new region, or even just bad luck can all significantly impact progression and increase playtime. Being competent enough to efficiently move through regions and observe changes is critical, which is why I saved the most content-rich Slugcats until the very end of my research: Saint and Watcher. In fact, the majority of entries that I still need to complete are found in Watcher's campaign because of how expansive it is. For context, in both Rain World's base game and Downpour expansion there are a total of 22 regions. The Watcher expansion adds 30 more. Although this doesn't represent the actual proportion of content found in each part of the game, for example the base game has many more creatures than both of the expansions combined, it should be clear that I still have a lot to do!

(Rain World)

Relfection

Through the research process, I have learned that doing anything on a short deadline can be difficult, even playing video games! The additional pressure to get things done correctly and quickly has been tough. On the other hand, I am pushing myself to be done before the end of February so that my focus can turn entirely to creating my presentation and paper. Knowing that I can stick to my current pace and finish in time removes some of my concerns. Finally, I want to add that I have had a lot of fun with this project, and I am excited to make it something that I'm proud of in the end!

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