Then there are games that build spaces that would be impossible in real life.
Then there are games like Animal Crossing, that offer a social context in which to apply your architectural and landscaping skills.
#Unpacking game for macbook series#
Games like Townscaper allow you to easily create series of buildings and consider how one structure relates to those around it - like a street-scene generator. Then there are games like The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, Biomutant, Enslaved or The Last Of Us that drop you in a once-great but now ruined architecture.Īlong with these pre-built spaces, there are also games that invite you to affect and rebuilt the architecture of a world. Others, like The Witcher, Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess and Eastshade, create their own cities and buildings. Some, like Assassin's Creed, Grand Theft Auto and Forza Horizon recreate virtual versions of familiar places. Video games mirror and magnify this built environment in different ways. Our homes, offices, shopping malls, cathedrals, stations, bridges and even public toilets have all been designed. We spend our lives in buildings every day. However games use these possessions to tell stories, it's always worth slowing down, noticing the objects we are rushing past and reading the literal and metaphorical notes about the world in which we are playing. In Before I Forget, possessions offer a gateway to our own fraying memories. In Hindsight we are asked to decide which objects to keep and which to let go of. In Overboard, for example, we need to use medication, ear rings and clothing to tell a story that the other characters in the world believe (one where we didn't murder our husband).įinally, games use possessions sentimentally to connect us to the past of characters. Other games use possessions as an important part of how we interact with the world. In this we find the story of a world in panic, but also of the people's lives before everything went wrong. In The Last of Us we find people's notes and possessions abandoned. In Unpacking we spend hours placing and arranging someone's things, and as we do we get to know them (and their hopes, loves, losses and travels) deeply. Some games let us get to know characters solely through their possessions. In, we are given a prized camera and bird book from our grandparents to tell the story of their bond and trust.
Games like The Sims or Animal Crossing enable us to use possessions to create spaces that reflect the character we are playing. The objects of our lives tell a story about who we are and what is happening to us. Favourite toys, carefully written letters, hurried notes, pictures on the walls, dilapidated architecture, menus, vehicles, ticket stubs. Games often use their character's possessions to tell us about them, as much as what they say or look like. Because we can explore the spaces where games happen, they can also tell stories by the things we find. This can be similar to books and films, offering snapshots, flashbacks and poignant scenes that form a life. Games tell stories about people and places.