For anyone who may have been interested, the above posts have been un-redacted.
The 2025 Desert Island Video Game Draft
- Thread starter Capt. Factorial
- Start date
For anyone who may have been interested, the above posts have been un-redacted.
whitechocolate
Bench
I was getting serious recency bias with my last pick. Trying not to pick two games with similar gameplay, I ended up deciding between Gungrave G.O.R.E., Risk of Rain, and Rain World. I chose the dopamine shot.
A few others on my list:
- Wolfenstein 3D
- Portal 2
- (The Ultimate) Doom (original game)
- Unreal
- Peggle Nights
- Dig Dug
- Plants vs. Zombies
- Angry Birds
- Galaga
- Doom (2016)
- Tempest
- Joust
- Defender
- Quake II
- Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit
- Heretic II
- Serious Sam: The First Encounter (with 3D goggles, etc.)
- Pong (just because!)
Some OG classics, for real!
whitechocolate
Bench
h
Have you played Doom Eternal? It has a fast paced dynamic with enemy weaknesses, movement tech, and blending the collection of resources with killing everything.
Nope. Hadn't even heard of it!
whitechocolate
Bench
VI is my favorite. But IV was the first turn based RPG I ever saw. I was at a friends house, and was astonished at it, as I had never seen anything like it.
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Padrino
All-Star
This was fun! I'm quite happy with my Desert Island draft selections in the end, though I do feel that I missed out on the following, listed in order of the magnitude of the sting:
Red Dead Redemption II (PC)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)
Alien: Isolation (PC)
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)
Chrono Trigger (SNES)
Baldur's Gate III (PC)
Great picks to those who selected them! Even if those two Zelda entries would have violated my personal rule against picking multiple games within the same franchise, it's still hard to abide others snagging them!
I also prepped a very large list of games, so I won't shotgun blast everything I had remaining, but here are some of the Honorable Mentions I was very seriously considering picking:
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out (NES)
Prince of Persia (SNES)
F-Zero (SNES)
Star Fox (SNES)
Soul Blazer (SNES)
Terranigma (SNES)
Super Mario 64 (N64)
Moonlighter (Switch)
Tunic (Switch)
Dungeons of Hinterburg (Switch)
Nier:Automata (PC)
Alan Wake (PC)
Alan Wake 2 (PC)
Dragon's Dogma 2 (PC)
Signalis (PC)
Pentiment (PC)
NORCO (PC)
Red Dead Redemption II (PC)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)
Alien: Isolation (PC)
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)
Chrono Trigger (SNES)
Baldur's Gate III (PC)
Great picks to those who selected them! Even if those two Zelda entries would have violated my personal rule against picking multiple games within the same franchise, it's still hard to abide others snagging them!
I also prepped a very large list of games, so I won't shotgun blast everything I had remaining, but here are some of the Honorable Mentions I was very seriously considering picking:
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out (NES)
Prince of Persia (SNES)
F-Zero (SNES)
Star Fox (SNES)
Soul Blazer (SNES)
Terranigma (SNES)
Super Mario 64 (N64)
Moonlighter (Switch)
Tunic (Switch)
Dungeons of Hinterburg (Switch)
Nier:Automata (PC)
Alan Wake (PC)
Alan Wake 2 (PC)
Dragon's Dogma 2 (PC)
Signalis (PC)
Pentiment (PC)
NORCO (PC)
whitechocolate
Bench
Imagine Doom (2016), but much faster and with plenty of reasons to frequently change weapons.
Löwenherz
Starter
Based on your taste and descriptions, I think you’d like Odin Sphere and maybe Vanillaware as a whole.
Muramasa: The Demon Blade, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, and Unicorn Overlord might check the boxes you listed.
whitechocolate
Bench
I somehow missed Platinum Games' output, despite how much they appear to line up with my tastes. I need to play the first Bayonetta, Vanquish, Metal Gear Rising, and Nier: Automata.
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Padrino
All-Star
I will post my top 15 undrafted later. No Mercy is going to be on it. Otherwise I will respect Slim's list too 
SLAB
Hall of Famer
I wish I grabbed Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) to add to my functional picks.
Because my lord, the new ones are so in depth with all the actual things you can learn about planes. Plus the visuals you get choosing to fly over random stretches of wherever are absolutely incredible. It’s a geography lesson in addition to the plane stuff!
Because my lord, the new ones are so in depth with all the actual things you can learn about planes. Plus the visuals you get choosing to fly over random stretches of wherever are absolutely incredible. It’s a geography lesson in addition to the plane stuff!
Löwenherz
Starter
Yet another on my long list of games to get to when time, budget, and family permits.
Returnal
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Ghost of Tsushima
Fallout: New Vegas
Control
Hi-Fi Rush
Dave the Diver
Armored Core 6
Spec Ops: The Line
Marvel’s Midnight Suns
Lousy adulting; what are you good for?
Oh, and …
I look forward to your support in the coming campaign
Padrino
All-Star
Insomniacal Fan
Starter
@Padrino scooped the most picks from me, I didn't think the board would let one list take Disco Elysium, and Witcher 3, and Skyrim and Mass Effect. But that's where we are I guessThis was fun! I'm quite happy with my Desert Island draft selections in the end, though I do feel that I missed out on the following, listed in order of the magnitude of the sting:
Red Dead Redemption II (PC)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)
Alien: Isolation (PC)
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)
Chrono Trigger (SNES)
Baldur's Gate III (PC)
Great picks to those who selected them! Even if those two Zelda entries would have violated my personal rule against picking multiple games within the same franchise, it's still hard to abide others snagging them!
But I think Breath of the Wild is the best game I missed
macadocious
Starter
A few others
- Doom for Sega Dreamcast legit scared me as a child
- no idea the name, but an Atari game where you jumped ice blocks
- Any Madden not selected
- Grand Tourismo for PS2
- Daytona 500 at the Arcade
- DigDug - Arcade
- Doom for Sega Dreamcast legit scared me as a child
- no idea the name, but an Atari game where you jumped ice blocks
- Any Madden not selected
- Grand Tourismo for PS2
- Daytona 500 at the Arcade
- DigDug - Arcade
SLAB
Hall of Famer
Best non-From souls game out there. And I’ve played and beaten pretty much all the decent ones that have ventured over to console.
My 15 all undrafted and in no particular order...
1. WWF No Mercy (N64)
2. Fire Pro Wrestling S: 6 Men Scramble (Sega Saturn)
Far and away my two favorite wrestling games. No Mercy had a pick up and play ability that I could be playing these games year round and bring it home for Thanksgiving and Christmas and my brother could jump in and we'd have great games. Nobody did customization in this era like Fire Pro and frankly the grapple system was maybe outside of the AKI engine's extreme ease of pick up and play, the best alternative. Honorable mentions to NES Pro Wrestling and Mat Mania
3. NFL 2K5 (Dreamcast)
Broke the Madden grip, probably best football simcade game ever made. All Pro 2k8 is also super fun but I am going with the one with the license. EA got so upset they bought exclusive rights to NFL, NCAA AND the Arena Football League to freeze 2k out.
4. Rock Band 3 (Xbox 360)
Pinnacle of the series for me. Pro mode with effectively real drums and guitar. Keyboards. Three part vocal harmonies. Rock Band Network. Pretty sure it also had the best career mode and character creator suite. Rock Band 4 kept alive for the next/current gen but dropped all that cool stuff and went back to basics.
5. NHL 2K3 (Xbox)
If I recall correctly this was the first hockey game with Xbox Live support. Descended from Power Play Hockey (amazing) the 2K series was far more sim like and topped EA for years until the mid-00s. This one I give the nod for being my first online NHL experience.
6. Deathrow (Xbox)
As a die hard sports gamer I also had a love for future-sports games - this one may have been the best of the best.
7. The Pinball Arcade (iOS)
No pinballs were taken. I am not sure if that was a strict rule or not, but being a digital game this one gets a pass. I pick the iOS version because it can be played with vertical orientation. Sadly they lost the Williams pinball license in 2018 but presumably since if you bought them you keep them, I'd have all of those too.
8. Skate 3 (Xbox 360)
THPS 2 and 4 are my favorites of that series but Skate really upped the ante with the trick sticks and realism. Hard time picking which one but I do think Skate 3 is the most feature packed. The lack of features actually made some of the OG Skate pretty cool though - just hitting some huge insane gaps and having to actually stick a clean landing. So awesome.
9. College Hoops 2K8 (Xbox 360)
College sports games are so fun. 2K8 was insane and the last of the series. So much fun recruiting your class. Way more fun for a great basketball playing game with stuff to do on the side than the trading card games NBA 2k MyTeam has become. Sega actually made a pretty killer College Football title on Genesis as part of the Sports Talk line. I had to mention here or in the 2K football, because those games were pretty killer and worthy of play in the early Madden days as well.
10. DecAthlete (Sega Saturn)
Did the olds playing along ever play Decathlon on 2600? I loved that game and chasing records but the joystick wiggling mechanic is no bueno. This was another Decathlon arcade game released on Saturn around the Atlanta Games. We used to have the best time at my condo in Boston playing this one with 4 of us chasing our own records. Another pick up and play party game that was super fun before online ruled everything.
Honorable mention in this category to Epyx for Summer Games, Winter Games, California Games, and The Games: Winter Edition
11. Police Quest (Apple ][ GS)
Leisure Suit Larry was picked and I loved all these Sierra games. In the late 80s they were up there with EA for me. This is the earlier version of the game that had the text interface and not the later one where you could mouse click to solve everything. Such a fun one. All the Quest games were awesome in their own right and I sorta feel guilty for picking the cop one instead of a Space Quest or something but what the heck.
12. Red Baron (PC)
Hard time choosing between Dynamix flight sims. I think that Aces of the Pacific was my favorite, but Red Baron could be played online through the Imagination Network in the early through mid-90s and was so much fun. Probably the most fun I would have on a dial up modem. I loved aerial combat games, from X-Wing and Tie Fighter to these. Especially when you could turn off enough simulation to make them fun but leave on enough that it wasn't just an arcade game.
13. Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge (Xbox)
Developed by FASA (of MechWarrior/Mech Assault fame) this one was another aerial combat game on Xbox Live for the OG Xbox. It was an absolute blast, kind of a retro future story. Fun online modes.
Honorable mention in the dog fight game category to Wings of Fury on the Apple ][. This was a killer 80s dogfight side scroller. So much fun, I'd have Iron Maiden's Aces High playing constantly.
14. Fallout 2 (PC)
The first two Fallouts were my favorite. Don't blame @hrdboild for taking the original but F2 was infinitely bigger. If this is some desert island thing, I'll take the extra options. Ok, confession time: I never beat it. I beat the first. So that's also why.
15. Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic (Xbox)
I really don't understand how this one did not get picked. Classic BioWare RPG with an awesome Star Wars story. The one Star Wars game I'd put up against Tie Fighter.
I probably have another 5-10 honorable mentions. Sandbox: Mercenaries. FPS: Outlaws. Turnbased Strategy: Jagged Alliance. Classic action/RPG: AutoDuel and Mobius. Karateka... oh man.
Like I said, I played a crap ton of games since my dad brought home the VCS up until when I got divorced and my time got busy with all my other responsibilities.
1. WWF No Mercy (N64)
2. Fire Pro Wrestling S: 6 Men Scramble (Sega Saturn)
Far and away my two favorite wrestling games. No Mercy had a pick up and play ability that I could be playing these games year round and bring it home for Thanksgiving and Christmas and my brother could jump in and we'd have great games. Nobody did customization in this era like Fire Pro and frankly the grapple system was maybe outside of the AKI engine's extreme ease of pick up and play, the best alternative. Honorable mentions to NES Pro Wrestling and Mat Mania
3. NFL 2K5 (Dreamcast)
Broke the Madden grip, probably best football simcade game ever made. All Pro 2k8 is also super fun but I am going with the one with the license. EA got so upset they bought exclusive rights to NFL, NCAA AND the Arena Football League to freeze 2k out.
4. Rock Band 3 (Xbox 360)
Pinnacle of the series for me. Pro mode with effectively real drums and guitar. Keyboards. Three part vocal harmonies. Rock Band Network. Pretty sure it also had the best career mode and character creator suite. Rock Band 4 kept alive for the next/current gen but dropped all that cool stuff and went back to basics.
5. NHL 2K3 (Xbox)
If I recall correctly this was the first hockey game with Xbox Live support. Descended from Power Play Hockey (amazing) the 2K series was far more sim like and topped EA for years until the mid-00s. This one I give the nod for being my first online NHL experience.
6. Deathrow (Xbox)
As a die hard sports gamer I also had a love for future-sports games - this one may have been the best of the best.
7. The Pinball Arcade (iOS)
No pinballs were taken. I am not sure if that was a strict rule or not, but being a digital game this one gets a pass. I pick the iOS version because it can be played with vertical orientation. Sadly they lost the Williams pinball license in 2018 but presumably since if you bought them you keep them, I'd have all of those too.
8. Skate 3 (Xbox 360)
THPS 2 and 4 are my favorites of that series but Skate really upped the ante with the trick sticks and realism. Hard time picking which one but I do think Skate 3 is the most feature packed. The lack of features actually made some of the OG Skate pretty cool though - just hitting some huge insane gaps and having to actually stick a clean landing. So awesome.
9. College Hoops 2K8 (Xbox 360)
College sports games are so fun. 2K8 was insane and the last of the series. So much fun recruiting your class. Way more fun for a great basketball playing game with stuff to do on the side than the trading card games NBA 2k MyTeam has become. Sega actually made a pretty killer College Football title on Genesis as part of the Sports Talk line. I had to mention here or in the 2K football, because those games were pretty killer and worthy of play in the early Madden days as well.
10. DecAthlete (Sega Saturn)
Did the olds playing along ever play Decathlon on 2600? I loved that game and chasing records but the joystick wiggling mechanic is no bueno. This was another Decathlon arcade game released on Saturn around the Atlanta Games. We used to have the best time at my condo in Boston playing this one with 4 of us chasing our own records. Another pick up and play party game that was super fun before online ruled everything.
Honorable mention in this category to Epyx for Summer Games, Winter Games, California Games, and The Games: Winter Edition
11. Police Quest (Apple ][ GS)
Leisure Suit Larry was picked and I loved all these Sierra games. In the late 80s they were up there with EA for me. This is the earlier version of the game that had the text interface and not the later one where you could mouse click to solve everything. Such a fun one. All the Quest games were awesome in their own right and I sorta feel guilty for picking the cop one instead of a Space Quest or something but what the heck.
12. Red Baron (PC)
Hard time choosing between Dynamix flight sims. I think that Aces of the Pacific was my favorite, but Red Baron could be played online through the Imagination Network in the early through mid-90s and was so much fun. Probably the most fun I would have on a dial up modem. I loved aerial combat games, from X-Wing and Tie Fighter to these. Especially when you could turn off enough simulation to make them fun but leave on enough that it wasn't just an arcade game.
13. Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge (Xbox)
Developed by FASA (of MechWarrior/Mech Assault fame) this one was another aerial combat game on Xbox Live for the OG Xbox. It was an absolute blast, kind of a retro future story. Fun online modes.
Honorable mention in the dog fight game category to Wings of Fury on the Apple ][. This was a killer 80s dogfight side scroller. So much fun, I'd have Iron Maiden's Aces High playing constantly.
14. Fallout 2 (PC)
The first two Fallouts were my favorite. Don't blame @hrdboild for taking the original but F2 was infinitely bigger. If this is some desert island thing, I'll take the extra options. Ok, confession time: I never beat it. I beat the first. So that's also why.
15. Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic (Xbox)
I really don't understand how this one did not get picked. Classic BioWare RPG with an awesome Star Wars story. The one Star Wars game I'd put up against Tie Fighter.
I probably have another 5-10 honorable mentions. Sandbox: Mercenaries. FPS: Outlaws. Turnbased Strategy: Jagged Alliance. Classic action/RPG: AutoDuel and Mobius. Karateka... oh man.
Like I said, I played a crap ton of games since my dad brought home the VCS up until when I got divorced and my time got busy with all my other responsibilities.
macadocious
Starter
Skate or Die!
Hot Pursuit alright for me but the original on 3DO was damned near perfect for what it was, which was a 3D revival of the classic Test Drive series. Man oh man, those were so fun on their own except for the rub paint and you die aspect, but I guess it makes sense since you were on a Test Drive! And Road Rash 3DO is why I bought the system. Star Control and Samurai Showdown and a near perfect Super Street Fighter 2. Oh and Return Fire! Pretty good for the time version of FIFA too.
I still have mine.
To wrap up the last of my loose ends, here is the concluding chapter of the essay that I started about the Myst Series -- why these games and novels are significant to me and why I think they're still worth exploring 30 years later. You can find Chapter I: Words Into Pictures and Chapter II: The Shape(s) of Imagination in my original Riven post here. Since that post has already maxed out the character limit, I had to break off Chapter III: D'Ni or Diné into it's own post here...
In choosing to call their fictional society D'Ni -- similar to the Navajo term for 'people' : Diné -- and in setting their story in a desert locale with a heavy emphasis on hand-crafted cultural objects, Robyn and Rand Miller invited comparisons to indigenous history which are mostly implicit in the video games but are ultimately made explicit in the novels. In this section I want to talk about those comparisons -- more specifically how the theme of colonization is developed into the main focus of all three novels and, uncomfortable as the subject may be, how we might begin to approach the conversation around fetishization of cultural artifacts for science fiction and fantasy world-building with a more nuanced critical eye than is often allowed for in discourses of this kind. Myst may be mostly known colloquially as "that game with the pretty pictures that I couldn't figure out" but upon closer examination, there is actually a lot to talk about here culturally too.
...
In choosing to call their fictional society D'Ni -- similar to the Navajo term for 'people' : Diné -- and in setting their story in a desert locale with a heavy emphasis on hand-crafted cultural objects, Robyn and Rand Miller invited comparisons to indigenous history which are mostly implicit in the video games but are ultimately made explicit in the novels. In this section I want to talk about those comparisons -- more specifically how the theme of colonization is developed into the main focus of all three novels and, uncomfortable as the subject may be, how we might begin to approach the conversation around fetishization of cultural artifacts for science fiction and fantasy world-building with a more nuanced critical eye than is often allowed for in discourses of this kind. Myst may be mostly known colloquially as "that game with the pretty pictures that I couldn't figure out" but upon closer examination, there is actually a lot to talk about here culturally too.
...
_____Already I've got to backtrack a bit because I've realized that it would not be possible to explore the thematic content of the novels without spoiling key elements of their plots which are meant to be revealed in the course of the narrative. And all three of those Myst novels are terrific and transcend the video game series to be well worth reading for heir own sake so I don't want to spoil them. Let me instead stick to how this topic relates to Riven. The plot of Riven is pretty simple compared to a lot of other adventure games, which is by design. The gameplay ethos at work here is one of player exploration rather than linear storytelling. There are a number of different possible endings depending on the choices that the player makes but several elements of the story are consistent throughout. We know that Aitrus, the character we spoke to in the first Myst game, needs our help once again in dealing with his family but this time it's his father (Gehn) who he wants us to trap in a prison book. First we've got to free his wife Catherine who has been imprisoned by Gehn somewhere in Riven (behind bars in her case, not in an Age with no linking book to get out of it). The bulk of this game then is made up of trying to navigate the puzzles impeding our progress in order to locate Catherine.
_____En route to reaching Catherine we are free to explore the world of Riven and there are several opportunities to interact with native Rivanese people and learn aspects of their culture. Most of the Rivanese we encounter in person early on (through embedded video clips of actors filmed in front of a blue screen then composited into the virtual environments) simply run away from us. The bulk of the cultural exchange, then, happens
by interacting with artifacts rather than with people. For instance, in the empty cliff village there is a school house with a children's toy meant to teach us how to count in D'Ni numerical notation. This notation is utilized in a few of the games puzzles so learning it is not optional in the same way that reading the journal entries scattered about to understand the backstory is. This also serves a convenient game design purpose: were we able to simply ask someone what the symbols mean we could arrive at the solution quicker. Instead we are forced to discover their significance through experimentation.
_____I already explained briefly in Chapter I the premise of the expanded Myst fictional universe but I'll paraphrase it again here. A group of people called the D'Ni -- pronounced as duh (think Bart Simpson) + ni (same as the word knee) -- have the ability to write descriptive books which outline environments (called Ages) that could exist or do exist in a parallel universe and then through a mysterious and unexplained process involving how the paper and ink are prepared, the books themselves become portals which the D'Ni use to link into those Ages and interact with the inhabitants. In Chapter I my purpose was only to comment on this meta-narrative in the context of a broader movement in video games from word-based storytelling to picture-based storytelling. From this basic premise though, we can also see the suggestion of a dramatic theme emerging. If these authored Ages are not empty but can have inhabitants, what responsibility do the D'Ni have, as authors, toward those inhabitants? Should authorship grant them hegemonic status? Does knowing that an Age they've written is not empty of life change how a D'Ni author should think about further revisions to that work?
_____In this way Myst uses the concept of authorship to explore themes of colonialism and xenophobia from a unique perspective. When the D'Ni enter an Age (Riven being one such Age -- Gehn's 5th authored age, as we are frequently told throughout the game) they too are explorers. In order to communicate with the people living in that Age, a cultural exchange must first take place. This puts the D'Ni in the same position as a European colonist arriving on a new continent for the first time. Neither side knows the other's cultural beliefs and motivations. While working to establish a means of communication we can imagine them also working to establish whether these unknown people are friend or foe. And in our encounters with the Rivanese and their environment we can clearly see them making that same determination about us.
_____I think it is worth stopping to emphasize here that Riven is a game where 'anthropology' is the core means with which the player is interacting with the game environment. All of those objects -- the glowing fire marble lanterns, the ceremonial daggers, the many rotating domes and transportation systems, the children's counting toy -- are not merely decorative nor are they functioning (as many of the puzzles in Myst were) only as gameplay mechanisms to solve. They are an essential part of the game's storytelling as well. Returning to the counting toy, we can see immediately that this simple mechanical device is clearly intended to teach Rivanese children more than just numbers. The toy takes the form of a hand-carved diorama showing misbehaving Rivenese villagers being fed to a giant walrus-like creature called a wahrk. Were this depiction unclear, the actual platform used to perform this ritual for real is located in the lake nearby. In this way we are not just learning about the Rivenese through our exploration, we are also learning about Gehn, the game's antagonist and the D'Ni author of this Age. And what we learn puts him quite firmly in the category of 'foe'.
_____As a quick diversion, the financial success of Myst gave birth to a parody game called Pyst which was essentially (from what I could tell from screenshots) the same idea but with trash strewn all over the uninhabited fantasy world the player was exploring. The premise of Pyst is that so many people had gone to this little island and left their trash behind that it's now become a dump. Having taken the time to author three novels of backstory in the years between Riven and Myst, the Miller brothers and their expanded team of designers at Cyan Worlds arrived at a similar premise for Riven. Rather than wandering through a pristine environment as we were in Myst, we ar
e now wandering through an environment on the verge of collapse with the scars of industrialization and land exploitation plainly apparent around us. Two of the islands prominently feature a clear-cut forest and a polluted lake. When we eventually find Catherine her prison island is built out of the remains of an enormous tree which has been cut down. Of the remaining two islands, one hosts the throne room referenced in Chapter II and the other features a temple dedicated to the worship of Gehn as a deity.
_____So if you want to tell a story about a megalomaniacal man who comes from an ancient people who were prone to arrogance and his despotic rule over an island culture he believed himself to be separate from and above and you intend to tell that story almost entirely through pictures, one way to accomplish that would be to lean into a symbolic visual short-hand which borrows heavily from historical tropes. The native people we encounter in Riven build earthen homes and craft their tools out of easily obtainable wood and bone. They construct totems and effigies and create art which references aspects of the natural environment around them. Gehn, by contrast, builds his structures out of granite, metal, and stone masonry and animates them with mechanical contraptions that consume aspects of the natural environment. The contrasting value systems of the Rivanese and Gehn as depicted in these structures and artifacts are so closely aligned with indigenous cultures and colonizing European cultures, respectively, that casting Gehn as the antagonist of the story reads like a clear indictment of the practice of colonization. It's not quite as "hit you over the head with overt symbolism" as James Cameron's Avatar films but it's not far off either.
_____A lot of different existing cultures were referenced in creating the Rivanese culture. The language they speak is adapted from a language spoken in Papua New Guinea. Their village dwellings are constructed high up on the cliffs similar to the Pueblo culture of the American Southwest. The underground rebel faction we eventually meet use bola (a thrown weapon invented by people indigenous to the North and South American continents) and have constructed an elaborate series of wooden structures throughout the game world which they've coded with pictographic representations of animals found in Riven. But there is one other point of reference which I haven't found much discussion on and that is the similarity between the fic
tional culture of the D'Ni, invented to fill out Myst's backstory and the real-life Navajo cosmology. Diné -- pronounced as din (first syllable of dinner) + A (the letter 'A' or the Canadian eh?) is a Navajo word which means 'people'. Basically it refers to the collective we, all of us. In the Navajo creation story, our present world is the fourth iteration of the world and in order to get here we emerged from a previous world in which we lived underground, disharmoniously. Later in the series, the Miller brothers would further iterate upon these ideas culminating in an online multi-player game called Uru where players enter the underground D'Ni city through a series of tunnels that emerge in modern-day Arizona.
_____The design team at Cyan Worlds also directly referenced Navajo culture in another, more tangible way. In order to bring their 3D modeled geography to life, they took a series of close-up photographs of various types of materials in Santa Fe, New Mexico and then applied these photographs as surface textures to effectively paint between the lines on those 3D models. Why New Mexico? According to Robyn Miller the decision was made to source all of these texture photos of wood, brick, metal, stone, etc. in a desert environment that closely resembled the one they were building. So if wandering around Riven reminds you just a bit of textures that you've seen in Arizona and New Mexico, there's a good reason -- that is exactly what you're seeing pasted all around you. This is how it was possible to make a game in the mid 1990s that looked photo-real. And even today if you go load up a copy of the original Riven release, the effect is still pretty convincing. We have 8K digital cameras now and processors which can handle amounts of data that were almost impossible to imagine 30 years ago so it would be unreasonable to expect those images to compare favorably with the state of the art now, but they come closer than anything else from their era.
(These sketches from "Myst: The Book of Atrus" depict what D'Ni city would have looked like.)
_____Here's where I would like to ask you (hypothetical reader) a question; a rhetorical one since this is in essay form. Because the Miller brothers chose to tell a story about colonization, exploitation, and the use of theology to manipulate and control people and focused the gameplay mechanics of Riven around the act of anthropological study, does that justify their borrowing of elements from other cultures to suit their fantasy narrative? It's not a trivial question and I don't think the answer to it is obvious. In Chapter II when talking about visual imagination I openly encouraged the borrowing and recontextualizing of visual elements from our environment in order to craft new images which have resonance and the illusion of authenticity. Is this not the same thing but applied to cultural artifacts? Does the same act become politically insensitive when applied to culture? You can answer that question for yourself however you like. I don't have an answer prepared for you. But rather than leaving it unanswered, I'll sketch out (briefly) some impressions and attempt to outline how I think I might answer it...
_____I recently learned that the Hupa tribe (located along the Trinity River in Northern California) share the same root language family as the Navajo. Hupa is a word derived from an entirely different language family (there is no 'p' in their own language) and they instead describe themselves using the term Din'ing -- for English speakers this word is pronounced like din (first syllable of dinner) + ang (first syllable of anger). The sad fact of the matter is, you can now count the number of people fluent in Hupa on one hand. This is a reality that is equal parts heartbreaking and hopeful. Heartbreaking because of the story of how it came to be and hopeful because with new efforts in language emersion for toddlers that number is growing. I intend to go back there as often as I can to continue to learn the language and the faces -- I guess for the same reason I found myself there in the first place. There are forces shaping our world which we are incapable of understanding except for brief moments when they reach out to us and welcome us home. I wonder if, in some small way, all of the time I spent exploring in Riven and thinking about the subject matter of those Myst novels was preparing me to have such a moment?
_____Everything I've written so far in this essay is only hinting at a broader topic that has been my main subject of interest recently, which is this: I think of culture and ecology as interrelated. In the same way that we need to cease environmentally exploitative practices like clear cutting of native forests if we're ever to rediscover and restore the traditions of ecological co-existence that were once at the core of human society, we must also elevate and restore the vanishing cultural traditions of indigenous populations before they are gone forever. We (the collective we -- Diné) need to do this not just out of respect (though yes, respect is a decent starting point) but because contained within those traditions are thousands of years worth of human knowledge which we cannot survive without.
_____Now I realize that's a pretty big statement to make without citing any evidence but this essay was just meant to be an examination of the Myst series as a cultural artifact. It would take an entire book to explicate and examine that statement and I am working on exactly that in the stolen moments between all of life's other (endlessly multiplying) responsibilities. For now I offer as a kind of conclusion merely a way of thinking about cultural appropriation that might be a salve to the degrading effects of capitalism as colonization. If borrowing and recontextualizing can be a way to shine a spotlight on cultural traditions which resonate with us then absolutely, let's do that. Let's celebrate the artistry and ingenuity of marginalized peoples. Let's celebrate all that human culture has to offer us. And then let's also take the further step of acknowledging where those traditions came from and actively work toward building a future where those strands of human experience may continue to live, grow, and evolve as part of our present moment not just vanish into the past as footnotes to tragedy.
_____En route to reaching Catherine we are free to explore the world of Riven and there are several opportunities to interact with native Rivanese people and learn aspects of their culture. Most of the Rivanese we encounter in person early on (through embedded video clips of actors filmed in front of a blue screen then composited into the virtual environments) simply run away from us. The bulk of the cultural exchange, then, happens
by interacting with artifacts rather than with people. For instance, in the empty cliff village there is a school house with a children's toy meant to teach us how to count in D'Ni numerical notation. This notation is utilized in a few of the games puzzles so learning it is not optional in the same way that reading the journal entries scattered about to understand the backstory is. This also serves a convenient game design purpose: were we able to simply ask someone what the symbols mean we could arrive at the solution quicker. Instead we are forced to discover their significance through experimentation._____I already explained briefly in Chapter I the premise of the expanded Myst fictional universe but I'll paraphrase it again here. A group of people called the D'Ni -- pronounced as duh (think Bart Simpson) + ni (same as the word knee) -- have the ability to write descriptive books which outline environments (called Ages) that could exist or do exist in a parallel universe and then through a mysterious and unexplained process involving how the paper and ink are prepared, the books themselves become portals which the D'Ni use to link into those Ages and interact with the inhabitants. In Chapter I my purpose was only to comment on this meta-narrative in the context of a broader movement in video games from word-based storytelling to picture-based storytelling. From this basic premise though, we can also see the suggestion of a dramatic theme emerging. If these authored Ages are not empty but can have inhabitants, what responsibility do the D'Ni have, as authors, toward those inhabitants? Should authorship grant them hegemonic status? Does knowing that an Age they've written is not empty of life change how a D'Ni author should think about further revisions to that work?
_____In this way Myst uses the concept of authorship to explore themes of colonialism and xenophobia from a unique perspective. When the D'Ni enter an Age (Riven being one such Age -- Gehn's 5th authored age, as we are frequently told throughout the game) they too are explorers. In order to communicate with the people living in that Age, a cultural exchange must first take place. This puts the D'Ni in the same position as a European colonist arriving on a new continent for the first time. Neither side knows the other's cultural beliefs and motivations. While working to establish a means of communication we can imagine them also working to establish whether these unknown people are friend or foe. And in our encounters with the Rivanese and their environment we can clearly see them making that same determination about us.
_____I think it is worth stopping to emphasize here that Riven is a game where 'anthropology' is the core means with which the player is interacting with the game environment. All of those objects -- the glowing fire marble lanterns, the ceremonial daggers, the many rotating domes and transportation systems, the children's counting toy -- are not merely decorative nor are they functioning (as many of the puzzles in Myst were) only as gameplay mechanisms to solve. They are an essential part of the game's storytelling as well. Returning to the counting toy, we can see immediately that this simple mechanical device is clearly intended to teach Rivanese children more than just numbers. The toy takes the form of a hand-carved diorama showing misbehaving Rivenese villagers being fed to a giant walrus-like creature called a wahrk. Were this depiction unclear, the actual platform used to perform this ritual for real is located in the lake nearby. In this way we are not just learning about the Rivenese through our exploration, we are also learning about Gehn, the game's antagonist and the D'Ni author of this Age. And what we learn puts him quite firmly in the category of 'foe'.
_____As a quick diversion, the financial success of Myst gave birth to a parody game called Pyst which was essentially (from what I could tell from screenshots) the same idea but with trash strewn all over the uninhabited fantasy world the player was exploring. The premise of Pyst is that so many people had gone to this little island and left their trash behind that it's now become a dump. Having taken the time to author three novels of backstory in the years between Riven and Myst, the Miller brothers and their expanded team of designers at Cyan Worlds arrived at a similar premise for Riven. Rather than wandering through a pristine environment as we were in Myst, we ar
e now wandering through an environment on the verge of collapse with the scars of industrialization and land exploitation plainly apparent around us. Two of the islands prominently feature a clear-cut forest and a polluted lake. When we eventually find Catherine her prison island is built out of the remains of an enormous tree which has been cut down. Of the remaining two islands, one hosts the throne room referenced in Chapter II and the other features a temple dedicated to the worship of Gehn as a deity._____So if you want to tell a story about a megalomaniacal man who comes from an ancient people who were prone to arrogance and his despotic rule over an island culture he believed himself to be separate from and above and you intend to tell that story almost entirely through pictures, one way to accomplish that would be to lean into a symbolic visual short-hand which borrows heavily from historical tropes. The native people we encounter in Riven build earthen homes and craft their tools out of easily obtainable wood and bone. They construct totems and effigies and create art which references aspects of the natural environment around them. Gehn, by contrast, builds his structures out of granite, metal, and stone masonry and animates them with mechanical contraptions that consume aspects of the natural environment. The contrasting value systems of the Rivanese and Gehn as depicted in these structures and artifacts are so closely aligned with indigenous cultures and colonizing European cultures, respectively, that casting Gehn as the antagonist of the story reads like a clear indictment of the practice of colonization. It's not quite as "hit you over the head with overt symbolism" as James Cameron's Avatar films but it's not far off either.
_____A lot of different existing cultures were referenced in creating the Rivanese culture. The language they speak is adapted from a language spoken in Papua New Guinea. Their village dwellings are constructed high up on the cliffs similar to the Pueblo culture of the American Southwest. The underground rebel faction we eventually meet use bola (a thrown weapon invented by people indigenous to the North and South American continents) and have constructed an elaborate series of wooden structures throughout the game world which they've coded with pictographic representations of animals found in Riven. But there is one other point of reference which I haven't found much discussion on and that is the similarity between the fic
tional culture of the D'Ni, invented to fill out Myst's backstory and the real-life Navajo cosmology. Diné -- pronounced as din (first syllable of dinner) + A (the letter 'A' or the Canadian eh?) is a Navajo word which means 'people'. Basically it refers to the collective we, all of us. In the Navajo creation story, our present world is the fourth iteration of the world and in order to get here we emerged from a previous world in which we lived underground, disharmoniously. Later in the series, the Miller brothers would further iterate upon these ideas culminating in an online multi-player game called Uru where players enter the underground D'Ni city through a series of tunnels that emerge in modern-day Arizona._____The design team at Cyan Worlds also directly referenced Navajo culture in another, more tangible way. In order to bring their 3D modeled geography to life, they took a series of close-up photographs of various types of materials in Santa Fe, New Mexico and then applied these photographs as surface textures to effectively paint between the lines on those 3D models. Why New Mexico? According to Robyn Miller the decision was made to source all of these texture photos of wood, brick, metal, stone, etc. in a desert environment that closely resembled the one they were building. So if wandering around Riven reminds you just a bit of textures that you've seen in Arizona and New Mexico, there's a good reason -- that is exactly what you're seeing pasted all around you. This is how it was possible to make a game in the mid 1990s that looked photo-real. And even today if you go load up a copy of the original Riven release, the effect is still pretty convincing. We have 8K digital cameras now and processors which can handle amounts of data that were almost impossible to imagine 30 years ago so it would be unreasonable to expect those images to compare favorably with the state of the art now, but they come closer than anything else from their era.
(These sketches from "Myst: The Book of Atrus" depict what D'Ni city would have looked like.)
_____Here's where I would like to ask you (hypothetical reader) a question; a rhetorical one since this is in essay form. Because the Miller brothers chose to tell a story about colonization, exploitation, and the use of theology to manipulate and control people and focused the gameplay mechanics of Riven around the act of anthropological study, does that justify their borrowing of elements from other cultures to suit their fantasy narrative? It's not a trivial question and I don't think the answer to it is obvious. In Chapter II when talking about visual imagination I openly encouraged the borrowing and recontextualizing of visual elements from our environment in order to craft new images which have resonance and the illusion of authenticity. Is this not the same thing but applied to cultural artifacts? Does the same act become politically insensitive when applied to culture? You can answer that question for yourself however you like. I don't have an answer prepared for you. But rather than leaving it unanswered, I'll sketch out (briefly) some impressions and attempt to outline how I think I might answer it...
_____I recently learned that the Hupa tribe (located along the Trinity River in Northern California) share the same root language family as the Navajo. Hupa is a word derived from an entirely different language family (there is no 'p' in their own language) and they instead describe themselves using the term Din'ing -- for English speakers this word is pronounced like din (first syllable of dinner) + ang (first syllable of anger). The sad fact of the matter is, you can now count the number of people fluent in Hupa on one hand. This is a reality that is equal parts heartbreaking and hopeful. Heartbreaking because of the story of how it came to be and hopeful because with new efforts in language emersion for toddlers that number is growing. I intend to go back there as often as I can to continue to learn the language and the faces -- I guess for the same reason I found myself there in the first place. There are forces shaping our world which we are incapable of understanding except for brief moments when they reach out to us and welcome us home. I wonder if, in some small way, all of the time I spent exploring in Riven and thinking about the subject matter of those Myst novels was preparing me to have such a moment?
_____Everything I've written so far in this essay is only hinting at a broader topic that has been my main subject of interest recently, which is this: I think of culture and ecology as interrelated. In the same way that we need to cease environmentally exploitative practices like clear cutting of native forests if we're ever to rediscover and restore the traditions of ecological co-existence that were once at the core of human society, we must also elevate and restore the vanishing cultural traditions of indigenous populations before they are gone forever. We (the collective we -- Diné) need to do this not just out of respect (though yes, respect is a decent starting point) but because contained within those traditions are thousands of years worth of human knowledge which we cannot survive without.
_____Now I realize that's a pretty big statement to make without citing any evidence but this essay was just meant to be an examination of the Myst series as a cultural artifact. It would take an entire book to explicate and examine that statement and I am working on exactly that in the stolen moments between all of life's other (endlessly multiplying) responsibilities. For now I offer as a kind of conclusion merely a way of thinking about cultural appropriation that might be a salve to the degrading effects of capitalism as colonization. If borrowing and recontextualizing can be a way to shine a spotlight on cultural traditions which resonate with us then absolutely, let's do that. Let's celebrate the artistry and ingenuity of marginalized peoples. Let's celebrate all that human culture has to offer us. And then let's also take the further step of acknowledging where those traditions came from and actively work toward building a future where those strands of human experience may continue to live, grow, and evolve as part of our present moment not just vanish into the past as footnotes to tragedy.
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macadocious
Starter
Oh, another one I forgot:
Populous.
Anyone remember that game? Minecraft before Minecraft.
Populous.
Anyone remember that game? Minecraft before Minecraft.
I selected this one because it is the one I would play between Half-Life LAN sessions at my friend's house - his wife would play as well and all 3 of us would be racing the cops. Good times.
I thought about this one a bit while throwing my list together. I think it would probably be about 7 on my list of "strategy" games.
I'm kind of burnt out on writing about games at the moment... writing that 3 part essay about Myst seemed like a good idea when I started it but it just felt like word soup by the end. Ah well, I tried anyway. So as briefly as I can manage, here's some of my honorable mentions...
First there's two games that I almost picked:
Ori and the Will of the Wisps -- I haven't liked Metroidvania games in the past, but my Aunt wanted help installing the first game in this series and the art style of the sequel, how naturalistic lighting is used to stunning effect and the subtle way the ground flexes underneath your character, is so entrancing that I've made an exception to play this game. If I were making a list of "best looking video games" this may be my #1.
Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition -- It's nothing but Instagib mode all day for me! M-m-m-monster kill! I did a whole write-up for this one and planned to make it my 15th pick but it got bumped for Xenogears. So here's an excerpt...
Other LucasArts adventure games I might have picked... Full Throttle is my next choice and in many ways it's a better game than The Dig. Awesome soundtrack too! The Secret of Monkey Island, The Secret of Monkey Island II, and The Curse of Monkey Island would all have been good choices too. Yes I have a thing for pirates... I'm not sure why.
The Life is Strange series of interactive movies, especially Life is Strange: True Colors which has a mechanic that allows you to read people's auras and then choose dialog responses accordingly. I appreciate that these are one and done experiences and there are some genuinely moving emotional moments in each of these games.
Along similar lines, the Quantic Dream branching narrative games Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit Become Human. Both are more movie than game but I like where they go with their stories.
The highest ranked game for me that went undrafted was the original Command and Conquer which was a seminal game at the time though my attitude toward violence has since evolved to the point where I might not enjoy playing it anymore.
Other weird stuff that is personally meaningful:
The Journeyman Project II: Buried in Time is my favorite of the Myst-alikes. You get to time travel through history and the game has a goofy sense of humor that I enjoy.
Shogo Mobile Armor Division and No One Lives Forever 2 are single player shooters from Monolith Productions with themes that I really got a kick out of. Yet more mecha suited combat in the first one (and a really fun graphical style) and goofy 60s spy movie tropes in the second.
Blade Runner, the real-time adventure game from the same studio that brought us the Command and Conquer series. I want this to be a better game than it is, but it has it's moments. And the opportunity to step inside the world of my favorite movies is clearly something I enjoy with the Alien Isolation and TIE Fighter picks both accomplishing the same.
Oxenfree is a charming little Indie Point and Click adventure game that I really got a kick out of. It's short but also replayable. I highly recommend this one for anyone who is a fan of this type of game. It's easy to get into and the puzzles are all very intuitive and thematic. Which makes this the ultimate cozy point and click adventure that I know of. I'd be interested if anyone knows of other games similar to this.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is most people's pick for the best game in that series and I don't disagree with them. I bought a PS4 because I saw a development chat about Uncharted 4 and just had to play it. That was really the catalyst for me getting back into video games after a long break. I made myself play Uncharted 1-3 first though and everything about Uncharted 2 is just exceptional. The story, the gameplay, the action set pieces. In fact, one of this game's set pieces is so memorable that it was ripped off for the climax of Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning. Uncharted 4 has the Jeep in it though, so it was really no contest on which game I'm picking if I could only play one of them.
First there's two games that I almost picked:
Ori and the Will of the Wisps -- I haven't liked Metroidvania games in the past, but my Aunt wanted help installing the first game in this series and the art style of the sequel, how naturalistic lighting is used to stunning effect and the subtle way the ground flexes underneath your character, is so entrancing that I've made an exception to play this game. If I were making a list of "best looking video games" this may be my #1.
Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition -- It's nothing but Instagib mode all day for me! M-m-m-monster kill! I did a whole write-up for this one and planned to make it my 15th pick but it got bumped for Xenogears. So here's an excerpt...
Other LucasArts adventure games I might have picked... Full Throttle is my next choice and in many ways it's a better game than The Dig. Awesome soundtrack too! The Secret of Monkey Island, The Secret of Monkey Island II, and The Curse of Monkey Island would all have been good choices too. Yes I have a thing for pirates... I'm not sure why.
The Life is Strange series of interactive movies, especially Life is Strange: True Colors which has a mechanic that allows you to read people's auras and then choose dialog responses accordingly. I appreciate that these are one and done experiences and there are some genuinely moving emotional moments in each of these games.
Along similar lines, the Quantic Dream branching narrative games Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit Become Human. Both are more movie than game but I like where they go with their stories.
The highest ranked game for me that went undrafted was the original Command and Conquer which was a seminal game at the time though my attitude toward violence has since evolved to the point where I might not enjoy playing it anymore.
Other weird stuff that is personally meaningful:
The Journeyman Project II: Buried in Time is my favorite of the Myst-alikes. You get to time travel through history and the game has a goofy sense of humor that I enjoy.
Shogo Mobile Armor Division and No One Lives Forever 2 are single player shooters from Monolith Productions with themes that I really got a kick out of. Yet more mecha suited combat in the first one (and a really fun graphical style) and goofy 60s spy movie tropes in the second.
Blade Runner, the real-time adventure game from the same studio that brought us the Command and Conquer series. I want this to be a better game than it is, but it has it's moments. And the opportunity to step inside the world of my favorite movies is clearly something I enjoy with the Alien Isolation and TIE Fighter picks both accomplishing the same.
Oxenfree is a charming little Indie Point and Click adventure game that I really got a kick out of. It's short but also replayable. I highly recommend this one for anyone who is a fan of this type of game. It's easy to get into and the puzzles are all very intuitive and thematic. Which makes this the ultimate cozy point and click adventure that I know of. I'd be interested if anyone knows of other games similar to this.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is most people's pick for the best game in that series and I don't disagree with them. I bought a PS4 because I saw a development chat about Uncharted 4 and just had to play it. That was really the catalyst for me getting back into video games after a long break. I made myself play Uncharted 1-3 first though and everything about Uncharted 2 is just exceptional. The story, the gameplay, the action set pieces. In fact, one of this game's set pieces is so memorable that it was ripped off for the climax of Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning. Uncharted 4 has the Jeep in it though, so it was really no contest on which game I'm picking if I could only play one of them.
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Oh lord, Sid Meier's Pirates!
Maybe the original, maybe Gold or maybe the early 00s pc with the dancing minigame. hmmm.
Maybe the original, maybe Gold or maybe the early 00s pc with the dancing minigame. hmmm.
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