泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] Handshake and acid rain

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Handshake and acid rain

 

We shake hands with many people in life. But most of us don't know where it is derived from. It was a sign of peace showing that neither person was carrying a sword to attack each other. Most readers of this column probably know the term "acid rain" and use the word sometimes. However, a minority of people know that rainfall is acidic. The normal rainfall is slightly acidic compared to acid rain or acid deposition, which is a strong acid, because of the presence of dissolved carbonic acid. We often see the results of somethings forgetting about the true meaning of them.

 

What about in the video games? We can often see games lost their original purpose. While playing recently released role-playing games, users frequently have quests to kill giant monsters. In the majority of cases, it's killing the giant ones. The idea of a giant monster was originated from a trickery boss monster shown specific parts of the body on the screen when video games couldn't take up so much storage space. Most of them were dragon-like segmented monsters. Without drawing additional animations, developers only had to adjust their joint position to animate those monsters. It helped to shrink the size of the game and the super-size boss monsters have continuously developed thanks to great efficiency. After the capacity-related hardware problem being fixed, the mammoth monster was the symbol of strength. Especially, an overpowering boss monster in a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) could be killed only by group play or cooperative attack of a guild or clan. The mission of this kind was used to induce cooperation among players and users' active participation in a community, and the boss monster was faithful to its role. It also was a great motivator for a solo-playing user to improve his proficiency going through an ordeal wisely and overcoming the deficiency. Even a player, who had the highest level of character in a certain stage, couldn't kill a boss monster without his amazing control, and it was like training to goes to a higher difficulty level. However, as developers haven't earnestly thought about the necessity of the giant boss monster, it was demoted to the gigantic and flamboyant outer figure. And a user doesn't need to spend a few hours or several days to clear the biggest enemy because it is not a huge barrier anymore.

 

Of course, the massive and magnificent monster is a nice visual figure. However, it is nothing more than an unessential accessory in a game without its clear purpose or intention. There are too many pretty-pretty games these days. It seems that I am talking only about the boss monster, however, I'd like to say that I'm waiting for playing a not-fancy-but-fun game touching me.

 

 

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

(http://www.khgames.co.kr)

 

Translation by Kim Ki-hui