Friday 23 February 2018

Media Studies 120, The Medium is the message

There exists a game simply called Train. You may likely never play it unless if you happen to come across it on tour. The game opens up with players smashing a window pane, one of four corners. On top of the frame holding the window panes are train tracks and carts full of passengers. Players take turns rolling dice and moving their trains closer to the destination to win. Upon reaching the end, you pick up cards to see where your passengers ended up. Printed on them are things like "Auschwitz" or "Plaszow".

This is a real game. And many who play it for the first time find it horribly tragic, but what makes it tragic? In particular, is it the story that makes it tragic, the context behind it? Or the players own complicity with what the metaphors represented. The idea is, the Mechanics are the message, the Medium is the message.

The idea behind Train is to explore how game mechanics tell the story just as much as direct exposition from something or someone. The same can be said for any sort of medium. Movies and how they are shot can tell a story. Just by the time spent on a frame, how it builds up to a scene, or even with which the movies aspect ratio can be used to create a close and claustrophobic feeling such as in the movie Son of Saul. In novels, the way you phrase things, the very way you use your words can be used to convey something. In comic books, how panels are placed can emphasize action, such as reading from right to left, and using your natural eye movement to convey movement by having characters walk or do something in the direction your eye is moving.

In short, to say the medium is the message is to say what implications the way you chose to represent something can effect your end message. It's important to understand this concept. Sometimes, some stories only work in particular formats. Messages like Lovecraftian Cosmic Horror only work in novels and movies, where you can show characters fall into madness and fail at every step, but not in games. Because generally games that have the player fail through no real fault of their own is only frustrating, and having a story where the character is going through hell and keeps failing at everything, but a player that is breezing through challenges and overcoming any situation simply does not mesh the medium and message well together.

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