Analysis Of Undertale, Life Is Strange, Wolf Among Us, And The Walking Dead
Ever since video games were released, they have been under criticism and scrutiny of the public eye. Video games introduced a new form of entertainment that blew the minds of young children and the skepticism of their parents, however the success of video games can’t be denied. Throughout their years of success, video games have evolved, from their simplistic 8-bit game design with flat stories and characters, to graphically detailed games with incredibly intricate storylines and characters. However, the general design of the game and its story isn’t the only thing that has changed, the mechanics have as well. While basic mechanics are still a factor in games, such as moving, “In recent years, moral judgment tasks have served as an increasingly popular plot mechanism in video game play” (Weaver 610). Games like Undertale, Life is Strange, Wolf Among Us, and The Walking Dead, just to name a few, are all storyline based games that uses plot mechanics that focus on your moral choices and all of your decisions in
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general. Of the games mentioned above Undertale is the newest and it has one of the most brutal moral consequences. However, this shouldn’t have any connotations in the real world, the brutal deaths or happiness of fictional characters shouldn’t affect our lives, but it does. As players, we begin to associate traits these characters have to aspects of our own lives and thus we begin to make choices based on our personal opinions. Video games aren’t the only virtual software that allows us to make moral choices. While most wouldn’t consider computer software used to train employees as video games, it has the same effects as some video games. An example is nurses trained with moral based computer software to see how they would react to certain situations and to see if they’re stable enough to continue on with their job. As Weaver said, video games have evolved to the point where moral decisions actually affect your gameplay, and in turn it’s affecting the world around us.
It’s no surprise that as video games evolved that their stories have as well. It’s hard to find a video game now that doesn’t have a story to it, with the exception of games like Tetris. Gamers are particularly drawn into video games that gives players the choice to make moral decisions, to allow them to deal with the consequences of those decisions; although there has been criticism that these games are proposing shallow problems that have no ethical values. Of course moral judgement is featured in other forms of media, however, we are merely the observers while video games make us the actors. Games such as Undertale, Life is Strange, and Dragon Age Trilogy allow us to make the moral judgements and let us play through the game at our personal pleasure.
Undertale was released on September 15, 2015 and almost immediately it became a world-wide phenomenon.
To summarize the game, the title screen shows you that humans and monster were once at war before humans forced monsters underground. You play as a human that has fallen into a mountain, into the underground filled with monsters. There are three different paths you can take and there a different ending for each path. The true pacifist route is obtained if none of the monsters you encounter are killed and if you befriend the boss monsters. The neutral route is obtained if you killed some monsters, but not all of them. The last of the three routes is genocide, and like the name implies you must kill every monster in your path, you become a “butcher” (Shackford). Undertale’s brutal game mechanic is what makes it so loved by the players since it shows that there are consequences to your actions. Consequences that can and will affect the game if you reset
it.
Another game with the same plot base mechanic is Life is Strange, which released the first episode on January 30, 2015, we get to play as Max Caulfield, a twelfth grader who has moved back to her childhood town. As the game begins, Max falls asleep during class and experiences a nightmare, a catastrophic hurricane wiping out Arcadia Bay. When she wakes up a set of events happen, including the near death of her childhood friend Chloe Price, and Max finds out that she has the power to rewind time. As the episodic game continued, Max is faced with several choices that effected later game decisions, and then none of it mattered. In the fifth and last episode, you learn that none of your actions actually matter, and as gamers it’s upsetting. The reason why we feel upset at the end of Life is Strange is because after all of these hard decisions, after all of our hard work compiled to nothing. The underlining message is that even if you do everything right, perfect even, you can’t change what needs to happen. Even Max understands this because she says, “The more I use my powers, the more I see how little control I have over it.”
With the popularity of moral roleplaying games, there’s no surprise that some companies base a majority of their games on that genre along. Bioware is the most well-known among those companies, famous for their Mass Effect trilogy and Dragon Age trilogy, Bioware sets the standards for amazing roleplaying games. While both game franchises deserve praises, Dragon Age’s morality choices are much more severe as opposed to Mass Effect’s. The premise of Dragon Age is this, something is threatening the world, your city, or your family, time to go and save everyone. The thing with Dragon Age is that all three games are connected and effect each other in turn, decisions you make in Dragon Age: Origins carries all the way over to Dragon Age: Inquisition.
general. Of the games mentioned above Undertale is the newest and it has one of the most brutal moral consequences. However, this shouldn’t have any connotations in the real world, the brutal deaths or happiness of fictional characters shouldn’t affect our lives, but it does. As players, we begin to associate traits these characters have to aspects of our own lives and thus we begin to make choices based on our personal opinions. Video games aren’t the only virtual software that allows us to make moral choices. While most wouldn’t consider computer software used to train employees as video games, it has the same effects as some video games. An example is nurses trained with moral based computer software to see how they would react to certain situations and to see if they’re stable enough to continue on with their job. As Weaver said, video games have evolved to the point where moral decisions actually affect your gameplay, and in turn it’s affecting the world around us.
It’s no surprise that as video games evolved that their stories have as well. It’s hard to find a video game now that doesn’t have a story to it, with the exception of games like Tetris. Gamers are particularly drawn into video games that gives players the choice to make moral decisions, to allow them to deal with the consequences of those decisions; although there has been criticism that these games are proposing shallow problems that have no ethical values. Of course moral judgement is featured in other forms of media, however, we are merely the observers while video games make us the actors. Games such as Undertale, Life is Strange, and Dragon Age Trilogy allow us to make the moral judgements and let us play through the game at our personal pleasure.
Undertale was released on September 15, 2015 and almost immediately it became a world-wide phenomenon.
To summarize the game, the title screen shows you that humans and monster were once at war before humans forced monsters underground. You play as a human that has fallen into a mountain, into the underground filled with monsters. There are three different paths you can take and there a different ending for each path. The true pacifist route is obtained if none of the monsters you encounter are killed and if you befriend the boss monsters. The neutral route is obtained if you killed some monsters, but not all of them. The last of the three routes is genocide, and like the name implies you must kill every monster in your path, you become a “butcher” (Shackford). Undertale’s brutal game mechanic is what makes it so loved by the players since it shows that there are consequences to your actions. Consequences that can and will affect the game if you reset
it.
Another game with the same plot base mechanic is Life is Strange, which released the first episode on January 30, 2015, we get to play as Max Caulfield, a twelfth grader who has moved back to her childhood town. As the game begins, Max falls asleep during class and experiences a nightmare, a catastrophic hurricane wiping out Arcadia Bay. When she wakes up a set of events happen, including the near death of her childhood friend Chloe Price, and Max finds out that she has the power to rewind time. As the episodic game continued, Max is faced with several choices that effected later game decisions, and then none of it mattered. In the fifth and last episode, you learn that none of your actions actually matter, and as gamers it’s upsetting. The reason why we feel upset at the end of Life is Strange is because after all of these hard decisions, after all of our hard work compiled to nothing. The underlining message is that even if you do everything right, perfect even, you can’t change what needs to happen. Even Max understands this because she says, “The more I use my powers, the more I see how little control I have over it.”
With the popularity of moral roleplaying games, there’s no surprise that some companies base a majority of their games on that genre along. Bioware is the most well-known among those companies, famous for their Mass Effect trilogy and Dragon Age trilogy, Bioware sets the standards for amazing roleplaying games. While both game franchises deserve praises, Dragon Age’s morality choices are much more severe as opposed to Mass Effect’s. The premise of Dragon Age is this, something is threatening the world, your city, or your family, time to go and save everyone. The thing with Dragon Age is that all three games are connected and effect each other in turn, decisions you make in Dragon Age: Origins carries all the way over to Dragon Age: Inquisition.