I always think the choice in resident evil to put its hokey sci-fi lab underneath a mansion was inspired. There's this real playful dissonance between the aesthetics of supernatural horror (hightened by the wonderfully nonsensical layout and puzzle mechanisms) and the plot elements that it's all quite 'grounded', or at least, not supernatural.
I think what the simulated reality of cribs, etc, demonstrate is that artificiality sort of doesn't matter. Or doesn't inherently damage the mood. It can reduce verisimilatude, or feel contrived, but equally, it can create an interesting, different mood. And one that still is engaging because the people and stories are still there, still at the core.
rah this is such a good example! RE series always has mansions that defy our sense of real logic, and it adds to the disorientation and horror I think. Something I love about RE: Yes, the lab is under the mansion, but Umbrella employees just leave folders with their secret plans lying on hallway floors and things. And like, all of the door puzzles... surely that's not a streamlined work environment....
Thinking of Silent Hill also, at least the first few, where spaces become other spaces, connected loosely by liminal foggy roads if at all. Like of course you can get to the hospital by going via the elementary school which you reached by crossing a hallway under the apartment complex or whatever
What I love about them leaving folders and that mad work environment is that it doesn't matter. I totally accept it.
It's sort of comforting as for a time I worried that the mechanically needed contrivances would inherently undermine what stories can be told in games. I played Gone Home and while it's great, I had this thought, could a similar story be done in a working class area, in a tiny terrace or a flat? I think now, that it could. Doing it with the same kind of mechanical experience, arc, might require that playful unreality - a functionally bigger space, say - but that's...fine. (I also think you could just have the space be small and use that, might even work better)
you're getting at one of my favorite design philosophies: abstraction is more important than simulation. setting is an idea ,not a literal realistic space. 'place' becomes less interesting as a narrative good when it has to follow real-world rules. why people make video games and then force ideas of cinematic versimilitude and 'realism' into them i will never understand
I'm always fascinated by games that send the player through a supposedly normal workplace (like Half Life's science labs or any number of shooters), and how the demands of gameplay inevitably make those spaces feel cartoonishly wrong. If you take the time to explore them closely outside of gameplay, they can feel even more unsettling than the various horror games that are set in such places.
One of my favorite simulated settings was the Loft in "Loft Story"--essentially the first francophone adaptation of Big Brother (and thus my first encounter with the format, had not watched BB before then).
It's interesting to consider the Loft/BigBrother house in contrast to your McMansion surreality idea since that setting becomes familiar because you get a better sense of it, almost like a sitcom set.
In the second season of Loft Story (the Quebec version) a particularly playful contestant discovered a secret passage, leading to a room with screens, monitoring the whole game. This might've been in regular BB for years but I was seeing it for the first time and seeing this fictional/video game trope of hidden room playing out in a reality setting was about the most exciting thing the show could pull off.
I haven't seen this particular one, but I really love moments like the ones you describe -- when contestants escape the bounds of the game in some way, and the story allows it to happen. There are also lots of games where independent exploration/experimentation with the setting is part of the design, and contestants end up finding hidden immunity charms or whatever after poking around for secret doors. I'll devote a topic to this in the future!
I always loved the formalism of the Bachelor mcmansion as a hub for brutal selection and infighting, but the 'fantasy suite', which is the only place in the Bachelor universe where sexual intercourse is allowed, is in some exotic holiday location. There, sex is sacred. In the mcmansion, it's fodder for punitive judgements and drama. Do 21st century mcmansions actually refer to the faux mansions of Dallas and Dynasty? Especially given the displacement of the grand Soap Opera by relationship-centred reality TV.
ah I love the 'fantasy suite' concept, lots of couple shows have a similar equivalent. and like, whose fantasy is it, it always looks like a hallmark aisle, like nobody REALLY finds it sexy to eat in a hot tub, do they?
also totally agree that there's a thread of this stuff that goes all the way back to Dallas and Dynasty! The fantasy proposed by those shows was that Americans could watch the secret dramas in the lives of the rich, just like with the shows of the Y2Ks. thank you for drawing such a cool connection!
I always think the choice in resident evil to put its hokey sci-fi lab underneath a mansion was inspired. There's this real playful dissonance between the aesthetics of supernatural horror (hightened by the wonderfully nonsensical layout and puzzle mechanisms) and the plot elements that it's all quite 'grounded', or at least, not supernatural.
I think what the simulated reality of cribs, etc, demonstrate is that artificiality sort of doesn't matter. Or doesn't inherently damage the mood. It can reduce verisimilatude, or feel contrived, but equally, it can create an interesting, different mood. And one that still is engaging because the people and stories are still there, still at the core.
rah this is such a good example! RE series always has mansions that defy our sense of real logic, and it adds to the disorientation and horror I think. Something I love about RE: Yes, the lab is under the mansion, but Umbrella employees just leave folders with their secret plans lying on hallway floors and things. And like, all of the door puzzles... surely that's not a streamlined work environment....
Thinking of Silent Hill also, at least the first few, where spaces become other spaces, connected loosely by liminal foggy roads if at all. Like of course you can get to the hospital by going via the elementary school which you reached by crossing a hallway under the apartment complex or whatever
What I love about them leaving folders and that mad work environment is that it doesn't matter. I totally accept it.
It's sort of comforting as for a time I worried that the mechanically needed contrivances would inherently undermine what stories can be told in games. I played Gone Home and while it's great, I had this thought, could a similar story be done in a working class area, in a tiny terrace or a flat? I think now, that it could. Doing it with the same kind of mechanical experience, arc, might require that playful unreality - a functionally bigger space, say - but that's...fine. (I also think you could just have the space be small and use that, might even work better)
you're getting at one of my favorite design philosophies: abstraction is more important than simulation. setting is an idea ,not a literal realistic space. 'place' becomes less interesting as a narrative good when it has to follow real-world rules. why people make video games and then force ideas of cinematic versimilitude and 'realism' into them i will never understand
I'm always fascinated by games that send the player through a supposedly normal workplace (like Half Life's science labs or any number of shooters), and how the demands of gameplay inevitably make those spaces feel cartoonishly wrong. If you take the time to explore them closely outside of gameplay, they can feel even more unsettling than the various horror games that are set in such places.
One of my favorite simulated settings was the Loft in "Loft Story"--essentially the first francophone adaptation of Big Brother (and thus my first encounter with the format, had not watched BB before then).
It's interesting to consider the Loft/BigBrother house in contrast to your McMansion surreality idea since that setting becomes familiar because you get a better sense of it, almost like a sitcom set.
In the second season of Loft Story (the Quebec version) a particularly playful contestant discovered a secret passage, leading to a room with screens, monitoring the whole game. This might've been in regular BB for years but I was seeing it for the first time and seeing this fictional/video game trope of hidden room playing out in a reality setting was about the most exciting thing the show could pull off.
I haven't seen this particular one, but I really love moments like the ones you describe -- when contestants escape the bounds of the game in some way, and the story allows it to happen. There are also lots of games where independent exploration/experimentation with the setting is part of the design, and contestants end up finding hidden immunity charms or whatever after poking around for secret doors. I'll devote a topic to this in the future!
I always loved the formalism of the Bachelor mcmansion as a hub for brutal selection and infighting, but the 'fantasy suite', which is the only place in the Bachelor universe where sexual intercourse is allowed, is in some exotic holiday location. There, sex is sacred. In the mcmansion, it's fodder for punitive judgements and drama. Do 21st century mcmansions actually refer to the faux mansions of Dallas and Dynasty? Especially given the displacement of the grand Soap Opera by relationship-centred reality TV.
ah I love the 'fantasy suite' concept, lots of couple shows have a similar equivalent. and like, whose fantasy is it, it always looks like a hallmark aisle, like nobody REALLY finds it sexy to eat in a hot tub, do they?
also totally agree that there's a thread of this stuff that goes all the way back to Dallas and Dynasty! The fantasy proposed by those shows was that Americans could watch the secret dramas in the lives of the rich, just like with the shows of the Y2Ks. thank you for drawing such a cool connection!