This is the first devlog of the Final Major Project, which would mainly discuss the idea and related stuff about the game’s original design.
Chinese Myth
The idea of the game and the essay is based on my experiences this year about the intersection of different cultures. I’ve been living in England for 3 years, and I’ve seen many artworks here representing western culture. One day I was viewing the Graduation exhibition half a year ago, and I suddenly felt that there ain’t a massive number of works about Chinese culture but there are a lot of Chinese students. It’s a good thing that we came here and learn things here and then do work about the culture around us, but China could also have its own charm. I start to feel like I might have the responsibility to show my people’s culture and tell others our unique story.
Myth is a worldwide topic that could be fitted into almost all digital media. Among them, Greek mythology, Norse mythology, and Japanese mythology are all referenced in the game. From World of Warcraft, God of War, to Ghost of Tsushima in the past two years, I am very interested in these games that have a rich mythological background and allow players to explore in the mythical world. This was the inspiration for my thesis, and a deeper dive led me to set the research question for my case study, which is “how did world of warcraft: mists of Pandaria adopt Chinewe myth?”.
Conclusion from case-study
Through my research, I have come to the general conclusion that the adoption of myth in video games is mainly reflected in the narrative, character design and gameplay. Not only do the characters in the backstory form between the player and the game, but they also form a mythic structure of ‘departure, initiation and return’. At the same time, the use of explicit and implicit mythology enriches the content and fun of the game respectively. Among other things, the Mists of Pandaria shows how different myths can be combined to create a new one.
The most surprising found for me is that World of Warcraft has created a new myth by taking two stories that belong to the same mythology but are almost unrelated. Based on this, I thought about what would happen if two stories from different mythological systems, fused to create a new story. As an international student studying in a country with a different culture from my own, I have often felt the influence of different cultures myself. So can I bring the conflict and integration that I have experienced with different cultures to game?
Great Flood
There are accounts of the flood in various mythological systems. It is interesting to note that in Western mythological systems, floods are usually sent by one or more gods to destroy civilisations, often as divine retribution. As in the story of Noah’s ark in Genesis. Jehovah sends the flood to punish mankind for their sin, while giving Noah’s family and some of the creatures a chance to survive by building the ark, and later stopping the flood when the rest of the creatures all die. In Chinese mythology, however, the flood has a very different meaning. For example, the story of Nüwa Mends the Heavens, as recorded in Huainanzi, tells of the water god Gonggong and the fire god Zhurong fought and accidentally destroyed the pillars of the world, causing the heavens to collapse and the waters of the heavenly river to pour into the earth. Nuwa could not bear to see mankind suffer, so she made five-coloured stones to mend the sky, and mankind was able to live in peace.
Different cultures have told different stories about the flood. In the stories, the flood may have been a natural disaster or an accident. The gods may have been cruel or merciful in the face of the flood. This in turn reminds me of the film 2012, where mankind, when faced with disaster, may pray for divine protection, or may see it as divine punishment. There is also a very special episode in the film where workers build a new age Noah’s Ark, a shelter for the rich. There is an old Chinese saying: “Troops for the enemy, earth for floods: there will always be a correct way to deal with an opponent or a problem”. In Chinese culture, people don’t just pray in the face of natural disasters, they act against them.
The above is the inspiration for the story of this game
Game design
The game will be set in a flood sent down by the gods, where the player, with the help of Nuwa, collects materials to stop the flood and save innocent beings.
The first issue that needed to be addressed was how to introduce and integrate Chinese and Western mythology. According to previous case study research, myths can be introduced in both narrative and mechanistic terms. For the overall narrative structure the monomyth theory can be studied, i.e. the hero’s journey. At the same time, both explicit and implicit myths can be used for narrative and mechanism.
The player will be on an ark containing three levels (Genesis). In the beginning, player would have a flashback of Yahweh sends punishment in order to punish the sinner. After that Nuwa come to players to ask him save the rest of creatures on earth.
Player will be free to choose take acts or not. Depending on the player’s decision, the game may end with the vast majority of beings dying, as in Genesis, or with those beings being saved, as in Huananzi. The survival of the players themselves will not be affected by the decision. Also I don’t want to distinguish them as good or bad endings.
“The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord is enthroned as King forever.”
— Psalm
The player will need to gather five coloured-stones (red, yellow, blue, black, and white) (Huainanzi). Each stone could represent one specific element (Five Phases). Player need to face tests from creatures in the ark (Genesis) to get the stone respectively. Maybe five little games.