In the history of mankind, countless thinkers, philosophers and progressives have long had the concept and pursuit of "freedom" The starting point of freedom in all time and space is the same, all in order to get rid of the "bondage" of some power, but in different regional cultures, different social environments and different age stages, the specific tendency of "freedom" is different. For example, the ancients in China advocated the unity of heaven and man on the philosophical level. In the era of modern world revolution, people all aim at overthrowing the former privileged class's rule over other classes and then establishing a society with equal rights as much as possible. This is the "freedom" in people's minds at that time. In any era, people's pursuit of "freedom" will never stop. In today's fast-paced era of economic development and in a peaceful environment, what is the "freedom" we are pursuing? This should be a lot of migrant workers.
(The French Revolution used "freedom, equality and fraternity" as its political slogan)
Recently, the author played the short and pithy work "Stanley's Fable", and the mode of the game can't help but make the author shine, because the game provides us with a brand-new perspective to look at today's life and the pursuit of "freedom".
Only the story itself.
The fable of Stanley adopts a double-frame narrative structure, which is extremely rare in entertainment works such as games. One of the main reasons is that this kind of double-frame narration is easy to cause unnecessary confusion in the mode of interweaving pictures, plots and players' interaction, but Stanley's fables deal with these problems well. This similar technique is common in literary works. For example, Calvino's "If a Traveler on a Winter Night" and Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" all show similar techniques. Under the guidance of the author, readers will experience the temporary mixed overlap of "reader identity" and "story protagonist" During this period, there are only stories, no readers, and "I" is the story itself.
(meaningful game wallpaper)
In Stanley's fable, the player is sometimes Stanley in the story itself, and sometimes he can jump out of the story and narrative because of the appearance of hidden observer narrative, instead of intentionally appearing as a "player" alone. This design is different from the "sense of substitution" of other 3A masterpieces, but enables players to substitute themselves into the stories and thoughts deliberately designed by game makers, which leads to similar reasons.
Full of "free" process choice and "free" ending
In the process of the author's game, the number of endings of Stanley's fables is the largest among all the games I have played. By the time I wrote this article, the author had explored more than 65,438+00 meaningful endings, and there may be more. These endings, such as coward ending, chaotic ending, apartment ending, museum ending, explosion ending, living ending and so on, all have their own meanings. What is the specific meaning of each ending? I won't analyze it here, because as we mentioned earlier, this game is a double-frame narrative, and the player's role and the protagonist of the story are mixed and overlapped. I am the story, and everyone can read their own opinions according to their own life experiences, but one thing is the truth of these endings: "getting rid of" bondage and moving towards "freedom" are contradictory.
The whole game has an "observer" narration. No matter where the player goes and what he does, it will trigger the reaction of the "observer". The "observer" can even restart the game or directly change the process. The progress of our players in the game process is guided by this "observer". Players can choose to follow the prompts of the narrator or do the opposite. Each choice point is a key point that leads to different endings. An interesting ending in the game is that players can jump out of the map through the gap in the card window. When the player thinks that he has passed the game through "card worm" and gloats, he suddenly finds himself triggering a special "observer" narration. It turns out that this "BUG" is also within the consideration of game manufacturers. The whole game will give players a feeling that everything is under control, just like in our social life, no matter how "free" you are, the "invisible observer" will control you and will not allow you to cross the invisible red line of rules.
(The "invisible observer" uses narration to guide and supplement the story)
Stanley's fable is still a game after all, and it always has its procedural defects, but the reality of social life it reflects is a naturally developed, perfect and self-regulating whole. What the game wants to show is that any one of us lives in any society, and each society has its own rules of the game. Each of us can choose how to survive or perish under the "rules of the game" of our own society. We can obey social rules everywhere and let them control us, just as players completely obey the instructions of the narrator in the game and become loyal slaves of the rules. Similarly, we can violate the rules anywhere, just like the hidden ending in the game. In this way, the game tells us that it is not good for us to violate the rules of social games everywhere. We personally can't influence the whole order, and the "observer" can start, restart or control the progress of the game at will. In this case, our decision is extremely important. How to weigh your "freedom" and get rid of the "bondage" of social rules determines how you develop in society. This is a question that each of us will consider all our lives.
(The game "computer to computer" loaded into the interface actually implies a circular truth that cannot escape social rules. )
Thinking about life choices through absurdity
The overall atmosphere of Stanley's fables is unknown, tense and absurd, similar to some works by writers Kafka and Camus. Through absurd methods-the characters suddenly can't understand the world around them and use scenes that conform to modern life-the office forces us to think: What are we doing? What are we doing? What are we doing this for? ..... The choice of branches in the game is only related to the outcome, and there is no causal relationship. Different choices will lead to different endings, and even triggering different eggs will lead to the variation of endings. As for why this operation will lead to this ending, we players have no way to know. This is a ridiculous black-and-white humor, which reflects that we are gradually alienated under the control of modernity in reality, and we want to be "free". However, under the invisible constraint of social game rules, we may not know what kind of "freedom" we want for a long time, and blindly making choices will only imprison ourselves deeper in the illusory and absurd "real world" constructed by "observers".
(Take the modern scene office as the game scene)
On the Steam game platform, the game achievement system has some interesting achievements, such as not playing games for five years in a row, or opening games at a certain time. This sense of absurdity is even stronger when players have to work hard to achieve all their achievements. Why do players do this? First of all, because the grade system requires you to do so. If a player has a similar idea, then you have fallen into the trap of the producer. This is also a game. Furthermore, you may say that I just brush all my grades when I have nothing to do, or that I am "obsessive-compulsive", and I feel uncomfortable if I don't brush. If so, it proves the success of self-expression of game absurdity. Because the achievement of Stanley's fable is really meaningless to the game or reality.
Does real "freedom" exist?
With the development of the times, video games are gradually called "the ninth art" by more and more people. Excellent indie games are known by more and more people because of their exquisite pictures, narrative of substitution and expression of unique ideas, and the types of games are becoming increasingly colorful. When we play player-to-player online games such as CF and LOL. When we meet our teammates or Anzu people who have been "pitted", we often become "keyboard men", queue up with them crazily in beautiful Chinese, or play some stand-alone games, we can't help swearing, but when we calm down afterwards, sometimes we may feel that playing a game should be fun. Instead of being "played" by the game, it seems that it is angry with teammates and the game mechanism. In fact, it is all led by the nose by game design. Stanley's Fable tells us a truth in the form of games: we should think independently in everything and don't always be led by the nose. Compared with physical freedom, it is more important to have ideological freedom first.
In the game, if we follow the narrator's instructions from beginning to end, it will trigger Stanley to turn off the controller in the boss's office and walk out of the office building, and get a "free" ending. However, players will realize that the "freedom" we get is precisely the result of the choice that is not free. The narrator plays an omniscient and omnipotent role that seems to be independent of the world. Stanley seems to be the guinea pig in one of his experiments. Can the so-called "freedom" we get after an illiberal choice be called freedom? In fact, this is essentially the same as not leaving the office. They are all following a certain instruction and feel satisfied at the same time.
No matter how many endings there are, in fact, there is only one real victory in this game, that is, when you can read the expression corresponding to the ending of the game and see the truth that is beneficial to you, you have already won. It doesn't matter whether there is real "freedom". When you can realize that complete "freedom" is impossible and effectively weigh the relationship between "bondage" and "freedom" according to your own reality, you have surpassed most people.
Complaining graffiti on the toilet wall reflects the alienation of people in the capital social economy. )
label
Ginsburg famously said, "Freedom only exists in bondage. Without banks, where do rivers come from? " Stanley's fable can be interpreted differently because there is no special hint, but the most fundamental point is to clarify the relationship between bondage and freedom, and also to clarify the relationship between virtuality and reality. In the game, this person is the true self, and can do things that cannot be done in real life because of social constraints. When we are complaining about the constraints of objective reality on the social environment, who thinks how much virtual constraints we have? This is probably the question that the game wants to ask the player.