hapasjr's blog

In façade tension is created using the awkward conversation, overreaction, and most of all the music. The music uses drawn out and dissonant chords to create a feeling of insecurity. Strangely, I found the music to be similar to another video game I had played a long time ago. The game was a mystery type scenario, staged in a haunted mansion. The music itself made it weird to play the game alone.
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Galatea is a form of interactive fiction. Like Eliza, the NPC interacts with text from a single player. Unlike Eliza, Galatea has emotions and will respond differently to the same question at various points in playing the game. There is a plethora of endings to the courtship of Galatea. She is a regal figure, an animate created by Pygmalion, however she breathes and feels and loves; she loved the artist himself.
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Previously during the class discussion we spoke mostly of reality television. There were mixed reviews on the entertainment value of these shows which depict people's lives through the media. It was discussed that these shows, however staged, help us associate more with the glamour that is being laid upon the youth of today. When we see these 'shiny happy people' checking their very own facebooks or texting among their friends we feel a sense of belonging to the very same glamorous world.
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The procession of events determines story versus discourse. Discourse time may be longer than, equal to, or shorter than story time. A specific example where both story and discourse are conspicuously present is Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. The chronological order of events within the film are skewed to the nth degree. We know that Vincent didn't come back from the dead for the final scene in the coffee shop, but that is where the story time and discourse time can play off of one and other. That scene is more or less demonstrating analepsis, or a flashback.
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Gertie the Dinosaur is a twelve minute short film created by Winsor McCay in the early 1900s. It is an endearing silent film about a pet-like dinosaur named Gertie. As the story goes Winsor McCay made a bet with his cartoonist pals that he could draw and make the adorable dinosaur move at his command (he won the bet). Gertie the Dinosaur was the first film to use keyframe animation. He commands Gertie to pick up her feet or leave the Wooly Mammoth alone, so on and so forth.
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Winsor McCay experimented with several edgy and new comic book concepts. The idea of metalepsis in Little Nemo is quite intriguing to me. On page 120 Flip, Nemo, and the Imp are sitting beneath the comics title "Little Nemo in Slumberland". They look slightly apathetic, and proceed to converse whilst tearing down the block letters of the title. They then eat the block letters and blow up much like Violet did in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. To their astonishment the characters discover the block letters are simply printers ink.
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I am quite shocked at the level of abusive and racist tones in Little Nemo. Though the overall tone is that of innocence and sweet dreams, my initial reaction to seeing the mother threaten to beat Nemo for eating bad food before going to bad was... how shall I say? Similar to Scar's reaction when Simba returns to Pride Rock. I took a double take and my jaw fell open. Now I don't find it entirely obscene so don't take me the wrong way. I find the comic adventurous and stunning. The artwork is dreamy, the plots fantastical or grim or romantic or sorrowful...
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Metalepsis is a figure of speech which is defined by the remote association of one thing by another. During discussion we furthered the definition with specific examples including Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Another terrific example is Kenneth Branagh playing Iago in Othello. Throughout the play Iago offers advice to his future victims; this advice would have saved them from the turmoil he soon unleashes upon them. In the film Branagh turns to the camera and addresses the viewer specifically.
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I've played through the game called Passage a few times by now. The first time I ran through it unknowing that there were more directional possibilities than left and right. After being informed that the avatar could travel down into the maze I realized that Passage was even more metaphorical than I'd first anticipated. One could completely avoid the spouse character and pursue a more adventurous "passage" through life.
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