Gemstone's blog

"game, game, game and again game", much like "Passage", is a game of life with a rather dark theme, but while “Passage” seems to be about the journey of life, “game, game, game and again game” is very much about the belief systems that form our lives as humans.
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Outside of this class, I have not played a game that is based in player-game interaction. Normally, my games are Halo, Mario Cart, Gears of War, Call of Duty IV and Tetris. The endings of these games are based on my actions in the game, but I don't choose what is said or interact in any way outside of the previously-programed interactions. So, I wonder: is there any way to have a game with an ending not previously set?, though I know that a game is programmed and that the only thing in life with variable endings based purely on player actions and not on programming is life itself.
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The final questions asked in class on Thursday were ‘Are reality shows real?’, and 'How did reality become a genre?'
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Does the reader have the right to change a piece in order to make it more understandable? What if these changes alter the piece beyond what the author intended? Without really considering copyright infringement, how far does the theory of an author’s copyright go?
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Creation of a mashup consists of taking someone else’s work, ripping it up, haphazardly piecing it together again and then presenting the finished product as your own. This type of narrative seems to call upon the familiar in order to introduce new ideas, because it is using material familiar to the viewer in order to deliver a different perspective or view completely out of the original context. For example, clips and sound bytes from the Disney movie “Mary Poppins” were taken and rearranged into a horror movie trailer billed as ‘Scary Mary’.
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In the second chapter of Marie-Laure Ryan’s Avatars of Story, one particular quote in the introductory paragraph caught my attention: “…fiction differs from other modes of virtual thinking in that it contemplates the virtual for its own sake, rather than using it as an instrument to shape the real.” This concept of “virtual thinking” is intriguing because it introduces the idea that one has the “ability to detach thought from what exists and to conduct mental experiments about what could be or what could have been” but also because, for me, the terms ‘virtual’ and ‘thinki
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Having just commented on angiek's blog, I find myself focusing most strongly on the subject of propaganda. I believe that many Americans are unaware of the propaganda so prevalent in our society. Normally when I think of propoganda or hear it mentioned I think of WWII, the Nazi's use of anti-semetic propoganda and the US' use of patriotic propoganda to promote recruitment, war bonds, victory gardens, etc. So, using what we’ve learned about metalepsis in class, I decided to look up some of the propaganda of the WWII era.
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For me, comics have always been simple little blurbs that come in my Sunday edition of the Washington Post. Comic books are old, weathered, plastic-sheathed objects sitting on the shelves of overpriced antique stores. Saturday morning cartoons and animated posts on blogs and websites are flashy and entertaining. Never before have I taken the time or had the interest to analyze these various forms of media for any purpose other than the moment’s amusement.
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While reading Little Nemo, we don’t worry too much about Nemo’s life outside of Slumberland because nothing from his real life is ever offered; besides menial little details such as what Nemo ate for dinner or how late he is for church. Because of McCay's emphasis on the dreaming aspect of Nemo's life, the reader is completely focused on the story that Nemo provides and is not interested in much else.
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Before I get too far I would like to clarify a phrase that could be confusing later on in the blog. To me, the 'first passage' is the path that one would take straight through to the end of the game; marrying the woman and continuing on that straight line until gravestones replace the characters.
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