Quagmire

All Mother Mountain from Horizon Zero Dawn "Living structures contain some form of interlock: situations where centers are ‘hooked’ into their surroundings." - Christopher Alexander In the previous posts I have mostly tried to show how patterns can be applied to narrative in video games by pointing out how the pattern wasn't applied. I think it is effective to point out certain assumed deficiencies in order to explain how a pattern can be used in analysis. But sometimes it might be more illustrative to show how a pattern is actually successfully implemented into a game's narrative. I believe Deep Interlock is such a pattern. In Horizon Zero Dawn we see Deep Interlock around the main character, Aloy, on several levels. Her story and the genesis of her being, are intricately interlocked into the rest of the game. Aloy is grown in an artificial womb and put on the doorstep of "the Old Ones". The Old Ones is how the Nora tribe that Aloy is a part of refer to the...

An example of non-separateness in architecture and its specific surroundings I think that non-separateness is a pattern that is quite descriptive in and of itself. An element in a videogame and its narrative do not stand out because they do not fit into the context, that's how I interpret this particular pattern in the context that I am writing in. Allow me to elaborate. Today I was playing The Last of Us II. First of all, it is a brilliantly made and visually stunning game that does almost everything perfect to the finest detail. Almost everything perfect. I will try and not spoil anything, but inevitably I have to go into some of the particulars when it comes to the story line to explain what I am getting at.  Whilst roaming around an abandoned aquarium, that has obviously not been used for a long time, you come across a big fish tank where a sea lion is still happily swimming around. Just for the record, the story is set in a zombie-infested world where you operate from a camp b...

  Electric Sheep created by a genetic algorithm with mutation and cross-over "The electric things have their life too. Paltry as those lives are." - Rick Deckard  Christopher Alexander is an architect who wrote extensively on architecture, design and life. He identified patterns in our living environments and the quarters we spend our time in. He looked at the patterns that have emerged over the ages and as such taken on a descriptive approach to architecture. In doing so, Alexander has made a blue print for other disciplines to pick up and apply to whatever they feel like, but it's not a simple copy and paste I am afraid. Let's look at one of the patterns to make it more tangible. Presented here below are fifteen, of many, patterns that Alexander describes in his seminal book  A Pattern Language . We'll look at Graded Variation in particular, because it neatly ties in with the Electric Sheep above. A selection of Patterns from A Pattern Language You may wonder at...