Waching daily Sep 30 2018

Chaos and order are two essential components in every game and any developer who leans

toward one more than the other is risking his game of becoming very monotone and boring.

In this video, we explore how the ideas of Nietzsche on Chaos and order can make the

path clearer for developers to strike the right balance between the two sides in video

games.

Nietzsche explained the concept in his first book, the birth of tragedy, which consists

of twenty-five chapters; the first six are basic introductory.

The heart of the book starts in chapter seven until chapter fifteen.

Nietzsche uses the Greek gods Dionysus and Apollo as metaphors to chaos and order.

Apollo, who is defined by his reliance on reason, control, order, and sober thought.

On the other hand, the god Dionysus is associated with drunkenness, emotion, and chaos.

By using these two gods he explains two very fundamental principles.

First is the Apollonian principle that is clearly expressed through the visual arts

like painting, sculpture and architecture, which, Nietzsche states, they are representations

of the world, fantastical in nature but calm in their form, at the same time, they allow

us to escape from the cruelty of the world we live in, like an enjoyable dream.

On the other hand, the Dionysian principle is closer to the cruel reality of nature and

is expressed through non-visual arts like ecstatic dance, music, and theatrical plays.

Such opposite feature in these two Gods can be found everywhere in our human world.

These two states are also psychological forces, which are alternatively dominating the individual's

mind, as well as culture, art, and the artist.

Nietzsche states that the human mind is sometimes Apollonian and sometimes Dionysian and that

the culture is the product of both forces.

Nietzsche criticised his time for being too Apollonian, all aspects of art were avoiding

dionysian elements thinking that it would denigrate their arts.

He saw the classical Greek Drama works as the model to follow where both the Apollo

and Dionysos elements merge together in a balance that makes the work transcends the

pessimism and nihilism of a meaningless world.

Nietzsche concludes that it may be possible to reattain the balance of Dionysian and Apollonian

in modern art through following the example of Richard Wagner Operas.

If we look at most of the stories, books, and ideas that have fascinated humanity throughout

the centuries, to a certain degree they have this duality in them.

Christianity insists on giving Jesus a human side beside his divine one.

Salome's fascinating beauty is also combined with her dark motives.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité are the bright apollonian side of the French revolution that

was followed by Dionysos 40,000 executions on the guillotine.

Denying these two sides in us is denying our humanity.

As Nietzsche said both states are fighting inside each person's head.

Even in politics, when a party rules for a long time, people tend to vote for the opposing

party in the next election.

Societies and individuals don't like to stay in one rigid form for a long time.

Look at any midterm elections in the US.

The party in power regardless of their performance usually tends to lose some seats.

It's a feature of our humanity in many fields of life we try to keep a balance between the

Apollonian and Dionysian components.

Games are no different and it saddens me when many developers don't get that balance right

in their games, some games are more Apollonian and some are very Dionysian.

very few strike the right balance between the two.

And I insist that there isn't a single excellent game that is not having a good balance between

the two

There are three areas in games where developers can apply that balance.

Gameplay, Story and game environments.

First Gameplay, Gameplay should have a repeated switch between

calm, slow and apollonian moments and chaotic, turbulent dionysian ones.

Resident Evil 3 on PlayStation one played on that balance through the character of the

nemesis.

It would leave you for an hour or two calm, exploring the story and the events that happened

to Raccoon city and then suddenly throw the Dionysian element called the nemesis to drive

the whole game into chaos for a couple of minutes and keep on switching between the

two states throughout the game.

The Witcher 3 is another great example, the player would keep on switching between Apollonian

and Dionysian missions throughout the game, a quest like family matters in which Geralt

is asked by Baron Phillip Strenger to help him find his missing wife (Anna) and daughter

(Tamara) is calm filled with investigations and questioning tasks and then the game would

throw Dionysian missions at the player like the ladies of the wood.

Even within that mission the developers brilliantly put the player through calm moments when they

talk to the orphans, investigate their claims and chaotic moments like facing the terrifying

ladies themselves.

Another example but one that didn't get the balance right in gameplay, is Resident Evil

7.

it starts very well balanced between order and chaos, Arriving at an abandoned house,

everything looks calm, then you end up fighting your supposedly dead wife and things get relatively

calm after that.

The switch between the two states worked well until the middle of the game where that balance

started to tip to the Dionysian side, suddenly the developers decided to challenge the player

with more and more monsters to fight without getting any break, and the player keeps on

expecting to switch back to the Apollonian side at any moment but the struggle keeps

on going.

Gameplay should keep on switching between tension and calm moments to keep the player's

brains satisfied.

Even a peaceful and calm game like Flower which is dominantly apollonian has its dionysian

moments full of dark and doubt

Second Story: Mad Max Fury Road is a very good blueprint

to follow in balancing Appolo and Dionysos in a story.

Those who watched the movie think of it as an action-packed film but actually, it keeps

on switching between the two states very quickly, which makes the impact of the action scenes

more memorable.

The film starts with Max being followed by the War Boys, the army of the tyrannical Immortan

Joe- Dionysos- We are then moved into the Citadel and see life in it - Apollo - Furiosa

decides to smuggle Joe's five wives - a transition to Dionysos - we then witness the first chase

after Furiosa - Dionysos - the characters stop for a moment to know each other - Apollo-

I'll stop for now, I think you get the point without me spoiling the whole film.

now compare this story structure with a structure like that of a recent movie I watched called

Annihilation, starring Natalie Portman and Oscar Isaac, a good movie in general with

some flaws.

I kept on feeling that something was missing throughout the film and then it struck me

that it's the balance between Apollo and Dionysos that is absent in the film.

The film takes a very Apollonian approach to telling a dionysian story trying to stay

calm and restrained even in chaotic scenes, shying away from embracing the Dionysian nature

of the scenes that require it.

Something similar is also visible in the last guardian, most people will praise its beautiful

ending and the very well written conclusion to the whole story but sadly from a story

structure point of view, the game didn't offer a lot throughout the course of the game.

only those who were patient enough until the end liked the story.

It lacked the switching between Apollo and Dionysos in its structure.

Give the players something to be excited about in the story then provide time to rest and

take a breath to think about what happened.A total contrast is Last of Us which starts

with a strong and important dionysian section of the story and then calms down into showing

you the world people live in modern times then switches back to Dionysos when you discover

Ellie's secret then calms down when Joel meets Bill, an old friend and so on.

the story keeps on moving up and down between Apollo and Dionysos throughout the game and

I'm not talking about gameplay here but purely about the story.

Imagine if a game like Call of Duty world war 2 offers something similar.

A fight mission that puts the player in the middle of the Normandy invasion followed by

a short calm mission where you simply walk in a French village listening to old women

telling the player about what happened, children hiding behind walls afraid of the soldier's

appearance or a woman crying about her dead son.

If you think the action nature of the game won't allow such a thing then making them

even very short and spread in between can enrich the whole experience without changing

the action nature of the game.

It's like adding a small amount of apollonian salt to the main dionysian dish.

Third: Game Environments

The latest installment in the Prey series started with a very clean, calm apollonian

environment that calmed the players for 20 minutes followed by chaotic events turning

everything upside down.

this switch between two opposites worked brilliantly in the first act of the game, the tragedy

is that it ceased to happen again for the rest of the game leaving the players in the

same environments for the rest of the campaign.

A problem the second dead space brilliantly avoided, unlike the first installment in the

series which kept the player in the same claustrophobic Gothic like ship.

Dead Space 2 continued to shift between a wide variety of areas such as the clean Apollonian

Church and the Dionysian ship of Ishimura, this variety of environments makes the player

anticipate the next place through the healthy mixture of chaotic and neat places.

A video game by Nietzsche would definitely strike a balance between Appolo and Dionysos

in its Story, Gameplay, and environments.

And they don't have to be two separate elements, both could be implemented at the same time

like what happened in the side mission Conning Tower in Dead Space 3 where Isaac is stuck

in a room where the entrances are controlled by a maniac who sends waves of monsters and

plays cheerful music at the same time.

The mixture of fighting, killing and being stressed together combined with cheerful music

is magical like a Smiths song where they would pick very cheerful and playful melodies to

sing about a girlfriend in a comma.

I think Nietzsche would like a song like "Girlfriend in a comma" apollonian melodies mixed with

dionysian lyrics.