Player vs. Monster: The Making and Breaking of Video Game Monstrosity

Description

A study of the gruesome game characters we love to beat—and what they tell us about ourselves. Since the early days of video games, monsters have played pivotal roles as dangers to be avoided, level bosses to be defeated, or targets to be destroyed for extra points. But why is the figure of the monster so important in gaming, and how have video games come to shape our culture’s conceptions of monstrosity? To answer these questions, Player vs. Monster explores the past half-century of monsters in games, from the dragons of early tabletop role-playing games and the pixelated aliens of Space Invaders to the malformed mutants of The Last of Us and the bizarre beasts of Bloodborne, and reveals the common threads among them. Covering examples from aliens to zombies, Jaroslav Švelch explores the art of monster design and traces its influences from mythology, visual arts, popular culture, and tabletop role-playing games. At the same time, he shows that video games follow the Cold War–era notion of clearly defined, calculable enemies, portraying monsters as figures that are irredeemably evil yet invariably vulnerable to defeat. He explains the appeal of such simplistic video game monsters, but also explores how the medium could evolve to present more nuanced depictions of monstrosity. Cover Contents On Thinking Playfully Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Taming the Monster Sublime Monstrosity Contained Monstrosity The Enemy and the Plaything Monsters for Sale Simulating the Enemy Bugs and Daemons 2. Player vs. Environment Dungeons & Dragons, or Dice & Databases The Monster is a Monster Always Looking for More Monsters The Inexorable Descent of Space Invaders Avoid the Nasties A Flow of Monsters Expendable Others 3. The Art of the Monstrous Marvels in the Margins Monstrous Realism Building God of War’s Monsters Boss Encounters Human Touch 4. New Haunts Against the Ontology of the Enemy The Melancholy of a Monster Killer Sympathy for the Monster Out of Sight, Out of Reach The Swarm Has No Front Breaking Out of the Machine Conclusion All the World’s Monsters? Blank Pages in the Bestiary A Future for Monsters Notes Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Conclusion Bibliography Index