- What is the diegetic language of your game? The paratextual language? Are they different? How can you use them to support one another?
– Diegetic: You are a bunny living in a cold winter-y world. The space around you is cold and blue up on the surface and warm below the surface, in the burrows.
– Paratextual: The world and main bunny character are low poly. The world above using more dark blacks and blues to convey a cold feeling and loneliness. There are also sharper angles in the trees and bushes in the cold surface. The burrows use warmer tones and wider angles to signify warmth and a happy place.
– The paratextual and diegetic language are pretty similar, except for the fact that the story is about an actual bunny but you play as a low-poly character. The diegetic language of the bunny goes hand in hand with how the game is in the player’s eyes because of how the world is styled.
- Write about one arcade/cabinet game and explain the relationship between the paratext (cabinet art) and diegetic elements. Did early game developers rely more on paratext to set context?
Game: Dig Dug (1982)
The cabinet art of Dig Dug clearly shows a human character blowing up a dragon and a circle-like character getting hit by a rock. Both of those are enemies being destroyed, which is what needs to happen in-game in order for the player to win. This gives the players an idea of what the goal of the game is and how you can play. The diegetic elements of dig dug includes the fact that your main character is digging in some dirt trying to blow up/somehow destroy these enemies who are trying to kill you. The paratext reflects this perfectly through the art on the cabinet. I think early game developers relied on the cabinet art to set up the idea of the game to potential players, but relied more on the animation constantly playing when not in use to show players how to actually play. So, yes, to set up the context of the game and pull in players the cabinet art played a big role in doing so.
