Relationships in Digital Media

Peaceful Ends


In contrast to the introduction, everything is bright. The background is almost pure white, but still has some shifting boxes in the background. The player sees text options to control either the human or the anxiety wolf. The addition of control for the human indicates the growing mutuality of the relationship, rather than the total dominance of anxiety. On the goal of playing any game, Murray writes, “we have a chance to enact our most basic relationship to the world-our desire to prevail over adversity, to survive our inevitable defeats, to shape our environment, to master complexity, and to make our lives fit together” This expansion of agency, of both the player and the character, communicates to the player this core message, that victory is won by embracing anxiety as a part of yourself. By giving the player greater agency, the game shows them that they can better experience the world. It is necessary to communicate the moral of the game in the language of games themselves for the game to make the player engage with the story.

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