Joint Assignment for Interactive Culture and Game Culture.

First before I really start let me say Why I feel this is a joint assignment. For my Game Culture class we were told to write a paper on the game “Always Sometimes Monsters” and my Interactive Culture class to discuss a few videos and explain a piece of work that is Postmodern. After playing “Always Sometimes Monsters” I’ve determined that is a perfect example, so far, of Postmodern Literature. Below is my look into this.

When I was a child, I used to think that Literature was the best art. Before even playing video games I was reading starting with The Hobbit and The Narnia stories, as a result I’ve always been more focused on story and character development in games than just play control, and game mechanics. One of my favorite literary genres, I discovered when I went to college the first time for my English Degree, is Postmodern. One book in particular completely inspired me “Mao II” by Don DeLillo. To note Postmodern books are typically not like Postmodern art. I’ve always believed that Postmodern art seemingly focused on the fantastic and surreal, Postmodern literature focused on the mundane and ordinary. There maybe exciting things going on around you but it solely focused on you. In short this is why I believe “Sometimes Always Monsters” is a Postmodern game through literary endeavors.
For those who might not know the only way to describe Postmodernism is to describe Modernism.

“Modernism is a philosophical movement that, along with cultural trends and changes, arose from wide-scale and far-reaching transformations in Western society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among the factors that shaped Modernism was the development of modern industrial societies and the rapid growth of cities, followed then by the horror of World War I. Modernism also rejected the certainty of Enlightenment thinking, and many modernists rejected religious belief.” Wikipedia

Modernism basically was a turning away from realism, consequently Postmodernism was a turning away from Modernism and the stages before it. In reality Postmodernism is so hard to describe that no two people really have the same answer for it except that it’s not Modernism.

So why is “Always Sometimes Monsters” a Postmodern work?

Well because it fits the typical feel of the genre. Postmodern Literature tends to provide their characters with choices but in the end the things that were going to happen happened anyway. So far with the game I have been given choices but even though I am making moral choices I don’t feel that I am really changing the outcome one way or the other. I do feel so far (since I did purchase the game rather than get the demo) that I have helped and made some characters feel better, but really I think that these choices, one way or another, wouldn’t matter all that much in then end. At the same time that I believe that choices don’t matter, I also believe that they completely do matter. One of the first major choices in the game is to either help your friend set up his stage and talk him out/or into taking drugs, or to help the next door neighbor clean her apartment. I’m sure if you went to the apartment first you probably would have missed the interaction with your friend and he probably would have ODed if you weren’t there to help him. These little everyday choices we make could be life or death to someone, then again they could be nothing at all.

Although I should know better by now, I cannot help thinking that if my choices would have lead me down a different path. If I took some internships the first time in college would I have ever made it to Chicago or be going to school a second time around. I think that’s where Postmodernism really gets you though. It makes you question yourself, and your experience. If I had done something different would I have made changes, made a difference, or would everything be the same. The upshot of all of this is that you will never really know and to be happy with the choices that you have made. At least with “Always Sometimes Monsters” you can give life a second, third or forth chance to see if anything does or will ever change, and if it will be for the better or for the worst.