Semiotics in games

Semiotics in Games

      For this project we had to chose one scene from a preferred game and analyse it.

I have chosen the same scene that I had before, with the dance ring, from Rayman - Raving Rabbids. Reason for this, was the fact that this is one of my favourite games, and I love the dancing part of it. I found it difficult initially to get the rhythm and get the points necessary, but after a few attempts, I fell in love with it and can't get enough. 

Semiotic interpretation of Rayman -  Raving Rabbids dance scene

The atmosphere in this screen shot is created by the oversized Disco lights and speakers in the back. You can totally "hear" the LOUD music.

The Rabbids are all with their eyes and mouths wide opened, everyone understanding clearly, that they are singing along with the music, which is again, a very clever way of symbolising the fun. Hands are all up in the air, all doing the same dance move, again, another symbol of the fun atmosphere.

The set up is a dark, club like scene, with 2 big spotlights emphasising only the scene and who is on it. Nothing on the side is of interest, so it is put in darkness. The Chiaroscuro light effect is very well implemented here, with such a big contrast being created between important and negligible through very clever use of light.
The scene is also created through Rayman's costume (main character - central front), with 70's style being invoked, through his outfit, hairstyle, glasses,  and the dance moves performed, where everyone seems to be following the same routine ( analogy to Saturday Night Fever).

Throughout the entire game, there are lots of references to various movies and videogames, making fun of different aspects of them. Outfits used to customise Rayman include Indiana Jones, Spider Man, Street Fighter, Sponge Bob Square Pants and even Assassin's Creed, Haze and Sailor Moon.

You can definitely understand at a glance, that this is not a shooting game, or a strategy one. It is definitely a family, fun/party game.

Symbols:

• disco lights - symbolise fun, entertaining atmosphere, 70's club scene
• speakers - being bigger that the actual characters, they symbolise loud music
• spotlights - characters on the scene are the most important ones, emphasis is being put on Rayman, the main character
• Rayman - he is positioned centrally in the image, so he is definitely the main character
• Rayman's outfit - scene is probably set in the 70's disco era. Rayman is a very clear impersonation of that period.
• dance moves - you can only assume that as the scene is set with the other symbols, the dance moves symbolise the 70's style of music, as they all dance together a preset routine
• life bar at the bottom of the screen - only a third full, which gives the impression that the task (dance in this case) is a third of the way through
• Rabbids' eyes and mouths wide opened - symbolise the whole fun theme that is attempted in this screen shot

Contexts of me

Contexts of me

   For this project, we were asked to describe ourselves and the contexts in which we exist.

To better describe myself, and the multiple contexts in which I "operate", I have a done a mindmap.

Here it is:

Basically I see myself as 4 different "characters": Student, Mum, Wife and Me time. Each individual character has got its individual activities/tasks listed here.

Being married and having a 3 year old daughter, my life revolved around my home, but,

starting this course, has shifted my priorities slightly. So my wife/Mum context is being 

shared a lot more with my other half, in order to gain extra time for studying, while my 

Me time is being either cut out or being merged with the student one. While before I was 

reading novels when going to bed, now I tend to read various magazines and literature 

that refers to the course (painting, drawing, modelling, etc). So this mindmap, even though accurate at the beginning of the course, it changes constantly and will probably look 

completely different at the end of it. 

Analysing games - Rayman Raving Rabbids

Analysing games

  For this project we had to chose a video game and analyse it in all aspects, in order to improve our analytical vocabulary. When finishing this course, and starting work in the industry, knowing details about history of the games and being able to analyse various aspects of them, in order to be able to produce or critique new ones, is essential.  James Paul Gee said that:  "When people play videogames, they are learning a new literacy". This sums up in one simple sentence what gaming is all about. You cannot limit yourself to just playing a game, you must be able to talk about it, discuss pros and cons in an academic way, you must be able to analyse and compare it with other similar games, based on research done in that particular genre.

In the same book. "What Video Games have to teach us about Learning and Literacy", he also made a very clear point that: very often today words and images of various sorts are juxtaposed and integrated in a variety of ways. In newspaper and magazines as well as in textbooks, images take up more and more of the space alongside words. In fact, in many modern high school and college textbooks in the sciences images not only take up more space, they now carry meanings that are independent of the words in the text. If you can’t read these images, you will not be able to recover their meanings from the words in the text as was more usual in the past."

Gee has alos come come with 36 principles of learning, out of which, the third one is the Semiotics principle  explained as "Learning about and coming to appreciate interrelations within and across multiple sign systems (images, words, actions, symbols, artifacts, etc.) as a complex system is core to the learning experience."

This is just another way of accentuating the place that video games have in our today's society and the importance of being able to analyse in depth the images created through them and also, accentuating how fundamental it is to be able to understand the messages being sent out through this media. Games are becoming as important as books and movies, in making a statement regarding world politics, economies, etc, so it is vital for those who play them to be able to understand and interpret what the creators have tried to communicate.

The game I have chosen to analyse semitonically, is   Rayman - Raving Rabbids, as this is one of my favourite games. I love playing family games, Wii having been my favourite console until XBox brought out Kinect, so the interactive, motion involving games stand out for me, with narrative (i.e. Dear Esther) and puzzle solving ones (i.e. The Room) coming in close second place.

Rayman – Raving rabbids

Semiotic analysis of the game

Cambridge dictionary defines Semiotics as "the study of signs and symbols, what they mean and how they are used"

So, semiotics refers to the entire vat of knowledge we must have to read a particular piece of literature

Recording the details

Created by Ubisoft Montpellier

Published by Ubisoft

Genre –Party/ mini games

Target audience – family (party games)

Designer - Michel Ancel
Mode – single/multiplayer
Game space - 2D Platformer

Release date – Nov 2006 (North America ) on Gameboy  Advance , Wii, Playstation 2 and Windows

     March 2007 (North America) on Nintendo DS and Xbox 360

Formal elements

-       Dance floor

-       Disco lights

-       Spotlights

-       Rabbids

-       Rayman

Focal point – Rayman

Geometrical shapes - squares (dance floor)

                                - circles (lights projected onto the dance floor)

Symetry – scene is perfectly symmetrical ( one spotlight on each side, 2 rabbids on each side, equally distanced from Rayman, Disco light in the centre, Rayman in the centre) with the exception of 1 Rabbid jumping out of the scene off centred.

Methods used to lead the eye around the scene – Spotlights / Disco light          

Space/depth  - creating  more or less realistic scene (dance floor) but limiting the space at the same time with the introduction of lights/dark (light in the middle to draw your attention while totally darkening the sides of the scene to suggest that there is nothing to be explored in there)

Colour  - Bright, happy, fun colours, are being used, the mood being created / emphasized through colour

             - More or less the whole colour palette is being used depending on the scene

Light     - chiaroscuro effect definitely  present in this scene as the centre of the image is fully lit, while edges are in complete darkness