Play and Analysis of RPG & Strategy Games

General Information

This week I chose to analyze Mission US: Flight to Freedom.  In this game the player takes on the role of Lucy King, a 14 year old slave girl on a Kentucky plantation in 1848.  The goal of the game is to escape to freedom.  The player is presented with various tasks to perform and given several choices concerning how to do them.  In performing them, the player determines whom to talk to, what to say, and what to do.  For instance, the player can act submissively or commit acts of sabotage and resistance.  Each choice has its own repercussions.  As the game progresses, successive stages are unlocked: “Prologue”, “Behind the Big House”, “Runaway”, “Free and Not Free”, “Gathering Forces”, “New Times, New Troubles”, and “Epilogue”.  Each stage must be completed before moving on to the next.

Analysis Based on Flow Theory

·         Task that the learners can complete: Flight to Freedom presents various small tasks throughout the game that are easily completed, though they can be completed in a number of different ways.  Decisions made in completing these smaller tasks can affect the story and the achievement of the overall goal of Lucy gaining her freedom.

·         Ability to concentrate on task: The learner is, to a degree, drawn into the game world.  That this happens is largely due to the degree of choice that the player is given.  Decisions must be continually made as to how to reply during conversations and how to act in performing the tasks given (when no one is watching).  The high degree of involvement draws the player in and keeps her engaged.

·         Task has clear goals:  The game does have clear goals.  When tasks are given, icons appear at the top of the screen and will remain darkened until that task is completed.  The tasks are uncomplicated and easily completed.  Badges, such as for Resistance and Sabotage, are given depending on the choices made.

·         Task provides immediate feedback: Immediate feedback is given.  For instance, if the player, as Lucy, talks back in a manner viewed as insolent, she is immediately reprimanded.

·         Deep but effortless involvement: I don’t really think this game achieves this element, which I must admit I don’t fully understand. Yes, there is an alternative world that is created, but it is very artificial and that is never forgotten.

·         Exercising a sense of control over their action: This game does indeed allow the learners to determine paths.  The player is able to decide whom to talk to, whether to talk back or reply submissively, and whether to do as told or to resist.  Each choice made determines a different immediate outcome.

·         Concern for self disappears during flow: I don’t believe this was a strong element of the game. The format presents a barrier to really being able to immerse oneself in the game.  Having choices in one’s reply is great but when they are presented in the form of a multiple choice at the bottom of the screen one is always reminded that it is a game that is being played.

·         Sense of duration of time is altered: Time is altered, in that tasks and chores that would normally take hours or days are done in seconds, but the learner’s perception of time is never distorted.  The learner doesn’t lose track of time because she never really loses herself in the game.  My discussion of the previous element, and the barrier that the format presents, equally applies here.