#zettel #potentialessay #gaming sourced from: [[The Way We Consider Spaces is Based on Our Relationship to the Space itself, Like how Much of the Space we Occupy]] # Bug Fables and Minish Cap allow the player to consider the recontextualization of spaces through changes in size, and in doing so, provide the player a literal way of viewing the world from a new perspective (the title is the thesis) ## Intro - My apartment has a square footage of approximately 1250 square feet. For me, a person about 5'10" and my partner who is 5'6" this space is honestly, pretty spacious for the amount of general space we occupy. - We're able to fit a bed, futon, table, multiple bookshelves and plenty of other furniture in the space and still feel like we have room to breathe. - But to a living creature no more than a foot long, say our cat Winnie, this space is practically a mansion, filled to the brim with jungle-gym-like play structures to destroy at her leisure. - Worlds get bigger as you get smaller. - You ever go somewhere where the main attraction is some giant object and you just stand there in awe? - You have to appreciate the time and effort and energy and chance that went into the creation of the space in which you presently exist? - You feel small. - In the past few months I've had a weird habit of streaming games with characters who happen to either get small, or be small. - Bug Fables, a Paper Mario-esque low-numbers RPG is a game where you take control of a band of insects who are tasked with exploring Bugaria, a realm that spans the entirety of the backyard of an abandoned house. - Before Bug Fables, I played the Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. While you don't begin as small as an insect in Minish Cap, within the first hour of gameplay you're able to shrink down to a size where dew drops from a blade of grass are like massive orbs of water, and previously unimposing enemies like Chu-Chus now become bosses of dungeons. - While growing and shrinking is only an active mechanic in the latter of these two games, both games have made me, the player, consider what different spaces look like at different sizes. - What does it mean to return to familiar spaces a hundredth of my original size? Do things I normally take for granted suddenly become major threats to my survival? - It's these questions I've found myself pondering since having played these two games. - Thesis (see title) - Perhaps more generally, Bug Fables and Minish Cap allow the player to consider the recontextualization of spaces through the use of changes in size, and in doing so, provide the player a literal way of viewing the world from a new perspective. ## [[The Minish Cap, The Legend of Zelda|Minish Cap]] - see [[The lived-in world of Minish Cap is fully-realized via recontextualization of spaces]] - The world is bigger because you can get smaller. The world is made larger because now you're able to see the world and spaces from to completely different perspectives. - What was once a fountain is now an overflowing water temple - What was a small puddle is now a vast ocean - the Main town has so many of these thigns that make us consider our own space: - The dogs are friends the cats bat at you and are real threats. - Dust bunnies in the attic are now massive obstacles, books now teetering on the edge of the rafters can act as supports between spaces. - There's an elder Picori literally living in a BOOK. - Quote the Cadensia blurb - One begins to admire the creative spaces in which life can flourish and how even in a space seemingly as unlivable as a - One also begins to acknowledge the threat of what was once seemingly harmless, but also how their own smallness now allows them to manage problems that previously lacked an answer - Armos knights at the Fortress of Winds - Entering an otherwise locked house. ## [[Bug Fables]] - Instead of being in game, now the recontextualization happens on a more meta level. - A sandbox feels as big as a desert when you're a bug. - A tire is an entire prison that is impenetrable for bugs because it is made of rubber - An overgrown backyard feels like an expansive world when you're smaller than a blade of grass. - The size difference between the player character bugs, and the "giant" human race presents a mythology of the things humans created. - To Bugs, a stove is a magical burning source, a freezer is a cold trap. They have no way of knowing what these things could possibly have been made for. - It's the player's job therefore to consider their backyard, for example, and how that space might be an entire realm of fantasy for someone as small as a bug. - Your world literally gets bigger when you get smaller ## Conclusion - Both games - The recontextualize the space to open the world up to either Link or the player. - Minish Cap you're able to literally go between large and small and can therefore appreciate someone living inside of a book, for example. - while you don't change sizes in Bug Fables, you're still able to appreciate things you might already recognize as a human element ### What does this provide the player? - This gives the player an experience of broadening their own perspective, while maintaining its familiarity. It isn't hard to be overwhelmed in a new space, or in a place with new ideas that are completely new and or foreign. But what if that new space is actually a space you've already regularly traversed before? What if these new ideas that might initially seems scary just a different interpretation based on a lived perspective? - It's like the blind people touching the elephant metaphor? - What you might have experienced in life might be completely different for someone else. - Even if you choose to never leave your comfortable space, maybe if you looked at it a different way, you might still be able to glean new insights about it. - We can all be better people if we just consider how big our world really can be.