For this week's reading we were given two articles called "Into the woods: A practical guide to the Hero's Journey" and "What every game developer needs to know about Story". Both of these articles sparked my interest and both were very informative about the topic of the Hero's story. The article that I enjoyed the most was the first one which explored Joseph Campbell's work.
In this article we explored and dissected the journey that the hero of the story has to go through in order to fulfill a myth. Firstly the question is what practical use is the hero's journey to us as storytellers and game writers? It's important because myths are important, they're how we teach each other how to behave and who we are. Myths are also used to guide actions, The Cry for Myth by Rollo May is used here as an example. This example shows that there's an adaptive advantage to myths. It also goes into the theory of "kin selection" which states that evolutionary fitness gives genes the ability to promote survival and copies of itself.
Successful tribes were tribes that found ways to encourage everyone to act for the good of the tribe instead of themselves individually. In this article the author also explained what would happen if a myth was taken away from a man. The man would become depressed and mentally ill. Storytelling and literature are the main medias used to tell different myths. Literature proves that there is in fact order in the universe.
Joseph Campbell also summarized a list of elements of a good myth which included establishing the hero's world, the call to adventure, gaining the hero's prize and finally returning it to the community. Next we learned how to use the hero's journey to build stories which was explained in a number of steps. The first step is to pick a theme and myth which leads to the next step of creating the hero which would be someone who can embody that premise. The third step shows us some characteristics on how to create a good villain. Some of these characteristics include traits similar to the hero, he maybe an outlaw, clever and resourceful, cruel and not forgiving. Step four tells us to show the hero's normal world, the player must see the hero's world that he's trying to save. The fifth step is to disrupt the hero's world, this can be done by taking him out of his normal world and forcing him into action. Next is to enter the mythological woods for the trail of trials. Each level should show the incremental growth. Step seven is to confront the evil one or fight the bad guy. The eight step is to acquire the prize which is the thing worth fighting to acquire. The final step is the hero's return in this part he will return the prize to the community.
The next part of the article discusses the three act structure and the game designers journey. The designer must pick myths that people would believe and put those myths into the game. The myths that are created have the power to change lives. Finally, the designer must take the hero's journey themselves.
Links:
Hero's
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