Love in Gaming: Philip and Anna Strenger, "Witcher 3"

You know, not all love stories have a happy ending, but few of them have an unhappy middle. Sometimes we fall in love with someone, but then one member of the relationship gets tired of everything and wants out, but the other one doesn't. When that happens, it all goes downhill. That's the story of Philip and Anna Strenger, a couple from the game The Witcher 3.

Pictured left: Philip; pictured right: Anna. Not pictured: a happy marriage. Photos taken from the Witcher wiki. Philip Strenger's picture uploaded by user Keashi, Anna Strenger's picture by user Magic713.

Love in Gaming: Tidus and Yuna

Not all romances are permanent. Some romances last us a few years, when the couple finally gets sick of one another. Some loves end because of boredom, or because of infidelity, or because of growing apart. Some loves end in tragedy. But it's not the beginning and the end that matter, it's the middle part, all the time spent together, all the joy shared. Some romances are like a firework, a bright flash in the night, gone just as soon as it lights up. Today's couple is like that: Tidus and Yuna from Final Fantasy X.

Tidus on the left, Yuna on the right. Tidus is a guy, in case any of you didn't know.

Love in Gaming: Peach and Mario

It's every nerd boy's dream: getting together with the hot girl who sees beyond your appearance and likes you for you. It's that small (or not so small) yearning for acceptance, for someone to care for who we are, not what we look like. Society places such importance on the physical that we often develop hangups regarding our bodies, which will always lead us to think we're not good enough. For that reason it's heartwarming to see a work of art that shows the fat, funny looking guy get together with the girl one would think way out of his league. Today's couple is no exception: Peach and Mario from the Super Mario franchise.

Terrible Video Game Couples: John Rook and Arianna from don't take it personally babe, it just ain't your story

So this month I want to look at couples in video games. Why? Because it's the Month of Love, that's why. It's also Black History Month, and as much as I believe that looking at the way people of African descent have been presented in gaming is a far, far greater topic to discuss than lovey dovey couples, I didn't have the time to do the proper research, so lovey dovey couples it is. But where's the fun in seeing JUST happy couples? Why not look at couples who are just so damn WRONG for each other? And that's how we'll start this Month of Love, with a couple whose entire existence is simply wrong, wrong, wrong.

Hello? Hell...o?- A Ghost Story...?

In the freeware game Hello? Hell...o? you play as Kazuki, an average man, with an average life. He works from nine to five, and how he pays the price! All he wants is to be left alone in his average home. So why does he always feel like he's in the Twilight Zone? And I always feel like somebody's watching me! And I have no privacy! Oh whoa oh!

Alright, jokes aside, let's talk about this game. Hello? Hell...o? is a short, Freeware horror game made in RPG Maker. And when I say short, I mean "takes you an hour at most" short. In it, as I said before, you play as Kazuki, a man who, one night, goes to a room and  sees several strange happenings around him. The room he is in is haunted you see, by the spirit of a woman named Akari. As the player plays through the game, some details emerge that help explain the haunting somewhat: basically, Akari used to be Kazuki's girlfriend before she died in a car accident.

Akari's ghost, who would probably fit in the Blue Man Group.

Can we learn about love from video games?

What is love? Baby don't hurt, don't hurt me, no more. Alright, now that we have that obligatory joke out of the way, I ask again: what is love? Millions of poets, novelists, essayists, philosophers, and Reddit and Tumblr teens have written trillions of words in regards to love. I myself have written about love as well (shameless self promotion here: my Twilight Fan-fic Spring Blossoms). But what is it? Well, I don't know entirely. I've played dozens of games where love is a central theme, but the question is, have they taught me anything?

Did I learn ANYTHING from these two?

White Knighting and Katawa Shoujo.

She's the typical gamer's fantasy girl. She's meek, she's shy, she's quiet, she's frail, she looks like she could cry at any minute. She's the girl who sits way behind in class, away from everyone else, the one who buries herself in her book. She could cry at any minute, she has extremely low self esteem. She's short, but not too short, with milky white skin, long, flowing hair black as midnight. She's thin, almost like a supermodel, and holding her is like holding a little bird. She's Hanako Ikezawa, from the freeware Visual Novel Katawa Shoujo.

"Uh...hello...you...want to...talk to...me? Uh... no...don't stare... uh...IGOTTOGODOSOMETHING!"

I feel like I'm forgetting something about her. What was it? Hmm. Did I mention she was shy? I did. Did I mention she has low self esteem? I did, didn't I? What did I forget about her? Hmm... Oh yeah! The reason Hanako is so shy and withdrawn is because when she was 8 years old her parents died when her house burned down. Oh, and she's also physically scarred due to third degree burns obtained from said fire. 

Learn from this- Harvest Moon

There are those that say that there is nothing to learn from video games, that they are a waste of time. There are those that make the ignorant claim that gaming will turn your brain to mush, that the youth is better off without video games. Today's blog is a simple list of lessons gained from a video game franchise: Harvest Moon. This short list alone proves these people wrong, as not only are these lessons applicable to real life, but they are important lessons that every person needs to learn.

Lesson 1: Sometimes a curse is a blessing wrapped in hardships to overcome.

 When you first start the game, you are given a simple, run down farm. There is nothing in it: no animals save for one dog, the fields are chocked with weeds, tree stumps and rocks, and you've got no way at all of making any money. Sounds like someone played a prank on you, right? Nope, quite the opposite in fact. This run down farm? The land is fertile, rich, and can provide for you if you work it. With your hands, and ONLY with your hands, you can turn this barren field into a money maker. The ground is good, and it can provide if you work hard on it. This doesn't happen overnight, however. The field is huge, and your hours are short. Time used on cutting weeds, chopping stumps and moving rocks is time that isn't being spent on growing crops, tending animals and raising your family.

This will one day be a giant field of grass, where your cows can run free and graze to their heart's content. But today, it's a dump, and the only way it can become a field is through your hard work and sacrifice.

This leads us to our second lesson...

Lesson 2: You don't have infinite time, so use it wisely.

  Like in real life, your days on Harvest Moon consist of 24 hours, no more. With those 24 hours, you need to do the following: eat, tend to the crops, till the soil, care for your animals, spend time with your family, socialize with the town folk, purchase seeds for future crops, keep your own health replenished, and finally, sleep. It's intimidating, isn't it? And since most of us gamers tend to sleep in rather late (I used to sleep in until noon!), it sounds like an especially daunting task! How can this be done?

Alright, I'm almost done watering my crops. Lunch is in fifty minutes. During the afternoon, I'll go to town and see what's up, and at sundown I'm having a beer with the guys. 

I know that a lot of us are allergic to routine. We can't stand the idea of doing the same thing, over and over for the rest of our lives. But, this isn't about routine. It's about planning ahead, about knowing that you don't have an infinite amount of time, and about knowing that your responsibilities come first. This leads me to the next lesson...

Lesson 3: The busier your day is, the more important it is for you to wake up early.

A lesson I had to learn the hard way is that 12 PM is not a good time to wake up if you have things that need to be taken care of. Noon is a good time to wake up if you're going to have a lazy afternoon anyway, if it's your day off. But when you have things to take care of, errands to run? Horrible time. Likewise, in Harvest Moon, if you wake up this late, you will not have enough time to do your errands. In Harvest Moon, your day starts at 6 AM. No, you don't wake up at 6, you start working at 6. By 6 AM you already woke up, got dressed, and ate breakfast. You're charged, you're wide awake, you're ready for work. Six in the morning.

Busy, busy, busy! As soon as I'm done milking the cows, I gotta water the crops, collect the eggs, shear the sheep, brush my animals AND feed the chickens! Once that's done, I gotta head to town to pick up that tool I ordered, visit the mayor, head to church, visit the in laws, buy some food for tonight's dinner, and of course I gotta visit my pals! Good thing I woke up early today!

Lesson 4: Plan for tomorrow, today.

When you wake up, you need to know precisely what it is you need to do today. You need to know beforehand what it is that needs doing, and then go out and do it as soon as possible. How? By planning. In Harvest Moon, you are given every tool available to know how your NEXT day is going to be like. The weather report is always 100% accurate, and by 6 AM tells you what kind of weather you're having the next day. I know that this isn't realistic, but then again, we also have the science to predict the weather. Living day by day might be good for a while, but when you have responsibilities, those take priority. You plan ahead and take care of what you need to do. Which leads me to the next lesson...

Lesson 5: It's OK to have free time. Have fun!

Now there's an idea!

If all you do in life is work, you'll find that your days are miserable. Likewise in Harvest Moon, if all you do is plant crops and work, you'll find yourself hating the game. Go out and have fun every once in a while! Play, dance, sing, have fun!

Lesson 6: Patience is a virtue.

You're not going to have a money making farm overnight. You're not going to have a family one week from meeting the girl you fell for. Your crops are not going to grow within minutes of you planting them. Everything takes time. Everything. You need to learn to wait patiently. Speaking of love...

Lesson 7: Love takes time to grow.

In every Harvest Moon game, you can marry someone of the opposite sex. (How heteronormative, but hey.) When you meet them, you'll be a stranger to them, always. They don't know you, you don't know them YET. But hey, a goal in these games is to find a spouse and raise a family. To make the candidate fall in love with you, you need to shower that person with gifts, talk to him/her on a regular basis, and wait for his/her love level to be in a good enough level. For example, in Harvest Moon Back to Nature, the love level is measured by heart colors. Black means total stranger, purple means new acquaintance, blue means friend, green means she/he has a little crush on you, yellow means he/she has a crush, orange means he/she really likes you, and red means he/she loves you 100%. When can you ask that person to marry you? At the red level, no earlier. To get to that level takes time, lots of it. In fact, I spent a year and a half of in game time before I was ready to marry the girl I had been romancing that entire time! But, it was worth it. Love takes time and effort. (And money)

"I don't want, anybody else. When I think about you I touch myself!"

Lesson 8: Love needs to be maintained, or it will be gone.

It does not do for you to ignore your new spouse after you marry him/her. Oh what, you think that just because you got married, that's it? Nope. Your spouse is still an individual with needs, and one of those needs is love. YOUR love. He/she married you because he/she loved you. Marriage isn't an achievement to unlock, it's a commitment. And you need to commit to make it work. Otherwise, you'll lose your spouse, and it's going to hurt.

"You don't care about me anymore. You never tell me good morning, you just scarf down what I cook for you without so much as a thank you, you forget our anniversary, my birthday, and you're seldom home. You rarely look at me anymore, and sometimes I feel more lonely in your company than I do by myself. I can't do it anymore. I'm leaving, and I'm taking our son."

Second Life- on escapism

The whole point of gaming, it can be said, is escapism. To escape from this world, to be so immersed in an experience that you forget everything else about you, even if for a short while. When you're playing a game, you're not you anymore. You are a witness to an epic adventure when you play an RPG, a powerful electronic athlete when you play a MOBA, or a romantic hero when you play a dating sim. But there is a game that takes this notion and runs with it entirely, turning it into its Modus Operandi. That game is Second Life.

Second Life is a free to play three dimensional game. Some may claim it is not a game, as there are no goals or anything of the sort, but I disagree. However, I am not here to debate whether Second Life is a game or not. I am here to speak about how Second Life brings escapism to a whole new level.

The very name in itself gives away the purpose of the game. Second Life: a second life for you, the player. Here is a game world unlike any other. Here is a world for you to create, to be free. To buy what you like, to be who you want to be. You are limited only by your imagination.

And yet, therein lays a question. Is this right? Is it right to escape from your real life to pretend to be someone you are not?

In Second Life it is easy to be someone you're not. No, let me rephrase that. It is easy to pretend to be someone you're not. In Second Life, you can start your own business. You can dress your avatar down in the latest Gucci suit, give him sunglasses, a chauffer, the works. You can rent out a house made to look like a mansion, in a sim that closely resembles West Hollywood. You can have an office, you can sit your avatar down in meetings. You can be this huge success, and honestly? That does not sound so bad. But, when you turn off that computer, where will you be? Back in real life. Hopefully with a family that loves you, working a job that pays the bills, on a nice enough house that may not be a mansion, but it provides what you need. I wish to God this was how it always is. And for most people, it is. But not everyone is like this.

Too many people take the game more seriously than they should. Single people go on here looking to start relationships. Sometimes they find it, and their avatars enter a pretend relationship, where they go on pretend dates to places that are simply not real. I have seen avatars go to sims made to look like amusement parks. It may be fun to pretend you are on a date, but you're not. You're not in a real amusement park, you're at home, on a computer, watching two avatars go up and down a fake roller coaster. Too many people forget this.

Far too many avatars are done up to look like glamour models. I understand that, sometimes, we are unsatisfied with how we look. We often wish to ourselves "if only I were skinnier", "if only I were more tanned", "if only I were white, blonde, blue eyed, slim and petite." Second Life does not give you the chance to live that life, no matter how much we wish to pretend we were. Second Life only allows you to make an avatar that looks like what you wish you it to look like. By itself, that's not bad, but some people take it too far. I once had the misfortune of knowing someone who ditched a friend, just so she could date someone who's avatar looked like her favorite rock star. The guy behind the avatar was married in real life, but the two began an online relationship anyway.

That's another issue. People catfishing, pretending to be someone online when in real life they are someone else, beginning online relationships on false pretenses. I have seen this happen far too many times. I once met two people on Second Life. A boy and a girl. They were in a relationship. They were in love. Thing is, the guy was really a girl in real life, and the girl was perfectly straight. The 'guy' eventually confessed, and they broke up afterwards. No harm was meant, but the 'relationship' was simply false to begin with.

That's why I don't believe in relationships that start on Second Life, or anything from Second Life at all. There is always a falseness to it, to everything. What you are seeing may look like something, but it is not. It is simply a bunch of 1's and 0's, gathered together to create data to look like an object from real life. It is not real.

It is not real. That tiny phrase, to me at least, became almost like a mantra that I repeated to myself every time I logged in to Second Life. It is not real. It is not real. It is not real. So why treat it like it is? Why treat something fake like it's real?

Sometimes, real life becomes too much to bear.We often fail, we often grow tired. We often just feel like retreating, to get away from the hustle and bustle. Video games offer us a retreat from this. In a video game, we can rescue the princess, we can develop a farm, we can save the world from the Magic Emperor, we can date a high school girl. But this retreat is not meant to replace your real life. After you're done, you're supposed to be re energized, so you can take on the world. But when you start neglecting your real life, for a game? That's when you have a problem.

Escapism is not the answer to anything. Running away from your problems does not solve them. It is OK to take a rest. It is not OK to abandon yourself in a game. You don't need a Second Life, if your First Life is not what you wanted it to be. You just need to get out there and make it happen.

The Disgaea metaphor

Every now and then you come across a game that hides a deep, meaningful message beneath layers of a gaming element that would make it easy for someone who looks only at a surface level to miss it. Today, I want to briefly talk about a game that talks about what it means to be a good person. That game is Disgaea.

The game is, on the surface, about this guy, called Laharl. He's a demon, and he's 1313 years old. His father, King Krichevskoy, has died, leaving Laharl to assume the position of Overlord. Laharl himself is, in one word, an ass. He's arrogant, he's rude, he's loud, he's obnoxious, and he has the emotional maturity of an 11 year old boy.

Pictured: Laharl. You just know that, if the artist were allowed to draw him that way, this kid would be flipping you the bird.

 In Disgaea, the world is divided into three parts: There's the human world, the world of demons named the Netherworld, and the world of angels named Celestia. Laharl was the prince of the Netherworld, and spends the first half of the game becoming its ruler. However, there is a complication: the ruler of the angels, the Seraph, has sent an assassin to do away with Laharl. And her name is Flonne.

Not Pictured: A competent assassin.

Flonne, however, eventually learns that Laharl is incapable of love and compassion. Feeling that such a thing is impossible, she joins Laharl, to observe if he truly is incapable of such things. Because of her continuous belief in love, Laharl and his vassal, Etna, give the little angel the title of Love Freak. 

In spite of the abuse that Laharl and Etna send her way, Flonne stays, determined to see if Laharl truly is incapable of love. When she loses her special angel pendant, which allows her to stay in the Netherworld, she begs Laharl to help her. He does, though only through the promise of a reward.

Flonne is someone who believes in love and kindness. She believes everyone is capable of good, and that no one is truly irredeemably evil. Throughout the game, her faith is rewarded: She sees demons, whom she had been taught knew nothing of mercy or love, commit acts that could only be fueled by such emotions. She sees Laharl spare a demon's life, because the demon had a son who begged for his father to be spared. She witnesses Laharl cry for his departed mother. She sees Laharl put his subjects before himself, albeit slightly begrudgingly, when he rounded up the zombies that were collected by a child of his realm, which had managed to escape. Flonne, in time, learns that in spite of how he's a demon, Laharl is, deep down, good. In fact, no. Flonne learns that someone being a demon, a human, or an angel is not what determines if they are good. All are capable of love.

And in time, she learns the true nature of her mission: She was to become the bridge between the Netherworld and Celestia, to bring peace between these once bitter enemies. But, there are those in Celestia who would oppose such a thing.

                           Pictured: Vulcanus. An Angel of God, and an asshole.

Vulcanus, who does not know of the Seraph's true plan, and would oppose it if he did, sets out to murder Laharl himself. Unlike Laharl, Vulcanus is truly evil. Among his plans, he manipulates the human world into attacking the Netherworld, costing an untold amount of casualties, just to kill Laharl. He is the one who stole Flonne's pendant, endangering her life, just to be rid of her. And the worst of all, he makes pacts with several demons, forbidden by angel law, just to destroy Laharl.

Vulcanus reminds me too much of people that claim themselves to be good by virtue of being religious. There are a lot of people in this world, none of whom I will name, that believe themselves to be paragons of virtue just because they read this holy text, or they pray at that church. In fact, that's who Vulcanus is: he's every religious hypocrite in the world, rolled up into an arrangement of two dimensional sprites. He's everyone who has ever held up their nose to the poor as they strutted down to church. He's every church goes who has ever gone to a diner and left no tip to the waiter. He's every pastor, every priest that has ever preached the word of God only to throw out someone from his parish by virtue of not wearing decent clothing. He's every deacon that has ever preached against homosexuality, only to go to Vegas to buy a male hooker. He's every Rabbi that has eaten pork, every Imam that has ever spat at a beggar.

Flonne, on the other hand, is like every authentically religious person in the world. She practices what she preaches, and she is not afraid of standing firm in her beliefs. But, she does not rub it in the faces of those who are different from her. Flonne believes in love, and that is what she shows the world. She shows everyone love, patience, and understanding. She stands by Laharl and Etna through thick and thin, expecting nothing in return every time she helps them. The one time Flonne stands up to Laharl is when she demands that he treat her with respect, to at least remember her name, which in time, he does.

Laharl himself is an impetuous being, but deep down, there is good. He thought himself incapable of love, but deep down, he loved his mother. Deep down, Laharl cares about more than himself. He cares about his Netherworld, about his vassals, about Etna, and Flonne.

That's what the game is about, when you get down to it. The game asks "what makes a person good?" And the game provides an unambiguous answer. The game sides with Flonne, 100%. Love is what makes someone good. Nothing else. Vulcanus himself, who is more than worthy of punishment, is shown mercy by Flonne herself, when she, at the end of the game, becomes his teacher.

What makes someone good? It's how you treat everyone else. It's not what you associate yourself with, it's how you treat other people. Being part of a religion does not make you a good person. If you want to be good, you need to do good. And when you get down to it, every religion in the world tells you how to do precisely that. Give to the poor, feed the hungry, comfort the weeping. In short: love thy neighbor, as you love yourself.

Player Character Point of View- Romancing Karen in Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town

 My name? Well, people call me Pete. When I was much younger, my folks took me on vacation to this quiet little place called Mineral Town. One day, I got separated from my parents, and ended up on this old man's farm. I stayed there until my parents found me, playing with the animals, enjoying the fresh air. The old man and I struck up a friendship, and we kept exchanging letters. I had no way of knowing that on that day, my future was sealed...

The old man simply stopped writing one day. I grew worried about him when he wouldn't respond my letters, so I went to visit him. I had run into the mayor, who gave me the two biggest shockers of my life. First, the old man died. I nearly fell on the floor when I heard that. My friend died. The mayor then told me that the old man left me the farm.

The old man had no family. He left his farm to a kid that exchanged letters with him for years. I wanted to cry for him.

I had no time to waste. The farm was mine now, and frankly, it was in dire need of repairs. My 'house' was little more than a dusty shack. The barn was empty, just like the chicken coop. The fields were chocked with weeds, stones, and dried up stumps and branches. Impossible to clean up by myself. So, I cleaned up a bit, had myself a small lot for farming, and went to the market to get some seeds. That is when I met...her.

I had never seen a more beautiful girl in my life. When I entered the market, she walked up to me, greeted me and gave me a free bag of grass seeds. I smiled like such a goof! I walked up to the counter, bought a bag of turnip seeds, and walked out of the market, telling her goodbye. My heart was racing that day!

After that, I ran into her every now and again. Sometimes, when I'd take a break from my farm, I'd find her by the waterfall close to Mother's Hill, on the edge of Mineral Town. Whenever I went shopping for supplies, I'd see her working in the store, and I'd tell her hello. She and I would always talk, always happy to see each other. I really liked her. Barley, the man who worked the cow farm, told me that the key to showing how much I liked a girl was to give her something she liked. I eventually learned that Karen really liked wine.

I bought her wine every chance I had. Wine was expensive, and I wouldn't always have the money for it, but I bought it anyway, for her. I still sometimes chuckle at the memory of the time she beat Duke, the local winemaker, in a drinking contest! That was amazing.

She isn't the best cook in the world. She'd always enter the yearly cooking contest, even though she always came dead last. She always tried cooking some weird recipes. One time, she mixed chocolate into a fish stew! I still laugh about how it was so bad it sent me to the clinic, even if at the time I didn't find it so amusing.

I would often walk with her on the beach after sundown. Yeah, most of the time I'd be bone tired, with my body aching quite a bit after farm work. And sometimes I'd do things that were just silly, like walking under the rain for over an hour just so I could visit her at the market, and give her a bottle of wine, or something I had cooked for her in my kitchen. Yeah, I'd often catch colds because of that, miss a few days or work. But you know what? It was always worth it to me, to see her smile.

When my farm became more successful, I had my old shack expanded into a real house, with a few more rooms and a few more amenities. Sure it wasn't a mansion, but it was a good house. Good enough for the family of a farm man.

A family. I had long decided that I loved Karen. I knew in my heart of hearts that I wanted to marry her. I bought the Blue Feather, which is the custom in Mineral Town, to ask her to marry me. She said yes!

We're married now, expecting a child. My life is amazing, and it's all thanks to that one time I got lost. Thank you, old man. I'll name my son after you.