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(03/29/17 3:00pm)
Orisa is the newest hero in Overwatch and the first in the game’s diverse cast to represent the African continent. Orisa was created by a young genius Efi Oladele after an attack by Doomfist at the Numbani airport destroyed the city’s new line of defense robots called OR15s. Orisa is based on these models, which can still be seen smashed into the Numbani map.
(03/27/17 2:00pm)
There’s a certain danger when it comes to remaking such a well-loved tale, a story that people claim to have grown up with. Nostalgia might cover some of the flaws of Disney’s original animated iteration of Beauty and the Beast, but the newly released live action film did not have those same enchanted rose-colored glasses protecting it’s less than stellar execution. For a film about beauty being more than skin deep, the new Beauty and the Beast could be called shallow. The tale of Beauty and the Beast, when scrutinized could be called romanticized Stockholm Syndrome. This tale as old as time managed to steer it’s less than impressive premise away from audience’s focus with a dazzling cast and well-crafted CGI. However, nostalgia and set design couldn’t erase the obviously uneven distribution of effort when it came to crafting the renewed and revamped Disney classic.
(03/21/17 6:46pm)
by Daley Wilhelm
Orisa is the newest hero in Overwatch and the first in the game’s diverse cast to represent the African continent. Orisa was created by a young genius Efi Oladele after an attack by Doomfist at the Numbani airport destroyed the city’s new line of defense robots called OR15s. Orisa is based on these models, which can still be seen smashed into the Numbani map.
Numbani is a fictional city set near Nigeria. It’s a haven for scientific discovery and a practical utopia, wherein omnics and humans live in harmony. Orisa was designed as a protector of this city, being constantly upgraded by her creator, Efi, as new problems arose.
Overwatch has a history of being accurate toward representing a multitude of cultures in the game, and this new tank’s design is no different.
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Logo by:Daley Wilhelm
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Logo by:Meghan Duffy and Daley Wilhelm
(01/22/17 7:44pm)
by Daley Wilhelm
Moana made me feel so many things. The movie made me laugh while listening to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson fully embody one of his most fitting roles yet as Maui the Demigod. It endeared me to its principal character, Moana who is my new favorite Disney not-princess. I’ll admit that it made me tear up when the plot reached its darkest parts. And it made me nervous.
It made me nervous because Disney was tackling another culture. Disney often serves as children’s first glimpse into the world outside where they live, what they know. When I was young, my scope of knowledge about China was through Mulan. The Middle East was defined by Aladdin. Originally, Lilo & Stitch was my first glimpse into Hawaiian culture. And now Moana would serve children today as what they would think of Polynesia, so Disney had the responsibility to represent Polynesian people well.
Moana’s characters are Polynesian and are voiced by Polynesian people, the story centered around legends from Hawaii, Tahiti, and Samoa. I feel that it then follows that the movie has a responsibility to be accurate to the people it’s portraying. I think, after some research, Moana did so. For the most part.
This is all about Hawaii? Right?
Wrong. Polynesia is huge. On a map, it can be traced into a triangle with Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island at it’s points. Inside the triangle is Somoa, Tonga, Fiji, and many other islands.
What unites all these islands is a similar, but sometimes different, language and cultural beliefs. This is because historically, the people in the Polynesian Triangle were sailors and navigators, traveling from island to island. Polynesia’s seafaring history, and traditions from Maori, Tahitian, and Hawaiian culture are found in, and central to, Moana’s plot.
Spoilers here beyond the reef
Maori the Heart of the Matter
Te Fiti
Moana is on a quest to find Te Fiti and restore her heart. Te Fiti, an island goddess both literally and figuratively, created Polynesia and it’s people from nothing but ocean. This great creator goddess is not, however found anywhere in Polynesian lore.
It’s instead theorized that Disney, taking some liberties with ancient legend, based Te Fiti and her fiery alter ego Te Ka on Pele, the goddess of lightning, wind, and volcanoes. In Hawaiian mythos, Pele is credited with the creation of the Hawaiian islands, so it fits that she would also be Te Fiti, Disney-fied for a broader audience. After all, Pele is less a green, loving goddess, and more a goddess known for power and an even more powerful jealousy.
Te Fiti’s Heart
The MacGuffin of the movie is Te Fiti’s Heart, a small green stone entrusted to Moana by the ocean. This is literally Te Fiti’s heart, which Maui plucked from a mysteriously glowing spiral on a woman-shaped island. The spiral pattern is a “koru” which is often featured in Maori art, jewelry, and tattoos. It’s inspired by a native New Zealand plant known as the “ponga” whose leaves curl into themselves to form a spiral.
The Heart appears to be made of “pounamu” a kind of jade considered sacred to the Maori people.
Breath of Life and the Hongi
Moana returns Te Fiti to her true self by bravely pressing her forehead to the huge forehead of the fire demon Te Ka. This gesture goes far beyond simply being touching. It touches back to an important Maori tradition: the hongi.
The hongi is a traditional Maori greeting where two people press their foreheads and noses together, serving as a formal handshake. During the hongi, the ha or breath of life, is exchanged and intermingled.
Maui’s Identity Crisis
In Polynesian mythology and religion--two separate but occasionally overlapping things, Maui is a demigod and hero figure, sometimes either fully divine or fully human. The Hawaiian island Maui is named after him.
Appearance
I said before that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson fully embodied Maui. His talents lent a lot to Maui’s character. And maybe Maui was just too much of The Rock, because he is hugely different from traditional interpretations of the demigod.
Firstly, his appearance as a massive, burly tattooed hunk is a significant departure from traditional depictions of him as a sly, lithe young man. More surfer dude than pro wrestler. Some have reacted negatively to this interpretation, citing that it comes too close to stereotypes of Pacific Islanders being hefty.
Personality
A smaller Maui plays more into his role in folklore as well. Maui was a trickster, the youngest of his brothers. He’s the Loki of Polynesian mythology, clever and cunning. I don’t think his hulking form in the film really helps to communicate that. The movie gives the impression that Maui is above all a warrior, as illustrated by the stories the tattoos over his formidable and oversized body tell.
It’s true that Maui is strong, he did pull up the Hawaiian islands from the seafloor, after all. But he did this through pretending he had a large fish on his line, and asking his brothers to help him pull it up. All the superhuman adventures he tells Moana about, he actually did do, just not alone. Maui was always among his brothers. He was a family man.
Family
One of the lone ways Moana helps to develop Maui’s character is by giving him his tragic, but vague backstory. Maui is continually trying to prove himself to the human race through his amazing feats because his human parents rejected him at birth.
“They took one look at me and threw me into the ocean,”
From there, the gods raised Maui, making him a demigod. This definitely helps to explain Maui’s motivations, but the story is a little backward when matched up to traditional folklore.
How the story is usually told is that he was born to Taranga, the goddess of vegetation, life, and death and the guardian of the underworld Makea-Tutara. Think Persephone and Hades for a Greek approximation. Maui was their fifth son, and he appeared to be stillborn. Heartbroken, Taranga gave her stillborn son to the ocean. The ocean knew that Maui was not actually dead, just underdeveloped. Thus spirits of the ocean raised Maui until he was strong enough to be given back to his parents.
Without the Disney reinvention of Maui’s origins, admittedly he makes for a boring character. However, there wasn’t much explanation as to why his human parents supposedly chucked him into the sea, which then left audiences wondering. If viewers were as curious as I was, they can quickly find that there is no underlying reason other than Disney rewriting ancient mythology.
Tattoos: an Animated and Spiritual Force
Maui’s tattoos or pe’a are an animated wonder that helped to show, rather just tell about Maui’s storied history of various feats for the benefit of mankind. His having tattoos at all, let alone so prominently, is an important part of Polynesian culture. Tattoo is a Polynesian word, and tattoos are believed to show a person’s spiritual life force or mana. They communicate a person’s character, and help to fetch them spiritual strength and protection. A 2,000 year old art, everyone received tattoos at some time in their life.
Traditional tattooing, still used today, is done with black ink from candlenut soot, a small mallet, and a sharp piece of bamboo.
Moana Finding It’s Way
Moana rediscovers wayfinding, something central to the cultural and historical narrative of Polynesia. Moana’s ancestors were voyagers, which is true of the people of Polynesia today. 3,000 years ago, ancient Polynesians sailed to open ocean and colonized the islands they found, going as far as South America before European explorers did.
They did so with technology like that of which we see in the movie, voyaging canoes, and by navigating using the stars as also demonstrated in the film.
Moana seems to address the historical mystery of The Long Pause, where in Polynesians stopped voyaging for 2,000 years after arriving in Tahiti, Samoa, and Tonga. Perhaps this is when Te Fiti’s heart was stolen and the ocean became perilous, in accordance with Moana’s timeline.
After Moana restored Te Fiti in the movie, and after The Long Pause historically, Polynesians started sailing once more, to every single island in Polynesia.
Disney’s Determined Research
Whether or not Disney succeeded or failed in properly representing Polynesia, directors John Musker and Ron Clements cannot be faulted for not trying. While developing Moana, they created the Oceanic Trust, an advisory board made up of anthropologists, native cultural practitioners, historians, linguists, and choreographers from all over Polynesia. Since cultural heroes, traditions, and even things held sacred for Polynesian people were integral to Moana’s plot, Disney wanted to get things right.
In essence, they were accurate. In execution, not so much. Moana serves as something more like a remix of traditional stories, a retelling of a history in a way that appeals to a worldwide audience. However, when taking stories so close to a culture’s entire narrative and repurposing them for easy consumption, it’s easy to see where the native peoples purportedly being represented can get disappointed or even offended.
For the most part, I’ve found online that Polynesian people are ecstatic for a chance to see themselves on screen. Lilo & Stitch, a story arguably more focused on aliens than native peoples, left Polynesians with a bad taste in their mouth, so initially Polynesian audiences were skeptical.
While inaccuracies are still upsetting, maybe we can give Disney and A for effort. It’s impossible to represent anything perfectly, but Disney tried the best it could while creating a movie even people who need to Google what Polynesia is could enjoy.
(01/11/17 8:31pm)
by Daley Wilhelm
If the weather outside is frightful, just turn on your 3DS and take a relaxing trip to the Alola region. Or head to a movie theatre and catch a warm wave with Moana. This winter has provided many opportunities for some Hawaiian-themed escapism in two of the most talked about properties of 2016: Pokemon Sun and Moon and Disney’s newest animated hit Moana.
Personally, I loved Moana and I’ve logged an embarrassing amount of time in Pokemon Refresh on Pokemon Moon, but they both made me stop to wonder how accurate they are to the culture that inspired them.
Moana’s characters are Polynesian and are voiced by Polynesian people, the story centered around legends from Hawaii, Tahiti and Samoa. I feel that it then follows that the movie has a responsibility to be accurate to the people it’s portraying. But Pokemon is different. The latest games are set in Alola, a fictional place based on Hawaii.
Nevertheless, the inspiration is clear and used throughout the games, in names, places, and Pokemon.
Names: Hawaiian Translations and Inspirations
Alola
For a long time, I thought the Alola region was just called the Aloha region, but despite being one letter off, the inspiration is clear. Aloha means both hello and goodbye colloquially, but literally translates to affection, peace, compassion, and mercy in Hawaiian. Alola, according to Shigeru Ohmori, is meant to allude to a land overflowing with life. Ola is the Hawaiian word for life, but the connection to Aloha is perhaps overwhelming.
Professor Kukui and Captain Kiawe
The first person you meet is the fan favorite, too-cool-to-wear-a-shirt Professor Kukui. Going along with the franchise’s rule that Pokemon Professors have tree-related names, kukui is also a tree. Kukui is the Hawaiian candlenut tree, the national symbol of Hawaii. It’s a flowering tree, in the past it's nuts were burned as a light source. Kukui nut oil is also a natural moisturizer, which might explain Professor Kukui’s glistening abs.
Kiawe, the second Akala Island Trial Captain, is just as aptly named as Kukui. Kiawe is a type of wood often used for smoking fish or meat. This is fitting, considering his fire-type Pokemon.
“Cousin”
You, the player, are probably not related to the Professor, despite his calling you, “cousin” at every occasion. This is a term Hawaiians use loosely, meaning a buddy or friend. The same is seen with people calling their unrelated elders “auntie” or “uncle.” The familial terms are meant to show a unity that extends beyond bloodlines and reaches to all Hawaiian people.
Kahuna
Rather than fighting in gyms, the player in Sun and Moon is taking the Island Challenge, which is presided over by Island Kahunas. Kahuna is a Hawaiian word often used in pop culture to refer to skilled surfers or “the boss” of something, the Big Kahuna. The word literally translates to “priest, sorcerer, magician, wizard, minister, expert in any profession.” The word has some spiritual connotations, but is a fitting name for anyone defined by their professor, such as doctors, craftsmen, and those who battle in Grand Trials within the game.
The Islands
The four islands that make up the Alola region are named after colors in Hawaiian: MeleMele means “yellow,” Akala means “pink,” Ula’Ula means “red,” and Poni means “purple.” These colors match those of the different variations of Oricorio found on each island.
Places: Beyond Beaches
Mount Lanakila and the Hokulani Observatory
Alola is tropical, so why then are there Ice-types of some first generation Pokemon in this new generation? Believe it or not, there is snow somewhere as famously warm and sunny as Hawaii. Mauna Kea is one of Hawaii’s dormant volcanoes and the highest peak in Hawaii. Because of it’s high altitude, there’s a constant dusting of snow on the peak. This real life mountain was probably the inspiration behind the third island’s Mount Lanakila. On it’s slope you can find the familiar Vulpix and Sandshrew have changed to adapt to their frosty conditions and have become Ice-types.
The name “Lanakila” causes a bit of controversy if further researched. Lanakila is the Hawaiian name of a man who led protests of the building of the world’s largest telescope on Mauna Kea. Hawaii, surrounded by ocean and with little light pollution, makes for the idea place for observatories, but sometimes those buildings intrude on land that Hawaiians consider sacred.
In the games, there is an observatory, just not on Mount Lanakila. The region’s second largest peak on Ula’Ula houses the Hokulani Observatory. Which seems like a much less controversial location.
Haina Desert
Alola conjured images of it’s beaches, the sea breeze, cool ocean water. And yet there’s another seemingly out of place location: Haina Desert. Harsh sunlight in the day, and sandstorms at night, it seems anything but tropical. The Hawaii paradise the region is based on has a matching location: The Ka’u Desert.
With all the previous locations in mind, it’s clear the Ula’Ula in Alola is meant to be based on Hawaii’s Big Island, where the Ka’u Desert is located. Rather than a confusing maze, however, the real life desert has a much more treacherous danger. The Ka’u Desert lacks any vegetation due to the acid rain that falls there.
Paniola Ranch
Farms and ranches aren’t very Hawaiian… are they? If you spellcheck Paniola Ranch, where you can drop off Pokemon at the Pokemon Nursery, you’ll find that there’s another, more apt word that helps explain the seemingly American Western setting within the overall tropical aesthetic: paniolo. Paniolo roughly translates to “Hawaiian cowboy.” The islands have a perhaps unexpected, but rich cowboy culture.
This dates back to the 1800s when the Hawaiian King Kamehameha the Third invited Mexican-Spanish cowboys, vaquero to teach the Hawaiian people to break horses and wrangle cattle. The word paniolo actually is a corruption of the word español, the language the vaquero spoke.
Pokemon: Hawaiian History in Design
Alolan Marowak
Alolan Marowak was one of the first Alolan forms announced, and quickly became one of my favorites. At last, the tragic Marowak got to have some of the limelight. According to Pokemon Sun’s PokeDex entry, Alolan Marowak is possessed by it’s mother’s regrets, thus giving it a Ghost-typing. It wields a bone lit by ghostly fire, meaning it’s also a Fire-type.
It’s bone is based on a traditional Samoan war club, Nifo Oti or what is culturally used today as part of ceremonial dances, a fire knife or Siva Afi. You might recognize dancers twirling flaming wooden or aluminium sticks in the background of any Lua scene in practically any media trying to emulate Hawaii. Traditionally, fire knife dancing was meant to demonstrate a warrior’s prowess and always utilized an actual blade. The fire, however, didn’t come into play until the 1940’s.
Fire knife dancing has a heated history of competition and is taken very seriously in Hawaii. Although used to entertain tourists, and anyone who makes it to the top of Wela Volcano in the games, fire knife dancing is a sacred thing in Hawaiian culture and a thoughtful homage in Pokemon.
Alolan Dugtrio
Surprisingly, there is purpose behind Alolan Dugtrio’s luscious, platinum blonde locks that are evidently made of steel. When one thinks of Hawaii, righteous and mondo waves prime for surfing might come to mind. For a significant amount of time, those surfing them were blindingly blonde Australians making a pilgrimage to Waikiki Beach.
These towheaded surfers left their mark on history. They’re the reason behind all the stereotypical images of blonde beach party-goers and why the world came to know what surfing was. Surfing has been an ancient Hawaiian art for centuries, brought out of obscurity by Duke Kahanamoku, but made popular by Australians flipping their hair, in search of the choicest wave.
Pyukumuku
On Hano Beach, you can take up the part time job of chucking Pyukumuku back into the sea where they belong. The Sea Cucumber Pokemon is obviously based on a sea cucumbers, the marine animals that look like… well, cucumbers. They’re long, cylindrical, and lazy. Toxic to begin with, when startled sea cucumbers might eviscerate themselves as a self-defense mechanism.
None of these things sound especially cute, but Pyukumuku is a seriously adorable Pokemon. The cute parts of it’s design, such as it’s fluffy bunny tail, might be based on sea slugs, the more appealing of the ocean’s invertebrates. Specifically, Pyukumuku looks as if it was inspired by the “sea bunny,” a sea slug that looks distinctly fluffy and lovable.
Oricorio (Pa’u)
There are four types of Oricorio, the Dancing Pokemon, all modeled after different dance styles. The pink Pa’u style is a Psychic/Flying type with a feather skirt and a crown of flower-like feathers. The Pa’u style Oricorio is not actually based on a Hula dancer, despite popular belief. Pa’u refers to Pa’u riders, women in long skirts riding astride horses, their hems dragging the ground. Pa’u riders are often seen in parades or festivals in Hawaii and were notable in history because the riders rode astride the horses rather than side-saddle.
Comfrey
Comfrey might be the most blatant callback to Hawaiian culture. The Posy Picker Pokemon resembles a living Lei, the traditional Hawaii garland draped on tourists as they exit Hawaiian airports. Lei refers to any string of items meant to be worn. Traditionally they were used to signify rank or royalty, whereas now they’re used to signify love, friendship, or honor to the person they’re presented with. Lei are used in times of transition or change, such as weddings or graduations, or coming to a new place.
Lei have different meaning according to their composition. Comfrey is made out of flowers, which strongly resemble Ilima flowers. Ilima, our very first Trail Captain’s namesake, and the official flower of Oahu mean “love”.
Developers Did Their Research
The games dig deep into Hawaiian culture, even some sacred aspects. Z-moves resemble Hula dances, Hawaii’s oral communication of history and religion. Being a Midwestern white girl who has never even been to Hawaii, I can’t speak for Polynesian people in whether or not Pokemon’s use of Hawaiian ideas and history is accurate or non-offensive. I can say, however that when going into writing this, I was ready to point out inaccuracies left and right, and was pleasantly surprised that there wasn’t really any instances of anything being blatantly wrong.
When dealing with properties like Pokemon, I think it would have been both difficult and maybe even a mistake to create a carbon copy of Hawaii. Developers get some slack to rely on a few Hawaiian stereotypes in order to communicate the aesthetic to those who have never been there.
While scanning Reddit threads, I found that most Hawaiians seem pleased with the attention to detail in topography and dialogue. Hawaiian tourism websites have lauded the game and pointed out similarities to in-game places and the real life Hawaiian wonderland. There’s a taste of authenticity in the game and the malasadas.
Part 2: Moana and Mismatched Traditions coming soon!
(11/17/16 9:00am)
by Daley Wilhelm
When it was announced that there would be another Harry Potter movie, fans everywhere were ecstatic. Would it be the Marauder-era prequel Potterheads have demanded? A series following the escapades of Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s kids?
As it turned out, the new trilogy was none of the aforementioned. Rather, we’d be getting three movies based on a magazine-sized book: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
In the Harry Potter universe, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them is a textbook all Hogwarts first years are required to buy. It briefly details magical animals one might run into in the Wizarding World, such as acromantulas, doxies or jobberknolls. In actuality, the short book was written and illustrated by J.K. Rowling to benefit the Comic Relief charity in 2001 alongside another “Hogwart’s Library” book Quidditch Through the Ages by Kennilworthy Wisp. It’s yet to be seen if we’ll get a movie series out of the latter book, but as for Fantastic Beasts, the first film comes out this Friday November 18.
The first film explores the life of Newt Scamander, played by Eddie Redmayne. In the Harry Potter lore, Artemis Fido “Newt” Scamander is an awkward magizoologist travelling the globe in order to write a comprehensive textbook on the fantastic beasts of the world and where one might find them.
Scamander was born in 1897 and was introduced to magical creatures at a young age, his mother being a hippogriff breeder. When he later attended Hogwarts and was sorted into Hufflepuff, he continued this interest much to his own detriment and the apparent danger to those around him: he was expelled from Hogwarts for “endangering human life” with a beast. After his expulsion, he worked in the Ministry of Magic first in the “tedious” Office for House-Elf Relocation, and later in the Beast Division. Because of his obsessive knowledge of creatures and critters, he was quickly promoted and caught the eye of Obscurus Books who convinced him to quit his job and explore the world, writing the first draft of the book the Wizarding World would come to know and love.
The film picks up in December of 1926 after he finishes his research throughout the world’s jungles and stops off in America’s urban jungle: New York City. Here, his suitcase--enchanted with an Undetectable Extension Charm and filled with various monsters from his travels--is accidentally opened, causing mayhem and increasing the already dangerously high tensions between the magic and non-magical communities.
I solemnly swear there are spoilers past this point.
Newt must then gather up his escaped creatures while chaos ensues. Helping him is a Muggle (or No-Maj as the Americans call them) named Jacob Kowalski and Newt’s future wife Porpentina Goldstein. Unfortunately for Newt, who is better equipped to handle animals than humans, he is caught up in the politics between the Magical Congress of the United States of America and New Salem Philanthropic Society. Spoiler alert: the Society isn’t so philanthropic and is definitely more comparable to the Salem Witch Trials.
Whatever transpires in the movie, in the current Harry Potter canon, we know that Newt survives this ordeal, marries Porpentina, and has a grandchild named Rolf who eventually marries Luna Lovegood. Newt’s self-proclaimed lifetime achievement is creating the Werewolf Registry and a ban on experimental breeding of magical creatures. So maybe whatever happens in New York isn’t as exciting as the trailers are making it out to be, at least not to Newt, who lives and breathes the study and care of magical creatures.What is exciting is what appears to follow Fantastic Beasts: already fans have been given significant hints at where the narrative will go after Newt’s adventure in New York. Warner Bros. has teased that the second film will explore a darker time, one where our principal characters will have to choose where their allegiances lie.
Currently, the an intriguing tidbit of plot is in the casting of Johnny Depp as Gellert Grindelwald. Grindelwald was the original Voldemort: a dark wizard searching for power by any means necessary. Before becoming infamous for his evil and for his defeat by Dumbledore, he was friends with everyone’s favorite headmaster of Hogwarts. Together they sought to find the Deathly Hallows and to revolutionize the Wizarding World by revealing magic to Muggles and ruling over them.
Dumbledore, blinded by deeper feelings for his friend, eventually had a falling out with Grindelwald. This was due to the death of his sister Ariana Dumbledore during a duel between Dumbledore, his brother Aberforth, and Grindelwald.
Is this the plot for the second Fantastic Beasts film? An exploration of the rise of the OG dark wizard and the beginning of Albus Dumbledore coming to be known as one of the most powerful wizards ever?
Only time and spoilers will tell.
(11/05/16 3:44pm)
by Zach Sexton and Daley Wilhelm
“¿Quién es 'Sombra'?"
Who is Sombra?
Well, now we finally know. She’s a sassy hacker with a fabulous manicure and nerve enough to manipulate Reaper and to “boop” world leaders on the nose. She was finally announced yesterday at BlizzCon via a stunning cinematic short, after a not so stunning ARG that’s been confusing fans since July.
To preface, an alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive experience that takes place in the “real world” for informational exploration of a fictional one. The users, the players or those who participate, are the center of the overall experience design. ARGs are meant to connect players on a more personal level to the world and story of a game. This also creates a new form of guerilla marketing that goes beyond teaser trailers.
The ARG of discovering the identity of the shadowy character known as Sombra seemed fitting, one of the only things players knew was that she was a hacker of sorts. So it followed that tracking her down would involve code breaking and familiarity with hexadecimal numbers. This however, follows a list of “boring premises” set out by Dan Hon, an award-winning storyteller and game designer, in his Ted Talk on ARGs.
This question as to Sombra’s identity had been posed to Overwatch fans at the very launch of the game. Blizzard’s Sombra ARG dragged on, and fans had turned from frustrated to apathetic. After leaked photos and the rumor that the character would be revealed at this weekend’s BlizzCon, the consensus is that ARG players were ready for this game to be over.
Initially, the Sombra ARG had a promising start this July, despite the name “Sombra” being revealed with the game’s launch. The mysterious Sombra was established as the focus of the ARG with the release of Ana. In the new hero video for Ana, a series of barcodes were shown, which when scanned, gave players a series of hexadecimal numbers. When those were converted into a QR code, players were treated to the message,
“Was that easy? Well, now that I have your attention, allow me to make things much more difficult.”
And so the game began, for those who knew what hexadecimal numbers were anyway.The game then immediately came to a grinding halt. With the release trailer for the Summer Games event, players were treated to a cipher text that has still yet to be solved. The ARG was indeed made “much more difficult” as Sombra teased.
The ARG did a good job at setting the theme and tone of the character the game was ultimately meant to reveal. However, as it went on, it left it’s humble and accessible beginnings and become borderline convoluted, yielding little results. The puzzles were nonstop and sometimes uninteresting and only led to yet more puzzles. ARGs usually have some sort of narrative or goal, but there wasn’t any existence of it in this experience. There was also no form of incentive for this ARG. Sombra would have been released if people did or did not participate.
For those who did participate, average players felt alienated. Average players cannot invest time or resources into decrypting hexcode day and night, as some purported “Game Detectives” did. Even those who had invested all their time were often found frustrated on places like Reddit because Blizzard kept changing the experience, involving more and more puzzles. It felt as if someone at Blizzard was trying to show off how clever they are, actively working to stump players rather than help them along. It felt as though the game was working against people, when it really should have been an experience of progression with them.
In the mechanics of the ARG, it involved a series of nonstop decoding and analyzing of datamosh screenshots, code, and script. Most ARGs use elements like these at some point, but this experience has been reliant on this mechanics for most of its tenure. It’s essentially just busy-work. The biggest issue was the constant design of having player’s wait for the next step. Countdowns are simply, boring, and not worth it.
There also seemed to be a lack of care for the eventual release of the character. Essentially, everyone already assumed that Sombra would have been released at BlizzCon, the culmination of decoding and analyzing. All the effort was essentially for nought. With most ARGs, there is a sense of the game being “never fully complete” and an immersion into a world that generates communities and even life-long friendships and relationships (Dan Hon while playing in arguably the best ARG experience The Beast met his wife).
Maybe it's outside changes and development of communities that have changed how ARGs are viewed. The anonymity of Reddit and other forums has created a lack of mutual respect within discussions with others and almost a lack of respect for their findings. Previous ARG experiences used communities within the game as a valuable resource that took time and effort to maintain, and the players really got to know one another and learn together through one experience.
In the end, the Sombra ARG left people clueless and without much satisfaction. Yes, the Internet received Sombra with excited and open arms yesterday, but the ARG never got a conclusive ending, or rather, a lingering one as a good ARG should. The whole experience lacked structure and accessibility, the Sombra ARG was heavily focused on self-credited “game detectives” to solve everything and let the common player just watch.
Overwatch fans seem to be happy for Sombra’s release, but maybe even happier for the end of the convoluted Sombra ARG.
(04/29/16 11:41pm)
On the season finale of The Coven, the witches gather to try and redo a previous LOST episode about body image and reflect on the good and bad examples of representation. Check it out!
(04/25/16 9:28pm)
On a special episode of The Coven, they gather to discuss the world of witchcraft and wizardry that is Harry Potter. Check it out!
(04/21/16 9:16pm)
On a very special episode of the A-Team, Aidan hosts his last show and the group looks back on the best and worst anime of their college career. It's been a long road, and they've been there every step of the way. Check it out!
(04/21/16 9:07pm)
On a special Button Mash, the new editors sit down to talk their favorite films and their new positions. Check it out!
(04/18/16 9:29pm)
Whether its the beauty of Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress or the absurdity of Hai-Furi, they talk about it all this week! Check it out!
(04/18/16 9:26pm)
The Coven's discussing Disney. Whether it's representation, strong female characters or the problem with princesses, they cover it all! Check it out!