The Souls-like of Dialect

ARG AP3 

D.B 2022

INTRODUCTION

"This project was like the Dark Souls of Dialect!" If that statement confused you, then you've got a jolly amount of learning to do today. Welcome to my third Argument action project, in which throughout the unit we've explored the concept of Hegelian dialect with examples throughout history that we examined. Primarily we looked at the civil rights movement and the type of dialect we could assemble from the situations presented. Hegelian dialect is interesting in that it isn't exactly consistent or black and white like a math formula, where the idea of cause --> effect is never really that straightforward. Which was perfect when looking at the complicated situations we analyzed in a film called "13th", a 2016 film that documents the history of slavery, the civil rights movement, the prison industrial complex, and the abuse placed on the black community.

We also met with a UIC professor at the Latino center (at least I believe that's what it was called) on campus after evaluating research that he had done on the Chicago gang database and an anti-protester piece of technology called Oracle, who gave us extra insight for our questions on his research, along with exploring (in-depth) about the history of protest, protesters, and policing in Chicago.

Ultimately, we were challenged with recognizing our own piece of dialect from the world around us. Sadly, this was done under a small time-frame due to us only having about less two days to prepare and finish this action project, so our dialect was heavily-encouraged not to be too complex in its process.

Below you'll find that I've decided to spend my time analyzing the dialect of a scenario produced from a series a games by the same game company known as FromSoftware. I'll be explaining unfamiliar vocabulary and my passion for the subject below as well, so you have some context for what you're going to be reading. Enjoy. 

CONFESSING MY LOVE

 FromSoftware is a company renowned in gaming history as a producer of consistently challenging games that previous games had never explored the idea of. The most notable difference in these types of games is that there is no "difficulty options" you can choose. Usually a game allows you to pick between easy, medium, or hard. This is not an option for their games, you simply play through it on the difficulty they have set for all players and that the game is designed around. This has spawned a common term used to refer to difficult video games outside of FromSoftware as "Souls-likes," which comes from their previously most famous title: "Dark Souls." It has had such an effect on the development side for games that it's become a type of genre for games to be inspired from, such as Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, or Hades, all of which carry core mechanics from FromSoftware's games into theirs.

The games produced by FromSoftware has had an incredible impact on my life for a variety of reasons. They not only had originally inspired me to pursue my passion of game design, but have taught me that the deaths players experience in-game should not be treated as failure, rather an opportunity to learn from mistakes. 

I'm an incredibly stubborn person and still remain to be to this day, but these games have forced me to accept what I once associated as failure into that learning opportunity. The opportunity to figure out what I took away from that fight, what I could learn from it, what I should look out for, and encouraging me to keep going when I visibly see my progress from my previous attempt. The only time you lose in these games is when you give up on yourself.

In this slideshow, I've conducted a dialect around the idea of movement and speed in these video game titles from the same company, and how their most recent game "Elden Ring" (2022) is a synthesis created by previous lessons learned from their experimentation. 

I will also include a vocabulary list below the slideshow for any words unfamiliar to those that do not play video games, or these types of games.

EXOTIC VOCAB

Gimmick: A type of trick in video games that's either a joke in terms of either comedic or design value. 

Wyvern: A dragon, except now it has spikes on its tail.

Elden Ring: A 2022 game title produced by FromSoftware.

Bloodborne: A 2016 game title produced by FromSoftware.

Dark Souls: A trilogy of games produced by FromSoftware.

CONCLUSION

I have an incredible sense of enjoyment whenever it comes to working on something I'm passionate about, as I believe most people are. It made making this project a lot easier, yet still exciting to work on as I wasn't exactly analyzing all the 5 (Dark Souls 1 - 3, Bloodborne, Elden Ring) games and creating a dialect that summarized how we got from all those games to this one, as that's just an incredibly long line of history that would take me much longer to analyze. Nonetheless I originally had about a books-worth of text for this dialect that I wished I could've used, as there's just a lot of interesting things about not only the games itself, but the design process of it all. Lastly, I really enjoyed the Hegelian dialect as I feel the notes I've taken on it can compliment and be utilized a lot in life. Primarily, my own written conclusion regarding the theory of Hegelian dialect is:

"Don't be original, create a Frankenstein's monster of perfection."

This came from the ideas that I wrote down regarding his theory, which was to learn from ideas you dislike, take what worked from the past, and progress is indeed messy.

It kind of felt like the idea of this dialect was to stitch things together into one finale. The conclusion I noted down doesn't apply to all situations of the usage of this dialect (because once again it's not a black and white cause and effect situation), but rather just a way I valued on how I should approach design and strategy.

Hopefully, you'll see and share the same value I've placed in it within you, along with maybe convincing you to check out some of these games I've talked about. Thank you for reading.