Level Up.pdf

T
LeveI 11
They All Want You Dead
Video games are populated with a plethora of beings that want to kill you:
aliens and androids, pirates and parasites, mercenaries and mushroom
people. However, I realize not every video game features slobbering,
sword - wielding enemies — often they use guns too!
Yes, yes. I realize that there are plenty of other video games that use other
forms of conflict, such as time, human competitors, or even the player ’ s own
skill, to challenge the player. But we are not talking about those types of
games 1 . As I flip back to Level 3 , I am reminded of three types of conflict
found in stories: man vs nature (like a hurricane or a giant white whale);
man vs self (where the hero is struggling with an internal problem issue
like “ where to go for lunch 2 ” ) and man vs man, or in the case of video
games, man vs zombie, or man vs ninja pirate, or man vs
hideous - alien - creature - made - from - the - skins - of- your- dead - crewmates.
1 Yet.
2 I have seen large groups of full - grown people completely paralyzed by this internal conflict.