Moacube's Solstice - open threaded discussion
Friday, 1 July 2016 07:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarasa_catHave you played Solstice? Let's talk.
Haven't played Moacube's Solstice? Go play it and come back in 7-9 hours. I'll be here. :D
There be spoilers beyond this cut.
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.
.
.
.
.
.
I don't even know where to begin so I will just toss this starter package of things into the mix.
Go make a threaded comment on a topic of interest! I'll make my own comments below (between doing chores and other random weekend stuff).
Here are some starter questions to pick and choose from. Go go go!
1. The City as a Character: Discuss!
2. What ending did you get first or which ending feels most satisfying to you? Do you think it is fair to call all of them "downer endings"?
3. The cast, diversity, tropes, ...thoughts.
4. Gender: portrayal, tropes, inversions, ...thoughts.
5. Constance. (huh, even the symbolism in her name too. huh!)
6. If you had (or have!) the time & energy to write one fanfic for this game/universe, what would it be?
7. What fanwork would you want to see someone else (not you) create for this game/universe?
8. Thoughts on either of the two optional romances?
9. Meta on the larger theme (the symbolism in the city and what it was created for ... the ultimate meritocracy, etc etc) and how that theme was portrayed.
10. The visuals (so pretty) and the ways in which the visual style of this game is juxtaposed against the theme, characters, and story. Would a AAA game ever have this amount of visual pretty and this cynical a world view? (personally, I can see a japanese game doing that but not an american game.)
11. This is for the media-critters & media-makers: oh wow the WORK put into subtle little things in the animation like the dramatic speed of the text and the various character poses and all the pretty pretty pretty -- that is a lot of work for a teeny tiny indie company (10,000 kudos to them!). I love the look and feel of this game because I am a sucker for pretty visuals. Do you think the story/gameplay would have been as effective if the animation efforts+budget had been scaled back? Would this have worked as well if given very large budget and a larger staff?
12. Comparisons between Solstice and Cinders? I love both but they are different. (to me, different is good and I welcome the differences as I happily roll around in all the artistic pretty).
13. Anything else? Really, just go wild and add comments below with a comment title that vaguely describes your topic of interest.
I need be a responsible adult on and off over the next few days but I will add my thoughts to this post as comments over the next day or so. Please add yours. Please invite people to add theirs. Obviously, spoilers will exist.
I think I have everything set up so anyone can comment no matter if they are a DW or an LJ user (this is crossposted to both). DW users can track this post for new comments.
.
List of threads / thread-starters:
Haven't played Moacube's Solstice? Go play it and come back in 7-9 hours. I'll be here. :D
There be spoilers beyond this cut.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I don't even know where to begin so I will just toss this starter package of things into the mix.
Go make a threaded comment on a topic of interest! I'll make my own comments below (between doing chores and other random weekend stuff).
Here are some starter questions to pick and choose from. Go go go!
1. The City as a Character: Discuss!
2. What ending did you get first or which ending feels most satisfying to you? Do you think it is fair to call all of them "downer endings"?
3. The cast, diversity, tropes, ...thoughts.
4. Gender: portrayal, tropes, inversions, ...thoughts.
5. Constance. (huh, even the symbolism in her name too. huh!)
6. If you had (or have!) the time & energy to write one fanfic for this game/universe, what would it be?
7. What fanwork would you want to see someone else (not you) create for this game/universe?
8. Thoughts on either of the two optional romances?
9. Meta on the larger theme (the symbolism in the city and what it was created for ... the ultimate meritocracy, etc etc) and how that theme was portrayed.
10. The visuals (so pretty) and the ways in which the visual style of this game is juxtaposed against the theme, characters, and story. Would a AAA game ever have this amount of visual pretty and this cynical a world view? (personally, I can see a japanese game doing that but not an american game.)
11. This is for the media-critters & media-makers: oh wow the WORK put into subtle little things in the animation like the dramatic speed of the text and the various character poses and all the pretty pretty pretty -- that is a lot of work for a teeny tiny indie company (10,000 kudos to them!). I love the look and feel of this game because I am a sucker for pretty visuals. Do you think the story/gameplay would have been as effective if the animation efforts+budget had been scaled back? Would this have worked as well if given very large budget and a larger staff?
12. Comparisons between Solstice and Cinders? I love both but they are different. (to me, different is good and I welcome the differences as I happily roll around in all the artistic pretty).
13. Anything else? Really, just go wild and add comments below with a comment title that vaguely describes your topic of interest.
I need be a responsible adult on and off over the next few days but I will add my thoughts to this post as comments over the next day or so. Please add yours. Please invite people to add theirs. Obviously, spoilers will exist.
I think I have everything set up so anyone can comment no matter if they are a DW or an LJ user (this is crossposted to both). DW users can track this post for new comments.
.
List of threads / thread-starters:
Gender tropes
Date: Saturday, 2 July 2016 03:49 am (UTC)A. Yani & Galen, and the inversion of the tired old "Mother Nature/Father Science" trope, although a lot of media has inverted this for years now (Scully & Mulder). Still, glad to see it inverted again. Yani is definitely the Scientific Scully Skeptic in this world.
B. Meanwhile, point A is juxtaposed with the gender essentialist "magical female" trope regarding how sensitive women are to the solstice, etc.
C. The obvious sexism and gendered roles regarding how the city works: men from the families hold outward power, women less so. And how "every beautiful woman -- Constance, Slava, even Laura - can come into and leave the Families' quarters without permission" (so says Istvan). *cough*
D. Constance, who is a discussion point of her own, although my first playthrough revealed enough about her past that I feel ... she's a well handled trope? She ends up being a complete deconstruction of the High-class Courtesan. Also, many of the characters in the game appear to underestimate Constance yet, in the end, she is the force who is willing to sacrifice (and unlucky others) herself for people's freedom. Villain? Hero? Sliding-scale no doubt. Once I hit chapter 5, I was digging the deconstruction that the writers put into Constance. But I can also see how her characterization could be controversial?
...
Handling of gender in just about any story is probably guaranteed to be a mixed bag -- an author's choices isn't going to work for everyone. (there is a whole different discussion about m/m slash popularity to be had here, but that is for another day). Personally, I find it comforting at times to escape into stories that present sexism in a matter of fact way. After all, sexist world. Acknowledged. On the other hand, I sort of want those stories to tackle sexism and power, even in subtle ways. I ... sort of feel this story does that although I am still forming words.
(also, I am really hungry and need food.)
This is a placeholder for future thought and an invitation for more thought.