Tag: games

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Arts and Culture

From dice to devices: Exploring the digital renaissance of board games

In-person or online, gaming experiences are multiple in player perspectives.

Board games have undergone a resurgence in the digital age in the past twenty years, bridging the gap between traditional experiences and virtual platforms. For example, games like Catan (1995), which got an online version in 2005, the old and popular tabletop role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons (1974), with its first digital platform came out in 2006, and even ancient chess exemplify the successful transition of classic games into immersive digital formats. 

This fusion of technology and board gaming not only preserves the essence of beloved titles but also introduces innovative elements, ushering and unlocking an era of interconnected play. The perspectives are plural. Three professionals from the gaming industry shared their perspective about the renaissance of these games and their impact in game culture.

“I play Dungeons and Dragons with my high school friends. During the pandemic, for example, most of us were living together in the same apartment, so it was a great escape from all the weirdness and great pretext to see each other,” Simon Gervais said. 

To Gervais, online board games or tabletops don’t necessarily threaten any gaming experience; they can allow people to practice when an in-person meeting is not accessible, for example. 

“Online versions truly make it more accessible for people that may not have a group of friends, or don’t have a group to play, or simply don’t want to leave their home. There’s no bad side—it’s more time management related,” Gervais said.

Stanley Gee-Silverman, who plays online chess and Catan with random people almost every day, believes that games like chess create their own desire to make time, as opposed to being a time fill. 

“It lets you play many more games than you normally could, against many different people,” he said. “It allows you to share your hobby with people around the world, who are similar to you. They are from everywhere: Brazil, Turkey, China, France, the U.S., Germany…” 

Gee-Silverman doesn’t think that these new online versions will threaten friendly gatherings. “It can make people do it more. And like most things, if that feels [playing online] like it is happening, you can evaluate your experience to keep it or not. They are two different things, two different perspectives and experiences,” Gee-Silverman said. “It’s opened, one doesn’t replace the other.” 

Faris Musallam believes that board games turning into online versions sound great. According to him, people normally want to play board games for their social aspect. If they are into the game more than the social aspect, it’s cool for them to have a way to play without finding people to play with. 

“If I don’t have real people to play with, I just don’t play them. That’s because I value the social aspect. People would only be drawn online if the social aspect wasn’t important to them, or if certain constraints prevent them from meeting physically,” says Musallam.

In essence, the shift of board games to digital platforms over the past two decades represents more than just a transition; it’s an expansion of the board gaming universe and culture, enabling a diverse range of experiences that cater to both traditionalists and those seeking the convenience and connectivity of online play.

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Arts and Culture Community Student Life

Game development club makes space for aspiring creators at JMSB

Karin Etemadi (center) and her team, the Saltshakers, plan out the design elements of their horror game set in the JMSB building on Nov. 3. Photo by Andrae Lerone Lewis.

Participants in Concordia’s Game Development Club (GCD) Game Jam spent last weekend making their dream games.

On Nov. 3, gaming enthusiasts from a variety of skill sets gathered at Concordia University to compete in the once-per-semester game development competition dubbed the Game Jam.

Hosted by Concordia’s Game Development Club (GCD), the event opens the opportunity for aspiring game creators from in and out of the university to demonstrate their skills under a strict 48-hour time limit. Either solo or with a team, Game Jam participants create a video game from scratch using their unique set of skills and expertise.

Maxx Freund, the president of the GCD and fourth-year software engineering student at Concordia, joined the club two years ago, following his interest in gaming and technology. “I joined the GCD knowing nothing about how to make a game and I made a really bad game, but I learned how to do it,” he said. “That was cool, because we had a product that we could be proud of.” 

Three Game Jam iterations later, he’s taken on a role akin to a curator for the event. Freund broke down the creative process behind most teams; ideally, each team’s development process requires for artists to design concepts and characters, for programmers to map out controls, and for other roles to tackle aspects such as music design and game level design.

Each Game Jam offers challenges for would-be developers to complete, including a theme they must base their creation on. Chosen by the club’s executive team, the theme offers “a lot of creative freedom,” according to Freund and may be interpreted differently by each team.  

Timothée Lafont (center right) and his team working on level design for their game Away Back on the sixth floor of the JMSB building on Nov. 3. Photo by Andrae Lerone Lewis.

This semester’s featured theme was “the space between.”  Submissions ranged from traversing alternate realities to surviving alone on a desolate spaceship.

“They’re the best way to get that experience on how to build a game in such a short amount of time,” said Timothee Lafont, a teacher in game design at LaSalle College. “It pushes you to come up with clever ideas to come up with an engaging game.”

Using Unreal Engine 5, a game development software, Lafont’s team planned to make a puzzle game that would warp around the player as time passed. Along with his team of concept artists, Lafont aimed to make the game visually remarkable with unique  level and character design. He was confident in his team’s ability to accomplish the task before the time limit.

Another team, headed by Karin Etemadi, a student in cell molecular biology at Concordia, started plans for a game set in space where the player must survive monsters in a desolate spaceship. A first-timer, Etemadi said she did not know what challenges her team, “the Saltshakers,” would face, but they aimed to produce a working model nonetheless.

Both teams successfully submitted their work in time for the event’s closing ceremony on Nov. 5 at Concordia’s John Molson School of Business. The results will be determined in the coming weeks.

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Arts Arts and Culture Culture Student Life

Morocco and feminism embodied in a card game        

Donia Zahir of Darone working. Photo by Serena Abouljoud.

Two Moroccan artists share their journey through the production of a card game that transmits their culture and values.

This interview features the creators of Darone, Safae Mounsif, also known as, Sfiya, and Donia Zahir, discussing their production of a card game that offers a glimpse of Morocco through a feminist lens. The cards can be used to play any game, but they were originally inspired by the game Ronda. Learn more about their work at their website here or on their Instagram @darone.art.        

Serena Abouljoud: Let’s start from the beginning. How did the two of you meet? What made you want to start this project together?

Sfiya: So, I’m a visual artist and Donia is a web designer. We wanted to use our two skills to make a project from the beginning to the end and to share this experience together. We wanted to create a medium that will be different from a painting, something that will be more accessible to the user. In visual arts, you always have this distance between you and the artwork. You can’t always touch it or understand it. We wanted to remove this distance and use a medium that people can touch and that will create a kind of socialization. This is why we thought of a card game. People can touch it, use it, and play with it.

Donia Zahir: Before Darone, we worked a lot together, mainly on Sfiya’s projects. We worked a lot on her exposition “H’RIRA,” which was around the theme of Morocco, and one of her projects was a card from the card game Ronda. When I saw it, I felt something there, I had this image of when I was young and playing Ronda. Then at that moment, we were like, we should do a card game that represents the people from Morocco.

SA: Can you tell me more about the aspects of Morocco and the concepts that inspired this card game?

Sfiya: We got directly inspired by Ronda, which is very popular among Moroccans. Playing Ronda with the family and neighbors is something very important in our culture. In Morocco, you can’t just go karting or bowling, you have to create these activities within the house, and so cards are amazing for that since you have endless game options. We liked the idea of connecting this memory of us playing cards and revisiting it.

DZ: Ronda is actually a Spanish game, so there are a lot of white men and for me, that did not really represent our country or culture. We felt it was important to reproduce this card game using our own images of Morocco.

Sfiya: We kept the same symbols, but we replaced the old Spanish characters with Moroccan ones. We made a few changes to fit our values too. For example, this is a feminist card game—the most powerful card of the game is the queen. Our kings are babies, the children of the queens. All our knights are women with motorcycles. In Morocco, the only city where you see women riding motorcycles is Marrakesh. Each time we go there, we are just so fascinated. All these women were riding motorcycles, while still wearing their Djellabas and Kaftans. This is all coming from our version of Moroccan feminism.

DZ: We added symbols that would fit the concept of our collection too. The knives for example, are from Morocco. Our queens are also dancers. We wanted the cards to represent how we see our country every day and the power of feminists from Morocco. 

Sfiya: In Morocco, it’s called “shikhat” and up to now, they are very controversial figures because they were the first women to have a free relationship with their bodies. The first to think about politics, love, relationships and sexuality. They would sing and dance in front of a mixed audience, and they were often related to prostitution because of their relationship with their bodies. For us, they were icons, Moroccan feminists, which is why we wanted to have them as the queens of the game.

SA: Is there a piece that you are particularly proud of or that holds a lot of significance to you?

DZ: I feel like mine is the warrior on the bike with a knife, where she’s almost screaming. It’s a beautiful and powerful card. I think it’s one of our best ones.

Sfiya: For me, it’s the queen with the tea being poured on her. She looks very happy. Some people see something very sexual in it, but I don’t. When I was drawing it, I felt it represented freedom, the ability to dance and be a bit provocative. 

SA: How did you combine your artistic skills for this project?

DZ: At first, we disagreed about the style. Sfiya wanted something that looked like a painting, and I wanted something cleaner, more numeric, and refined. It was challenging for me to adapt to her style.

Sfiya: Yeah. For me, it was good exercise to try and get out of my comfort zone. Donia is also a graphic designer, so when she tells me that these colors won’t work, or comments on anything technical, I trust her opinion. We trust each other.

DZ: We did a lot of compromising as well. The first drawing Sfiya made, I redid it in a more comic-like style. I defined the lines a bit more, but she insisted I keep using painting brushes, so I tried following her style. It was hard not to have something completely clean. 

SA: Are your drawings mainly digital or did you implement other styles and techniques as well?

Sfiya: It’s all digital, but it somehow looks like a painting because I’m a painter. It was not even done on purpose, it’s just my way of doing digital art. We also wanted to make these cards different from other types of cards. We wanted them to be simple and clean, but also artsy so it won’t look too rigid as a drawing. I think the artistic brushes are what makes them unique.

Serena Abouljoud: What did the production process look like?

Sfiya: The process of creating the cards was very long. We went through two different phases. At first, Donia was waiting for me to finish the drawings, then I was waiting for her to finish the graphic design work, which is taking my drawings, framing them, and doing all the regulations.

DZ: I was in charge of the more technical aspects and printing related things. Our first tries were completely different from what we ended up producing. We changed the colors a lot. We started with lighter ones, then we decided to go with more powerful shades. It was difficult to find balance but once we found it, we immediately moved on to the production.

Sfiya: One of the most challenging parts of the production was trying to find a place to print the cards. We wanted to be ethical about it because it’s a project that meant a lot to us, we had many of our values injected into it, and so we wanted to be proud of not just our creation, but also the way we produced it.

DZ: After months and months of looking, we finally found someone. Our deck turned out a bit different because we did not use classic paper. We used a type of paper that does not exist in Canada but has much better quality.  

Sfiya: Yes, it’s better because it’s waterproof and you can’t tear it apart. We wanted it to be sustainable so that people can have it for years, and for kids to be able to play with it and manipulate it without being worried. We could have printed them in some place much cheaper, but we wanted to make sure we do it here to help local and family businesses, and with people we like and share the same values with.

SA: What is the meaning behind the name of your business?

DZ: We thought about it a lot. We wanted a name that is meaningful and shows that we are a feminist company. Darone is basically Ronda, the game we got inspired by, but in reverse. Darone is also a powerful way to say “the mother” in French: the mother of a family, a group, the boss of the house.

Sfiya: When you use the word “Darone,” it does not necessarily relate to having a child—it’s about being a powerful yet caring woman. In our card game, the queen is the most powerful figure, and the king is the child of the queen, which makes her a Darone.   

DZ: We talked about it a lot and in the end, we thought this was obviously the best name for the company and the concept in general. 

Categories
Arts

Squid Game’s striking portrayal of modern capitalist society

Squid Game has captivated audiences across the world with it’s twisted mix of Korean childhood games and violent massacres, but the show’s hidden message says more than audiences might think

Warning: Spoilers ahead, but no violent details will be discussed. 

If there is one series that has been on everyone’s lips, it’s no doubt the record-breaking Netflix show Squid Game. With more than 111 million viewers across the world, the visionary Korean series by Hwang Dong-hyuk has turned into the streaming service’s biggest debut show of all time.

The show is a striking mix of violence, pastel-coloured playgrounds and cinematic suspense, exhibiting masterful storytelling throughout. Despite only having nine episodes, the plot allows for immense character development; no one is painted one-dimensionally in Hwang’s explosive universe. In fact, the human complexity of each character is possibly one of the show’s greatest strengths.

The main character, Seong Gi-hun, with his irresponsible spending habits and poor parenting skills, doesn’t immediately tug at the audience’s heart strings; however, as the game progresses, we discover his light-hearted humour, good intentions and the almost foolish extent of his trust, all of which end up endearing him to us.

Meanwhile, the main character’s childhood best friend, Cho Sang-woo, isn’t the kind of person we would expect to fall into financial ruin. A business graduate at the top of his class, Cho is intelligent and clearly ambitious, but he finds himself trapped by excessive debt after his investments and business plans go wrong.

The range and contrast of characters prove that it isn’t only the most vulnerable which are affected by our society’s economic system. In fact, the show does a great job of showing a compelling and deeply symbolic interpretation of modern capitalist society overall.

For every single character, the world beyond childhood ultimately becomes a competitive hamster wheel in the search for economic stability. Eventually, financial failure marks their inevitable downfall into oblivion.

At first glance, it might be our instinct to blame the characters for their demise. It can be tempting to dismiss the players of the game as people willing to ditch their moral compass for money — but Hwang highlights an important distinction, making it clear that it’s not simply greed driving the players. When each person stares at the 45.6 billion won reward ($38.6 million USD), each one of them sees a different kind of salvation.

Abdul Ali, a Pakistani immigrant in the show, goes to South Korea in search of a better life, but is trapped by an exploitative boss. Unable to provide for his wife and newborn son, he joins the game to provide for his family.

One of the show’s more reserved characters, Kang Sae-byeok, is a North Korean defector. We are told that she flees North Korea with her little brother in search of a better life, but she ends up losing all of her money trying to broker an escape plan for her mother, who was returned to North Korea.

Kang turns to the game as a way to get her brother out of the orphanage he’s living in and rescue her mother — she has no great plans for spending the prize money otherwise. When asked about her wildest ambition she simply says she’d visit “Jeju Island” a South Korean tourist destination she once saw on the TV.

The point is, Hwang’s characters are not bad people, they’re just human. Their circumstances and poor financial decisions don’t mean that they deserve to live in perpetual poverty. The real question is why the capitalist system gives them no chance at redemption.

Much like in the game, if they stumble or fall, they end up eliminated from the race.

Squid Game might seem like a radical alternate universe at times, but as viewers we’re being asked to compare our society with that in the game; on the one hand you have the game exploiting people’s desperation for entertainment, on the other you have our society exploiting  people through loans, gambling and debt.

At least the game asks for the players’ consent before participating, and offers them some kind of financial compensation. Meanwhile, capitalist society fails to offer financial freedom to every character on the show, and never asks for consent before imposing itself upon them.

Society’s economic disparity is so evident on the show, that the rich sponsors of the game are convinced that they are doing the players a favour by creating a game where there is a small chance for them to improve their lives — even though the consequence is death.

Despite this, the show provides us with glimpses of hope in the form of individual acts of kindness. Beyond the violent executions and dramatic blood-splatterings, several characters display a level of compassion which has no other reason than a core desire to be kind.

Throughout the show, Seong consistently watches out for Oh Il-nam, an elderly man hopelessly participating in the games. Oh’s vulnerability is in sharp contrast to the game’s violence, and his fragility ends up moving Seong into aligning with him. Even though we know that the alliance is not strategic, we still root for Oh’s well-being because he appeals to our humanity.

Creator Hwang gives us several other glimpses at the characters’ better nature, early on in the show we see Ali rescue Seong during the red light, green light game by preventing his fall when he accidentally trips while running. By holding on to Seong, Ali risks his own life, but this one act of courage allows the main character to keep playing the game.

The insinuation is that, although human nature might have ruthlessness, it also has kindness. Our economic and social systems can bring out either one of these two streaks, and in an ideal world — one where the Squid Game wouldn’t seem like a possibility —  our society would guide us into being better, more compassionate people, where economic ruthlessness alone doesn’t determine our fate.

 

Graphic by James Fay

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