from the Don't-leave-yet-There's-a-demon-around-that-corner! dept.
This week, Doom joined the first-ever class of the World Video Game Hall of Fame, and its reasons for being inducted now seem obvious in hindsight—particularly how the game table-flipped our expectations of things like 3D design and gun-wielding action. A few weeks before the game received that honor, game developer and educator Elizabeth LaPensée offered a less typical claim about what might have made the game so special at the time: its connection to Native American culture.
LaPensée counts Doom co-designer John Romero as a friend—along with his legendary game-designing wife, Brenda Romero—and she is intimately familiar with John's Cherokee and Yaqui heritage. As such, she brings up a topic game historians typically don't: "Something funny happened when John Romero became famous," she said. "He became white."
Doom's potential connections to Native culture go farther than that, though. "I have a theory," LaPensée said from her home in Oregon. "John Romero broke ground with Doom, but what was it that he was doing? He was expanding dimensional space in that game." The PhD graduate from Simon Fraser University, and her family, were familiar with concepts like dimensional space well before they could be related to the alternate realities of games like Doom. She talked about the teachings she drew upon as a member of the Anishinaabe and Métis communities—along with those of other communities like the Cree—and their commonalities.
"[Our communities] have always related in multiple dimensions," she said. "I believe that influenced John's work and influenced games as a whole."
If indigenous cultures lend themselves well to software, perhaps Lamaist monasteries could be the world's next great programming centers?
Original Submission
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Monday June 08 2015, @08:26PM
Or, you know, and one of hundreds of science fictions books that rely on exactly the same concept. Personally I think relating it to native American culture in any way is a big stretch and "acting white" is a little racist.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2015, @09:17PM
It also ignores the 20 or so other people who were involved in making that game.
It seemed more of homage aliens/the thing/scifi genera than anything. Did not really see native american influences at all.
DOOM was what it was because there was nothing else really like it. The hype around it was pretty intense. http://www.trilobite.org/spispopd/spispopd-faq.html [trilobite.org]
It was also one of the first games where I realized motion sickness is a thing... :(
(Score: 2, Insightful) by TWX on Monday June 08 2015, @10:21PM
Yeah, I see a lot of Lovecraftian and other vintage horror influences, even some homage to Warhammer 40k. Admittedly I am no expert on American indigenous work or thought, but what I have seen has always seemed more abstract than the in-your-face nature of the action in most of the id Software games.
Besides, the plot in these games is paper-thin, literally just what's printed on the back of the box on the introduction page of the installation booklet. The point of the game isn't the plot, it's to violently kill things and get one's adrenaline going with FM-synth midi overdriven guitar...
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS...
and everywhere the language went, it was a total loss.
(Score: 1) by pasky on Monday June 08 2015, @08:26PM
So the main claim seems to be that Doom (that very famous 90s FPS) has brought Native American influence to computer games.
What influence in particular? Anyone got that?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JNCF on Monday June 08 2015, @09:09PM
TFS ended LaPensée's quotation a line too early (at least for my tastes):
“[Our communities] have always related in multiple dimensions,” she said. “I believe that influenced John’s work and influenced games as a whole."
"I can't prove that!" she added.
So it seems like this is one woman's speculation, which she openly recognises as possibly flawed and totally infalsifiable. That's fine, I like interesting speculations.
In Doom, an interdimensional portal is opened up as a result of humans experimenting with teleportation on Mars. Demonic beings start coming out of the portal, and the player/protagonist has to slaughter the transdimensional immigrants. The player/protagonist then goes through the teleporter and ends up visiting something that at least resembles hell, murdering all of the demons there as well. Finally he goes back to earth, and finds that it has been overrun with demons.
I'm not very familiar with Native American culture, and I can't say how much these memes (the interdimensional and the apocalyptic) resemble the memes of that culture as opposed to those of the dominant culture of North America. It might be interesting to hear Romero's thoughts on the matter.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 09 2015, @12:18AM
You read TFA? You must be new here ;-)
Yes, I too know little about American tribal cultures to be able to discern what aspects of Doom or other games are specifically related to them. But it was an interesting thought so I submitted the article. Usually the only non-Western culture you see well represented in games is Japanese, which is always apparent because of their general lack of a linear story arc, good vs. evil dualities, or clear resolutions. Instead, you get a lot of inversions where good turns to evil and vice versa, because Japanese don't tend to think you're either one or the other but shifting combinations of both that change with context; it's a lot more realistic, I think, but it can also sometimes feel unsatisfying to Western audiences.
So it would be interesting to explore games that are specifically influenced by American Indian cultures, or Indian Indians or Africans as a window into their worldview.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:46PM
Sounds more like a Lovecraft homage to me....
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday June 09 2015, @01:27AM
Probably what taking a shitload of Peyote looks and sounds like.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2015, @08:26PM
I am not interested in games - I haven't played one in couple decades - but this is an interesting angle.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by tibman on Monday June 08 2015, @08:44PM
Checkout http://agar.io/ [agar.io]
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday June 08 2015, @09:45PM
Why use Doom as the example instead of Prey?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_%28video_game%29 [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2015, @09:56PM
So what? What difference should it make? I've never heard him referred to as Native American, just as I've never heard him referred to as white. Maybe the reason game historians don't bring it up is because it doesn't matter. Its the work that matters, not the race. Sounds crazy, I know.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2015, @11:36PM
(Score: 1) by KGIII on Tuesday June 09 2015, @03:46AM
I would have thought that the Native American aspect would have gone to Oregon Trail.
Anyhow, no... No monastery is likely to be of any help. I have been to Nepal and sought refuge (tranquility and education were my goals - my mind is not easily stilled, as if my rambling posts were not indicative of this) and there may be an office with electricity, it may have a computer, and it may well have internet access. Most monks are not going to use this and, even if they could, they are unlikely to create a game that anybody will want to play.
I shall make for you a story, a koan perhaps, with which you may do as you please.
Gamer: "So, I downloaded this game that you monks wrote, it has a blank screen except where I am told to press Enter over and over again."
Monk Tech Support: "Pressing Enter is the game."
The gamer thought for a bit, hung up the phone without a word, returned to the game, pressed enter, and was enlightened.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dyingtolive on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:34AM
Still sounds more entertaining than what comes out of EA anymore.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @01:17PM
Hmm, die of dysentery or buy an EA game... decisions, decisions...
(Score: 1) by KGIII on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:07PM
Enlightenment - It's in the game!
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @05:05PM
So all those times tech support told me "it's working as designed" they were actually trying to lead me to enlightenment?
I suddenly feel quite enlightened. Very good koan...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @04:16PM
""John Romero broke ground with Doom, but what was it that he was doing? He was expanding dimensional space in that game." The PhD graduate from Simon Fraser University, and her family, were familiar with concepts like dimensional space well before they could be related to the alternate realities of games like Doom. She talked about the teachings she drew upon as a member of the Anishinaabe and Métis communities—along with those of other communities like the Cree—and their commonalities."
um, what exactly does 'dimensional space' mean here? i mean, isn't all space dimensional? i eat, sleep, shit, shave, and shower in dimensional space everyday but i suddenly feel unfamiliar with it...
"[Our communities] have always related in multiple dimensions,"
again, wth does that mean? can i use this in a trash-talk session? "yo, i related with yo mom in multiple dimensions. i be yo multiple dimension daddy."