Blue curtains, noisy tourists

There is a well-known joke about the cultural analysis that compares the text, reading by the analyst and the real intention of the Creator. He says like this:

Text: The heavy blue curtains barely let out the sunlight.

The analyst: The blue curtains represent the depression in which the protagonist is immersed and how it is preventing him from enjoying the good things in life.

The author s intention: Describe the color of the curtain whores and announce that the room was dark.

The joke is good because deep down has some reason. The individual readings of a work will always be based on the training and culture of the analyst and will benefit or harm their own prejudices. Precisely because of this, many readings can lose sight of the original work to pass on to divar over the own obsessions of those who have to interpret it. Without going further, during these weeks we have been able to see journalists and editors affirming with rotundity that the game of calamar is a criticism of communism even though the creator himself has confirmed that the most satirical part of his fiction was intended to attack dehumanization and The injustices that derive from capitalism. It is true that when dealing with any creation we must try to keep in mind the context (is the English author? Do you know that blue is a color related to sadness?) Or, if we ignore it, at least doing it in a way In which we vehicle our ideas through the work instead of carrying out the opposite process.

But if we ignore the obvious intention of mock of the joke and we are left with the superficial, the message that reaches it can be even more interesting, opening the possibility for the Creator and the analyst to be both in the right. Because when a writer creates images, characters or dialogues, when he is immersed in the most mechanical work, he can not be aware of what he inspires or how most of him are approaching. The work of it is produced from within to outside, and on many occasions the active creation in its most practical slope clashes frontally with self-reflection. Instead, the analyst works from the outside, with the work in the center, experimenting and interiorizing its different characteristics little by little and comparing it in the process with other similar jobs. A good example of this we find it in the saga crepúusulo.

In crepúculo and its successive sequelae and Spin offs Stephenie Meyer intends to narrate the relationship between Bella Swan, a normal and current human teenager who has just moved to the small town of Forks, and Edward Cullen, a centennial vampire that hides to simple Vista assisting the Institute. History has been written, and can be consumed, simply as a romantic account with supernatural dyes in which both protagonists will have to overcome several obstacles to establish a relationship. It is difficult to believe that, by writing her well-known saga, Meyer had in mind the origins of the vampire and, even less, reading him in relation to the difference between classes. And yet, there are there. One of the first things we know about Edward is that he drives a luxury car and comes from one of the richest and most positioned families of Forks. The vampire in the folklore has always been a noble that exploits the subjects of him to the point of needing to drink the blood of him to survive. And although Edward and his family are defined as vegetarians the truth is that the context of which they come from is something that as consumers we can perceive. Not for nothing, the saga 50 shadows, derived directly from crepuscle, transforms the vampire into a millionaire with an absolute necessity of control.

In the specific case of crepúculo, and assuming that the author does not want to speak explicitly of class, what she counts and what she ignores do not contradict at no time but come to strengthen. However, this is not always the case. In other works, such as the recent Moonlow Bay and other similar simulators such as Story of Season: Pioneers of Olive Town, the alleged message to which we are aimed at and the pieces we use to reach it produce a huge dissonance than games like Starkdew Valley or the Saga Animal Crossing have managed to avoid. And it is this dissonance that prevents the game from getting to excite.

In Moonlow Bay we control a character trying to rebuild his life after losing his partner after 30 years of marriage. With the help of the daughter of him, the main character will begin to start the traveling food with which both dreamed while he learns to extract from the sea everything he needs. The game has been defined as an wholesome game in which the community, care and ecologism have a prominent place in the narrative. However, the way in which these elements arise to the player, the missions that are part of and the dialogues in which they explain them, transmit some uneasiness and the impression that they have been added in any way, as elements of A list, without any prior reflection on what they can mean.

As a curtain that is only blue.

As a vampire who does not need blood.

One of the first missions that we are in Moonlow Bay is related to the town aquarium. In several tandas, the person in charge of the institution will ask us to give you a series of fish that can be exposed to illustrate the biodiversity of the bay. Like the Museum in Animal Crossing, the aquarium in Moonlow Bay serves as a compendium of our catches, which helps us to visualize our own progress. However, while in the Nintendo saga, the effort to finish this compendium is disguised as aid from the scientific community, here the one in charge of the aquarium indicates that exposing more fish we will attract more tourists» and, therefore, we can sell More expensive our dishes.

Although Moonglow Bay explicitly admits that one of his objectives is revitalizing the community almost nothing we do - Salvo, perhaps, the mayor s orders - seems focused on helping our own neighbors, beyond improving the economy attracting Visitors This is especially painful when we see that the inhabitants of the Bay seem to be deeply traumatized and needed with much more than a monetary thrust. This objective of reuniting the community is also affected by the constant individualism that we find in the game and its need to raise anecdotal solutions for problems that are clearly structural. At one point, one of our objectives will be fishing marine garbage at the request of a girl who wants everything looks nice with the intention, again, to attract tourists to the beaches. In contrast, obvious references of the title, such as the aforementioned STARDEW VALLEY, do not cut to aim at large corporations and macro-companies as guilty of the rupture of the local economy and discomfort among neighbors. Even Animal Crossing, which has been criticized in many occasions the way in which we poses the selfish use of infinite resources, is capable of framing the beauty of the environment within the framework of personal enjoyment - let s become the island for us., instead of raising it with the intention of taking out economic performance or making others happy.

Moonglow Bay wants to present a much brighter and human version of our world but at no time will stop thinking why he wants to do it or what those elements that could be changed to get it. Is a game in which it costs to deepen and in which, when we do it, it is difficult not to conclude that developers already think we are in the best version of the world possible, in which everything can be fixed with a bit of MONEY MONEY. Here the curtains are only blue. Of a boring blue. And the light that penetrates is so scarce that I wonder if there is no version of this joke about the creators who refuse to self-grant before publishing.