So, for Lent, I'm trying to make at least 1 blog every week. This'll be a short one about subversion.
Particularly, subverting perspective and expectations in in established genres or situations to create a new experience. I touched on this in my previous post, Musing On Spooky.
The key to good, subversion, I feel at least, is to target specific tropes of a genre or scenario and altering them to inspire new feelings in the player without being too far from the genre that it becomes something else.
Zombie Apocalypse is a good place to show how tweaks to the world change the fundamental experience.
The Zombie Apocalypse, as the name implies, is an apocalyptic scenario. Social structure breaks down, removing the relative safety of our social contracts; the priority of skills is completely altered; and death becomes a trivial commonality. Survivors, due to the break down of law, are encouraged and rewarded for clever means of survival by any means necessary.
Here are some consistent tropes/themes of the Zombie Apocalypse :
Constant Threat: Zombies are an infinite and constant threat. There are always more zombies to spawn because the swarm ideology around them means that they are feasibly infinite.
Zombie are Bad: Zombies, both physically and symbolically, hold little positive imagery that would make a player think twice about smashing in a zombie head. This frees the player from most moral restraint in how they deal with zombies.
Driving Survival: Survivors are encouraged to be creative and resourceful to maximize their survival potential due to the constant threat. This naturally generates fierce competition when resources are finite, a staple of most conflict in these situations.
Here are a few ways to subvert zombies.
Non-Hostile Zombies: Without the craving for human flesh, the active threat of zombies disappears. A hoard of zombies becomes a minor annoyance over a terrifying danger. The focus of concern is less the aftermath of zombification, but instead the cause of it. In addition, society is given the chance to rebuild due to the lowered difficulty of a structured rebuilding effort.
Infinite Resources: Without a finite source of materials, surviving involves far less competition. All parties have access to what they need (food, water, medicine, etc) so they have far less reason to attack others. However, this also reduces reasons for cooperation as well, as settlements would be self-sufficient.
Edible Zombies: If zombies became a usable resource, such as food or medicine, their normally useless existence changes to actual value as a resource. Zombies could be hunted and converted into that resource.
Trivial Threat: Similar to my first point, if the threat of zombies was trivialized by either technology or luck or some other means. Zombies lose all symbolism as a threat. Dead Rising had zombies so under control they made a game show about it.
Finite Zombies: It is possible to end a zombie apocalypse by killing all the zombies and infected humans (or curing them). This removes the hopelessness of the infinite zombie hoard. A cooperated killing regime could solve the issue in a matter of weeks.
These are just a few examples of changes to a genre that maintain the core of the genre but ultimately alter the experience of it.
With non-hostile zombies, 7 Days to Die becomes a far more relaxed jaunt across an abandoned landscape. The economy, and core conflict, of Dying Light or Dead Rising would be turned upside down if medicine (Zombrex or Antizan) were readily available or craftable.
Try for yourself with a genre, game, or movie you like and see how you can change something to give a new feeling.
Well that's about it for now. Look forward to more posts from me in the future. Until next time everyone!