this is the closest thing i have to a RUA icon
okay so i haven't used this thing in forever and this is clearly a wonderful sane thing to come back to with it but i need to post it somewhere and it's entirely plurk's fault.
so. if you haven't played Robot Unicorn Attack yet, play it get sucked in like the rest of us
and then read this 1900+ word monster.
Robot Unicorn Attack:
The Stealth Metaphor for George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four
by Miri
At first glance, this simple flash game would not seem to have much connection with the infamous work of literature by Orwell. The metaphor that runs through it is indeed very subtle, and in this essay I intend to explain the many parallels the two share.
The player 'character of the game', insofar as this applies, is the eponymous robotic unicorn. The object of the game is to achieve the highest score one can within three rounds. The score is increased by the length of time playing, the amount of fairies the player catches, and the amount of stars the player destroys. The speed of the unicorn's movement increases with the score; it is outside the player's control. There is no end to the game; it continues until the unicorn is killed, either by running into one of the stars or into a wall. Already, one can see the parallels beginning to show themselves, but let us take them in order.
The unicorn, of course, represents Winston Smith. It is a robot, signifying Smith's role in 'the machine' of the Party as well as his stunted emotions (especially at the beginning of the novel), but its form is that of a unicorn. To begin with, unicorns' templates are horses. Horses have been used before in Orwell's novels to signify the workforce - see Animal Farm - and the metaphor holds true still, as Winston is simply another grunt in the Outer Party.
But of course, there is more to this metaphor. If a horse would have sufficed, the creators could have created a very different game, but they chose a unicorn for a reason. Unicorns are a fantasy creature, representative of both human innocence and human belief. They are legends, and therefore a product of human imagination. All of this falls under the umbrella of 'thoughtcrime' in 1984's dystopic world, and it is of thoughtcrime that Smith is guilty. He dares to dream of "golden fields", believes (some would say naively) in the "spirit of Man", and his relationship with Julia has been compared to a teenage romance - far more innocent in nature than the loveless marriages solely for the purposes of childbearing of the rest of the Party.
Julia, too, is represented in the game. She is the fairies that the unicorn catches. The fey of legend are mischievous, often beautiful, tricksters, sometimes sensuous, and easily dazzle mortals. Julia's beauty captures Winston's interest even before he truly understands it, she takes joy in breaking the rules in small ways (her sexual trysts with Party members, wearing make-up and a frock when she and Winston are alone, for example), her skills of deception are far above Winston's own, and she is highly sexual - indeed, Winston's declaration that "The more men you've been with the more I love you" shows it is a desirable trait. She dazzles humanity into Winston, and brings fulfillment into his life - this is represented not only by the score within the game, but the sparkle-effect which occurs whenever the unicorn 'captures' the fairy.
Said fairies are non-robotic, to contrast the far more human Julia with the somewhat Party-broken Winston. The more the unicorn catches, the higher the point score for each becomes - this represents both the increase in Winston's quality of life as he spends more time with Julia, and the increase in danger that these increased meetings bring.
The stars that the unicorn must destroy in order to continue the game could be said to represent the doctrine of the Party, and this would be a reasonable assumption. However, given that the other objects in the game represent characters, it is more likely that the stars represent the other main character: O'Brien. Taking into account that within the novel, O'Brien represents the fully-indoctrinated Party member as well as the Party ideology itself, this is fitting for the first reason as well as those more specific to O'Brien as a character himself.
Stars are drenched in the same mystical symbolism as unicorns and fairies. Simply from that, one would expect the stars to be 'on your side', as it were, to provide a collectable score upgrade in the same manner as the fairies or some similar helpful attribute. In reality, simply touching a star results in death. The metallic 'clang' of the robot unicorn crashing into the star implies that the star is made of a harder, more impenetrable metal than the unicorn - that O'Brien's Party 'roboticism' is more complete than Winston's. The stars can be defeated, but only by the 'attack' - signified by the unicorn's rainbow-blurred charge. Rainbows have a biblical connection and are considered natural beauty, both of which the Party sees no use for. They are a remnant of freedom, of 'oldthink', and it is that, symbolically, which can defeat O'Brien/the Party doctrine.
There is one obstacle in the game which cannot be defeated, however: the walls. These are intermittent but ever-present, single-hit kills with no weakness, against which the rainbow attack results in nothing but death. These, of course, represent Big Brother. Big Brother is an immovable, unstoppable force in the novel. The giant face becomes a wall, emotionless and in a strange way faceless in itself. The face ceases to be, and only represents: the wall in Robot Unicorn Attack represents the stoic, true impenetrability of Big Brother. The only respite is gained through leaping from platform to platform, over every obstacle the walls place. Occasionally a correctly-timed rainbow attack may prevent death if the jump angle is correct, which signifies how human spirit can survive Big Brother in rare cases, but in reality all the players (and Winston and Julia) are doing is postponing the inevitable conclusion. This strategy cannot save you every time you mistime your jump.
Significantly, the death that the robot unicorn suffers is exactly the same whether it is at the hands of the star or the wall. O'Brien and Big Brother's Ministry of Love are practically one and the same - they are certainly intrinsically connected in the novel - and this indicates that death by O'Brien's hand is exactly the same as death by Big Brother himself.
The dolphins that appear on the lower part of the screen with every set of 5000 points represent the proles. They do not interact with the walls, stars, fairies or the unicorn and have no effect on gameplay, they multiply and grow without regard for the game's events, and yet the higher the score (viz., the better quality of Winston's life) the more appear. This has resonance in how much deeper into the prole territory Winston and Julia go with their private rebellion, renting the room and Julia's use of prole makeup and frocks. The proles remain unaffected in any significant way by the events of the novel, indeed, of the events within the Party in general. "Animals and proles are free", and indeed, the dolphin is the animal we most associate with a free and easy life. The proles and the characters do not interact in any significant way, the prole characters we see are devices more than anything else, but the scene with Winston admiring the vitality of the prole mother in the garden is reminiscent of modern trips to view dolphins in their wild habitats to admire them.
The gameplay, too, is reminiscent of the novel. The theme, to begin with, is one associated with childhood, innocence, ease, positive things, and yet the game is frantic and constantly sends you conflicting messages - you might start one 'run' with the message 'Chase your dreams!', yet the next might say 'Persistence is futile!', and the screen that appears when you die gleefully declares that 'You failed to achieve your dreams'. This dichotomy represents the theory of doublethink, of believing in two contradictory truths at once ('I play this game to win', 'Winning is impossible', and yet the player does not give up even though persistence is futile) but also of the irony presented in the names of the Party buildings. The Ministries of Love, Peace, Truth and Plenty are concerned with their exact opposites; the game's theme creates a similar contradiction in the mind of the player. It looks like it should be far kinder than it is.
The soundtrack, too, is significant. It represents in a general sense the insipid, meaningless music that the Ministry of Truth releases for the proles, but (as in the novel) it holds more significance than they intended. Consider the lyrics:
Open your eyes I see
Your eyes are open
Wear no disguise for me
Come into the open
When it's cold outside
Am I here in vain?
Hold on to the night
There will be no shame
Always, I wanna be with you
And make believe with you
And live in harmony,
harmony oh love
The song refers - obliquely - to Big Brother, and the relationship he theoretically has with the people. You cannot wear a disguise to fool Big Brother and his thought police, you are always under scrutiny, always in the open. Times are hard, so like the proles, turn to Big Brother for comfort. Love him, for he always wants to be with you. He always is with you. He is watching you to make sure you live in harmony with his ideals. Significantly, the line "hold on to the night" has resonance with Winston's "place where there is no darkness". The night, in this case, is preferable - the 'place with no darkness' is the Ministry of Love. The song warns against it, for good reason; the Ministry of Love breaks the mind, heart and soul completely, it induces shame, but in the night - the darkness - there "will be no shame".
The player only controls when the unicorn jumps or attacks, but cannot control neither the direction of the motion or the speed of it. It is impossible to stop. The speed, and therefore the difficulty, increase with the score and time. This is symbolic of the lack of control Winston has over the situation he is in: Julia, as the more experienced partner, leads in the relationship (especially at the beginning), Big Brother is an omnipresent fear in his life, and as his relationship becomes more involved the danger grows and grows. He lives in a constant state of being controlled, and his final destination is already decided. As he repeats many times from as early as the first chapter, he is a dead man walking. "We are the dead."
This brings us to our final similarity between the game and the novel: the inevitability of failure. The unicorn will fall; either to the walls or to the stars, in practical terms it does not matter. Winston and Julia are both aware that they are going to die by Big Brother's hand in the Ministry of Love. Their small hope is false, and in the same way any player who retains hope of a true 'win' to the game is nursing a false hope. Yet both player and characters do not stop. Winston and Julia continue their love for as long as they are able, right until the horror of Room 101; the player plays and the unicorn runs with no end in sight, simply the constantly changing high score to beat. And in the end, in both cases, it will not have a happy ending. As the game says: 'You will fail'.
No, I don't know either. I was enabled, okay, it's not my fault.
so. if you haven't played Robot Unicorn Attack yet, play it get sucked in like the rest of us
and then read this 1900+ word monster.
Robot Unicorn Attack:
The Stealth Metaphor for George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four
by Miri
At first glance, this simple flash game would not seem to have much connection with the infamous work of literature by Orwell. The metaphor that runs through it is indeed very subtle, and in this essay I intend to explain the many parallels the two share.
The player 'character of the game', insofar as this applies, is the eponymous robotic unicorn. The object of the game is to achieve the highest score one can within three rounds. The score is increased by the length of time playing, the amount of fairies the player catches, and the amount of stars the player destroys. The speed of the unicorn's movement increases with the score; it is outside the player's control. There is no end to the game; it continues until the unicorn is killed, either by running into one of the stars or into a wall. Already, one can see the parallels beginning to show themselves, but let us take them in order.
The unicorn, of course, represents Winston Smith. It is a robot, signifying Smith's role in 'the machine' of the Party as well as his stunted emotions (especially at the beginning of the novel), but its form is that of a unicorn. To begin with, unicorns' templates are horses. Horses have been used before in Orwell's novels to signify the workforce - see Animal Farm - and the metaphor holds true still, as Winston is simply another grunt in the Outer Party.
But of course, there is more to this metaphor. If a horse would have sufficed, the creators could have created a very different game, but they chose a unicorn for a reason. Unicorns are a fantasy creature, representative of both human innocence and human belief. They are legends, and therefore a product of human imagination. All of this falls under the umbrella of 'thoughtcrime' in 1984's dystopic world, and it is of thoughtcrime that Smith is guilty. He dares to dream of "golden fields", believes (some would say naively) in the "spirit of Man", and his relationship with Julia has been compared to a teenage romance - far more innocent in nature than the loveless marriages solely for the purposes of childbearing of the rest of the Party.
Julia, too, is represented in the game. She is the fairies that the unicorn catches. The fey of legend are mischievous, often beautiful, tricksters, sometimes sensuous, and easily dazzle mortals. Julia's beauty captures Winston's interest even before he truly understands it, she takes joy in breaking the rules in small ways (her sexual trysts with Party members, wearing make-up and a frock when she and Winston are alone, for example), her skills of deception are far above Winston's own, and she is highly sexual - indeed, Winston's declaration that "The more men you've been with the more I love you" shows it is a desirable trait. She dazzles humanity into Winston, and brings fulfillment into his life - this is represented not only by the score within the game, but the sparkle-effect which occurs whenever the unicorn 'captures' the fairy.
Said fairies are non-robotic, to contrast the far more human Julia with the somewhat Party-broken Winston. The more the unicorn catches, the higher the point score for each becomes - this represents both the increase in Winston's quality of life as he spends more time with Julia, and the increase in danger that these increased meetings bring.
The stars that the unicorn must destroy in order to continue the game could be said to represent the doctrine of the Party, and this would be a reasonable assumption. However, given that the other objects in the game represent characters, it is more likely that the stars represent the other main character: O'Brien. Taking into account that within the novel, O'Brien represents the fully-indoctrinated Party member as well as the Party ideology itself, this is fitting for the first reason as well as those more specific to O'Brien as a character himself.
Stars are drenched in the same mystical symbolism as unicorns and fairies. Simply from that, one would expect the stars to be 'on your side', as it were, to provide a collectable score upgrade in the same manner as the fairies or some similar helpful attribute. In reality, simply touching a star results in death. The metallic 'clang' of the robot unicorn crashing into the star implies that the star is made of a harder, more impenetrable metal than the unicorn - that O'Brien's Party 'roboticism' is more complete than Winston's. The stars can be defeated, but only by the 'attack' - signified by the unicorn's rainbow-blurred charge. Rainbows have a biblical connection and are considered natural beauty, both of which the Party sees no use for. They are a remnant of freedom, of 'oldthink', and it is that, symbolically, which can defeat O'Brien/the Party doctrine.
There is one obstacle in the game which cannot be defeated, however: the walls. These are intermittent but ever-present, single-hit kills with no weakness, against which the rainbow attack results in nothing but death. These, of course, represent Big Brother. Big Brother is an immovable, unstoppable force in the novel. The giant face becomes a wall, emotionless and in a strange way faceless in itself. The face ceases to be, and only represents: the wall in Robot Unicorn Attack represents the stoic, true impenetrability of Big Brother. The only respite is gained through leaping from platform to platform, over every obstacle the walls place. Occasionally a correctly-timed rainbow attack may prevent death if the jump angle is correct, which signifies how human spirit can survive Big Brother in rare cases, but in reality all the players (and Winston and Julia) are doing is postponing the inevitable conclusion. This strategy cannot save you every time you mistime your jump.
Significantly, the death that the robot unicorn suffers is exactly the same whether it is at the hands of the star or the wall. O'Brien and Big Brother's Ministry of Love are practically one and the same - they are certainly intrinsically connected in the novel - and this indicates that death by O'Brien's hand is exactly the same as death by Big Brother himself.
The dolphins that appear on the lower part of the screen with every set of 5000 points represent the proles. They do not interact with the walls, stars, fairies or the unicorn and have no effect on gameplay, they multiply and grow without regard for the game's events, and yet the higher the score (viz., the better quality of Winston's life) the more appear. This has resonance in how much deeper into the prole territory Winston and Julia go with their private rebellion, renting the room and Julia's use of prole makeup and frocks. The proles remain unaffected in any significant way by the events of the novel, indeed, of the events within the Party in general. "Animals and proles are free", and indeed, the dolphin is the animal we most associate with a free and easy life. The proles and the characters do not interact in any significant way, the prole characters we see are devices more than anything else, but the scene with Winston admiring the vitality of the prole mother in the garden is reminiscent of modern trips to view dolphins in their wild habitats to admire them.
The gameplay, too, is reminiscent of the novel. The theme, to begin with, is one associated with childhood, innocence, ease, positive things, and yet the game is frantic and constantly sends you conflicting messages - you might start one 'run' with the message 'Chase your dreams!', yet the next might say 'Persistence is futile!', and the screen that appears when you die gleefully declares that 'You failed to achieve your dreams'. This dichotomy represents the theory of doublethink, of believing in two contradictory truths at once ('I play this game to win', 'Winning is impossible', and yet the player does not give up even though persistence is futile) but also of the irony presented in the names of the Party buildings. The Ministries of Love, Peace, Truth and Plenty are concerned with their exact opposites; the game's theme creates a similar contradiction in the mind of the player. It looks like it should be far kinder than it is.
The soundtrack, too, is significant. It represents in a general sense the insipid, meaningless music that the Ministry of Truth releases for the proles, but (as in the novel) it holds more significance than they intended. Consider the lyrics:
Open your eyes I see
Your eyes are open
Wear no disguise for me
Come into the open
When it's cold outside
Am I here in vain?
Hold on to the night
There will be no shame
Always, I wanna be with you
And make believe with you
And live in harmony,
harmony oh love
The song refers - obliquely - to Big Brother, and the relationship he theoretically has with the people. You cannot wear a disguise to fool Big Brother and his thought police, you are always under scrutiny, always in the open. Times are hard, so like the proles, turn to Big Brother for comfort. Love him, for he always wants to be with you. He always is with you. He is watching you to make sure you live in harmony with his ideals. Significantly, the line "hold on to the night" has resonance with Winston's "place where there is no darkness". The night, in this case, is preferable - the 'place with no darkness' is the Ministry of Love. The song warns against it, for good reason; the Ministry of Love breaks the mind, heart and soul completely, it induces shame, but in the night - the darkness - there "will be no shame".
The player only controls when the unicorn jumps or attacks, but cannot control neither the direction of the motion or the speed of it. It is impossible to stop. The speed, and therefore the difficulty, increase with the score and time. This is symbolic of the lack of control Winston has over the situation he is in: Julia, as the more experienced partner, leads in the relationship (especially at the beginning), Big Brother is an omnipresent fear in his life, and as his relationship becomes more involved the danger grows and grows. He lives in a constant state of being controlled, and his final destination is already decided. As he repeats many times from as early as the first chapter, he is a dead man walking. "We are the dead."
This brings us to our final similarity between the game and the novel: the inevitability of failure. The unicorn will fall; either to the walls or to the stars, in practical terms it does not matter. Winston and Julia are both aware that they are going to die by Big Brother's hand in the Ministry of Love. Their small hope is false, and in the same way any player who retains hope of a true 'win' to the game is nursing a false hope. Yet both player and characters do not stop. Winston and Julia continue their love for as long as they are able, right until the horror of Room 101; the player plays and the unicorn runs with no end in sight, simply the constantly changing high score to beat. And in the end, in both cases, it will not have a happy ending. As the game says: 'You will fail'.
No, I don't know either. I was enabled, okay, it's not my fault.