My son Merle has discovered some entertainingly-weird Japanese video games: Parappa the Rapper and its sequel, Um Jammer Lammy. Both have a minimalist style of animation, with deliberately two-dimensional characters — paper-cutout-like figures moving through a semi-3D world (I heard that when they made the first game, they did this because the machine couldn't handle fully 3-D models RadRob). Both feature cute & catchy copy-what-I-do musical rhythmic challenges. Both send their protagonists through a series of unexpected difficulties. And both have a cynical attitude toward the clichés of standard gaming, and do a good job of parodying those clichs.

Most interestingly, however, both games feature philosophical mantras. In Parappa it's You gotta believe!, in yourself and your abilities. In Lammy the refrain is It's all in the mind!, at least for the majority of challenges in life. Good optimistic themes.

TopicPhilosophy - TopicLife - 2001-08-31

(correlates: PrimeObsession, CultOfLeadership, EmptyShelves, ...)