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Mediation and Horror in Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly

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ABSTRACT: For psychological horror games, a particularly interesting characteristic is their common use of mediation as a means to connect the 'ordinary' game world with a hidden supernatural (and invariably frightening) game world that would otherwise not be accessible to the characters. Perhaps the most sophisticated use of a mediative object till date occurs in the Japanese psychological horror game Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly (2003).

In this game, two Japanese twin sisters lost in the forest encounter a cursed village, haunted by the ghosts of its former inhabitants. The game contains several mediative objects, most notably an ancient camera that improves the the twins' ability to see into the spirit world and at the same time allows them to exorcise the ghosts by photographing them.

This talk presents a reading of Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly in which analysis of the game's story, aesthetics and gameplay is used to examine the emotional effect that the game is intended to have on its players. Particular attention is given to the way the game uses mediation to create feelings of dread and suspense, but other elements of gothic horror are treated as well.

BIO: Dr Mads Haahr is a Lecturer in Computer Science at Trinity College Dublin. He holds BSc and MSc degrees from the University of Copenhagen and a PhD from Trinity College Dublin. His research interests include mobile and ubiquitous computing, self-organising systems, interactive and location-aware narrative, computer game studies and artificial intelligence for games. He also edits a multidisciplinary academic journal called Crossings: Electronic Journal of Art and Technology.

Status

  • Workflow Status:Published
  • Created By:David Terraso
  • Created:02/03/2010
  • Modified By:Fletcher Moore
  • Modified:10/07/2016