David Crane’s Pitfall & Colonial Imagery - A critical analysis

SuudsuAddict said:
@Gimmick Account
Well there you go then! Even David Crane didn't overthink it. He just wanted to make a video game.
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Yeah but the cultural context of this stuff is pretty important and still relevant today. Someone cobbling a game together from images at hand that they didn't think too hard about is still an interesting snapshot of how it had impressed them at the time.
There are a bunch of GDC retrospective videos on youtube with the developers of these kinds of classic games, I highly recommend em.

But I still don't know what the point of this is.
Maybe it gets crazy in the middle or something but the bits I read were all obvious stuff.
 
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The implication here is clear: Pitfall Harry, whether he is being sponsored by a government or corporation back in his homeland, is a colonizer coming to a land which has been devastated by the usual tools of the colonizer - superior forces of arms, deadly disease, and enough crocodile-hide whips to make sure the entire population is so terrified that they will work themselves to death before they rise up and challenge their oppressors.
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What the fuck are you talking about? Maybe David Crane Just really liked Raiders of the Lost Arc when he saw it in theaters.
 
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The best and greatest said:
What the fuck are you talking about? Maybe David Crane Just really liked Raiders of the Lost Arc when he saw it in theaters.
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He's talking about the archetype. Indiana Jones is a destructive tomb raider who'd belong in prison for crimes against anthropology/archaeology if he were a real dude, right?
 
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Gimmick Account said:
He's talking about the archetype. Indiana Jones is a destructive tomb raider who'd belong in prison for crimes against anthropology if he were a real dude, right?
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Sure but thats kindof the whole point, those movies are all tall tales about a larger-than-life character who can shoot people and get away with it.
 
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Gimmick Account said:
Yeah but the cultural context of this stuff is pretty important and still relevant today. Someone cobbling a game together from images at hand that they didn't think too hard about is still an interesting snapshot of how it had impressed them at the time.
There are a bunch of GDC retrospective videos on youtube with the developers of these kinds of classic games, I highly recommend em.

But I still don't know what the point of this is.
Maybe it gets crazy in the middle or something but the bits I read were all obvious stuff.
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Fair point and I've never thought about it that way. I'll check out a few of those videos!

pixelatedharmony said:
I’ll take any suggestions!
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Do Pac-Man next. Seriously. Extract whatever political, philosophical, or ethical messages you can out of it.
 
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Capsaicin Addict said:
Alternately, it could just be a game about a little stick man trying to collect shiny things while avoiding barrels, scorpions, alligators, and the ticking timer.

Look, I like deep thoughts in my games too, but 80's console games were not exactly long on story.
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What’s that thing RLM says, “You didn’t notice... but your brain did.”
 
Gimmick Account said:
Ya exactly, and they're grounded in older media in the same way that Pitfall is grounded in it.
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Indie only robs graves that other people who're bigger assholes were going to rob first so that he can give them to the world so that everyone can enjoy them rather than letting private interests buy them up for personal collections. He also never raises a whip to someone who wasn't trying to kill him unless he was drunk on bloodwine. Indie was never a colonizer and was actually pretty worldly and tolerant of foreign cultures. he also fought and killed nazis.

Indiana jones is woker than you'll ever be.
 
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The best and greatest said:
Indie only robs graves that other people who're bigger assholes were going to rob first so that he can give them to the world so that everyone can enjoy them rather than letting private interests buy them up for personal collections. He also never raises a whip to someone who wasn't trying to kill him unless he was drunk on bloodwine. Indie was never a colonizer and was actually pretty worldly and tolerant of foreign cultures. he also fought and killed nazis.

Indiana jones is woker than you'll ever be.
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Okay but we’re just talking about how he’s coded not the values of a fictional character, the medium is the message.
 
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