Diaries from The Forest (vol. 3): Shark Attack!

This is the third volume of my particular Diaries from The Forest series. This is based on alpha 0.02. To know more about these diaries, please, have a look at the first and second volumes.

Shark Attack!
I decided to move quickly on this occasion. First collect some items around the wreckage and then move towards the beach. It worked perfectly in my mind, what could go wrong? So, I took some provisions, including two circuit boards from the plane (how can they possibly be useful on an island like this?).

I tried to hit a rabbit with a couple of tennis balls, but I missed. Not a proper way to catch animals, I think. 

After that, I hit a rabbit with my axe. That seems to be a better way to secure food for myself.

I kept collecting things that I consider useful for my short-term future, i.e. some sticks.

I was headed to the beach once again. A sudden burst of painful memories came to me at that moment. I needed a couple of minutes to compose myself. 

I saw a school of sharks in the distance. I decided to have a closer look.

While I was swimming carelessly, I spotted a turtle under the water. Do you know the difference between a turtle and a tortoise? A hint: this is a turtle. And it's in the water. But you can also see them wandering on the island. Walking on soil. I think you've already figured it out.

Out of the blue, a shark started to follow me. I thought it was amazing at first...

... and then I realised that it was coming closer very fast...

...extremely closer...

...

To my shame, I was devoured by a shark. It seems that I have a new enemy on the island. Days survived, 1.

It's interesting to see how PewDiePie - the most famous Youtuber - deals with the sharks in the following video:

Is the introduction of new actors in a game, even supporting ones,  relevant enough to make a difference, to transform the global experience, to make people notice it?

Diaries from The Forest (vol. 2): surviving on the beach

This is the second volume of my particular Diaries from The Forest series. This is based on alpha 0.01. To know more about these diaries, please, have a look at the first volume.

Surviving on the beach

This time I was determined to last longer. The last time I was surrounded very soon, so I decided to get away from the plane crash site as soon as I could. I shortly found what I considered that it might have been a good place to settle: a beach.

I collected some supplies from the suitcases that were scattered all over the beach. I mainly found rags, snack bars, alcohol and tennis balls. A funny loot.

While I was looking for the best spot to build my shelter, I found a dead shark on the shore. Flies were buzzing around it.

Then I saw a turtle. Thinking it could be of some use, I killed it. In the end, there was no use for it. Neither could I eat it nor could I harvest its shell. Poor thing.

I decided to put the shelter next to the lifeless animals. Probably not one of my smartest moves. I started gathering logs, sticks and rocks to build it. I come across some weird things: a bird alighted on the middle of the air and bottles flying from nowhere.

While I was gathering a couple of logs, hostile individuals spotted me. Strangely enough, they didn't come after me, so I continued working on the shelter.

Since I didn't want to attract more unwanted attention, I decided to head towards other parts of the forest to collect the rest of the 'ingredients' I needed for my shelter. In my way to cut down more trees, I stumbled across a corpse. I tried to chop the body into pieces in order to erect an effigy. As many other odd things happening in this beach, I wasn't even able to scratch the thing (wasn't weird enough wanting to make an effigy from body parts?).

After felling a couple of trees, I suddenly found myself surrounded by the enemy. I didn't see or hear them coming.

I backed up cowardly and jump into the water hoping they weren't going to follow me. I hid under some rocks in the waters.

Completely soaked, I took comfort from the view of the rainbow ahead of me. A beautiful scenery for hell.

Once I was sure they weren't around, I gathered my courage and came back to the beach. No sign of them. Good. I made a Molotov cocktail just in case they showed up again.

Feeling as please as punch, I set it on fire. I felt powerful, bigger than the mountains beyond the forest. The Molotov's fire beautifully blended with the last rays of sunshine. 'Come to me now if you dare,' I said to myself. Silly of me.

Inebriated with self-confidence, I accidentally dropped the cocktail burning myself. How ridiculous.

After all that foolishness, I felt tired and decided to have a nap. So far, no sign of foes.

I woke up freezing, with those beasts staring at me. Quickly, I made a new Molotov cocktail. Ha! I got you! I threw the cocktail at them with determination. I missed. Not looking good.

They're on me. I'm scared. Should I confront them? I don't think I'm strong enough. I plunged into water again and swam to a stranded yacht.

The yacht became my temporary safe haven but I could see them lurking on the shore. They are waiting for me. There is no escape. Sooner or later I would have to get out of the yacht if I didn't want to die from starvation or exposure.

So be it. I returned to the beach to confront them. Whatever happens. It's them or me. More have joined the pack to hunt me down. Well, here I am. Five against one. I was clearly outnumbered. I fought bravely. Nevertheless, I went down.

I woke up in the cave. Familiar place, known atrocities. 'Get out here now,' I told myself. No reason to stay more than what is strictly necessary.

I came across two hostile beings in my way out. Vainly overconfident, I attacked them without taking any precaution. Fearless but stupid.

Stronger and faster than me, they killed me in a wink of an eye.

This time I survived 3 days. That's some improvement. I still don't know who these people are and why they keep attacking me or where my kid is. And what about the infection? Does every living creature in the island carry the disease? Too many questions and not a single answer yet. We'll see what happens in future diaries.

Compare my adventures on the beach to this guy's first contact with it:

Source: BaronVonGamez, Youtube.

Diaries from The Forest (vol.1): senseless brutality

In my efforts to experiment with new research techniques in social sciences, I will create two new regular sections: diaries and flash sociological reviews. You can read about the latter here. But at this moment, I'd like to focus on diaries.

What is a diary? You'll probably have already seen those articles on magazines and posts on forums in which the author describes what they've done and experienced during a specific gameplay. It's not a review per se, it's more like a diary entry, where you express what happened in your life that day and how you feel about it. This could be a good example on RPS magazine about the game DayZ. It's probably too elaborated and it's not easy to find those on the Internet, but it's still a very good model to follow. After some time playing the game, I'll try to make a similar attempt.  

I don't intend to imitate those pieces to produce narratives and share experiences about video games (although, wanted or not, I will  inexorably participate in the process), but to take advantage of it in order to analyse and explore those shared and semi-ubiquitous-produced narratives and experiences. By copying social actors behaviour and their way to produce knowledge, I hope to find new ways to approach their reality. The diaries will be brief and will include my own game experiences along with extracts from other gamers  diaries. These diaries will be, at the same time, part of a sociological method and of video game culture. 

As it seems that survival games are prone to this kind of narrative, my first attempt to experiment with diaries will be The Forest. I've chosen The Forest for two reasons: firstly, because it's an open world survival game that has already produced 'diaries'; secondly, because it's on Steam's early access games program, which means The Forest is a game still in development and, therefore, it's the perfect candidate to see up close the process of producing a video game and how the developers and video gamers interact with each other. But that's another story, let's go with the first volume of this Diaries from The Forest that has been entitled Senseless brutality.

Senseless brutality

I was on a plane. Nobody was around me but a little kid who I assume is my son. Something was wrong with the plane, we crashed... I woke up on the floor of the crashed plane,  I looked above and saw someone who had taken the kid (again, my son? my nephew?) in his arms. He doesn't look like friendly (is this a racist or ethnocentric assumption?). They leaved.

I stood up. I was hungry, thirsty and in pain. I ate some meals from the plane's catering. I drank a can of soda. I took everything I saw compulsively, including an axe I found stuck into a stewardess. She was dead. I got out of the plane and started looking for clues on where I was. I felt disorientated and didn't know what to do. I noticed I had a survival guide in my backpack. I opened it and decided to build a shelter. A hunting shelter according to the guide. 

As soon as I was about to place the shelter just next to the wrecked plane, I found myself surrounded by hostile individuals. They seem to be part of the same tribe (ethnocentrism again?) of the man who took the kid. There were four or them, three males and a female. At least two of them were armed with blunt weapons. They're fast. Incredibly fast. They climbed the trees, jumping from one to another. They were really scaring me. They circled me, they wanted to attack me from my weakest point. I fighted back, but I didn't last too long. One of them, the most intimidating one, took me down. I fainted. 

I woke up in the dark. I used my lighter. I was in some sort of subterranean cave. Dead bodies, some of them horribly mutilated, hanged from the ceiling. I took everything I saw: food, medicine, drinks, a flare gun and some flares. I frantically looked for an exit.

I came across a corpse of a man with a rusty axe into his belly. I took it. I made a creepy joke about his t-shirt: 'I love my guts'. I laughed. 

After a fleeting moment of cheeriness, the looming dread of what might inhabit the cave made me shiver. Almost blinded, I made my way towards what I thought was the exit. I missed a step and fell. I was dead. 

Days survived 2. I still don't know where I was, why they took the child and attacked me. I don't understand why they did what they did to those poor people. Senseless brutality.

Compare my first play with another first time experience: 
-The first time I played-
Spawned near a beach.
Grabbed some supplies.
Wacked a bunny over the head with my axe.
Grabbed the bunny.
Built a fire near the coast.
Cooked the bunny.
Saw a mutant in the forest watching me.
It started screaming and 5 more walked out.
They started sprinting at me, so I swam out into the water.
They all stopped at my camp and stared at it. 
5 of them walked away and left one lone mutant.
I was all like "I got this ♥♥♥♥" [shit?] and ran towards the mutant with my axe.
She hit me twice and killed me. 
I woke up in a cave with a bunch of dead bodies hanging from the cave ceiling. 
Found an axe and a flare gun, then slowly made my way out of the cave.
3 naked mutants ran at me and killed me by beating me down with human heads.
11/10, thats some spooky ♥♥♥♥ [shit, again?]. 
Source: Steam users reviews on The Forest (posted: 31 May 2014; user: Rawlson).

To make my first diary reverberate through the same channels, I will post my experience on Steam reviews. I will keep track of the outcome. Expect more diaries soon.