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Friday 9 February, 2007
As I went through another ritual-like day of Harvest Moon game play, I got to thinking…What is the end of this game? How is the ‘completeness’ defined? In some games, the goal is to beat an ultimate boss. In other games, you may want to explore and discover all of the treasures, short cuts, and dungeons. For some, it is a combination of both. Donkey Kong, for super Nintendo, is a great example of this. At the end, there is a giant crocodile king guy to beat. But, also, every time you save the game, you are given a percentage of how many of the secrets you have discovered. I guess in that case the goal would be to get 100% as well as beat the boss (although I’ve heard that you can get over 100%...as if it wasn’t complicated enough). But with harvest moon, there is no such marker of success. Your farm can always be bigger, you can always give your wife more flowers, and you can always go and catch a few more fish. There is also the concept of playing the game in different ways. This includes making different friends and having the different wives. Or, you can just go through on life as fast as possible and see what ‘the end’ entails and see how quickly you could get there. These are all different ways to think of completeness in the game. I’m not sure for this game which one I believe fits best.
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