General video game details:
- First-person quest RPG game
- From perspective of Satan
- Quest is defined by Satan’s mission to travel from Hell, through Chaos, to Heaven and corrupt God’s creation: humankind
- The central conflict, thus, is Satan’s expulsion from Heaven, which is furthered by the debate in Pandæmonium with his fellow fallen angels. From this, the “hero”, Satan, wins the game by corrupting humankind.
- Starting point: “By force, hath overcome but half his foe.” (1.649)
Storyboard:
Opening:
- Cutscene representing Satan’s exile from Heaven.
- Debate in Pandæmonium -> Satan leaving hell
- Finding the way to Chaos’ throne through chaos -> Finding the way (deceiving the angels) into Heaven
- Challenge of convincing Eve to eat the fruit
- Satan returning to his fellow fallen angels in success
Th’ infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook
Of Erebus. She opened, but to shut
Excelled her power; the gates wide open stood (2.880-84)
This starting point highlights when Satan is leaving Hell and promising a place on Earth for Death and Sin. This is important to the game because it indicates a further purpose than just revenge against God: once humankind is corrupted, Death and Sin will allow Evil to become the dominant force on Earth.
The main insight that one would gain about Satan based on this game is in his position – he was banned from his homeland to somewhere far worse, and thus through social pressure and emotional desire, wishes to exact revenge. Taking the first-person perspective in the game allows for the objective good which God represents to be dethroned, and subjective desires to become ultimately important. Thus, the game allows for the character of Satan to gain understandability. On the other hand, in line with God losing his intrinsic good position in the game, Satan loses his quality of being eternally unchanging; rather, he becomes a mere opponent of God and not a representative of Evil. I decided on the RPG quest genre because, for the above reason, it centers the game on the premise of Satan being given an unchanging goal by his fellow fallen angels.