I made myself some broccoli soup, so it's going to be a heavy rant.
I am currently on my DROD-marathon (keep in mind that many of the stuff that you are familiar with is new to me - I still have Second Sky to beat and I'm 36% progressed), but I did notice a trope that is familiar to me, but rarely is discussed or revisited anywhere.
What is Cerebus Syndrome?
What is Cerebus actually, because there's no such word in English vocabulary.
I could only find this link on the internet, but it doesn't give the proper justice to the concept as it overly simplifies the idea of what it actually is. (here's the link, if someone is curious, but don't click it, I'll do the better job at explaining it)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebus_the_Aardvark#Cerebus_Syndrome
Cerebus was an independent comic book that started as a parody of sword and sorcery comics in vein of Conan, but eventually it became a serious dramatic / political comic and later (like it wasn't enough of a change), it evolved into illustrated essays about various things. The point is, the syndrome (IMO) should be attributed to work of art, that starts as something simple, and becomes complex over the years. And more importantly gains new layers, sometimes becomes meta, but to summarize the trope, what started as a joke, became serious philosophical examination of various topics, OR work of art that evolved beyond it's initial limitations.
Does it apply to DROD? Well, the word "
simple"
is the last word I would use to describe DROD. I mean, the game has simple controls and mechanics, but the gameplay itself is complex. And while DROD 1 had its limits, one could still easily fool the delvers into a hold that tricked the adventurer into the feeling of something unusual or beyond the initial quirk of the architecture design.
However, when we look at the history of the game, when we listen to the interviews, and finally, when we ourselves finally take into the adventure in the chronological order (DROD 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) it's hard to not notice a significant shift. With Dugan's Dungeon we just delve deeper, we smite roaches, and we solve complex puzzles. In Journey, we discover the first plot, that still doesn't know where it wants itself to go, but at least it starts to wander. The same thing happened with Cerebus - after few issues, it stopped being what it initially was, and started to be something more ambitious and bigger in scope.
With City Beneath, you finally have everything fleshed out, which climaxes in extremely epic story in Second Sky (which I still am in process of discovering, but already it's bigger than everything that was before). I omitted Gunthro, because we all know the history of that one, but it was a great distraction and frankly, my first DROD game I played so I don't want to sound dismissive, because after all is said and done, I'm glad that Gunthro happened the way it was, and I'm glad that there was no tar or goblins there, because I would probably not try Dugan's Dungeon, which I was aware of, but didn't find appealing. Silly me, if only I knew....
Going back to the rant (you're still following me?) Another thing that also should be pointed out, and who knows if it isn't the most crucial one - the evolution and complexity wasn't planned. Neither Cerebus nor DROD started as an epic / grandiose story. They both started simple and evolved along with the authors and with where they wanted to go, and what they wanted to do with their creation. This is a seemingly minor point, but it's very crucial - the intent of DROD wasn't to create a massive world-building, it was a puzzle / strategy game. But over years, it became something much much more and developed.
Cerebus syndrome could be otherwise called - "
the maturing of the art"
when the finished product becomes again the work in process and deconstructed but in a logical and organic way all in the accordance to the original creator's wishes.
Why am I mentioning it? Because Cerebus is considered an intellectual comic book, or maybe, a more appropriate word would be a graphic novel, and DROD is well respected among the MENSA crowd, with some of the members priding themselves in beating Dugan's Dungeon, but not necessarily City Beneath (go figure).
I'm not really sure where I want to go further with that, so I leave the conclusions up to you dear reader. You can decide on your own, whether I wasted your time, or pointed out something interesting and meta.
I might edit it later, when I'm done with eating the soup
I've realized now that if I edit the post I will only further illustrate the point. I already unleashed my post into this world, and now I want to make it deeper, better, more meaningful beyond my initial observations, but I don't really know where I want to go, and what's going to happen, and it wasn't intentional. And maybe, also the work of art that is an extension of the author, and shows also the process of growing of the author himself / herself
Okay, I guess I should move to tomato soups, these broccoli taste funny
[Last edited by Illusionist at 09-21-2020 12:42 PM]
If I had any say, I would certainly nominate you to be The 1st Negotiator