Detention
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Documents about Detention
Article
Reimagining Nostalgia in Hong Kong Games: Playing with the (Un)Familiar and (In)Authentic
This paper examines how two video games set in Hong Kong but developed outside the city, Kowloon's Gate (Zeque, 1997) and Sleeping Dogs (United Front Games, 2012), reimagine the territory as a symbol of nostalgia rather than a faithful physical or historical place.
- The paper argues that Kowloon's Gate (Zeque, 1997) and Sleeping Dogs (United Front Games, 2012), both developed outside Hong Kong, render the city as a playable emblem of nostalgia rather than a faithful depiction, despite inaccurate portrayals of its history and culture.
- Its central claim is that the appeal of these games lies in the coexistence of the familiar and exotic, and the authentic and invented, rather than in historical accuracy.
- Nostalgia is framed not as an objective recovery of the past but as a deliberate, modernized gaze that produces a sense of temporal displacement, drawing on scholarship on Hong Kong nostalgia cinema.
DiGRASep 2024
Article
The Fearful Realism: Chinese Horror Indie Games and the Realist Horror
This paper examines Chinese horror indie games as a distinct subgenre that engages directly with social reality, proposing the term "fearful realism" to describe its aesthetic approach.
- The paper proposes "fearful realism" as a term for Chinese horror indie games that use supernatural elements to surface repressed histories and everyday injustices, drawing on Cynthia Freeland's concept of realist horror.
- The analysis centers on two mainland Chinese indie titles: Firework (Shiying Studio, 2021), in which a police officer reinvestigates a mountain village massacre, and Comedy Funeral (Great Fortune and Great Favour Unlimited, 2022), in which a child explores a grandmother's memories of trafficking and forced marriage.
- These games share a gameplay structure of diminished action, minimal combat and escape, simple untimed puzzles, and "archival adventure," in which players reconstruct stories from fragmentary memorabilia.
DiGRASep 2024
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