Contextual Studies: Genre

Genre is the term for category of literature or any other media. Genres have certain characteristics that make them such genre, for example, a Tragedy genre, would include suffering, unfortunate events etc. However, many films, literature and games involve multiple genres.
A short exercise showed me that when we assume a genre, we read the story in a very different way. A short passage given the title "Murder at Marpelthorpe" was read to us, and automatically, my mind was put into a murder mystery, certain lines stood out, such as the clock being half 10 because i expected this to be a clue further on in the mystery. However, when given another title "The Personal History of David Marpelthorpe" how i listened/read the passage changed completely, instead my mind focused on the people, such as the crying infant in the background, I assumed would be a family member to "David Marpelthorpe".

We then answered a quiz where we had to name the game based on one image and then we discussed what genre we thought each game belonged to:
The Path - Thriller, Dark, Horror
Zelda: Twilight Princess - Adventure, Fantasy
Final Fantasy XIII Versus - Role Playing Game, Fantasy
Myst - Adventure
Dead Space - Survival, Sci-Fi Horror
L.A. Noire - Noire Thriller, Detective, 40s/50s Crime Drama
Heavy Rain - Drama, Noire Thriller
Angry Birds -
Alan Wake
Mortal Kombat
Red Dead Redemption
Resident Evil 4

A lot of the games had multiple genres, shared similar genres, and it could be argued that they all fall under the "Fantasy" genre because they're all make-believe. This task showed us that multiple genres can be combined to create diverse gaming, just like multiple characteristics make up a personality.

We then split into groups and were given the task to flip a genre on its head by taking one of these games and giving it the genre of another. We were given the game Angry Birds, and asked to flip it into a noire thriller. This was an entertaining task, we started by thinking about all the things that make a noire to us, like black and white visuals, mafia type gangs and office scenes where the shadow of the blinds cut across faces. We decided we would give a new story to the birds, the birds would be an infamous gang fighting against a corrupt law enforcement represented by the pigs.  The birds would throw cream pies (influenced by Bugsy Malone, a children's noire thriller) at corrupt police stations in order to break their gang members out of prison. This showed us that keeping the same game play, but changing certain elements can completely change a game.