A new week, a new theme. This time the theme I pulled out of the lunchbox was “Vigilance.” Let’s get started.
What is the first thing you thought of after reading the prompt for this week?
I thought of some of my experiences standing watch when I was in the Navy.
Can you think of a situation that you’ve been in that made you feel vigilant?
I was stationed on a ship that was in port in Bremerton, Wa. which is across the Puget Sound from Seattle. I was working in Ship’s Security at the time and there had been some trouble on one of the ferries that transports civilians between Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula a couple of days before. Someone had tried to hijack it. We got word on this night that there was trouble again on one of the ferries. The night passed without incident, but we were all extra vigilant throughout our watch, on edge, actually. Schmidt, one of the senior Master at Arms did a good job of making sure everyone was aware of the possibility of danger while at the same time making sure no one was so paranoid they would jump the gun and create an incident over nothing.
Can you think of any art, movies, literature or music that illustrate the theme?
Suspense and some horror films and novels do a good job of bringing out vigilance in their audience. Fear and vigilance seem to be tied together, actually. There is no reason for vigilance if there is nothing to fear.
How will you try to illustrate this theme in a video game?
I’ll give the player something to protect and then have the enemies try to take it away. I think that working with imperfect information in their task will help to induce a feeling of vigilance in the player.