Contextual Studies: Coherent Worlds

What exactly is a coherent world? Was the first thing which popped into my mind after choosing the title! While it may sound worrying, it is important to fully consider what a coherent world is and what effect they have in relation to Skyrim.

To start I decided to look up the definition of coherent and world, it seems a good place to start!

Coherent

adjective

1. logically connected; consistent: a coherent argument.

2. cohering;  sticking together: a coherent mass of sticky candies.

3. having a natural or due agreement of parts; harmonious: a coherent design.

 

World 

noun

1. The earth, together with all of its countries, peoples, and natural features.

2. All of the people, societies, and institutions on the earth.

While possibly seeming slightly illiterate and ignorant I felt it made sense to explore the meanings behind both words as best I could. Both seem to be relating to an object, environment or society, being all encompassing and logically connected.

Making sense of the world around you is something humans generally find important. The reason science and religions exist is partly due to people seeking answers to the mysteries of the environment they live in. To make sense of things they often are required to be coherent, otherwise we cannot really understand them. Although both views are constantly changing and are often contradicting, they strive to explain the unexplained and aim to make people happier.

Surely that is what any game developer would strive to achieve. It would make no sense to create a disjointed world with no logical reason why. Even something at first seemingly incoherent such as a series of events which the player is yet to understand will later make sense. 

Often the search the coherency can drive gameplay, for example The Portal series. The player is given limited information about their surrounding as well as why they are in a cell. After competing puzzles they are given hints through cutscenes with audio and visual clues to show what the world around them is like. Portal is even within the game world of the Half Life series, which reveals what happened outside of the testing laboratories, but only if you have played them. In some sense the player is rewarded for playing both series by having a greater understanding of the world they are playing in.

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