Ok so honestly I am doing this really late so I don’t remember much about the lesson. I’ve been so busy with trying to move and pack and everything has just been flying past. So yeah. This lesson sum up might be kinda small. The only thing i really remember right now is our noughts and crosses activity. We each had to come up with a different version of noughts and crosses that could be played by more than one person. None of us had a perfect game but my idea was the most promising. From here we adapted my idea and made a fully functioning game. That’s about all I remember.
Reviewing a Review
So this weeks homework and main part of the blog is to read a article off the site Critical Distance. I will be looking at the article “Pokemon Sword and Shield Is Secretly About Climate Change And Weezing Is Here To Prove It”. Link below if you want to read it yourself. Spoilers ahead for the story so be warned.
So I will try and keep this brief. The article actually has a lot of good points. While the whole game may not secretly about climate change a lot of the stories elements and Pokemon changes do definitely support the idea. The first point for this argument is Weezing.
“One Pokémon I’ve been collecting is Weezing. In previous versions, it was a noxious cloud of smoke. But the new version adds an important detail to show where the smoke comes from. And while they may look like or a top hat to some, Weezing’s new form looks a lot like a smokestack to me. And it took on that form not because it hit the weed too hard but because of pollution”.
This quote here does bring up a good point. The new Galar Weezing is very much similar to the smokestack of a factory. Even its description in the Pokedex mentions the past pollution of the region.
This describes what happened on Earth pretty well if you ask me. Fossil Fuel companies dumping more carbon pollution than we thought possible into our atmosphere using giant factories etc.
The next piece of evidence being the pokemon Corsola. When Corsola first emerged it was a happy, bright pink and colourful piece of Coral that was Rock and Water type. Now it wears one of the saddest faces I’ve ever seen, is grey and white and is a Ghost type and is called “Cursola“. This can definitely be a hint to the coral reefs of the world that are meeting the same fate and dying because of climate change.
The article also makes not of the backstory of the region and other notes but I don’t know if i have enough information to input there.
After all of this I have to say I can see the articles point of view. Do I think the whole game is secretly about climate change. Probably not. But there is no denying the small hints and messages that the game is suggesting. But as any Pokemon fan knows, Pokemon is a series that isn’t knew to putting cryptic and horrifying messages in its lore and history. Even if that is not what they intended it is a good and important message to be putting into one of gaming’s most recognizable franchises.
Thats all from me this week. What do you think about all of this? don’t forget to read the article yourself for all the details.
-T.Styles
The Studies & Reviews of a Game Development Student 