Backyard Survival

Ecology of Killer Insects and Violent Nature in Grounded (2022)

Abstract

This article extends the analysis of nonhuman animal games to explore how insect non-playable characters (NPCs) and the ludonarrative of the survival genre break the nature-culture dichotomy through a dangerous and ungraspable representation of Nature. It is noted that research conducted on insect game representations belongs in my doctoral thesis, which adopts an interdisciplinary approach to investigating nonhuman game characters through critical ecological studies and affect studies. Discussions concerning nonhuman video games have attempted to address how humanity relates to nonhuman animals through “nonhuman-oriented thinking” in “animal mayhem games” (Caracciolo 2021) or “posthuman empathy” while roleplaying a feline protagonist (Wilde 2024). However, existing discussion on nonhuman animal games is mostly dominated by mammal characters. Only a few studies have delineated the affordance of insect characters to demonstrate the living experience of this nonhuman group (Shelomi 2019; Campo et. al. 2020), even though an increasing number of insect-themed games have been published in the past decade. Following the previous academic discussion on how nonhuman games could be considered a “becoming-animal” process (Chang 2019; Fuchs 2020; Wilde 2024) and used as a creative means to explore nonhuman relations (Caracciolo 2021; Tyler 2022, ), this project poses the question of whether playing alongside insect NPCs would generate similar affective interactions. What role do killer insects play in demonstrating the violent image of Nature? What is the ecological significance of presenting the violence and terror from Nature, akin to Haraway’s conceptualization of “Cthulhucene” (2016, 33) and Lovecraft’s short story - The Call of Cthulhu (Jones, 2017, 143-145)?