Computer Game Screenshots

Jenn Johnson

Graphic Design

Remember Pac-Man, the 1980 blockbuster arcade game that featured a pixilated yellow shape moving around a maze, gobbling up more pixels? These days, game graphics look so real they’ve become uncanny. Just take a look at Jenn Johnson’s images from the PC games she plays, modifies (“mods”), and screenshots. 

“I have been trying to perfect my photography skills in-game since 2015,” said Jenn, a Cypress graphic design major who now has over 3,000-shots. “I try to get a few good screenshots of each chapter of the game’s main storyline (if there is one) so the pictures themselves will tell a tale.” 

In role-playing video games, a player typically moves a character around a visually rich 3D world. “I express my sense of self through the characters I play,” Jenn explained, which means that they must be customizable.

“All game characters are actually programmed AI (Artificial Intelligence). If you open up the directory files for a PC game…and explore deep enough, there will be a file labeled ‘actors,’ which houses all the assets needed for the game’s characters to work properly.” “I can take pretty much any single player game and modify it. If it’s not designed to be mod friendly, I go through its system files and alter those to allow my modifications.” 

Jenn is currently working on a project in Fallout 4,  “one of the most beloved and successful video game franchises of all time.”[1] At last count she has made over 400-modifications, many to her main character, Oksana, who shares Jenn’s age, tattoos, piercings, and sense of style.

Removing some of the restrictions that govern Oksana has had unexpected consequences though, for every now and then the character will say “really off-the-wall stuff…or do spontaneous funny things.” 

“For instance, if I put the controller down for a few minutes, when I come back, she’ll on occasion be staring right at me, arms crossed, foot tapping, like she’s waiting on me. Another time, I went to use the bathroom and left the game idle but not paused. I came back and Oksana had shot all the settlers on her settlement and was sitting [cross-legged] near the pile of bodies.”

“I have asked other gamers of Fallout 4 if their characters ever do this and nobody has seen that before. I still haven’t figured out if one of my mods is responsible or if it was actually the AI showing what it does with its freedom, lol. I am still looking into it.”

Notes

[1] Game Industry News, “The Best Locations in the Fallout Series,” December 11, 2020. www.gameindustry.com/news-industry-happenings/the-best-locations-in-the-fallout-series/. Accessed 12/15/2020.