OK, first the preamble. I get it. I know. I understand Pareidolia, and that we all, as humans, suffer from it. (Note: I didn't know the term until I googled: we are programmed to see faces). If you do the same, you'll find many articles by Doctors that spend years researching why it is, as Carl Sagan said, "human beings are "hard-wired" from birth to identify the human face." (my favorite article was http://www.wired.com/2012/01/brain-face-recognition/ by Mark Brown).We are wired to recognize facial shapes, we want to see them. But we also know the difference between a rock formation that looks like a face, a crater on mars that looks like a face, the face of the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich (Diana Duyser), and an actual face.
So, yes, I get it. I suffer this condition. Hi, my name is Rick and I am a pareidolianic (or whatever the term is). So what? That’s not what this, my conspiracy theory, is all about. All of these examples are in reference to random “input”. Remember, I said “conspiracy theory”, so what I am saying is that it is not random, not an accident, but deliberate.
And yes, I am sure many of the “faces” I have catalogued (see my Faces Of Dominus page) were accidental. But, in my mind at least, there are far too many that appear to be deliberate, that look not like an accidental, random occurrence of pixels here and there that make a face, but a spot carved out and a face, or something to trigger that facial recognition response in us, deliberately inserted.
Things like the floors of Mt. Gigas Caves could be easily explained as an artifact of symmetry, since it is just one image reflected and stretched to paint a surface, if it just happened to make a face or two. Sure, I would buy that. After all, that is an aspect we look for to identify something as a face … symmetry. The more symmetry, the more beautiful we see the face. But the problem is, that it’s not a face or two … it’s practically the whole seem, almost like a totem pole.
And my other problem with all of this just being a “happy accident”, is that all of the textures, models, images, software, etc. that go into building a monster and rendering it for view by the player are done so with deliberate intention. The Gnawing Rat, the Piercer Modai, the Earth Elemental … they all look like they do because of someone’s (or many someones) conscious decision, forethought, effort, and I think we can all take the giant leap and add scrutinization and refinement to the recipe.
I don’t think any of us believe that someone came up with the idea for a Piercer Modai, and the first crack they took at all the model rendering, texture creating and applying movement and damage in various stages was what we saw as the final product. (Side note: I’d love to have access to the early notes and sketches of these things!)
So, how is it someone (let’s keep picking on one of my least favorite … to fight … monsters, the Piercer Modai or Juggernaut … same images), comes up with a Piercer Modai, with its blocky, angular look, and tiger-striped camouflage, but you end up with a curly, ant-man looking face as a nose? How is it that when you look at making the texture of a woman’s hair (Vi Domina), it all looks OK (given, the graphics were a bit dated at the release of Wiz 8), except for that weird spot on the back of her head? You know, the one that looks like Phoonzang’s face?
And that leads me to another point: the back of her head. There is actually an arrow, on top of her head, pointing backward. It’s almost like it is saying, “Hey Rick, look back there …”. So, what you should be saying to yourself at this point, as the reader, is (no, not, “Wow, this guy is looney”) is, “The top of Vi’s head? I never saw the top of her head”. Bingo! That is exactly my point (or one of them). Many of the images I showcase are ones we were “never intended” to see, or at least you had to go out of your way to get a glimpse.
Think about it. Who amongst us has ever seen the top of Vi’s hair? We meet her, rescue her, recruit her (or not) and she’s in our party most of the time. You dismiss her, and what happens? Do you climb up a wall to get a better view of her topside? No, you walk away or camp and she disappears back to Heli’s, where you meet up again and recruit. Rinse, repeat.
I noticed a long time ago, that many images seem to be in these oddly placed or out of the way locations. Sneak around behind a monster in combat, and as soon as you stop moving, what happens? They turn and face you, and you lose the view of the backside. So, stop a minute and think about that. Ponder it.
If you are the artist or person otherwise in charge of making a monster look like a monster, how much effort and detail are you going to put into the head-on view of said monster (let’s pick on Soldier Ants now), versus the butt-end of a Soldier Ant? You know the game is always going to force the head on view, once the player stops moving their party, or the monster runs away (at which point, they become further away and require less detail). If it was my job, I’d make it similar, or probably fairly plain on the backside … I’d be putting most of my effort and detail into the, well, face of the monster. After all, that is the part every human’s brain is looking for.
And let’s get back to scrutinization, and the whole software development process (because, after all, that is what game development is, in the case of PC games) for a minute. If I were an artist (sadly, I am far from it), I would think that I would know of the human condition that causes us to see faces in random things. So, I would have a few choices: 1) make sure I minimize the effect of random faces, so as to make things less confusing; 2) don’t care, whatever I throw out there, if it passes inspection, it ships; 3) have some fun with it. I like option 3. And maybe there is an option 3a or 3b that says, “Let’s get some of the other artists in on it too”. Let’s have a competition and see who can do the most easter egg faces!
OK, back to reality. Option 2 poses a problem … it has to pass inspection of those not in on the conspiracy. So, you can’t necessarily put them all right out in plain sight, gotta hide them. So, a few convenient spots are the back side of monsters, the floor or ceiling. Who is ever going to see the top of a Hogar's back? Well, lucky for you, I did ...
OK, I think I have ambled on well past the pretense of any preamble. Go check them out, see what you think. Then, after that, it is just one simple question: are all of these instances where you see a face (not where I say there is or might be one) accidental?
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) and it was confirmed ... zero imagination.
