Prompt 3: Describe the procedural rhetoric employed by the game.
The newest installment in the Phil the Rabbit series, simply titled “Phil”, may not seem the most complex when you first see the title, but soon your love and care for Phil take over. The procedural rhetoric is based around the player’s interactions with Phil and the inherent desire to understand his behavior and make sure he doesn’t get lost, he really is a wild one at heart! As the player you don’t have to interact with Phil. You could simply enjoy the nicely designed scenes, walk around as your character, but it’s very hard to ignore such a cute creature. In the off chance you do, the game prevents you from going to the next scene until you talk with him, but I have a feeling that’s very very unlikely. To help make the possible interaction obvious, the game has Phil jump around, so you know he’s not just part of the background.
Our curiosity gets the best of us and we find ourselves talking to Phil, who runs off again, and as he cutely bounces away, it is tough to not curiously follow him. The dialogue indicates we never finished our conversation and it’s easy to want to know more. Now the player is left to chase Phil. Even if at first they don’t want to, he keeps going in circles, so it really draws the players attention. His attention is soon drawn by the grass though. We soon find this rhetoric continued as next time we reach him the dialogue tells Phil to wait.
Overall the rhetoric and goal is pretty convincing. While I did enjoy the visual identity of the various scenes, I never felt like I didn’t want to catch Phil and talk with him, so it was quite satisfying to get to him in the end and see him happily with us in a sort of pen, safe and sound.