Meaning What? - Game Invaders: The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games - page 139

Table 10.2 Game - Based Signs for Pac - Man

Signifi er Signifi ed

Pac - Man (inside game area) Playable character

Chomping noise Pac - Man accumulating points

Beeping noise Pac - Man moving but gaining no points

Score Total points accumulated by the player so far

Pac - Man (below game area) Extra Pac - Man lives for the player

Small yellow dot 10 points when Pac - Man eats it

Large yellow dot 100 points when Pac-Man eats it, also a power-

up, he can now “ kill ” ghosts

Ghosts (brightly colored) Enemies that can kill Pac - Man, nonplayable

characters

Ghosts (pale blue, blank expression) Enemies that can be eaten/killed; 200 points

Ghosts (fl ashing) Enemies changing back to killers

Pair of eyes No threat or points

Blue lines Restricts where Pac - Man can go

Exit left and right Escape route

Fruit 200 points, 300 points, etc. when eaten

Numbers Points gained by Pac - Man for eating something

this dual signifying system quite so clearly on display. We will return to this after
we have added a little more structure to signs in the next section.

ICONS, INDEXES, AND SYMBOLS

Earlier in this chapter—when we were thinking about trees—we noted that different
signifi ers could denote the same signifi ed. A clip art tree, the word “tree,” and a
photograph of a tree could all denote the same signifi ed, “ treeness. ” We can take
this observation further and identify different modes of signs according to the rela-
tionship between their signifi ers and signifi eds:

• Icons: In which the signifi er represents the signifi ed mainly by its similarity
to it:
• Film is highly iconic
• Road signs are highly iconic
• Photographs, particularly holiday snapshots and the like, are highly iconic.
• Indexes: In which the signifi er has some causal relationship to the signifi ed:
• A footprint in the sand denotes the presence of another person
• Hollywood fi lms, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, used indexes exten-
sively: falling calendar pages to denote the passage of time, quickly turning
steam train wheels representing travel and distance, or marching feet rep-
resenting an army.