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[JLJac]

That is very true! But I don't see it as fantasy/sci fi is bad, just that people are bad at them. As you say, it has to consist of large parts that feel real, to make it believeable. Then, when you feel like you're actually being there, the subtle twists of non-realism can show up and tweak it a notch.



This is the reason why I dislike fantasy like Final Fantasy and such, it doesn't feel like anyone can live a normal everyday life in those worlds. It's all about gigantic and colourful stuff and magic with a lot of green sprites, never any time to brush your teeth in the morning. Doesn't feel real.

Then of course there are the dream-worlds, alice-style, but that's a whole other deal.

You're right about NYC being a tired old cliché, but that doesn't mean it can't be good! It's the cliché that's tired and old, not the city itself.

Also

This is super amazing, setting-wise. Really strikes a chord with me. I knew about it, but had forgot it's name, thanks!

Also also, children of men!

This is how science fiction is made! If you have been to london you'd know that this future seems frightenly likely, except for the infertility thing maybe.

[Seth]

sure, when I say I don't like Sci Fi or Fantasy or NYC as settings I just mean in general--truth is I'm down for any of those if they are presented in a new or interesting way, I'm down

[Bree]

You know what show had an awesome setting? Recess.

[JasonPickering]

Theo: I wanted to make a kindergarden themed god of war. where you were a little kid with plastic shovels tied to his hands by jump ropes. and you had to defeat the bullies during recess. the kid would even be painted like kratos.

[Bree]

Dude! If you don't make that a real game, I will cry. What'd be cool is if you could base the story off of the Odyssey or another Greek myth refashioned to fit the kindergarten world- Aargh, that'd be so much fun!

Another good show with an awesome setting would have to be Chowder. Such a gorgeously psychedelic style!

[Bood_war]

Chowder greatly disappointed me.

[raiten]

Just to be different I'm gonna say

. Actually it's not really my favourite setting at all, but I think it's something different worth checking out.

My all-time favourite might just be the Moomin valley.

[raiten]

Oh and the Krtek (the little mole) movies! Me and all of my brothers and sisters loved it when we were kids, and it's still pretty magical. If you haven't seen it, you must check out the whole "forest turns into city" episode!







part 3

One more really awesome setting is Ghibli's Heisei Tanuki Gassen Ponpoko (The Raccoon War). It's one of the lesser known Ghibli films (hah! even when I'm mainstream I'm alternative!) but to me it's one of the best.

[pen]

Just to be different I'm gonna say

. Actually it's not really my favourite setting at all, but I think it's something different worth checking out.

My all-time favourite might just be the Moomin valley.

Resan till Melonia is awesome, and you should feel awesome for posting it!

[Bree]

Moomin Valley is indeed awesome- I found a giant-sized book of the comic strips, and they're quite lovely.

Tim Schafer's games always have the best settings, but for me, Psychonauts takes the cake. Not only are all the mind levels creatively designed and fun, they're symbolic of the struggles that the mind you're in is dealing with. Jon Blow can talk about merging gameplay and story, but Tim did it first.

[Cthulhu32]

Transmetropolitan is one of my favorite comic books, and I think what makes a lot of it work so well is how just dirty everything looks. Take a look at the streets surrounding Spider.

http://www.spinningtheinfiniteswitch.com/images/comics/TransmetFilth.jpg

Every comic you finish it and just feel like you need to wash your hands. There's one scene that sticks really strongly in my mind, where Spider is walking down the street, and he stumbles upon these two cyborgs kissing, and all of these cords are coming out of their bodies and linking together. It didn't explain what they were doing, but it just felt so wrong evne though it didn't really make a lot of sense.

[esc]

Fullmetal Alchemist, god I love that show.
Almost the entirety of the Animatrix.
Gonna second that Miyazaki comment, my favorite being Spirited Away(Chihiro's Journey).

And I'm not even an anime fan(atic), go figure.
The japanese just have a great eye for detail I guess...

[Luilak]

I really liked this movie: La cité des enfants perdu I found it had quite some atmoshpere as well as a wonderful setting.
Trailer:



And just for the sake of mentioning it: I think there aren't many who'd be able to deny that Lord of the Rings has one of the most complete settings they've ever seen.

Also, as I thought I read Cowboy Bebop here somewhere, I thought I'd add Firefly as well.

Last one: The Discworld. 

[Gainsworthy]

Transmetropolitan is one of my favorite comic books, and I think what makes a lot of it work so well is how just dirty everything looks. Take a look at the streets surrounding Spider.

http://www.spinningtheinfiniteswitch.com/images/comics/TransmetFilth.jpg

Every comic you finish it and just feel like you need to wash your hands. There's one scene that sticks really strongly in my mind, where Spider is walking down the street, and he stumbles upon these two cyborgs kissing, and all of these cords are coming out of their bodies and linking together. It didn't explain what they were doing, but it just felt so wrong even though it didn't really make a lot of sense.

Totally agree. Haa, I just bought a copy of Back On The Street. Great stuff - great writing, great story, great art, and the setting is just brilliant. Visually though, the level of detail is insane! Gotta scrutinise every panel. But, back to the topic.

[Luilak]

I just remembered one more that I found worth remembering: the anime Last Exile. Floating islands, kids making errants with an old plane, opposed to a dominating "guild", in possesion of vast technology. Really loved it.

[Dacke]

Just to be different I'm gonna say

. Actually it's not really my favourite setting at all, but I think it's something different worth checking out.

My all-time favourite might just be the Moomin valley.

Resan till Melonia is awesome, and you should feel awesome for posting it!

I have to third Resan till Melonia (The Journey to Melonia). The movie itself is fantastic, and on my "top 5 movies of all time"-list. It's a children's movie with a very strong political theme, freely based on Shakespeare's "The Tempest".

The setting is really something extraordinary. The movie takes place on two islands in a seemingly endless ocean. One island is industrialistic and the other one is filled with magic. The whole story revolves around the differences between these two islands, making the setting one of the main characters, so to speak.

I think this clip demostrates the feeling of the magical island Melonia quite well, showing that there can be problems in paradise too:



Time for supper in Melonia:

[darkwolf]

Hrm. Tough one. I'd personally say the Elder Scrolls universe is quite rich (Many people think it's limited, but they might not have read the books. I mean, how many high fantasy universes have racist tracts in them?) , and also the Riftwar novels.

For me, character is all.

[GregWS]

Wow; this is a really great thread.  Settings are incredibly tied into atmosphere, and that makes them even more relevant; a setting will make a very strong statement of it's own, and has to be treated like that.  If the theme of the game goes directly against the implicit message of the game's setting, then it's sure to feel "off."

So, yes, settings:

- Metroid Prime (1): best example of "archeological storytelling" as far as I'm concerned (I think I got that term from this forum, too, haha).  Really, the plot of the game is the game's setting; the ruins of the Chozo speak so much louder than any cutscenes could have.

- Cowboy Bebop; it definitely captured the mood of the show itself, and I definitely agree with that "humans in space are still humans" comment!

- Gibson; I haven't read Idoru, but I found the settings of the Sprawl trilogy to be quite amazing, in the sense that they felt like what I'd expect those cities to feel like in 20-50 years.  I read Mona Lisa Overdrive a couple weeks after visiting London, and the way Gibson handled the near-future version of that city was brilliant, and for me, entirely believable; "we still have Government here."  Simply the fact that Asia is this futuristic super-dense zone, Europe is still surrounded in it's history, and North America is a sprawling mess of different urban environments, still reflective of the Modernist tradition that created much of it's atmosphere in the 50s-70s, makes it far more believable than these pie-in-the-sky sci-fi futures that are so common.

- Knytt Series: the pseudo-fantastical, minimal, almost zen environments really highlight the feeling of exploring a lush exiting world just that little bit more unbelievable that our own

- REZ: exactly what hacking/cyberspace should look like.  I really want to know if Miz ever read Neuromancer, because REZ is incredibly close to the descriptions of cyberspace in that book.  The idea that really, all it is is a way to visualize data, seems to actually work in REZ.  You're not looking at abstract geometry per say, you're looking at data that's been given a form.

- The Science of Sleep: the DIY arts and crafts settings in this movie were really in a class of their own.  It's really inspired some of my current work, actually.

OK, I'm sure I'll be back with more sooner than later.

[soundofsatellites]

La cité des enfants perdu and carnivale had great settings.
Also, HL2, if mostly because of the art direction (HL2 would not be HL2 if the combine architecture/style wasn't there...)

I'm fond of the Dune universe* being on of the first books I read and all.
Warhammer 40k has a great thing in the "gothic sci-fi" department, but the game has been out there for so long, that at some point I think it's overwritten.
A couple of years ago I was really digging yu yu hakusho, but it isn't vastly different from diggin' japanese folklore. Which brings me to mithology and folklore in general. Those are quite inspiring settings, and I like how people develop these narratives to explain the world they live in (we're still doing it :D)
Last but not least, the Ravnica setting in Magic, blew my mind a couple of years ago. Seriously, I think those guys have yet to surpass it in terms on creating such a cohesive universe, for me it was an exemplar retelling of the classic fantasy types.

I know there has been others, since this kind of things always attracted me, but these are the things that right now seem stuck in my head.

*the six original novels, not that derivative and uninspired writing done by herbert's son

[Paint by Numbers]

Yume Nikki, Neftelia, and similar "tanasinn"* games.

Yume Nikki, especially, is a vast dreamworld filled with innumerable secrets, bizarre creatures, and huge landscapes. It is also pretty dang scary.

*Apparently some sort of modern underground Japanese art movement distiguished by surrealistic horror. I'm not too sure.