Runner Vision, creating codes within a game.

Runner Vision is an innovative and accessible waypoint system within Mirrors Edge that highlights important objects and places to go in bright red. This is interesting from a semiotic point of view for a number of reasons. First of all the colour red gives off a variety of signs. It is indexical of both anger and warmth and is used as both throughout the game.



Red is symbolic of anarchism and revolution, matching the character Faith's ideals. The bright red colouring also stands out from the cities otherwise cold isolating colours, this adds to the feeling of reassurance when the player sees an object they can use to reach new areas. From a more practical perspective, Runner Vision also creates goals and a direction for the player and essentially turns the game, from being simply a run through the city, into a series of runs between checkpoints, which is much easier to navigate.




All of this, it could be argued, lays the foundation for codes to be created within Mirrors Edge. The player begins to associate this colour with new signs, red doors go from being symbolic of anarchism and indexical of a way out to symbolising mission objectives and level goals. This is certainly no accident and has been purposefully engineered into the game. The same can be said of almost any game, the cover system in Gears of War can be said to have changed brick walls into symbolising safety and protection. Piles of hay become appealing hiding spaces after playing too much Assasins Creed... Not that the old meanings of walls or hay are gone, merely that these games have given us new codes which we associate with them.