Games Aren't Numbers

Maybe I’m not as savvy as Leigh Alexander is, but it took me a moment before I understood what she was talking about in her analysis titled “Why Alan Wake Is Too Well-Made To Work” which explains why the game is ironically too correct to be good. I have no idea what “well-made” means in this context, and I’m probably not helped by the fact I haven’t played Alan Wake yet. I have played a whole lot of games though, and I doubt that one new release is going to open my mind to what a “correct” game is. This sounds like the kind of thinking deployed by places like Metacritic, except that Alan Wake only has an 83 out of 100 average score there; that sounds like at least 17 percent of the game is incorrect.

I hoped that the article clarifies itself somewhere, so I continued reading.

Leigh Alexander never does explicitly define what she’s talking about, but for all the ignorant people like me it’s relatively easy to pick up on the gist of it anyway. Correctness seems to be related to a game’s accessibility and lack of frustration. Alan Wake is both of these things, and is therefore well-made. That’s just my interpretation of her interpretation of Alan Wake, so you’ll probably want to read her article yourself.

I began writing this by trying to criticize her ridiculously vague and reductionist language, but I ended up agreeing with her point. Correctness, as defined by most mainstream videogame media, is in fact not correct at all. If Alan Wake fails at manipulating the player’s emotions then that’s because such manipulation is a superficial goal to begin with. The fact that this is considered the proper way to make a triple-A game shows how worthless so many opinions in this industry are.

Maybe I’ll update this with my own thoughts on Alan Wake once I get a chance to play it myself. Its Xbox exclusivity has barred me from it, at least for now.

As Michael Abbott explains, Metacritic has a lot of problems. We all know that, have known that, and will know that. I’m sure the people who created and maintain Metacritic are well aware of its shortcomings. Metacritic has become a discussion topic just for the sake of being a discussion topic, closing in on that area of worthlessness occupied by piracy and art.

On one hand, I understand why Metacritic is so agitating and why it inspires so many harsh reactions. It is a remarkable force in the videogame market and it can be upsetting when a good game gets a low score, which can essentially destine it for commercial failure. On the other hand, I don’t fully understand what all of our anger is directed towards exactly. Metacritic is constantly being cited as a dysfunctional segment of the industry, but is it really to blame for any of the problems that are allegedly its fault? It’s a utility that, like any utility, has its strengths and weaknesses. Whenever I describe why Metacritic sucks, I’m not saying anything that’s not obvious or not true about any review aggregator.

The problem I have with criticizing Metacritic is the problem I have with Metacritic itself. Metacritic is a heuristic approach to judging games. It reduces them to a single integer. The only way it could possibly simplify games more would be if it used a binary “good” or “bad” score. Even if we repair or overlook all of the issues with its methods, we still have something that’s fundamentally flawed in its very nature.

Criticizing Metacritic is similarly heuristic. Metacritic is a perceived problem with the videogame industry and it happens to be an extremely easy target for us complain about. Okay, Metacritic is broken. How do we want to fix it? Suppose the people who run Metacritic go ahead and consider all of Michael’s bulleted complaints and overhaul their system. Would we stop complaining about it then? I doubt it. Ultimately, the problem we have with Metacritic isn’t really a problem with Metacritic. It’s a problem with the entire videogame culture. It’s a problem in the way in which we use Metacritic. Metacritic is what it is; it’s neither good or evil. It can’t be blamed for destroying developers’ jobs. It was never designed nor intended to do that. We did that.

The real issue is much more complicated than what can be blamed on any single entity. Metacritic wouldn’t have a disproportional effect on sales if we didn’t allow places like it to dominate our purchasing decisions. Metacritic wouldn’t have that sort of weight if individual reviews weren’t so bland and unreliable. Individual reviews would be better if gamers were more interested in reading intelligent prose and if good writers weren’t sidelined to unprofessional blogs. Gamers would be more interested in intelligent writers if games themselves were more intelligent. But I suppose there’s not much money in that. And the reasons for that can be traced in all sorts of directions.

That of course is my own gross oversimplification of the problem, if what I’m talking about can even be considered a solitary definable problem.

I personally haven’t used Metacritic for a long time. Ever since I unplugged myself from the perpetual hype cycle of new triple-A releases I just don’t see any appeal to it. Why would I buy a game just because of a number? Games are so complex that there are lots of high scoring games I simply don’t find interesting due to my personal tastes. Michael gives some good advice: “If you're looking for guidance […] identify a few reviewers or critics whose sensibilities seem to align with your own and carefully read their responses to the games they play.” This advice is actually so good that my response is: duh! I don’t see the logic in any other possible way of picking up games. The only way I can even find myself interested in a game is if someone recommends it to me, be that a blogger, a journalist, or a friend. The thought of regularly spending time and money based on the newest number on a website just doesn’t compute in my mind. If I ever get so absolutely desperate for new games to play and can’t find anyone who can tell me anything about them then maybe I would resort for something like Metacritic. But I’m already over my head in games anyway. I’m learning about new games almost every day and I have plenty that I’ve picked up and never got around to playing.

Metacritic is a symptom, not a problem. It will change when we change. Michael’s central message is a good one: don’t use Metacritic. That’s a message I can get behind. I find little value in its scores, and even less in the lifestyle of a Metacritic addict. If you find yourself needing to consult Metacritic regularly then I would recommend taking a brief reflection on what exactly games mean to you, what value they have for you, if they are worth the arbitrary number on a website.

(As a side note, I hope I don’t seem like I’m attacking Michael Abbott. His blog lives up to its name, Brainy Gamer, and it’s worth checking out if you haven’t yet. I’m just picking on him for a little bit as I use his post as an example to make my point.)

Kikiyama’s Yume Nikki is a poem written in videogame. It takes the language of games and outputs a world so pronounced and realized that it’s almost too easy to overlook. At the same time just enough of the conventions are silently rewritten to make the game jarring for an unprepared player. There are no games quite like Yume Nikki, at least not that are comparable in their focus and scope. It’s not the first time we’ve seen suspenseful and psychedelic worlds, but there’s no other world quite like it. It’s a confusing alien game for anyone who’s not fully immersed in it.

Okay, I understand that this all takes place in some weird dreamland. I’ve been to Kirby’s dreamland before and that one was fun and familiar. But this one doesn’t even seem like a game. Why are there no walls in this game, or floors for that matter? What am I standing on? Why is every level an endless repetition of nothingness?

Nothingness characterizes Yume Nikki. Formally, game objects exist for their logical and mechanical value. A particular room exists because it houses something beneficial to winning the game. A particular character exists to either hinder or aid the player. Aesthetics are a backdrop for the mechanics. Any focus on aesthetics comes at the expense of the mechanics, and vice versa. There is either one or the other. In Yume Nikki however, there are long drawn out areas filled with nothing. No people, no things, simply a void. When an object or a graphic does come into view it will rarely have any function, much less mean anything. I wonder what Samuel Becket would have thought of this if he was only born a generation or two later.

When a game is this focused it draws attention to all of its nuances. Every object of every room suddenly has meaning. Except for when they don’t.

Why does the protagonist have a videogame console in her real world but not in her dream room? What does that tiny alteration signify? I suddenly see a jittery pixilated colored ball; does that mean anything? Now I see a dozen of them strewn randomly across the map. Do the individual sprites mean anything? Does their overall pattern mean anything? Do they even do anything? No. They don’t.

If you play this game you are going to be walking a lot, usually in random directions. There is no direction given to you by the designer. Each map is an empty sandbox. You can only move in four directions; which will you choose? At what point will you decide to change directions? Landmarks are few and far between so these decisions are important. There could be a critical location placed just outside of the lines connecting the landmarked dots. Or maybe there isn’t. Either way, you’ll never know until you find out. But now you’re in the middle of nowhere with no orientation or direction at all.

The few surviving mechanics seem to have more meaning than ever. The edges of the screen have always been the foundation for any sort of computer visual. It’s assumed that everything you need to know is between those four corners. There is no map in Yume Nikki, along with no path and no anything. Suddenly those infinitely empty edges are a horrible unknown. Who knows what could possibly be a mere pixel away. Then you move to see- and realize it was actually just nothing. What a relief or just a bleak letdown.

Yume Nikki is a game encoded in white noise. Its signal and noise are one in the same thing. You’ll never know what is important or not until you realize that nothing has any intrinsic importance, only the value you yourself give it. Each indeterminate splinter of subconscious could signify anything.

Suddenly the graphics turn from colorful 16-bit to low-resolution 8-bit; what does that mean? This is all in the character’s dream so what might they mean to her? Maybe it’s connected to that minigame she played in the first screen. More importantly though, what do they mean to you?

Out of every games about dreams, this is the one that probably comes closest to actually resembling one. The software itself is dreamlike. Barely anyone seems to know who or what Kikiyama is or where this game came from. On the title screen you’re informed that this is version 0.10, the tenth iteration of an incomplete game. Presumably the final game, the version 1.0, will be played someday by someone, but only time and Kikiyama can tell. Like all great dreams, they’re only ever replayed in fragments.

This game is, thankfully for the sake of classification, in fact a game. That’s going by the strict sense of the term. It’s not just a creepy pixel art gallery. It has rules and a goal. It’s not randomized. The white noise has a comprehensible pattern. This is what makes the game really special, the fact that it strikes a balance between nonsense and logic. Its rules are consistent, and everything does something. The logical value of an object is rarely apparent however. The rules will change, but they change consistently. Doors will open to misleading areas, and return to completely different places entirely. But they do so as part of the design. Once the player has traveled throughout the entire world and documented every detail it’s apparent that the game is completely fair. The only possible problem is that once you’ve accomplished that you’re just as insane as the game is.

Espen Aarseth observed that a major divide between interactive stories and linear stories is that interactive ones exist in a dimension of their own which linear stories can’t even comprehend: the logical and mechanical dimension. Historically, videogames have focused entirely on that new dimension and completely underplayed the value of any traditional story, thus polarizing the two mediums. We all know that a game can never be art, and that likewise art can never be a game. Aesthetics and mechanics are incompatible.

It’s interesting to consider Yume Nikki’s place in this balance of powers. Its mechanics and its aesthetics are each similarly minimalistic and nonsensical; however there’s a difference between nonsense and lacking any purpose. I’m tempted to say that its aesthetics outweigh its mechanics, but how are you supposed to quantify and compare those? Either way, the two depend on each other entirely. There’s no part of Yume Nikki which can be excerpted and displayed individually. Every part of the experience enriches every other part. I don’t know what’s planned for version 0.11, if anything is, but I can’t imagine a single thing being added or removed. That would create a completely alternate experience. Version 0.10 is the dream I know and that I’ll keep replaying.

It is only after careful forethought, and deep prayer, and great caution that we should permit ourselves to refer to a particular creation as art. The implications of our decision on this matter can be immense; far too complex for this short blog post to delve into. In order to aid the categorization process I have assembled a list of a few candidates. We all know that the path to arthood is not easy, so I wish the best of luck to all who are invested in these items.

• Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy
• CadZZilla
• Shrek
• Mt. Rushmore
• the New York Times Crossword puzzle on November 5, 1996
• The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft
• The Brick Testament
• the Mandelbrot set
• 140 Art
• the soundscape of Lauren Lesko’s vagina
• The Large Hadron Collider
• Conservapedia’s “Mystery:Why Do Non-Conservatives Exist?”
• anything Derek Smart has ever said
• Venice, Italy
• What's Opera, Doc?
• The Codex Seraphinianus
• Earth
• The Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendium
• bicycles
• John Conway’s Game of Life
• Futurama
• Crystal Crawler
• Left 4 Dead 2

I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the world’s newest work of art, Miracles by Insane Clown Posse.

What does a game of liar's dice mean to you? To the creators of Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble it represents a confrontation between teenage girls.

You’ve written words before, but how often have they been used to fight a fantasy monster? Bookworm Adventures gives you this chance.

When you played Rad Racer on the NES did you ever wonder why you were playing it? Well in No More Heroes 2 you play a variation to deliver pizzas and get some quick cash.

Or what about Pipe Mania? Twenty years ago it was a fun time waster. In BioShock it’s how you ‘hack’ a steampunk robot.

No matter how complex and realistic our systems become, sometimes a real-world activity just can’t be properly represented in them. A metaphorical mini-game has to be substituted. With motion controls and realistic graphics continuing to grow more popular it’s easier than ever to make games that feel like real life. Well I already have a real life. I’m more interested in seeing people harness these new technologies to produce games which aren’t anything like the activities they appear to represent.

It’s the year 2010 and we’re all still frustrated about how little our culture accepts videogames as a respectable form of entertainment, and even less so a form of art. This frustration isn’t unwarranted at all, but the reality has to be accepted. I don’t put a lot of value in the public opinion anyway, since the public’s opinions are too frequently contrary to my own. But there are real consequences to being trapped in the cultural gutter. There’s little respect or recognition down here, escape doesn’t come easy.

However reacting directly to this fact, or perhaps just overreacting to it, isn’t likely to improve the situation. Doing so breeds insecurity which breeds false saviors. The notion that videogames will one day get their very own messianic “Citizen Kane” is a most prominent example. I’ve contested that idea a few times in the past, but I’d like to revisit it since there are so many problems I still want to address.

First of all, let’s look at what a “Citizen Kane” is thought to mean. The film Citizen Kane is widely considered to be the milestone where film culture became an art form respected and accepted by the public masses. It demonstrated exactly what film can do artistically and why it’s more than just a moving picture. Now, over seventy years later, film is an enormous part of seemingly everyone’s lives.

Except that this is a myth. Right now only “Hollywood” films are a significant part of our culture. Art house, documentaries, indie, non-American, etc. are all still on the fringe. There is only one particular type of film that has actually been rocketed to the point of a cultural institution. It’s a fallacy to assume that film is an entire medium, there are many mediums contained inside it.

Now let’s switch tracks an look at videogames. They’re even more divided that film is. The only reason why the public lumps every game under one term is ignorance. As more people realize what Halo and Civilization are they’ll also realize that these two games aren’t remotely similar at all. There won’t ever been enough room for every, or even most, types of games to break into the mainstream, but I’m completely sure that there will be a certain type of game that does.

Oh wait, that already happened to an extent with Wii Sports, except that it doesn’t count now that videogame culture has all but disowned the Nintendo and the Wii. And that only demonstrates my point.

With society as it is, we will never be satisfied with the amount of public acceptance games will get because it will never be acceptance of the games we like the most. “We” being people who spend lots of time playing lots of different games and have opinions about them. I can safely assume that I won’t ever be able to have casual conversations with my mom about King’s Bounty or Freespace. The most we can realistically hope for is the end of the perception that games are all about headshots and naked women. But then again, if you look at the top selling games each month that’s not untrue.

The only way for videogames, all videogames, to become a more mainstream force in our culture is if our culture itself changes. People need to grow up in an environment where serious games are played and talked about. A society where children are taught how to play and appreciate games in school. That’s why everyone has a respect for literature, even people who never read or have any interest in reading. Our society is currently full of people completely illiterate in the systems of games.

Videogames could make this happen, and maybe they will. I believe that on some level our society needs to evolve and play more games. Every time I read a story that uses chess as a metaphor I think that in some alternate universe a game like Civilization or StarCraft was used instead, perhaps more meaningfully. There’s something in human nature that is drawn to games, and in our millennia of existence we’ve only scratched the surface of their potential. The modern explosion of computer technology might be what was needed to finally unleash our potential to explore all the possibilities of games.

Are there problems with videogames in general that need to be addressed? Yes, certainly. The constant fetishization of gore and egocentrism of the players are definitely giving serious games an undeserved reputation by association. Physical hardware is and will probably continue to be an issue. The fact that so many games are expected to be forgotten after a couple of years makes them tend towards being forgettable. But plenty of perfectly good valid games exist. Society is what needs to catch up and accept them.

The fictional city of Rapture was created as a utopia which quickly fell to ruin due to its heavily flawed legal philosophy. The real city of Rapture, the sequence of binary code stored on disks, was also idealized. It was supposed to be a fantasy world unmatched in its realism and immersion. Just like the fiction behind Rapture, this other aspect of it begins with lots of promise. I don’t share Michael Abbot’s enthusiasm for BioShock, but I’m able to completely relate to his feelings about the opening sequences. I love the game’s exposition. Its art is beautiful, its cinematic sequences brilliant, its dialog stylized. Every detail is fine tuned to deliver a distilled and profound experience. The first hour alone is an incredible achievement on the part of Irrational Games.

A videogame’s world is massively critical. It’s one of the things games can do so much better than any other medium. In a game the world can be explored freely just as the real world is. It’s no surprise that most games take place in fantasy or heavily stylized worlds, the strongest point of a medium can and should be subject to the most creativity.

Some imaginary worlds are created simply for their flavor. I like laser blasters, lightspeed spacecraft, green skinned amphibious aliens, and robots just like I like certain shades of blue. I’m thus attracted to games which feature all of these things. There’s nothing beneath the surface, and there doesn’t need to be.

BioShock is certainly beautiful on its surface, but the surface is not why we still talk about it. It explores cerebral possibilities. Its bizarre and ridiculous world connects itself to reality. This is a noble cause, but I say that it is unfortunately the weakest part of Rapture. Just as its flawed governing philosophy destroyed the city, its flawed narrative destroys the experience.

For an imaginary world to be a good world, it must be believable. I refrain from using the word realistic because it would imply that the imaginary world is just like with the world I live in. The most fantastic worlds are the ones that are nothing like my own at all. They’re the ones which, at a glance, appear to be the least believable, the most absurd. That is where the accomplishment lies, in creating a world where everything is the most opposite of our own yet it reveals itself to to be perfectly logical.

One way to accomplish this is through a birds-eye view. Dune‘s narrator chronicles the lives of its universe’s aristocracy and royalty. He describes every aspect of the system they govern and are governed by, the inner workings of the governments and businesses, and the private lives of those who control them. The characters begin in prestigious positions, descend into the tribal underclass, and then work their way back to the top. All the while their experiences are documented, and the nature of their situation analyzed. There are few details of their society which are lacking by the end of the book.

Dune isn’t a very realistic book. It’s subject is an entire planet with virtually no water or natural life, yet gigantic worms stretching across the horizon roam its sands. There is a society of witches who specialize in mind control and eugenics. And in this sci-fi world where space ships as big as cities can transport anywhere instantly, all computer technology is strictly banned by imperial law. Yet, the world is completely believable. Assuming that gigantic sand worms and witches existed, each component of Dune’s world falls into place logically. There’s a reasoning for every detail. By the end of the book it’s clear that Herbert didn’t just make up a fantasy world and invent a reasoning for it, he invented the world and used realistic logic to tie the pieces together. It all makes sense.

There’s a much more personal approach as well. Blade Runner takes place in a fantastic stylized alternate future. There’s a lot that its audience can make sense of, but there’s a lot that they can’t. The opening shot portrays a cityscape with towers belching fire. Throughout almost the entire film the city is perpetually covered in a heavy downpour. Mechanical pyramids and flying cars exist. The presence of artificial humans is explained, but only the details relevant to the plot. The science behind them is left out of the picture. From a purely analytic standpoint, it’s difficult to imagine this particular world existing.

What makes Blade Runner powerful is that it’s not about the overarching systems. It’s about the plot, the characters, and the drama. The world isn’t realistic, but the emotions expressed by the characters are. The comparison between humanity and machinery is one that has crossed the minds of a modern audience. The viewers can connect with the characters and their struggles.

These are exactly what BioShock attempts but does not do adequately, or sometimes even half-decently. The problem is not that it’s an unrealistic game, the problem is there’s nothing realistic about the game. It’s entirely full of images and words which float around and never complete a logical circuit.

There are no characters in the game to connect to. All of the narrative dialog functions to give the player directions. The emotions are insincere and simply a thin motivation for the player to continue progressing forwards. Rapture’s citizens all look the same and sound the same, quite literally. The practical limitations in creating lots of dialog and models presents itself when an entire city’s population wears the same clothes and repeats the same lines constantly with the same voice. The tape recordings explaining the backstory are just that, simple explanations of the backstory. Any time they attempt reach into any personal level they either fail due to their unrealistic characters or their formulaic patterns.

The worst offense of all is the presentation of the little sisters. They’re the worst because they’re loudly supposed to be the primary things the player is to feel sympathy and a connection towards. However like everything else in the game, they’re an array of repeated models and voices and exist only as a mechanic to be manipulated. After being rescued, each little sister will say “thank you” with the same voice all the others did and immediately run away. The people I really felt sympathy for were the hundred or so who were killed by the protagonist, some of them had personalities.

Rapture’s larger system is just as unbelievable. Plasmids simply cannot be taken seriously, they’re drugs bought from vending machines, the moment they touch your bloodstream lighting or ice or bees grow out of your left arm. This is a videogame, so certain degree of silliness has to be accepted sooner or later. But the fact that the player is meant to treat this with a completely straight face is ridiculous. The whole ecosystem surrounding the plasmids is ridiculous. Their fuel is harvested from dead bodies, which the society just freely leaves lying around on the streets. Then little girls come and use a syringe as big as themselves to suck it all out of those bodies. These little girls are brainwashed to do this because just giving them instructions doesn’t work for some reason.

In one of the tape recordings a character explains that she doesn’t understand why only girls are the ones who have this position. The reason, we all know, is because the player is supposed to feel motivated to rescue them just because they’re girls. The fact that the game’s narrative is constructed around game mechanics does earn it points, but it’s embarrassing when it becomes self-conscious and brings more attention to it by trying to cover it up. The big daddies are arguably worse. They’re humans who are under mind control and with diving suits surgically attached to their bodies. One tape recording complains that Ryan believes they’re too expensive to create. Ryan may be on to something, a bodyguard in a suit of armor and a list of instructions would have been considerably cheaper and more practical.

I write this because BioShock is frequently cited as a landmark achievement. While the exposition may be brilliant for what it is, the rest of the game is a disappointment. I want games to have great worlds because that’s one of my favorite things about games. Perhaps I could have chosen better examples than a novel and a film for comparing with a game, but they’re strong examples and I believe their strengths can carry across media boundaries. I hope more developers put serious thought into the worlds they create, and ask themselves questions like why they’re creating a world. There aren’t a whole lot of imaginary worlds, in games or other mediums, that are truly convincing to me, but I’m optimistic and believe that there’s no reason why games can’t feature the best worlds of all.

Modern Warfare 2's "prestige edition" includes real night vision goggles, a collector's stand, a steel book with a metallic finish, an art book, and last but not least the game and manual. I Am 8-Bit is a collection of art based on interpretations of retro games. Its annual exhibits are created by over a hundred artists and attended by thousands of people. I believe there is a relationship between the popularity of these two seemingly independent phenomena. They both satisfy something that videogames have been hungry for ever since their conception. A whole they continuously have tried to fill but never with lasting success. Videogames are like Pinocchio, by their nature they're virtual but deep down inside they long for a a connection to the real world. Films have their posters, music has its album covers, videogames never established a lasting physical medium.

When I assembled my list of favorite box covers of the decade I experienced a problem: there aren't a whole lot of good ones. In fact there are barely even any decent ones. I had to adjust my standards slightly just to make that list less embarrassingly short. I've always seen myself as a collector of videogames, but this is probably why I've never been a collector of game cases. Cases have always been a limitation for games, it constrains them into physical space, when their real home is cyber space. People still collect vinyl albums in addition to using iPods, and books are a hundred percent tangible so the transition to digital downloads for them has been a slow one. In comparison, digitally downloaded games are completely superior compared to physical media from my perspective. There are just so few cases or disks that I can actually appreciate, that I can look at it sitting on my shelf and get a good feeling. That's all fine, I don't need game cases and I don't think games do either. Yet the whole they try to fill stays empty.

I do have an A Life Well Wasted poster framed and hanging on my wall. Not because it's a particularly amazing piece of art (although I am fond of it) but because of what it represents. I can't hang an actual game on my wall, but my collection of decorative art feels so incomplete without a representative from this hobby of mine.

I hope publishers continue to peruse options for including extra collectables with special editions of their games. Sure, right now they may primarily be just extra overpriced flair to draw in extra profits for publishers. I don't particularly see myself ever spending an extra hundred bucks on a pair of Modern Warfare 2 night vision goggles that I know I'll never use, or hang a cheap tacky poster of a mostly nude and partially deformed CGI girl on my wall. But maybe if these were taken seriously they could help videogames find their identity in this culture. They could help "legitimize" gaming for all the people worried about how the public views their hobby. Think about what would happen if serious artists produced serious art not as fans but as official employees of the publishers. Instead of riding in the wake of the industry, these creative minds could be at its core. In the meantime I'll keep supporting game inspired art to the extent I can.

Myst was re-released on GOG.com the other day. This is hardly a major event since it's one of the best selling games of all time and has been released on virtually every system capable of containing its size. Statistically speaking, if you're reading this post then it's safe to assume you have played this game by now and have made up your mind on whether it's either one of the greatest adventure games or if it's scum that killed adventure games. This single and simple game left such a huge impact on videogame culture that it almost seems pointless to post anything new about it. But this GOG.com re-release is special to me. GOG.com has been devoted to keeping the original games intact (or in this case, the “remastered” version which is essentially equivalent). This means I can load the exact same files that I did all those years ago when I first inserted the Myst CD.

There's a reason why nostalgia is such a strong force among people who grew up with games. When people grow up with games there's a certain relationship that is formed between the person and the game. Games are like places and people, returning to an old game you played years ago is like visiting the town where you grew up or reuniting with and old friend.

I was one of the thousands of people who spent a significant amount of my childhood immersed in Myst. It was a sensory and cerebral experience. Every frame was a hand crafted digital painting. Ambient sound effects flowed through the environments. I accepted the game's invitation to travel through its worlds at my own pace. I read the journals, clicked on buttons, admired the static pre-rendered water ripples, and let my imagination bounce off of these. There was no motivation other than my inner curiosity to discover everything that I could. Simply existing inside its world was all the reward I needed to keep playing, and that is exactly what I did during most my time playing it.

When I first entered Myst I was not new to videogames, but as a child I was still new to life. The world became a secret space I could visit in solitude, everything was at peace. But this peace, I realized, was not a natural peace. It was a Mysterious, dead peace. This wasn't a virginal island paradise, there were once people living here. But now everyone was gone and all they left was a library of broken artifacts recording their footprint on history. My feelings toward the island grew increasingly uncomfortable as I gradually understood that I was not alone. Ghosts of its past inhabitants haunted the remains. Not just the disembodied holographic heads, but a dormant energy which waited for a trespasser to disturb its grave. I became that trespasser, and spirits were soon unleashed. I can still remember the moment when I first carelessly turned that red valve in the cabin and released a deafening mechanical clatter from outside.

The this unease rippled into an overwhelming anxiety. The understanding crept upon me, there was a malicious spirit haunting these islands. I power greater than my current comprehension. Evil symbols littered the rooms, and deadly toys were strewn carelessly. At first a ghastly holographic mouth speaking a frightening gibberish, then a dagger stashed in a drawer, then severed head, then a skeleton, subtlety was a feature which these islands were quickly being drained of.

Myst turned from an escapist fling with alternate reality into a nightmarish dream. A lucid dream, but every last amount of effort must be spent to fight the creeping terror. Every time I was able to glimpse part of a solution to the puzzle it was overwhelmed by the haunting Mystery, all of the remaining pieces. I was just like Sirrus and Achenar, trapped and struggling to peer through cloudy static.

Today I've grown older. My world has changed but Myst's remains the same. The water's frozen ripples no longer wow me, Atrus' journals aren't the great literature that they were before, and the Mystery of course has long since faded away. None of these matter for me though, the game is still a home to me. Despite the critically superior sequel Riven and the next three attractive but sadly stale additions to the series, I can never feel the same about them as I do when I load the original. In many ways Myst has become a standard for me, I will often subconsciously measure games in terms of their similarities and differences to it. The game's influence on my present life has shrunken compared to its past, but it remains in focus nonetheless. This effect isn't mere nostalgia, this a reconnection with a game from my past. I can continuously return to the island and experience a new chapter of my virtual life's story. Each time I bring with me new creative experiences and reasons for the return. And now I close, realizing that perhaps the ending has not yet been written.

Descent II contains twenty four main levels, six secret levels, countless secrets inside its levels, ten different types of primary weapons, and dozens of enemy robots waiting for a challenge. There is a certain fascination we have in seeing all of a game's information laid out for us. To see games gutted, their insides pulled out and strewn all over our computer screens. To look at all of the charts and the screenshots and the levels in level editors.

There is a lot of talk about what goes into a game. We worry about all of the features that a game has, what its graphics look like, how many levels it has, and so on. When games are played they are expected to function just as they were programmed. Every detail should be authored, every cliché should be adhered to. It is expected that sometimes the unexpected events will happen. Games are judged based on everything that can possibly happen inside them.

When I played Descent II in the mid 90s I never reached even level twenty, and probably only found about three secret levels. Who knows how many hidden rooms I found or didn't find, or what other details I may have overlooked. It doesn't make a difference to me how many levels there were on the disk, I never saw the last few anyway. But isn't this a very negative way of describing it? My experience is defined by what I did accomplish, not what was possible to accomplish. What happened to me in those virtual mines was my unique experience. It's nice to know what else there was to explore, maybe some day I'll return to it and properly finish the game, but that will be a different story.

Games are like places. I always want to learn about new interesting places to visit, I want to know what's available. When visiting a place I try to get as much out of the experience as I can. Each visit is precious. Only so much can be done, only so many sights can be seen, only so many people can be met before the time to leave comes. After I leave I may reflect on what I did, consider the chances I missed and would like to return to, decide where I would like to go next. In the end what was most important never is what I could have done, or what other people did, but my personal story.

Games are like people. I'm rarely as concerned with what makes a person as I am concerned in what that person makes. Games don't exist in a museum for us to examine and move on, they are only worth anything as long as they are actively being played. It's the union between a player and a game that creates their worth to us. The player's act of exploring what can be done with the game mechanics and discovering details in the game's environment is what gives them meaning.

The greatest game can be ruined by the worst player. Players have just as much of a duty to play a game well as games have a duty to provide opportunities. When I say “play well” I don't mean to earn the top score or to unlock every secret, I mean to explore the game's possibilities in creative ways. Challenge the game as much as it challenges. Don't passively ride through the game, take control over it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson criticized passive reading in The American Scholar:

One must be an inventor to read well. As the proverb says, "He that would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry out the wealth of the Indies." There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion.

If reading a book is full of labor and invention, then is it necessary to explain why playing a game would add an entirely new dimension to that? A book is completely authored, any invention happens in the mind of the reader. In a game the invention is not only inside the mind, but is also literal. A new story unfolds every time the game loads. It's impossible to play a good game passively.

Yet some games try to be as passive as possible. I've hated playing Gears of War and similar titles due to the way they are designed against creativity. They're cinematic to the point of being comparable to a giant quick time event, without the artistic touch that makes cinema compelling. There's barely any room available for literal creativity, much less mental creativity. Playing such games are like entering the portal in Being John Malkovich for the first time. Craig Schwartz could see, hear, feel, and sense everything Malkovich could, but he wasn't really in control over the body, he was only along for the ride.

Gaijin Games' Bit. Trip series has with every release captured a different degree of agency a player can have in a game. In Bit. Trip Beat the player could only move along a fixed line and had to hit pixels at just the right moment to create the perfect melody. Bit. Trip Core had four possible directions to move, which allowed a degree of flexibility as to when a few pixels can be hit, but it still mostly required predetermined choreographed timing. The latest in the series, Bit. Trip Void, gives the the player full control over where to move. Pixels can be hit at any time, and their corresponding musical notes as well. The game uses a large element of quantization at work to keep an appealing melody, but the responsibility to elevate the tune from “appealing” to “awesome” is handed over to the player. At a glance the music in Void may seem pale in comparison to it's predecessors, but a player with fast reflexes and musical creativity can produce something far better. And more importantly, invent his own superior experience.