Games Aren't Numbers.com

This simple sense of wonder at the shapes of things, and at their exuberant independence of our intellectual standards and our trivial definitions, is the basis of spirituality as it is the basis of nonsense. Nonsense and faith (strange as the conjunction may seem) are the two supreme symbolic assertions of the truth that to draw out the soul of things with a syllogism is as impossible as to draw out Leviathan with a hook.

-G. K. Chesterton, A Defence of Nonsense

Videogames seem to have always existed inside a paradox. Being software, their gameplay will be logical for as long as computers are logical. But this logic is only foundational. There is an absolute set of rules that governs everything in a game's universe. The blocks will always fall and the rows will always disappear. If an exception occurs it is because a specific variable was different in a specific way. And unlike the real universe, games are created by humans and the rules that govern them can be completely comprehended by humans (in fact this is often something many games expect the player to do).

The other side of gaming's supposed logicality is the fact that the rules can be and often are completely independent of reality. Blocks don't really fall out of the sky and stack themselves, and they certainly don't disappear when they form a row. There's just no way this can occur in the natural world. The blocks aren't representative of anything real (no matter how speculative you may want to be about that), they are just blocks that fall and disappear. The game is pure nonsense.

At this point in time nonsense has seem to have become a block in the foundation for videogame culture. When considered alongside other entertainment industries, it's fascinating how many top selling games rely on nonsense. When I was playing Resident Evil 5 I couldn't help but notice how many ridiculous videogame tropes it used, which especially stood out when placed alongside it's intended realistic graphics and AI and so on. Shooting a snake with a rocket launcher, picking up an unscathed egg from where its body used to be, and then eating it to instantly heal a wound caused by an axe to the face is so far removed from reality that it can't be explained away, and when placed alongside lifelike graphics and animations it can't reasonably just be abstract symbolism. When I took a step back and realized this, I was surprised at myself for not having been immediately struck by this fact as I assume someone completely new to videogames would be. When a film or a song is full of abstract nonsense it's considered innovative, in a videogame, even a “realistic” one, it's considered normal.

When thought of as an expressive medium there is one thing videogames do very well, they unite artistic nonsense with logical mechanics. That's one thing Today I Die demonstrates, and one reason why I think that game's value outlives its mere novelty. Within its universe, abstract ideas exist as a tangible reality and behave according to specific patterns. The fact that a player is free to experiment with the virtual environment allows him or her to think of the ideas as tangible objects in ways rarely seen elsewhere. It's fascinating how videogames are able to put these two contradicting forces side by side to form a complete whole in a way no other medium can.

This is why I never get as excited for a triple-A realistic game as I do for a creative abstract game. While I love being impressed by detailed lifelike environments, I'm more interested in something that just wants to explore what can be done by combining imagination with a tangible universe.

Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.

-Princess Irulan, Dune

Because my disembodied voice is featured in its latest B-side!

For those who aren't familiar with A Life Well Wasted, it's an Internet radio show hosted by Robert Ashley. Unlike most videogame podcasts this one focuses on people rather than products. But instead of me explaining why it's so great why not go check it out yourself? It's very well produced with a lot of thoughtful and interesting content.

If you're curious, my quote is featured 17 minutes and 26 seconds into it, and I also have a final comment at the very end after the credits. You should really listen to the whole thing though, there are a lot of stories way more interesting than mine. All of them were cut and edited by Ashley so they could fit together into a whole story, but you can also listen to the original submissions. Mine for example was cut down from three minutes to a few seconds, and some submissions weren't even included. (Also my name wasn't credited at the end of the episode for some reason, but it's all good.)

Braid creates new meaning from the properties of past games.

Thinking critically about that is good.

But only acknowledging Blow's own work as meaningful implies that others aren't meaningful, so

Re-evaluating all past games based on the ideas Braid uses is better.

But why limit yourself to that,

Critically analyzing all past present and future games with Braid's model, along with original methods, is best.

Braid lacks any subtlety in its usage of properties from past games, so not acknowledging the merits of its source material is inexcusably sloppy.

Braid is one of the loudest examples but these points stand with virtually every game.

So enough about Braid.

Okami is a tribute to older games as well, specifically the Zelda franchise.

Without Zelda then Okami wouldn't exist, but

Okami is a partner for Zelda. The former's existence puts the latter into a new context.

To zoom in, this occurs every time a new Zelda game is made as well.

For example Majora's Mask gave new meanings to a lot of Ocarina of Time's properties.

The present always gives new meaning to the past. The properties of the past never change, but their meaning evolves over time.

Zelda has always been what is is, although Okami may have given a new insight into it.

Any analysis of Okami as a game cannot be complete without considering Zelda along with all other related games, and vice versa.

And any analysis of Braid cannot be complete without considering all of its inspiration.

No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead

-T. S. Elliot, Tradition and Individual Talent

I've been very busy lately so when I started writing this post I realized I had a lot of general ideas but I wasn't patient enough to elaborate on all of them. So I limited myself to a sentence or two about each one and spared the originally intended details and explanation. I put a lot of faith in these few words to contain a worthwhile meaning, so maybe this was a good idea and maybe not. Since there may be some confusion over what I intended to mean, I might elaborate more later.

Video Games. What ideas or images flashed into your head when you read that phrase? Were they memories of yourself spending quarters at an arcade machine? Or maybe spending hours behind of a Guitar Hero drum set. Maybe you're a typical parent who thinks of an evil device that erodes your children's brains and turns them into head-shooting Nintendo-worshiping zombies. Or maybe you are one of those zombies and that phrase brought back all the great times you spent killing virtual people. Okay let's get serious, video games deserve the same respect any other entertainment medium has. They may have not had their Citizen Kane yet, but we're all sure that point is not too far away, maybe in the year 2016 or so. If video games are one of mankind's greatest creative and technological achievements, why does their very name carry so much negative baggage? It just might be time for us gamers to think of a new name for our hobby.

Imagine this, the two words “video games” only without the space. It becomes a new word entirely: videogames. The English language is very fond of retaining spaces inside compound words and their removal is a rare and slow process. So by deliberately removing that space, the phrase has essentially been given a boost into a distant idealistic future where videogames are now considered not merely a combination of video and game, but instead are only defined by themselves. How wonderful it would be to get rid of all the baggage videogames have acquired over the years. The mainstream public's irrational misunderstandings of the sport will be gone entirely. We can start from scratch now and create a society where videogames get the respect they deserve. The term “gamer” will hardly be of use because everyone will be a gamer, it would just be the equivalent of “first world dwelling human.” The personal lives of Hollywood celebrities may find competition as grocery store isles begin to favor those of game developers instead. This future that once seemed impossible is suddenly not too far away when we think about it now.

Wait, stop. Our thinking may be still too far in the box. Perhaps the word “game” should be removed alltogether? Does a work of art like Bioshock really deserve to share a category with Mouse Trap? Obviously the offending word cannot simply be removed from the compound, an entirely new word needs to be created. A word that can truly express every aspect offered by the medium. A word that can define the complexity of Pokémon, the art of Braid, and the verisimilitude of Killzone 2. But the catch is that this word must exclude juvenile toys, as well as anything else us gamers don't want to be associated with. Game is not that word, but what is? It seems as though we have truly outdone ourselves, we've created a medium that not even our own English language can label.

As the one word to rule them all seems so close, suddenly it is so far away. Maybe sometime in the future, when gamers are ready, we will finally find it. We know it has been prophesied that one day the Citizen Kane of games shall come and deliver videogames from being merely a niche market. But before that day occurs the world must be ready. A game of that calibur will only come to be when our language is fit for its use. Some day humanity shall develop a word that can finally express all of the deep meanings and complexities that we today can only describe as video games.

Update: I cross-posted this over on videolamer.com if you want to read it again over there.

A while ago I posted some guidelines on my reviewing techniques. Since then I've written a few more and have developed my guidelines more as well. Here's a list of a few rules I use for myself.

I read other reviews and articles before writing my own. While part of me thinks that my writing should ideally be only influenced by myself and my subject, I realize that by publishing my writing I'm putting it into an online community and have a duty towards them as well. The people who read my reviews on videolamer.com tend to be savvy and they read other sites and reviews as well. It makes sense then that my writings are put in that context. I don't want to waste anyone's time by saying the same thing that every other reviewer has already said.

My reviews don't tell other people if they will like the game or not, I try to convince them to accept my opinion of the game. My reviews are about my experience. But simply saying whether a game is good or not is easy, I try hard to make a case for my opinions. Reviews on a site like Amazon are supposed to help you to make purchases, they tell you what you can expect from a product. I don't believe I can justifiably write to that standard when I'm on a site completely focused on the articles themselves. This is why I don't worry about telling my readers what their opinion will be, I just focus on my own, hopefully reasonable, opinion. If I've made someone appreciate a game that they thought they hated then I think I've accomplished my goal, and vice versa.

It's easy for my writing to diverge into pseudo-intellectual pretentious ramblings, so I try to avoid that. A lot of bloggers such as myself can enjoy pretending we're be the smartest people on the planet. This actually just makes us look awfully stupid. I liberally trim a lot of fat off of my articles before publishing them. If I can say something in one word then there's no point in using ten words. If a one syllable word conveys the same meaning as a three syllable word then I'll use the former. Maybe I don't really need that paragraph that I wrote just so I could namedrop Descartes. Most games are at their heart dumb fun, so being pretentious can be completely unnecessary.

I want people who have no interest in the games I write about to enjoy reading my reviews. I even want people who don't play videogames to be able to enjoy reading my reviews. I consider everything I write to be its own work capable of standing on its own, but with a very strong influence from its subject matter.

These are just some general rules I keep in mind when I write. Obviously they don't apply to everyone and I even break them when I feel like it. But I think it's important to have a structure like this to produce good writing.

Today I Die is another short and clever game that challenges your expectations. Like most experimental games its appeal largely hinges on the fact that what it's doing is novel. Even a seasoned gamer can find a fresh experience in it. But there are a lot of games like it in that sense, so the reason why I bring attention to Today I Die in particular is the fact that I think it actually achieves something beyond just its style. I would write more about it but considering that the game is only a few minutes long, why not just see for yourself? Here's the announcement of its release, and here you can play it right away.

In Part 1 I used two examples of gameplay descriptions, a boring one and an entertaining one. One of the points I tried to make was that simply analyzing a game's components and then listing them is boring and should be avoided, but an entertaining description is fun to read. There's another advantage though that creative descriptions offer. Good writing can tell you how good or bad a game is simply through its language. This may seem painfully apparent, but the frequency of dry reviews would seem to argue otherwise.

Every review will have a sentence along the lines of “this game is good” or “this game is bad” or somewhere in between, but the way a review is written can speak much more profoundly. My previous examples didn't directly critique the game, but their words can speak for themselves.

Here's a recap of the examples I used previously:

BIT.TRIP BEAT is like Pong set to music. You control a paddle moving vertically up and down the screen. You have to align yourself with the oncoming pixels in order to deflect them. The more you deflect the higher your score goes. Some of these pixels are very fast and move in strange patterns that are hard to hit, so that's the real challenge. The highlight though is the music which is very chiptune inspired and matches up with the gameplay. To top it all off there are some great visuals.

BIT.TRIP BEAT is Pong meets Rez. Thirty seven years later your job is to once again take control of a line shaped paddle and do anything to stop the onslaught of square balls. Only this time you're in a technicolor outer space, not a blank ping-pong table. Another difference, aside from setting, is that it's not another human you play against but rather some invisible, and presumably square, batting machine (paddling machine?) which has malfunctioned and can't stop shooting an endless stream of balls. BEAT follows the sci fi the tradition of allowing sound to travel through space, so catchy chiptunes can be heard everywhere. They're so catchy in fact, that even the colorful square balls can't help but dance to the beat. I'm sure there's some symbolism here, and it probably involves drugs.

My boring description is unlikely to make anyone really want to buy the game. I could end the paragraph with a recommendation, but that is less important than the actual paragraph itself. “Show, don't tell” is a common technique games use when instructing the player. Likewise in reviews, it's better to show the reader that the game is fun by using fun language, don't just tell him or her that it's fun.

It works for a negative description as well. Here's a foil for my positive one:

BIT.TRIP BEAT is could be described as less a game and more as porn for retro enthusiasts. Its pixel inspired artwork and chiptune inspired soundtrack are all it needs to sell, and the developers at Gaijin seem to have taken heed to this fact. Its gameplay is extremely simple and only serves as a context for its art and music. Moving a paddle up and down a screen to hit balls may have been amazing when Pong hit the market, but this is the year 2009. It's still fun in its own quirky way, but don't expect to get blown away. It's hard to fault a game for being simple when it only costs 600 Nintendo Points (6 USD) though. Pick this up if you can't get enough of the recent trend of cheap artsy games, or if you're looking for a real old school challenge, since this game is definitely designed for those with skill.

A description like this, which even recommends buying it, is very unlikely to convert any potential players. It implies the game is shallow, and indirectly insults anyone who likes it. Even a self described “retro enthusiast” would probably be less likely to want to play the game after reading this.

My light hearted description is more likely to make more people want to play the game just because it's fun to read. It never explicitly says “this game is good, buy it” but it leaves the reader with a positive emotional association with the game. If a game can inspire a writer to write entertaining reviews, then we subconsciously assume it must also be an entertaining game.

The importance of subtlety seems so obvious, but far too many writers seem to forget it.

A few days ago I attempted to contact Gaijin Games but I couldn't. . The reason was simple: nowhere could I find a valid email address, postal address, telephone number, or anything for them. They didn't have contact info listed anywhere on their website. The only email address anywhere was on their page asking for donations. I decided to give that a shot, but my message was returned as undeliverable. Apparently their method for accepting free money doesn't work.

I didn't have anything really important to say to them, I just wanted to chat. I had some suggestions about their future projects and I wanted to congratulate them on what they've accomplished so far. I suppose I always could have just posted a comment on one of their blog posts (that was the only possible contact method I could find on their site) but I didn't want to comment on a blog post, I wanted to send them a personalized message just for them.

Eventually I emailed their publisher, Aksys Games, asking if there was any way to get get in touch with Gaijin. A day later Gaijin's CEO, Alex Neuse, himself replied! He was very nice and seemed to appreciate my letter, and I'm glad I was able to finally talk to him. If only it had been as easy for me as it should have been.

I don't intend to sound condemning of Gaijin Games, they seem like a great group of people. They've made a fantastic game and Neuse comes off as a really cool guy. Not listing contact information is a common problem with small groups in general, and just happens Gaijin happens to be one. Maybe their contact information was available elsewhere and I never saw it, but the fact is that I wasn't able to find it. Or maybe they just don't want to be contacted, although I wouldn't assume so.

Letting the public contact you is important if you plan on having a public audience. I myself made sure to make my email address as inconspicuous as possible, which has proven to have worked out very well. Comments, forums, live chat, and other sophisticated communication tools are all nice, but plain old email is the standard, especially for formal situations. What if I had found a game breaking bug in their software, or had any other conceivable kind of important message for them? Unless you specifically don't want anyone to talk to you, having a visible email address is important.

The hardest thing for me to write about games is always describing the gameplay. Taking everything they teach you in their tutorial levels, with all their fancy videos and images, and then summing it up in a couple of paragraphs of mere text is a little challenging. The times when I have to do this, I don't expect my readers to acquire a deep comprehension just from my writing, but at least be able to understand what I'm talking about. Even this proves to be challenging though.

There are assumptions I need to make about the reader. Has he or she never played a game in this genre before? Is he or she familiar with the dozen previous games in the franchise? I want my writing to be accessible by the widest audience possible. A useful shortcut is to compare a game to similar ones, but that only works as long as everyone has played the other games. In addition to this I often dislike comparisons just for the sake of comparisons. After one has been made the game will always be seen as in the context of a different game, which robs it of the chance to stand on its own.

One possible method (and seems to be the most common) is to simply summarize the gameplay in a paragraph as it would be in an instruction manual, with a few stylistic differences to make it more readable and in the context of an article. There's a problem which almost always arises though: no one really wants to read that.

This review of BIT.TRIP BEAT is more of a scientific analysis than a review. Its thousand word length is almost entirely dedicated to describing every detail of the gameplay. It's boring to read. Every once in a while it will insert insights such as “this is interesting” or “it's very well done.” It's clear the writer had virtually nothing to say beyond his final score. The entire article could just be replaced by the trailer and a comment afterwards. This is the 21st century Internet after all, there's no reason why we can't embed videos in our reviews.

That article is an extreme example of when someone isn't able to explain gameplay in any skilled manner. Most offenses are in the same category but to a lesser degree. Even if your boring description is only one paragraph, it's still a boring description. You may have wonderfully insightful comments afterwards, but when an article introduces itself with that kind of stilted writing my chances of not reading the rest go way up.

One way to patch away the problem is through a disclaimer. “If you haven't played Dragon Space Fighter Blood 8 yet, allow me to explain it for you. Otherwise, skip this paragraph.” Functionally this gets the job done but the form is still a mess. I would use this as a last resort if I absolutely could not find a better way to incorporate a gameplay description.

As with most things in life, there isn't a magic technique that will automatically make an article better. It's whatever combination of writing methods and styles will best get the point across. Personally, I prefer gameplay to be described in thoughtful and, more importantly, entertaining ways, and with careful use of judgement to decide which details deserve a mention or not.

This would be a boring, unentertaining paragraph:

BIT.TRIP BEAT is like Pong set to music. You control a paddle moving vertically up and down the screen. You have to align yourself with the oncoming pixels in order to deflect them. The more you deflect the higher your score goes. Some of these pixels are very fast and move in strange patterns that are hard to hit, so that's the real challenge. The highlight though is the music which is very chiptune inspired and matches up with the gameplay. To top it all off there are some great visuals.

Isn't that so boring? Lets try something a little more fun:

BIT.TRIP BEAT is Pong meets Rez. Thirty seven years later your job is to once again take control of a line shaped paddle and do anything to stop the onslaught of square balls. Only this time you're in a technicolor outer space, not a blank ping-pong table. Another difference, aside from setting, is that it's not another human you play against but rather some invisible, and presumably square, batting machine (paddling machine?) which has malfunctioned and can't stop shooting an endless stream of balls. BEAT follows the sci fi the tradition of allowing sound to travel through space, so catchy chiptunes can be heard everywhere. They're so catchy in fact, that even the colorful square balls can't help but dance to the beat. I'm sure there's some symbolism here, and it probably involves drugs.

This quick and simple paragraph is a far less “objective” analysis, but it's fun to read. It's humorous, makes amusing observations, and at the same time gives you an idea of what the game is like. Should every article be exactly this style? Of course not. This is just an example of what can be achieved by putting a little bit of effort into trying to entertain the reader.

Simon Carless asks, “Can The Industry Make A 'B Game'?”. After proceeding through a list of different B game candidates there arises an uncertain answer: “probably not.” This doesn't particularly surprise me as the topic goes back to the idea of film envy. On the surface, the very term “B game” is simply “B movie” only with the word “movie” replaced with “game.” By that alone it's clear how insubstantial the concept is. Shall we ask ask if the industry can make a biopic game as well? How about a docudrama game? Taking film genres and trying to force games into them is simply unnecessary.

Videogame as a medium is a different animal than older ones such as film. Rather than viewers there are players, and this changes the effect of anything presented by the game. Techniques such as irony don't have the same effect as they would traditionally. Carless mentions how the recent Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard tries to be funny by parodying itself, but in the end it's simply not funny, much less fun. Making a player do something stupid and then telling him that it's stupid doesn't make it less stupid. In the end the player still needs to do this unfun activity. Satire doesn't always function the way it's intended because we think of it primarily as a literature or film convention. He draws the comparison:

Intentionally bad, even done with no subtlety whatsoever, is usually good for a chuckle in the right context. Scary Movie 4 may be a much worse film than Eat Lead is a game, but it at least functions as intended. And at least you can surf on by it when it gets boring, on cable.

I don't mean that satire is incompatible with gameplay, it functions differently. No More Heroes for example integrates its satire into the gameplay but the effect is different than what is probably expected. Instead of the player laughing at the game's inane antics there's a nonexistent audience laughing at the player for participating. After twenty hours of engaging yourself in all of its absurdities, the joke's on you.

In each episode of Sam & Max Bosco requires the protagonists to pay an increasingly ridiculous price for worthless objects. By episode six they've had enough, and Bosco comments: “Look man, all I know is I keep making up the most ridiculous price I can think of, and you keep paying it!”

The presence of a player completely changes the equation. Literary devices no longer apply only to in-game characters, but to players as well. So far I've mentioned two games that show how it can be misused, but the right hands this can be very effective. Take World of Goo as a a non-satire example. The player is never introduced as a character, but it's very clear that he or she is one. Throughout the game the player takes on a seemingly innocent task, realizes its possible immorality, is betrayed, gets revenge, and makes up for his or her past transgressions.

All of this is so much more powerful because of your personal participation. You aren't watching someone else take on this job, be betrayed, and get revenge. You are the one doing it and your thoughts and emotions are your own, even if they're barely above the subconscious. Your character is never introduced, shown, or even speaks (except for a very little bit near the end). World of Goo lets you fill in all the blanks with your imagination. I like it when games let you make up your own character and story like that, and it's surprising to me how many games go out of their way to not allow you to. Maybe the the balance between authored content and a blank slate is difficult to weigh.

All of this is what makes interactive media so powerful, and why it is so easily misused. Designers who don't realize or understand the player's role can ruin a game by not realizing how its meaning will actually be interpreted. Whether intended or not, the player is going to feel a connection with his or her actions on the screen.