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Enacting Experience is a concept drawn from poetics. The technique
is used to match the content of a poem with its messages and/or
meanings: you enact the experience. Rhyme, rhythm,
syntax, line breaks, consonance, and more elusively definable aspects
of
poetry can be used in concordance with the meaning of a poem to
emphasize its overall effect, and ultimately, the reader's experience.
This article will look at three Flash games in relation to enacting
experience, how each employs the design technique to emphasize its
meanings.
Indie
games, and, in particular, Flash games, are in a very unique position
in the game industry. Flash games hold their own little plane of
existence in game design. Because Flash is a relatively accessible way
to create games, and games that have potential for mass audiences, many
independent designers are taking advantage of the software to create
some truly incredible games. More so, often unburdened by the weight of
publishing financing, Flash developers have a beautiful opportunity to
freely explore a game's design. Whereas mass-industry developers are
bound by the limitations of delivering mind-blowing graphics, staying
under-budget, meeting milestones, and everything else that comes with
the fish basket, Flash developers have the freedom to experiment
with their design, experiment with those things unsuitable for the
finicky market and experiment with what matters most in video games:
the experience (thank you Jesse Schell).
God Damn It's a Nice Fucking Day Today was made by Scottmale24 and conceptualized by Prguitarman.
It's a Nice Day Today
excels, specifically, as a video game. After playing for thirty
seconds, a
message comes on screen: "Why aren't you outside? Go outside or the sun
will fucking rape your shit." This is paired with a Newgrounds Medal:
"Failure to Communicate." Quite the convention-breaking move, the
message trashes the convention that Achievements, Trophies, Medals,
pick your lingo, have to be used as rewards for good behavior or skill.
Quite oppositely, the message overlay and medal blatantly tell players
that, by continuing to play the game, they're
just. not. getting. it.
There is a synergistic relationship between the aggressive message and medal, and the gameplay, angrily
sun-laser-nuking every house in sight. The game's author could have easily left
out the message, left out the medal, providing the gameplay alone and
not its meta counter-part. However, what players are given is a
blatant, threatening message, telling players that their continuing of
play is in direct opposition to the game's intentions. The message and gameplay match. It's like "with our
forces combined" creating Captain Planet. It's like when two sounds
waves of equal frequency meet to form a single wave louder than both
simply added. The result is greater than the sum of its parts.
Players are the ones who
expose the message in the first place and who personally experience it.
Scottmale24 and Prguitarman are the ones who created the game (because
they had a point to prove), but players are the ones in control. They
are able to exit their browser, stand up from their computers, and walk
outdoors. That is control. It's a Nice Day Today breaks the fourth wall
in the hopes that players might actually listen. What is interesting is
that the game makes no attempt to positively motivate nor positively
inspire players
to go outdoors; its means are command and fear. An alternative game
could motivated, showed the sun in all its splendor, showed a happy
picnic or
swim at the ocean. But would that have been as effective? It's
impossible to say, but what we can say is that It's a Nice Day Today uses a very interesting technique to inspire people to go outside, using their own
lack of concern and laziness against them. Rather than show, the game tells players: your
current actions are preventing you from enjoying the nice outside.
There's
the genius, right there. It's a game. You're the one still playing the
game. You're the one not outside. Your specific action of playing the
game, so chastised by that very game, is the simultaneous inaction of being outside.
Don't Shoot the Puppy!,
by Aragagg, is an exercise in either frustration or patience, depending
upon your temperament. Fifteen levels of puppy-hopping molasses await
players in their quest to not shoot the puppy. With its
twitch-triggered Anti-Air Cannon and myriad of trickery, Don't Shoot the Puppy! aims to test players' patience and maybe show them something a little different of game design as well.
The gameplay concept of "non-interaction" isn't entirely new; not to mention others, the brilliant Warcraft III mod, Don't Move the Tauren,
had previously explored this "do nothing" reversal of gameplay, albeit
in a psychologically-driven multiplayer setting. Regardless, Aragagg
experiments admirably with non-interactivity. By employing clever
(evil) tricks and toying with the patience of players, Aragagg creates
an interesting emotional experience.
Players have two options in Don't Shoot the Puppy!:
- Shoot the Puppy.
- Don't Shoot the Puppy.
Shooting the Puppy is the easier of the two by far. But since
the game's title explicitly tells players one rule, and the game is
governed by that sole rule, the adherence to which is necessary for
completion, players are driven towards following that rule and not shooting the puppy;
it's a challenge. Additionally, the game's humor, the utter ridiculousness of the situation, is an additional
force compelling players to endure the puppy's harsh challenges. And
endure players must. Assuming they're actually paying attention to the
game, which I believe the humor goes a long way towards capturing,
players are forced to sit, watch, and wait. The slightest budge of the
mouse, the simplest tap of a key, and the puppy is disintegrated.
Often, this is a mistake. Therefore, not only must players not shoot
the puppy, they must specifically strive to not shoot it.
Caution
and patience are the name of the game. Which is interesting when you
think about it. Perhaps non-interactivity is a mislabel. Though players
do not interact physically using controls (except when they do shoot
the puppy), they are required to interact mentally and emotionally.
Aside from simply waiting, Don't Shoot the Puppy!
tries several tricks on players to get them to lose. Each time the
puppy is shot, players are returned to the first level. One of my
favorite levels is 5, where the normally smiley-face marked signpost
now reads "Eternal Suffering," pointing to the left in the direction
the puppy is walking. This psychological trick is extremely simple, not
to mention hilarious, but it also has great potential for actual
emotional impact. What's more important: that you win the game, or that
you save the puppy from endless turmoil?
Levels 3 and
12 trick players in another way: logically. In level 3, when players
click play, an Ad pops-up, covering the game. Naturally, players move
their mouse to the big X button to close the Ad, only to found they've
been duped. Or at least I did. It was a good laugh, too. Level 12 is
even more devious. After players press play, the level delays starting
for a good while. Worst of all, the play button remains, leaving
players to believe that they'd either missed the button or that something glitched.
They thought wrong.
Restarting the game from the beginning can be trying. Don't Shoot the Puppy!
is an opportunity for either patience or aggression. In this way, the
game emulates life, offering the practice of a real and necessary life
skill, waiting, and a real emotion, patience. It is up to players to
decide how they're going to react to the game. Like a consequence-less
microcosm for life events, players can either become angry or they can
remain calm. The game shows how easy it can be to twitch-react
according to frustration, like snapping your fingers, revealing to
players just how quickly they can become angry. For those of you who
own dogs, this may sound familiar.
Oppositely, players
may wait. They may wait and watch and be patient with the puppy. It's
not the puppy's fault it has narcolepsy. The game does go to lengths to
aggravate players, attempting to trick them several times aside from
simply waiting for the puppy to leave the screen. But all this does is
push the point further: how patient can you be?
This
is where enacting experience comes in. The gameplay mechanics, one
being shooting the puppy, the other being not, match the emotions
derived from the experience. To beat the game, players must wait, act
upon nothing. But to lose, players must only tap the mouse. There is an
implicit message that Don't Shoot the Puppy! is sending: it is better to be patient, to practice waiting, than it is to act violently.
People debate whether or not video games are art. Honestly,
it's a ridiculous question. I define art as anything that evokes
emotion or provokes thought from the audience. Whether or not the
creation of video games is an art form is equally debated. I
believe that an art form is any medium in which artists, through
inspiration, subconscious feeling, and a series of decisions, create
works which can offer the evoking of emotion or provoking of thought
from an audience.
I will, however, note that art is
definitely not always intended to affect others. Many people create
things for themselves or at least lack any intent to evoke
emotion/provoke thought. Art is also highly subjective. What may not
affect one person may, to another, present a paradigm shift in life
values. Who's to say? Artists can control the effect of their works
only so much. Because of the inherent subjectivity of art, an artists
intention with his or her work is difficult to define, excepting
specific statement from the him or her. Art will be perceived as it
will.
I think I've finally discovered the reason for
all of the questioning behind the "are video games art" debate. There
is an important distinction between what a medium does achieve and what it can achieve. Just because video games as they are commonly offered often do not evoke emotion does not mean the medium cannot evoke emotion.
The
established ultimatum that games need to be fun has blinded us to the
other emotions that games can evoke and the other qualities they can
possess. So we look at games and ask, "on a scale of 1 to 10, how fun
is this here video game?" And this question almost always comes first,
before we ever ask "how is this game affecting me emotionally?" or
"what is this game teaching me?"
It's
a matter of
status-quo. Publishers are trying to please the media and to stay in
business, the media is trying to please the gamers, and the gamers are
trying to please...themselves? What is for sure is that professional
developers have a budget and have to please everyone, and if everyone
thinks that fun and graphics are what makes a game "good" and what
makes a game sell, then really, what choice do they have? With every
layer of the video game strata preoccupied with pleasing the norms, not
many have the luxury nor time to worry about the other potential
emotional qualities of games, that is, save for the independent
developers.
Terry Cavanagh of Distractionware brings us a beautiful game called Don't Look Back,
a game that I feel is an ideal exemplifier of gameplay as a means of
evoking emotion and, for that matter, provoking thought. Before you
read on, I highly recommended you play through the game, which can be played online or downloaded.
Like the brilliant You Have to Burn the Rope before it, or more similarly, Don't Shoot the Puppy!, Don't Look Back gives instruction in its title. If Metal Gear Solid is considered to be the cinema of video games, Don't Look Back must
be its poetry. Titles in poetry are often pivotal to the understanding
of a poem, even at the most basic level explaining the subject of the
poem or cuing in readers on the setting or location. Neversoft's Gun is one
example of an effective video game title that comes to mind . The title
says it all, giving players a hint of not only the game's
subject-matter but also what the gameplay might involve. Gun as
a title may additionally imply the player-character's situation in the
game world and the necessity of resorting to lethal action.
The title Don't Look Back has multiple meanings, explaining not only the game's rules but also, metaphorically, its messages. In an interview with GameCritics, Cavanagh explains that partial inspiration for Don't Look Back came from the greek mythological story of Orpheus,
who traveled to the underworld to rescue and revive his deceased wife,
Eurydice, but broke the rule of doing so and caused her to disappear
forever by turning to look back at her before he was allowed.
Similarly, once players retreive their wife in Don't Look Back,
turning back will cause her to disappear. When players return to the
grave, they find themselves already standing there, and both the
player-character (who we'll call Orpheus for simplicity) and his wife
disappear together.
To enact experience is to meld
the content of something with the experiencing of it. The concept of
"not looking back" functions in two ways: one, as a rule of the game,
and two, metaphorically, a message about moving on. To me, the game
symbolizes moving forward. Orpheus's descent into the abyss is a
journey of mourning. As Cavanagh explains,
Orpheus never physically leaves the grave, but has taken a fantastical
journey, mentally and emotionally. His return trip to the grave, his
wife following along, is a passage of reconcilement, of moving onward.
The difficult descent, however, was first necessary to mourn his loss.
When the player and the wife return to the grave, Orpheus's
journey-self and his wife disappear, leaving the new Orpheus standing,
having grieved and moved onward from his wife's passing. In this way,
the game is a mourning process for Orpheus, allowing Orpheus to free
his wife and to free himself.
The game's title, rules, and meaning all function as a
single whole, each point reinforcing the others. Only in a video game
does a person or audience have the opportunity to look back, and not
only look back, but have that action support a message and theme of
moving onward. The game's message is strong and impactful via the very
simple gameplay rule mirroring it.
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