Before I begin, I’d like to express my gratitude: Thank you to the University of Chicago for being willing to host this event. A special thank you to all the people that took the time and effort to plan and put together this symposium, and have it run so smoothly. A particular thank you to Ashlyn Sparrow and Patrick Jagoda for moderating the Challenging Play: Puzzles, Performance, and Practice panel. And finally, an immense thank you to Billy Basso, Celia Pearce, Jon Perry, Sandy Weisz and Derek Yu for participating in this event and panel — thank you for being willing to share your insights and experiences with us all!
I believe when people think of challenge in a game, they often think of it quite literally — such as the difficulty in the mechanics of a game. This can look like a player having to gain much more experience or levels to accomplish a goal, or having to deal with complex movesets and menuing.
However, this panel touched on the importance of other forms of difficulty.
The difficulty in how we think was one such form that stood out to me from this panel. Yoko Taro created Nier Replicant in response to 9/11, and the subsequent actions and violence that followed it. Perhaps the most famous quote of his when discussing the creation of Nier Replicant was, “The vibe I was getting from society was: you don’t have to be insane to kill someone. You just have to think you’re right.” In a game like Nier Replicant, a player is asked to complete the game by acting intentionally immorally. They are given two sides of a conflict, but are required to be blind to one. Instead of telling a player their actions are entirely right or wrong, Nier Replicant simply asks a player to engage with their own moral judgments by forcing a player to be self-conscious of their participation in enacting prejudiced violence.
As a Human Rights major, much of the literature I engage with is centered around the tragedy of conflicts, and the struggles caused by the intentional disregard of rights and/or life. Violence transcendences time — is an active form of harm, but its effect continuously haunts the people and spaces where it has been committed. The simple reminder of Nier Replicant is that perceived justification alone can dismantle and destroy being. Violence, and the enacting of violence, is complex because of this simplicity.
While not explicitly mentioned in this panel, there is also an interesting relationship with difficulty in how we feel. Final Fantasy IX for instance addresses the question of what it means to come to terms with your own mortality. This question is most prominently addressed through Vivi, who learns that his life span is significantly shortened due to the fact that he was created to be a weapon of mass destruction. Despite learning of his impending death and “true nature”, Vivi chooses to redefine his purpose in life — living for and with his friends.
Final Fantasy IX invites you to be affected by loss, and consider how to address that feeling. To me, Final Fantasy IX discusses the grieving process by reminding us to consider how interconnected the world really is. As much as the people around us inspire and remain with us, we inspire and remain with them. Having to let go or say goodbye are universal experiences that are just hard. But these moments are hard because those meaningful relationships take a new form. They never truly leave us.
The staple of a good game isn’t that it makes perfect sense, or that its graphics are the best. Instead, it is if it brings you to care about the characters and worlds you interact with during and long after you’ve finished the game. A game doesn’t have to be a masterpiece to matter to someone, and change them irrevocably. This game, in my mind, will always be associated with this one photo of my little sister crying to Vivi’s final letter.
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On a slightly separate note, I wanted to touch on another topic of discussion. The panelists talked about accessibility within games, also addressing the fact that fun is not the same for everyone. I’m going to marry this topic with the common belief that challenge is often associated with competition.
I am someone who has never played a game alone before. When I play games, I always have someone sit with me to discuss elements of the game, such as what is working, what themes are coming through, and where I think the story is heading. Further, I often make these games somewhat collaborative as I have people help me make decisions in the menu (thank you to my older sister for doing the Final Fantasy X sphere grid for me) or on what actions to take. Challenge is therefore something I never face alone.
Further, when I play board games, I do not play to win. Instead, challenge for me comes from how to make the game more interesting based on how I interact with the other players (even if it is to my own “detriment”). The supportive or cooperative role I play is much more fun to me, changing how people interact with competitive games like Nemesis or Catan.
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To me, the beauty of games of course comes from what you personally take from them — how they affect and change you as an individual. But, the beauty of games also comes from what you can learn from a community of people who care as much as you do. Getting to grow, learn, and challenge ourselves and others through play is perhaps one of the best things we can do.
