Well, I’m not really sure how to begin this post other than by introducing the idea of catharsis. Most traditional literary works tend to affect the reader by directly invoking emotions like joy, fear, disgust, etc. Video games are different, since in their nature as activities allows them to invoke accomplishment, pride, and in some cases, a comfortable familiarity with the game, being able to play it as though it were life itself.
This creates a firm distinction in the types of things you can get out of a game. Either the game causes you to feel something, or the act of playing the game is an experience itself that creates meaning. Different games do this in different parts; games like Butterfly Soup, for example, rely almost entirely on the first, while games like Tetris, for example, tend to rely more on the latter. More modern games tend to blur the lines between these extremes: for example, games with a significant narrative experience, like Xenoblade still have a “hard mode,” presenting the game as an accomplishment.
This ties back somewhat to the play-process divide in criticism, although there is a meaningful difference, I think, between these two conceptions of play and process. While the one we covered in class is rooted in what creates meaning in games, this is more of a way to analyze how individual qualia in a game experience are formed, less a conversation of overall meaning and more a conversation about individual moments in a game experience.
One of the things that has often puzzled me this quarter was what, exactly, seemed to make this curriculum seem strange, and I think I’ve figured out what: namely, this principle. I’ve loved the games we’ve covered, but I’ve always seen a tendency towards the first, cathartic impulse. Butterfly Soup is a perfect example of this. It’s a sweet romance story, with a heap of good humor and neat art. Playing it cannot possibly be called an accomplishment. In contrast, there’s hardly a game that we’ve played so far this quarter that can, save the roguelikes in week 2.
What made me really think about this was the sort of games I’ve been playing in my free time since the beginning of the quarter. Playing the games we’ve been assigned has, strangely enough, pushed me towards almost purely mechanical games in my free time, possibly as a compensation measure. Tower Defenses and the like. Likewise, the times which I’ve most enjoyed the games in this class have been when I’ve been overstimulated by mechanical issues. (SOMA was a strange exception to this. I’m not sure why, at all, but it didn’t really trigger the same sort of accomplishment or catharsis, and it was probably one of the reasons I didn’t end up writing an entry last week.)
I, of course, don’t mind having game experiences that are one or the other, but it really seems as though accomplishments are a bit scarce this quarter. Having already played the curriculum for next week, I think it’s strange that many of them tend to tick the “accomplishment” box for me, even while seeming to be linear narrative-focused experiences. I have found that it generally improves my overall experience, helping the game seem complete in some way. Anyhow, I’m curious what anyone else might think about this!
I think you make a great point about how few “accomplishment-based” games we’ve played in this class, and I think that speaks to something larger about the medium of video games. We think of difficulty and accomplishment as essential aspects of most video games, and consider it strange or unusual when a game like Butterfly Soup has little to no challenge in it. But the fact is, more and more genres of video games are focusing on something other than difficulty these days. When a game wants to tell a story or impart a lesson, difficulty isn’t always a useful mechanic – after all, you wouldn’t be very interested in reading a novel if it fought back every time you tried to turn the page. Even games that are in genres in which difficulty is usually an important mechanic have begun to more frequently implement easier difficulties that allow novice players to experience the game without failing repeatedly. I think this is a consequence of video games truly becoming their own storytelling medium – we’re seeing a widening of the usage and conception of video games that will likely continue to move away from using difficulty as a defining feature.
I think my point here went a little bit over your head. While I don’t fault games for not focusing on difficulty, I believe the factor of “accomplishment” still has an important place in games, even as many games become more narrative focused. For example, see the Totems as collectibles in Until Dawn, or the replayability for a “perfect ending” in visual novels, for extremely narrative games with accomplishment based components.
I’d actually argue that accomplishment and difficulty are distinct: even the simplest puzzles to be found, or mysteries to be uncovered can serve to satisfy this impulse, even without providing any challenge whatsoever (i.e, reading a guide as you play Gone Home, which makes the game a linear sequence of instructions as you read a narrative, still has a satisfying experience of solving a mystery, even if it’s really not too much of an accomplishment for most people.) If a novice player beats a game on easy, that’s still an accomplishment for them. Sure, it might mean something different to them than a more experienced player beating it on a different difficulty, but that’s not the point. Accessibility doesn’t have to be the enemy of accomplishment.
Probably the best examples of this are Cookie Clicker, and other idle games of its bent, where literally doing nothing progresses the game, and one of the only emotions the game is meant to evoke is accomplishment.
I think it’s interesting to examine the “accomplishment” vs. “catharsis” duality you create. While I think there is some merit in categorizing games in this way, I do think that it’s important to differentiate between this duality and a basic “bad vs. good” duality. Even though a game may not be the most mechanically intensive, undervaluing a game because of its ease of play seems contradictory to what we’ve been focusing on this quarter. Plus, just because a game isn’t really mechanically intensive, doesn’t make it less difficult to get through. For example, I physically could not keep playing Anatomy after 30 minutes in, and resorted to watching a play through on youtube instead. Were the controls hard? Did i not know what to do? No! I was just too scared to continue. Despite Anatomy not being mechanically intensive, i still found it extremely difficult to complete.
I also feel like calling Butterfly Soup not an accomplishment is somewhat harsh and unnecessary. Most people play games to enjoy themselves; Some enjoy precise button inputs and difficult combat sequences, some enjoy strategizing the best ways to dismantle an opposing country, and some want to read about lesbians falling in love. The point of playing games is to have fun, not to accomplish something. Perhaps a better way to name the two categories you created are “mechanics-based” vs. “narrative-based,” like in the article you mentioned.