Queers in Love at the End of the World has maybe the best replay value I’ve ever seen in a game (since chess came out), precisely because its runtime is so count-to-ten-and-you’ll-miss-it. Replaying the game costs a mere ten seconds of your attention. That’s like a third of a YouTube ad. But to me, that sort of endless replayability seemed to kind of — defeat the point? — of a game that I knew had such clear themes of frenzied, once-in-a-lifetime urgency and finality. I saw people playing it ten, twenty times in a row before class and just thought to myself: this feels wrong, to be so cavalier about everything — it’s the end of the world, don’tcha know?
So I have a little modest proposal to make. You might have already guessed what it is (it’s in the title, after all), but I’ll reiterate anyway: you should only be allowed to play Queers in Love at the End of the World once. Boot it up, go through the whirlwind clicking once, that was your experience, no returns, no exchanges. The argument here is pretty simple, simple enough to express in a series of rhetorical questions. Won’t the titular world necessarily end a maximum of one time? Wouldn’t going into the game with the knowledge that this is your only playthrough make its choices feel more emotionally impactful? Wouldn’t that sense of maybe-I-shouldn’t-have-done-that-with-my-last-ten-seconds regret only become more potent once replayability is out of the question?
I understand this would be extremely tricky, if not borderline impossible, to approach practically, and basically the only way it would happen would be if it were self-enforced. So that’s what I did. I played it once and called it a day. I hung up my spikes tied for the world Queers in Love at the End of the World speedrun record at 0:00:10.00. That was all I got. I wanted more, but that was all I got. And I kinda like that feeling. Knowing that means I think about my choices as being irreversible, as having some sort of meaning, as being somehow more real. The sense of loss and missed opportunities you feel at the end of the game was only compounded by being unable (read: unwilling to let myself) to return to it.
This style of play isn’t for everyone, and I’m fine with that. Ultimately, limiting yourself to one run of Queers in Love at the End of the World works in creating one impactful ten-second experience, but robs the game of all that replay value. It’s a different type of game: more experiential and emotional than iterative and analytical. It’s a different kind of narrative too — one that’s more about what could have been than what was.
I’m actually wondering about this proposal in a way related to psychology–I wonder if with the playing of this game once, it could be almost seen as a personality test? The first run-through one has of the game is so gut-instinct, when the human brain is given so little time to decide with so little context and not knowing what the game even is, this breeds a completely genuine and honest reaction from the player (or so I’d think). With this, I’m almost wondering if this type of game/type of quick-reaction based narrative can be used to study the human psyche–of course not academically, I don’t think it would be that accurate, but maybe as a social experiment? I’m also wondering if this would work in a longer-form game as well, maybe one similar with rapid reaction-time? I don’t know, but I think this proposal is very interesting and I wonder what it would really bring out in people.
I actually do think that playing it again and again still preserves the effect of the fleeting moment, since you keep trying exhaust the game but you never could, and the game provides enough possible choices to make you want to experience different things. By allowing you to try again and again it sublimates the sense of loss into a sense of reward in spite of AND because of the inevitable ending of loss. It is fascinating how simply adding a timer augments the emotional impact of the game by so much.
You have almost made me sad for clicking through each route. It’s painful to experience it only once, hence the point. I am not strong enough for that. But even though I went through all the plays, I was still not satisfied. It was a different dissatisfaction because I wasn’t left wondering what could’ve been, instead I was sad at the thought of what I would do if I only had ten seconds with who I love. Replaying it over and over, I could never convey/experience what I would want in ten seconds. And at the same time the urgency would lead me to having no inhibitions. I think it’s just a different sadness that you get when you go through all the routes and are left still wanting more. I think I would still choose to play how I did, but this proposal does make me rethink what it is I am choosing to experience.
I think this brings up an interesting question about accessibility. I don’t know about native English speakers, but it takes me a while to read through the sentences. Perhaps “that’s the point”, but why is it interesting to gatekeep a narrative behind reading-speed ability?
Would it still be politically correct to say that a 10-second run shouldn’t be replayable, if the ability required to navigate the narrative wasn’t reading & click, but was instead running, swimming, weightlifting or some other physically charged modality of navigation. We often don’t think about disability beyond the clichés that media portrays it as, but it is not just important– it is vital, it is life and death– for us to think about people’s differential abilities as game designers.
Videogames have the unique ability to transcend traditional ability requirements for playing, sports and social interactions. They should be inclusive and accessible.