But onto the batarians Mass Effect‘s writers have granted the special distinction of space Arabs, whose narrative role seems to consist almost entirely on their depiction as religious and/or political extremists who hate humanity and the American-dominated Alliance Navy in particular with bombastic fervor.

This has been evident in the games since their introduction in the Bring Down the Sky DLC, in which their codex entry first appears alongside a mission that has Shepard recapture a hijacked plane asteroid from terrorists attempting to ram it into the World Trade Center a human-colonized planet. In doing so, we’re repeatedly waylaid by the caveat, “not all batarians are like this.” But all the ones we see are.

Of course, the parallel on its own wouldn’t be a problem. After all, sci-fi – at least, in my opinion – is at its best when it’s sprinkling its fiction with a nice helping of slightly abstracted fact. However, as the article points out, Mass Effect says one thing and does another. It tells us that Batarians are just like any other race – a few bad eggs stinking up millions of cartons of good – but rarely shows it. It’s interesting too, because I don’t think there’s some massive ethnically charged conspiracy unfolding behind BioWare’s suspiciously tinted windows. Rather, certain mentalities pervade cultures – sort of like one giant collective conscious – and people unconsciously make reference to them. They can’t help it. In that respect, videogames – in addition to other forms of media – are incredibly useful as snapshots of modern societal perceptions. We can use them to learn things about people that said people don’t even know about themselves.

Granted, that’s only half of Mass Effect 2: Arrival’s unsavory equation. The DLC also forces you to make an incredibly questionable “decision” that – depending on the type of character you’re playing – could present a no-win situation. In summary:

Following the rescue, the situation is turned on its ear when it is learned that Shepard must destroy the nearest Mass Relay—and thus several planets full of millions of innocent batarian bystanders—to prevent the Reapers from quickly spreading across the galaxy. And we’re talking a matter of hours, not weeks or months.

There is no dialectic here. There is no happy medium, not even a pause for reflection. Narratively, the game commands that the Reaper invasion must be delayed for the DLC to successfully bridge events to the upcoming sequel, and so the batarian planets must be sacrificed.

The “choice,” then, is between warning the Batarians that you’re going to Death Star laser their planet into a fine powder or blowing them to smithereens without batting an eyelash. And the kicker? It doesn’t matter. The message won’t get through anyway. Personally, I know my Shepard isn’t afraid to get his hands a bit dirty to get the job done, but not with the blood of millions of innocents. That’s not just crossing the line; the line was hundreds of miles back. We’ve now forged ahead into objectionable territory, decimated the natives, and established a happy little nation called Line Crossdia whose main economic pillars are agriculture and disappointment.

I’m not saying games shouldn’t tackle issues of race and cultural perception. I’m not saying games should avoid manipulating choice systems to make players feel uncomfortable or upset. Executed correctly, both of those things can be incredibly powerful and involving storytelling tools. By and large, however, I think Mass Effect’s Arrival DLC is less of an example and more of a cautionary tale. As for my Commander Shepard, he’ll trudge onward toward Mass Effect 3′s grim finale. I’m just not sure he’ll he mine anymore.

1. Ch-ch-changes — I already knew that game design isn’t some rigid, unchanging process, but the degree to which a bunch of small, seemingly unimportant decisions ended up shaping my game really shocked me. For instance, my initial idea made no mention of the setting or style. No aesthetics – just mechanics. I’m not really an artsy person, either, so the idea of dreaming up a “look” didn’t really appeal to me. Honestly, I put it off until the very end. And then everything just clicked. The minimalist art style became fertile soil for a cryptic, player-focused storyline and simple character interactions. Now I can’t imagine my game any other way.

2. I want it all — Videogaming is an incredibly versatile medium. It’s quite tempting, then, to design a game around the “wouldn’t this be awesome?” principle. That is, cram a bunch of cool ideas together without any regard for how well they fit together. Toss in a hundred kitchen sinks, basically. As a result, I had to leave a number of ideas on the cutting room floor, and – in some cases – it was kind of painful. For instance, my game could have had in-depth RPG elements, stylish Devil May Cry-style combat, an open world, co-op multiplayer, and a number of other bullet-point-worthy features. But that would have obscured my game’s central point, and quality should always be more important than quantity.

3. Anything you can do — Games are versatile, but they’re not limitless. In going about creating my game, I realized that games – at least, as we now know them – are terrible at certain aspects of storytelling. Convincing, fully realized characters, for instance. Really, the more details and variables you put into a game, the more of a teetering tower it becomes. One wrong move, and the whole illusion will come tumbling down. As a result, I designed my game specifically to tell a story that maximizes gaming’s strengths and sweeps its weaknesses under the rug.

4. Sky’s the limit — Except it’s not, because people’s limited visions of what a videogame could be really irked me. Yes, games as we now know them have their limits, but given hypothetical infinite resources, can’t people do better than “combination of Popular Game X and Popular Game Y”? Evidently not. But I don’t necessarily blame a general lack of creativity. Rather, I blame the conditions in which the gaming industry currently exists. Genre lines – despite being in this subtle state of flux – have this perception of being set in stone. Does a game use a first-person perspective? Then it’s FPS. No ifs, ands, or buts. Popular genres and big names (Call of Duty, Halo, etc) rule the day, and they limit players’ perceptions of what games can (or indeed, should) be. That’s an incredible shame. How can creative games thrive in an environment that’s been specifically bred to suffocate them?

5. There aren’t enough games with zombies — Just kidding. There are. Please stop.

I wrote a thing about Fate of the World and its value as a learning tool, and I figured that might be relevant here – especially considering the recent class discussion. Enough from me, though. Let’s ask our friend Enticing Block Quote.

And then, finally, things started clicking, and I was no longer the worst GEO leader in history. I knew what Rocky felt like after he finally ascended those steps in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. And that’s when it hit me: Fate of the World had tricked me into learning. It had played on my expectations as a gamer—my desire to master systems and worlds—in order to make me obsess over a topic of real relevance. Gaming industry, take note: this is how you make an educational game.

Are you enticed? You should be. Otherwise, Enticing Block Quote’s going to lose his job, and, well, his family of little punctuation marks won’t feed itself. Do you want to be responsible for that? Can you live with that weight on your shoulders? Just read the article. Wouldn’t want there to be any accidents, after all.

SHERMAN, TX – March 31, 2011 — Even though it’s not scheduled to release until the year 2056 shortly after Duke Nukem 4-Ever, critics can’t stop buzzing about NathanSoftCorpInc’s upcoming “Home.” Described as “asymmetrical co-op,” the game almost defies description! But then it doesn’t. Don’t believe us? Let’s hear what game criticism luminaries would have to say if they actually had any idea what we were talking about.

Janet Murray, author of From Game-Story to Cyberdrama: “This game draws on my central tenet that games are a new medium of expression capable of telling new and different kinds of stories. It attempts to leverage interactivity to create a bond between the player and another character inhabiting the game world through non-traditional means. That is to say, it doesn’t use any dialog or expository methods. Rather, the player is all alone in a strange, foreign, and hostile environment. The aim, then, is that they bond with this companion character out of necessity. The player doesn’t understand why, but this other being is risking its life to protect them. The rest, however, is purposefully left up to the imagination.

My discussion of The Sims as a collective story is also relevant here, seeing as no two players will experience this game the same way. Instead, the game’s minimalism creates an environment conducive to imagination, and its procedural, emergent nature plays off that. Taken together, these factors build a very personal bond between the player and their NPC companion. And as with The Sims, that has potential to give rise to all sorts of discussion and exchanging of in-game stories. People form attachments to their Sims, and this game hopes to achieve a similar goal in a more personal way.

Home plays off my concept of replay in games as well, although it uses the mechanic in a fairly novel manner. Based on your success at puzzle-solving, your companion can die. You can even continue playing without that companion if you so please. A new, different one will join you instead. However, there’s also the option to roll back time – in other words, replay – and bring your original companion back. Here’s the thing, though: they won’t remember you anymore. They’ll still have their same stats, items, and whatnot – in practical terms, they’ll be the same – but they’ll be visibly indifferent to your character. The player will remember how the companion character acted toward them before, and – hopefully – they’ll want to reclaim that. So it’s replay as an intended game mechanic, but with a fairly heavy consequence.

Foremost, then, this game attempts to break down the unnecessary dichotomies between story and gameplay, which is exactly what I advocated in From Game-Story to Cyberdrama. Dramatic agency, I said, was key to doing that, and so it is here. In Home, the story is the player’s experience – both within the game and outside it. Aside from a few established rules, there is no puppet master pulling the strings or clear, linear path. Whatever occurs is unique to the player, and the game’s story is entirely a byproduct of that. And obviously, the game responds to the player’s inputs very expressively as well – something that’s exemplified by the companion loss/rewind mechanic.”

ABOUT HOME

Home is a game that’s not only inspired by a few other games in the traditional sense, but also by very specific aspects of a few largely dissimilar titles. Most obviously, Ico and Far Cry 2 provided the basis for a lot of the central elements. Ico, of course, perfected the two-character bonding dynamic back in its day, pairing players with a defenseless girl named Yorda. Two characters, I think, is the sweet spot for this sort of thing, as more only serve to complicate things and divert the player’s focus. My game, however, puts a very different spin on the proceedings by rendering you – the player – mostly defenseless and leaving your safety in the hands of another character. As a result, violence isn’t in your repertoire, and the tone of the game changes significantly because of it. Instead, you solve puzzles while your companion protects you, but if you’re not fast enough, it’ll put your companion in danger. In that sense, there’s a lot of give-and-take. Both characters are crucial to the overall process.

Far Cry 2, meanwhile, introduced the possibility of permanent death for your companion characters and also made their interactions with you highly procedural and varied. I’m going for something similar conceptually speaking, but the nitty gritty details paint a very different picture. Foremost, my game puts your companion character at your side at all times. They are the only non-hostile character you will ever encounter. The hope, then, is that the bond the player forms with their companion will be that much stronger as a result.

In terms of less obvious inspirations, Portal and StarCraft are both subtly working behind the scenes. Portal’s weighted companion cube scene has always fascinated me in that it has this strange ability to send players’ imaginations into overdrive. GlaDOS only makes a few off-hand references to the cube, but players end up falling in love with it. Why? Because it’s an abstract object that’s given a few concrete “personality” traits. Seeing as games are still very much an evolving form, fully developed characters are often counter-productive to their entire purpose. Their writing might be hammy. Their AI may go haywire. Oftentimes, they have to be invincible so as to avoid repeated deaths and player frustration. For those reasons, I decided to make the companion characters in Home far less developed than the average videogame character. They don’t speak. You don’t know anything about their pasts or motivations for helping you. Hopefully, then, players’ imaginations will fill in the blanks, as they did with the companion cube.

As for StarCraft, that’s more of a personal experience on my part. For whatever reason, I always develop this weird pseudo-affection for units that live through countless tough battles. Eventually, I even “retire” some of them, moving them out of harm’s way in spite of StarCraft’s strict unit number limit. Again, it’s all about imagination. Strictly speaking, they’re just like all my other units – no better, no worse. Really, they just got lucky. Undifferentiated piles of pixels or not, however, their dedicated service to my cause is endearing, and I’ve even dreamed up incredibly elaborate backstories for a few units. (That sounded less like the lamest thing ever in my head.)

ABOUT THE STORY

Story is absolutely where Home’s heart is, but not in the traditional “videogame story” sense. I’m attempting to do away with the divide between “gameplay” and “story” altogether. Home’s story, then, is a byproduct of the player interacting with its systems. Sure, there are a few pre-written elements – the fact that you wake up in a strange, hostile landscape with no knowledge of why (and, of course, the eventual answer to that question) – but those mainly serve as a vehicle for the player’s experience of the game world and their companion character.

As for similar stories, Ico’s a good fit for the reasons already outlined above. The Sims also fits the bill in that its story is entirely procedural. Beyond that, however, I’d like to think that mine’s pretty unique.

ABOUT THE GRAPHICS

I want Home to look incredibly abstract. It needs to feel entirely foreign and strange – unsettlingly so. I want the world to be populated by semi-recognizable objects, mind you – forests, rocks, humanoid characters, etc – but minus detailed features. No faces, no individual leaves, and – most importantly – no color. The game’s going to be primarily black-and-white, but with muddled, dirty palette mixes and inconsistent, gloomy lighting. For reference, I’m hoping for something that looks like Limbo (video here), but grimier. Uglier. Also, I’m going for full 3D as opposed to Limbo’s 2D platformer approach.

I’d also like to overlay the whole thing with a sort of sketch-like art style – much like the one used in Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions’ cut-scenes (video here).

ABOUT NATHANSOFTCORPINC

NathanSoftCorpInc is a non-profit organization, but don’t let that fool you; it wants your money. This is primarily because Nathan hopes to eventually build a Trampoline House (which is exactly what it sounds like) and a money pool like the one Scrooge McDuck had in Duck Tales.  All products and their related logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of NathanSoftCorpInc or its affiliates in the United States and/or in other countries – except Nathan himself, who became legal property of Activision Inc after a long, drawn out lawsuit that we don’t feel like going into here. Other product and company names referenced herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. All Rights Reserved.

“Gamification advocates do not preach the beauty and power of play. Perhaps without knowing it, they’re selling a pernicious worldview that doesn’t give weight to literal truth. Instead, they are trafficking in fantasies that ignore the realities of day-to-day life. This isn’t fun and games—it’s a tactic most commonly employed by repressive, authoritarian regimes,” she cautioned.

What she said next, however, is key. In a nutshell: is Gamification really a solution for anything? Or is it merely a band-aid that hides a grievous societal wound that’ll continue to fester and rot while we’re none-the-wiser?

“What [McGonigal] misses is that there are legitimate reasons why people feel they’re achieving less. These include the boring literal truths of jobs shipped overseas, stagnant wages, and a taxation system that benefits the rich and hurts the middle class and poor. You want to transform peoples’ lives into games so they feel as if they’re doing something worthwhile? Why not just shoot them up with drugs so they don’t notice how miserable they are? You could argue that peasants in the Middle Ages were happy imagining that the more their lives sucked here on earth the faster they’d make it into heaven. I think they’d have been better off with enough to eat and some health care.”

She also added that Gamification essentially creates a corporate paradise – where corporations can sidestep quality service and lower prices by rewarding us with “points, peer recognition, and their names on leader boards.”

And really, what does all of this say about us as people? Have we become so complacent and entitled that we can’t derive satisfaction from, you know, actual existence? And if we can’t, well, maybe it’s time to make some changes – find a new job, meet new people, live life on our own terms. It’s weird: when someone’s life is in the gutter and they escape into an MMO for 100 hours each week, it’s a clear sign that they’re in a bad place. But Gamification – which advocates a similar mentality applied more practically – pops up and no one bats an eyelash? Is our denial about the state of modern society that deeply entrenched? If so, that’s truly frightening – perhaps one of the scariest things I’ve ever heard.

Life is something that should be experienced to its fullest. Emotions, hardships, happiness, sadness, good, bad – each should be cherished, because they form the core of the human experience. If you try to treat life’s low points like a disease that can be cured, you’re just fooling yourself. “Hardship builds character” is a cliche, sure, but there’s a reason for that. There’s a time and place for fun, certainly (I work in the gaming industry, for crying out loud), but even I know that taking care of real issues comes first. Gamification, meanwhile, blurs the line between those two activities and threatens to completely undermine both in the process.

I enjoyed writing this post, and it needed to be said. So keep your experience points. I don’t want them.

Folks who’ve decided to forfeit wealth, happiness, and hygiene for a life of writing winding, snark-ridden passages about videogames are – needless to say – an eclectic bunch. We come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Basically, we’re a rainbow of dysfunction – with an emphasis on “fun”! Or something. How is this relevant to anything? Well, if you have a bunch of people doing a thing for very little money, odds are, a decent few of them are going to be downright terrible at it. GJAIF, however, takes things a step further. The blog’s basic argument? Games journalism is in the gutter, and it’s shoveling sewage down the throats of all who cross its path. As I’ve stated before, I don’t entirely agree, but where there’s smoke, there’s usually a fire. Games journalism has more than its fair share of problems, so GJAIF is definitely deserving of discussion.

The transition

“Gamers deserve better” is a relatively recent addition to the site. Initially, GJAIF was less about legitimate criticism of the field and more about ruthless nitpicking. “Here’s a glaring typo!” “This is a minor factual inaccuracy!” Etc. However, author Ben Paddon decided that savagely berating journalists through an (admittedly entertaining) series of ad hominem attacks was getting in the way of his larger message, so he decided to take a brief break and change things up. His new goal? To stop picking on individuals and start criticizing larger issues. The results, however, have been mixed.

All told, he started off pretty strong. For instance, this short essay on the value of strong writing and consistency in the field is well-argued and provocative, and he quite handily took Kotaku – the biggest gaming blog in existence – to task for being generally lackluster and treating its community like a police state.   

Recently, however, he’s fallen back into his old ways, frequently attacking the same few writers repeatedly without much real constructive criticism. He’s also taken to re-blogging posts by another alleged watchdog who goes by the handle “semprafi, ” but semprafi’s basically all of GJAIF’s flaws with none of the bright spots. I used to have a lot of respect for GJAIF’s whole operation, but now? Not so much.

Feminism

For almost the entirety of February, GJAIF was inundated with posts concerning treatment of women in the gaming industry. It all started with a nice Twitter argument from the always classy Jim Sterling of Destructoid fame – a writer who’s 50 percent man and 50 percent attention-whoring machine. (That proportion, of course, leaves very little room for shame or dignity.) Granted, Jim wasn’t the only one to blame. His target kicked the whole thing off by posting vaguely erotic fiction involving Sterling and God of War creator David Jaffe (seriously), but instead of taking the high ground, Sterling proceeded to call her things like “feminazi slut” and other such highly gendered pejorative terms.

Ben countered by saying that Sterling should have kept his tongue in check, as that’s not appropriate behavior for anyone – let alone a “professional” journalist. For many readers, however, that wasn’t enough. “How is equal treatment for females relevant to games journalism?” was the rallying cry of an army of skeptics. Ben, however, shut down that argument by saying that, duh, it’s relevant in an industry that’s 90 percent male. He also deconstructed some popular anti-feminist arguments, again with a high degree of eloquence and maturity.

Here, I think Ben definitely had the right idea. The world’s a sadly sexist place, but if you want to see that backward mentality thriving, look no further than the gaming industry. Helpfully, Ben also pointed readers in the direction of Go Make Me A Sandwich, a blog that chronicles the gaming industry’s horrifically sexist streak. Whether or not any of this will actually have an impact remains to be seen, but at the very least, people are fighting the good fight – even if it’s not a popular one.

Not shit journalism

GJAIF isn’t all doom and gloom – just mostly. Occasionally, Ben highlights an exemplary piece of work in hopes that others will follow in its footsteps. Recently, he cast favorable glances in the directions of Rock Paper Shotgun’s real investigation of Fox News’ Bulletstorm “investigation” and Destructoid’s in-depth coverage of Topware Interactive’s apparent attempt to threaten reviewers into awarding its game a higher score.

Without a doubt, both pieces are fantastic, and Ben was right to point them out. It’s just a shame that he doesn’t do it more often. I feel like – if he was a bit more even-handed and a bit less dismissive – people who actually work in the field (the ones who need his message the most) would be more likely to listen. As is…

“We’re fuckwits, you say? Go fuck yourself.”

There’s an increasingly vocal segment of the games journalism community that’s painted a giant target on Paddon’s back, including some of the field’s best and brightest. Ars Technica lead games editor Ben Kuchera, for instance, has savagely torn into GJAIF time and time again – often in a rage-fueled fury that’s out-of-character for someone who otherwise conducts himself so professionally. It’s unfortunate, too, because Kuchera is an excellent representative of what games journalists should aspire to become, yet he’s completely at odds with the guy who’s attempting to champion improvement in his field.

Granted, much of that can be attributed to Paddon’s aforementioned initial/now re-emerging method, which – at times – looks more like a barrage of brutal insults more than anything else. After all, it’s hard to get behind someone who won’t stop picking fights with all your best friends. For now, then, it seems that Paddon still has a long road ahead of him.

So! Onto the blogs I’m following:

Games Journalists Are Incompetent Fuckwits – Now going by the more understated name of “Gamers Deserve Better,” this blog attempts to be a watchdog of sorts for slipshod work (of which there is quite a lot) in games journalism. I don’t always agree with the author’s points, but he does raise some very important issues.

Rock Paper Shotgun – One of my favorite gaming blogs ever, RPS has had an absolutely amazing past few months. If you’re a PC gamer, you probably already know the drill: RPS presents a mix of news and extremely hard-hitting editorial with a wit and sense of fun befitting of the medium it covers. If every gaming site on the Internet was Rock Paper Shotgun, the world would be a better place.

So yeah, there you go. I can read!

2007 was perhaps the greatest year videogaming has ever seen. Instant classics popped up right and left, with the likes of BioShock, Mario Galaxy, Modern Warfare, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, and Rock Band all taking center stage within a few scant months of one another. As far as lasting impact on the gaming industry goes, however, one tiny two-hour experience stood out the most. Even in the wake of Modern Warfare’s manly bravado and BioShock’s brutal twist, Portal’s the game that got players talking. And talking. And talking. “The cake is a lie” became the Internet’s catchphrase and the song “Still Alive” its anthem. To this day, Portal jokes are still alive (ohohohoho) and well – if not a bit played out. The question remains, however: why? Why Portal? What gave the game such a long-lasting and far-reaching appeal? By examining trends like Portal’s  storytelling mechanics, “the cake is a lie,” the weighted companion cube, appeal outside the normal (read: young male) gamer spectrum,  and – of course, “Still Alive,” we can uncover a better understanding of what exactly made Portal so significant.

At its most basic level, Portal is a puzzle game. You come up against a challenge, you wrap your brain around some new concept, and then you solve it. The beauty of Portal, however, is the flow of said new concepts – the way the game essentially acts as a gentle, non-intrusive teacher over time. Odds are, you didn’t even notice it. And that’s why it worked so well. What’s truly brilliant, however, is the game’s minimalistic application of story, which subtly sucks you in by being nearly non-existent. No big explosions, no dramatic orchestral music, no in-your-face army men. Hell, there aren’t even any characters in the traditional sense. It’s just you and an AI gone completely haywire. Portal’s willingness to fly completely in the face of traditional videogame storytelling methods, however, is exactly why it succeeded. The Escapist‘s Russ Pitts explained:

That’s not to say I know entirely what her story is, even now. Like Half-Life before it, Portal plays its story cards so close to the vest that large chunks are left completely open for interpretation. And that’s exactly why it’s so brilliant. Who is your character? What is Aperture? Who’s the disembodied voice urging you on? Where are all the people? What happened here, and what’s your part in it? The answers to these questions are offered in rare glimpses, and are all the more compelling as a result. In one, sparse, three-hour game, Valve captured the feeling of their unique dystopian future more powerfully than through the 15-plus hours of Half-Life 2, leaving me both begging for more and praying I don’t get it.

The game, then, draws on one of the most powerful human urges: curiosity. You want to know the answers to all these questions, so you keep playing in an attempt to peel back the layers. Unlike other games, however, which disrupt the experience to heavy handedly dump a steaming pile of story in your lap, Portal never removes you from your role as Chell. Not only that, the game takes things a step further than even fellow Valve hit Half-Life, never stopping or restraining you in service of delivering story. You can always continue moving forward, solving puzzles, and the like. Portal never tells you “Hey! Stop what you’re doing and look over here!” GlaDOS, meanwhile, talks to you while you solve puzzles – continuing the plot and ensuring that you never lose track of the game’s overall atmosphere and deceptively dark tone. Portal never devolves into “just a game,” in other words.

Of cakes and lies

A true stroke of genius, however, is the sheer number of things Valve scattered about for players who really wanted to know more about the story – and how much said knowledge added to the main plot. Plenty of games are content to expand their backstory through in-game books and audio recordings, which contextualize the world but fail to do much beyond it. Portal, however, develops the character of “the rat man” through environmental clues, and the slowly revealed remains of his existence actually serve to tie the whole plot together. This experience, of course, is completely optional, which is precisely why so many players fell in love with it and its infamous tagline, “the cake is a lie.” Writing for The Escapist, Craig Owens discussed his experience of uncovering the rat man’s lair, saying:

The items in the corner tell the saddest story, however. A replacement vat from a water cooler. An upturned desktop PC crudely converted to a stove. A collection of empty Aperture Science-branded tin cans. From these simple props, you get a sense of the ingenuity of your mysterious ally, along with the unfortunate realization that he’s been stuck here for some time. There’s even a (mercifully empty) bucket sitting forlornly in the corner. A film could show you these things, of course, and a book could describe them to you. But no other medium can recreate the feeling of having stumbled across another person’s private space the way games can.

Portal, Owens explained, thrives on the oldest trick in gaming’s book: interactivity. As a result, players were able to seek out and experience the remnants of the rat man’s world – from his wall scrawlings of “the cake is a lie” to his long abandoned lair – and, as a result, truly own the discovery. There’s a certain satisfaction in stumbling across such a game-altering revelation all by yourself, and that’s why so many gamers, well, wouldn’t shut up about it. GlaDOS’ repeated mentions of cake, then, sealed the deal, as the player essentially explored their way right into a “eureka” moment. “Of course,” you silently exclaimed upon finding the rat man’s hovel. “It all makes sense now!”

Empathy cubed

Of course, no discussion of Portal is complete without mention of the weighted companion cube. On a surface level, it’s the silliest damn gaming icon in existence. I mean, we’re talking about a gray cube – in all ways unspectacular – whose only distinguishing features are a couple pink hearts painted on its sides. And here’s the kicker: it’s only present in Portal for about five minutes. Then you let it die in a fire and move on. So, what makes this tarted up hunk of metal so special? Writing for GameSetWatch, Leigh Alexander put it best when she said:

Brilliantly, GLaDOS warns you against “superstition” and “perceiving inanimate objects as alive.” More than once, she reminds you the cube can’t talk – it’s as if the game itself were really sentient, aware of your growing attachment to an object. A shift in power begins – instead of laughing along at the funny computer, you begin to wonder if you aren’t really the lunatic. But it becomes clear – you’re definitely in some danger, and you need a friend… The point wherein you have to toss the Companion Cube into the incinerator will likely stand as one of the most unforgettable points in game storytelling. You’d like to salvage it, of course, if only on principle – and, hasn’t GLaDOS lied before? Maybe, if you’re just smart enough, you can find a way to remove it from the stage. All the while she mocks you – you cannot spare the cube and leave it “alone and companionless”; but it’s incapable of “feeling much pain.” It’s a cube – and you laugh, because you’ve become the archetype of the mental captive, who has begun personifying and loving inanimate objects. The player’s own behavior and responses to the challenges presented helps vitalize the game environment more than any cutscene or backstory could.

That – perhaps more than anything – is Portal’s central strength. The player is absolutely key to the story, but not in the normal videogame sense. Portal’s story, as exemplified by the companion cube, leaves just enough room for player interpretation and imagination. The game nudges you into thinking and acting along certain lines, then remarks knowingly when you play right into its hands. So the companion cube takes advantage of your sense of loneliness and isolation as blown up to mammoth proportions by the homicidal AI that’s pulling your strings. You need a friend. You need, well, a companion. Perhaps more powerfully, the companion cube’s not some NPC that might glitch or otherwise kill your sense of immersion, either. Instead, it’s abstract and simple. It’s a cube – nothing more, nothing less. So GlaDOS plants the idea in your head that the cube might be more than just an ordinary object, and your panicked brain does the rest. You bond with the cube; you think about it in ways that – at least, I hope – you’ve never thought about another inanimate object before. And then you have no choice but to unceremoniously chuck your newfound friend into a furnace.

No girls allowed

In case it wasn’t already apparent, Portal certainly isn’t a “normal” game. In fact, its ability to take the player’s brain, turn it upside-down, and convince it – even if only for a few hours – to completely buy into this downright insane world of robots, portals, and cubes that apparently runs on a cake-based economy is very nearly masterful. Just as powerful, however, are the smaller foundations operating below the game’s surface – many of which take traditional first-person shooter conventions and subtly sculpt them into something entirely new. Writing for GamesRadar, Joe McNeilly discussed Portal’s most subversive elements. 

From the outset, Portal tears down FPS archetypes. The protagonist is a woman named Chell, but she’s not the hypersexualized object of lust we’ve come to expect in games. Rather than skintight latex or a chainmail bikini, she wears a plain orange jump suit that is eerily reminiscent of those worn by prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. We’re offered no backstory, no hint of personality. She is being held captive in a lab and is subject to teleportation experiments by the insane AI who operates the “Enrichment Center.” As the player, you’re never even aware that you’re a woman until you catch a glimpse of yourself in the third person through a portal. The unobtrusive presentation of the female protagonist doesn’t force a male gender perspective on the player as is the norm in FPS games.

Already, we see Portal taking a traditionally masculine genre and removing sex from the equation. Yeah, you’re playing as a woman. So what? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that reproductive organs didn’t matter so much when a psychologically unhinged robot was out to murder you. Such an undefined character, then, also leaves room for players of all castes and creeds to fill in the blanks. And that’s only the beginning. McNeilly continued:

[Chell] acquires a Portal Gun for use in these tests; interestingly, the gun’s masculine symbolism is subverted by the fact that it shoots portals rather than bullets. Portals are oval-shaped openings that are visually and spatially connected; go in one and you’ll come out the other. The Portal Gun creates connections rather than destroying life. It is through innovative placement of these connections, or portals, that goals are achieved or enemies overcome.

Portal, then, kicks yet another leg out from under traditional FPS structure: violence. Portal is not an inherently violent game, and even when sentry turrets come into play, knocking them down results in a pitifully mumbled “I don’t hate you.” The game challenges you to solve problems with your brain – not your trigger finger – and empathize with your enemies. No announcers shouting all-too-excitedly about “killing sprees” or “revenge” here. Portal asks you to avoid conflict rather than seek it out – all the while borrowing the first-person interface of its polar opposites. Similarly abnormal is the conflict at the heart of the game, which McNeilly explained by saying:

The primary antagonist is an unstable artificial intelligence named GLaDOS, a maternal female construct who administers the experiments. She antagonizes you/Chell not through physical brutality but through emotional manipulation. Some of Portal’s best dialogue occurs when holes appear in GLaDOS’ programming while she’s in the midst of especially cloying or manipulative statements. In one example, GLaDOS congratulates Chell by saying, “You, subject name here, must be the pride of subject hometown here.” These malfunctions call attention to the fact that GLaDOS was programmed to respond empathetically but doesn’t actually feel emotions the way a human being does.

GlaDOS, then, straddles the line between enemy and friend. Portal makes the cut-and-dry, good vs evil plots of many other first-person shooters look shallow and simplistic, because really, they are. While other shooters are content to use story as a flimsy excuse to shoot first and ask questions never, Portal never stops challenging you to think. Whether you’re attempting to parse out a mind-melting puzzle or put together all the pieces and figure out what GlaDOS is up to, Portal never devolves into abject mindlessness.

For all of the above reasons, Portal reached far outside the typical 18-34 year-old male FPS demographic. It was a game whose themes were oddly specific – and, in many cases, just odd – but paradoxically appealing to just about everyone. In that sense, Portal was a gigantic, “I nearly drowned and am now able to breathe again” gulp of fresh air, and players happily ate it up.

This is a triumph

While instrumental in Portal’s success, its ending credits song – “Still Alive” – isn’t quite as enigmatic as its other components. The song is simple, catchy, and quotable. Also, perhaps equally as important, it’s a tangible reward for completing the game that doesn’t simply fall into the normal videogame categories of “bonus stuff” or “the biggest gun.” When Portal first came out, the song was new, different, and instantly iconic. Also, it was a perfect fit for YouTube, which ensured that it spread like wildfire. As a result, Portal lived on outside the game world. The song allowed it to infiltrate culture’s collective consciousness and truly leave a mark.

And really, the song is emblematic of Portal’s “huge success” as a whole; “Still Alive” is the cherry atop a perfectly constructed sundae – a series of pieces perfectly interwoven to create a far greater whole. As such, Portal’s lasting impact can’t be attributed to a single part of the game, but to a proverbial aligning of the planets. All of its disparate elements link together to create something completely unforgettable. So then, as I asked at the start of this behemoth, why Portal? The short answer: because it’s Portal.

“Rules are made to be broken.” It’s a statement that tends to pop up as soon as inherent boundaries conflict with some less-than-scrupulous soul’s wants and desires. In addition to being the phrase that Hollywood taught me always goes right before “and besides, what could possibly go wrong?” followed by something going horribly wrong, it’s highly applicable to games. Some people cheat to boost their achievement point scores; others in a vain (and slightly sad) attempt to gain self-satisfaction.

What happens, however, when someone breaks the rules for no reason other than good old fashioned “shits and giggles”? Well, then you get trolls and griefers. Thing is, trolls generally act well within the operational and constituative rules (as outlined by Salen and Zimmerman) of a game. However, they essentially turn implicit rules into their playthings, creating an entirely new game wherein they win and everyone else can only lose.

Typically, the goal of said game is to antagonize. To pick on other players and laugh at their bemused misfortune. It’s a game that only a few people are actively playing, yet everyone quickly becomes a part of. For instance, someone might decide to start killing players on their own team in a game like Halo. Or they might create a game out of acting like a loudmouthed, almost illogical devil’s advocate on a message board. In most cases, victory is achieved when you get a rise out of people. They react (in a typically negative fashion), and the troll or griefer laughs at their expense.

What’s interesting to me, however, is how prevalent of a social force trolling has become. In many spaces, it’s not just tolerated; it’s glorified. For instance, people who claim to be “in the know” believe that Kanye West is totally aware of his own ridiculousness, and he’s actually a perfectly reasonable human being. It’s all an act, allegedly, and he’s pulling the puppet strings on a gullible, easily outraged audience. In essence, he’s a giant troll, and many of his fans love him for it. Charlie Sheen, too, has recently been accused of a similar tactic.

On perhaps an even larger scale, there’s infamous Internet hivemind Anonymous. While some of their endeavors – like rescuing a cat from an abusive owner and waging a never-ending war of passive-aggression on Scientology – could be considered noble, Anon’s many essential parts whir to life largely in pursuit of their own amusement. And this, of course, generally comes at the expense of others. In some cases, it’s practically large-scale bullying. However, as of late, people have come to root for the shadowy Internet vigilantes, perhaps due to the fact that they support a number of subversive causes – for instance, the aforementioned anti-Scientology bent and Wikileaks.

That, I think, actually plays a pretty large role in trolling’s general proliferation. Regardless of the end result, trolling in some way subverts structures, systems, and expectations. It’s a game that’s all at once about simple, base entertainment and – sometimes as an unintended byproduct – a much higher purpose. In a highly structured world where many people have resigned themselves to being unable to change anything, it’s a refreshing form of power to play outside the rules, to snatch control away from others and reshape it in your own image.

So they see me trollin’, and they hatin’. But maybe they shouldn’t.

(Click for a larger version)

Above, you’ll see my gorgeous diagram, which was painstakingly molded in the fires of Microsoft Paint for well over 15 minutes. Clearly, I have revolutionized the field of art as we know it. But that’s not why we’re here. So then, let’s get down to business. In order, from Ludus to Paidia, we’ve got:

1. Blackjack (Rules Here) – At its core, the game of blackjack is very simple and structured. Each card has a numeric value, and only Aces offer any wiggle room as to what that value is. You try to make your hand equal out to 21. Closest person wins. And if you go over 21, you lose. That’s it. The rules are clearly defined and you can either operate within them or not play the game at all.

2. Call of Duty: Black Ops Single-Player (Rules Here) – As far as videogames go, Call of Duty’s about as structured and linear as you’ll find. Granted, in its own way, it’s sort of brilliant, seeing as it hides its extreme linearity with a number of cues, shifts in tone and atmosphere, and generally solid level design. At the end of the day, though, two-feet-tall fences impede your path and enemies will spawn infinitely until you cross a certain invisible trip-wire that tells them to stop. The game’s more or less a haunted house; go in once and it’s the ride of your life, but try again and you’ll see right through all the smoke and mirrors.

3. Mixed Martial Arts (Rules Here) – Or, in more common terms, UFC. The sport of mixed martial arts – in spite of its reputation – is a well-regulated sport full of intricate rules. In fact, the whole “no holds barred” idea couldn’t be further from the truth. Among other things, eye-gouging, hair-pulling, groin shots, knees to the head of a downed opponent, any blows to the back of the head, kicks or stomps on a downed opponent, and certain types of elbow strikes are all illegal. Meanwhile, the sport’s evolved to a point where many tactics (for instance, being a decent boxer but not anything else) simply aren’t viable anymore – creating a sort of self-imposed, unspoken structure all unto itself. Granted, there’s a large number of in-fight options and disciplines, and little flashes of unstructured creativity are what create the most memorable matches. For example, this wonderful – and completely legal – use of the combat arena itself.

4. Halo Multiplayer (Rules Here) – On the surface, Halo multiplayer matches are somewhat structured affairs. Maps – while large – have pre-defined boundaries, gametypes have very specific rules, and, odds are, you’re going to be shooting people. However, Bungie – unknowingly at first – provided players with enough tools that they were able to start experimenting with their own gametype ideas. Soon people were putting together unofficial, on-the-fly matches of in-game “games” like Grifball (which was later turned into an officially supported gametype) or creating series like Red vs. Blue. (And if you don’t think Red vs. Blue’s creation was in itself a game for the folks making it, well, what series were you watching?)

5. Fallout 3 (Rules Here) – Fallout 3 has a main story that sends you to a number of pre-determined locations, sure, but odds are, you won’t even complete it. The game’s massive world was created so that you could piece together your own adventures. Maybe you’ll start up the game with a certain place in mind that you’d like to explore, or maybe you’ll just point your character in a certain direction and walk until you stumble across something interesting. It’s your choice. Granted, the game’s not entirely Paidia, seeing as some of its quests are still somewhat structured. Still though, it’s far more free-form and spontaneous than most.

6. Dungeons and Dragons (Rules Here) – DnD is an interesting game to place on the Paidia-Ludus spectrum, as it has a fairly complex set of rules underlying it. However, when played, the game is fairly spontaneous, allowing players to do pretty much whatever they want so long as the dice roll their way. That, of course, is typically the central appeal of the game; if you’ve got good players and a creative DM, an adventure can go just about anywhere. In this age of strictly defined, fairly structured digital RPGs, you really can’t find that anywhere else.

7. Live-Action Role-Playing (Rules Here) – Live-action role-playing, in a lot of cases, is a step or two away from the way kids “play pretend.” Players create the world, the characters, the rules, the primary actions the game’s based around – everything. And then they inhabit their creation and stay in character to the best of their abilities. Players, however, still retain complete autonomy, and combat is fully physical. No dice rolls or stat sheets here.

8. Minecraft (Rules Here) – Minecraft is an indie game that stretches the very definition of the word “game.” In essence, it’s an incredibly elaborate set of building blocks. Using all sorts of different blocks, you can create just about whatever you want. Some people collaborate to re-create entire game worlds (BioShock!) while others just mess with each other by trapping one another in holes and whatnot. Hell, one guy even built a fully functioning computer within the game. Many games boast of “endless possibilities,” but it’d be quicker if they just said, “almost as good as Minecraft.”

DEBATE LIGHTING ROUND: DnD, under the right (or wrong, depending on how you look at it) circumstances, can be almost suffocatingly structured. This tends to happen when a DM thinks they’ve got the greatest story ever, so they refuse to allow players to deviate from it. In some cases, the cries of “no! you can’t do that!” are so frequent and uncalled for as to become almost arbitrary.