Personally not a gamer. Have been surrounded by gamers. Read up on a lot of gamer opinions years ago and I don’t know why- I noticed that the article itself is skewed to a certain degree, but I really don’t feel like talking about that. I’m of the belief that all works of fiction come from a need for release, and games are no different. Anything that takes you away from reality for a bit serves that purpose.
I guess I categorize games into two kinds- games with stories, and games with no stories. Tetris- game with no story. Sam and Max: Freelance Police- game with story. 2048- game with no story. Pocket Mortys- game with story. Neko Atsume- game with no story. OFF- game with story. And so on and so forth.
But twine proposes a third category- game story. Which… can be a game, but is primarily story in the format that it’s being presented in. It’s a choose-your-own adventure, but digital. Can you print the game out, hand it to someone to play through it the way they would with a Give Yourself Goosebumps? Or a Mad Libs in some cases. Except those are entertaining.
And that’s what a game is, to me at least. I don’t want to be bored. I don’t want to be metaphorically coddled and hugged by the “developer” or to read a bunch of words on a screen that could have been better experienced visually. I’m not interested in empathy. I’m here for indulgence, because the real essence of video games is that they are in fact the most selfish and indulgent and first world form of release in existence. There is nothing about playing a game that isn’t selfish. You could be doing anything else! Anything constructive! But you’re not!
I think this is why Twine games are so divisive, in a way. It’s because a person experiencing it isn’t concerned with indulgence. It’s more about redefining the gaming experience. But the way I see it, its a bit like that last level of Sam and Max- actually its exactly like that. Computer text games aren’t a new thing, they’ve been around for decades. Except, you know, people forgot about them when graphics were invented.
I guess I categorize games into two kinds- games with stories, and games with no stories. Tetris- game with no story. Sam and Max: Freelance Police- game with story. 2048- game with no story. Pocket Mortys- game with story. Neko Atsume- game with no story. OFF- game with story. And so on and so forth.
But twine proposes a third category- game story. Which… can be a game, but is primarily story in the format that it’s being presented in. It’s a choose-your-own adventure, but digital. Can you print the game out, hand it to someone to play through it the way they would with a Give Yourself Goosebumps? Or a Mad Libs in some cases. Except those are entertaining.
And that’s what a game is, to me at least. I don’t want to be bored. I don’t want to be metaphorically coddled and hugged by the “developer” or to read a bunch of words on a screen that could have been better experienced visually. I’m not interested in empathy. I’m here for indulgence, because the real essence of video games is that they are in fact the most selfish and indulgent and first world form of release in existence. There is nothing about playing a game that isn’t selfish. You could be doing anything else! Anything constructive! But you’re not!
I think this is why Twine games are so divisive, in a way. It’s because a person experiencing it isn’t concerned with indulgence. It’s more about redefining the gaming experience. But the way I see it, its a bit like that last level of Sam and Max- actually its exactly like that. Computer text games aren’t a new thing, they’ve been around for decades. Except, you know, people forgot about them when graphics were invented.