Blog - On Survival
Thursday, July 17, 2008Something I read somewhere was talking about getting more women into games and gaming (a topic I'm interested in, given my full support of WIGI) and it was mentioned how back in its day Frogger was very popular with, well, everyone. Women weren't just interested, it argued, because you were playing a cute little frog rather than some kind of weird male power-fantasy or sex object (thought that probably helped.) They argued its popularity was also based on the game's non-aggressive nature.
(I don't mean to come across as having the prejudice that women don't like violent games, by the way. I've certainly known women who didn't fit that mold. In fact, at the lecture just given last week at the Boston Postmortem there were findings reported that the GTA series were listed as one of the top games among teenage girls.)
Now, you can't quite say there's no violence in Frogger. You can be crushed under a truck, or eaten by alligators. Neither is all that violent, no. I've seen worse in Disney movies. But I'll still count it.
The difference is that the player character, our protagonist, isn't the violent one.
The player is not forced to commit (virtual) acts of violence.
I like that.
I once played through (and beat) Fallout without engaging in a single round of combat, because I argued that most people avoid fights at all cost. I tried to play the game making decisions I would actually make in real life if I were placed in the same situations. If faced with evil forces I would run away, hide, sneak around if I had to. Playing that cunning and adaptable coward character was one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I've ever had.
I also was completely blown away by some of the "chase scenes" in Half-Life 2, where the character is being pursued by some terrifying and at the time unstoppable force. Such situations in games, where fleeing is the only option, are risky as the player must KNOW that making a stand and fighting isn't possible. I think HL2 did a good job at providing such feedback. In the Ant-Lion chase sequence, the fact that for every Ant-Lion you kill, more appear makes it quickly apparent that staying and fighting is a bad, bad plan. When chased by the Helicopter-thing through the waterways on your boat, you don't have a gun that seems powerful enough to put a dent in that thing's armor. After unloading a clip into the machine and the bullets seemed to ping uselessly off it's hide, I got the picture. So, in both cases, I ran. Knowing that these deadly forces that I couldn't possibly stop were just behind me in full pursuit made for an intense emotional experience. It was powerful.
So, I've often had an extreme attraction to game experiences where I'm NOT the hero, where I'm fragile and scared. Why?
Well first of all, relative to video games, because it's DIFFERENT. Not many games give you that feeling. Most games are male power-fantasies after all.
But in real life, I'm no hero, and have no plans to be. So as cool as it would be to be one, I still feel that it doesn't resonate as well with me.
Most people don't have experience with actually firing a gun and killing someone. It's kind of abstract to most people. Survival, however, is something we do every day. Many people HAVE experienced a moment of terror where they thought they might die.
Shouldn't that resonate with more people?
Being a hero is a good fantasy, and my entry from yesterday should demonstrate that I don't mean to knock that fantasy as a great one to base a game around. Hell, it's certainly been a successful formula in the past. That's why when it's reversed on me it totally takes me by surprise and blows me away. It may not be as strong of a fantasy to be fragile, or a coward, but as long as I'm risk-free doing exciting things under heavy fire, there is still a thrill there.
I love post-apocalyptic works because something I take for granted every day, like finding something to eat, becomes a new, compelling emotional experience. I'd like to see more games that let me experience that.
Labels: game design, survival
posted by Brian Shurtleff @ 9:27 AM
1 Comments:
dsilvers said...
You know, I haven't played Frogger in years? The last version I played was on my TI-83 Graphing Calculator back in high school. It'd be fun to sit down and attempt to rescue that desperate/suicidal amphibian again.