Part of an MA research in Arts and Visual Culture, Westminster University, London
Introduction
Game designer Brenda Romero’s (formerly Brenda Brathwaite) table top game Train, challenges players on their first playthrough to move as much yellow pawns, through train carriages, to their destinations. The game consists of three train tracks atop of a broken window. Each track assigned to one player. On their turn, players roll dice and collect call cards that determine their allowed moves, from allowing players to change track direction to the number of pawns to be transferred or not. Cram as many pawns, moving them from one end to the other before the others, and the player theoretically wins. Yet only at the very end, the real intent for moving the pawns is shown; the player was aiding in moving detainees to concentration camps. Their names unveiled at the back of a second set of cards drawn at the other end (Romero, 2009). The contradicting cue cards and sudden reveal pushes players to rethink their actions and reflect back on the historical event. It is a successful representation that plays on the player’s involvement and complicity in the act, and that is only achievable through the game’s timed construct. The game’s message relies on its framework, the cornerstone that structures the timed interaction and gameplay. In the process, the development of a retrospective narrative, highlighting the grisly details of prisoners’ shipment, is possible. Brenda Romero explains when asked about the topic, “The rules that people followed, the Nazi rules, were horrible rules. They were the system behind the travesty”, adding “I still am uncomfortable with it. Since the rules of a game are the game, however, I didn’t feel it could be done authentically any other way.” (Brophy-Warren, 2009).
The use of games as an expressive medium is not limited to physical iterations. Video games have come a long way since the simple black and white ‘Spacewars!’ (Brandom, 2013) and ‘Pong’, evolving into complex imaginative simulations and genres, beyond physical limitations. Though having always been associated with the juvenile, video games are more than just child’s play. They are designed systems that convey interactive experiences to their participants. Much like Train, it is a process that capitalises on the user’s engagement to create a sense of achievement, and through which delivering meaning and entertainment value. With an increasing popularity, video games have risen to become cultural tools of expression, a form that branched into cultural, educational, political, social and even institutional fields. However, it is their sequential nature in game structure, especially of video games, or what is known as the game’s procedurality, that sets this shape of expression apart from other cultural forms. Yet is it only the game’s rulesets in which lies video games cultural impact? In short, yes.
Video game Procedurality
What exactly is procedurality? Video game procedurality is the procedural approach to constructing code of any computer software. The laid-out guidelines that govern the execution of rulesets or algorithms of said software, a description of process to achieve a task. It is the designed relationships between the game algorithms, that dictate the generation of its virtual world — playground, its representation, the behaviour and interaction of the different agents within that realm, and the allowed player inputs onto the system. Instead of inscribing code to represent one literal form of simulation, a procedural system generates representations of similar characteristics. Game designer and thinker Ian Bogost explains how the generative characteristics that procedurality entails, allowing for systems that generate behaviours based on rule-based models, “machines that are capable of producing many outcomes, each conforming to the same overall guidelines.” (2007, p. 4)
However, procedural design in video games is not to be confused and confined to the commonly known Procedurally generated video games, as they are only one form of implementation of the concept, albeit on the far end of the spectrum. Procedurality is applied on different levels in game design. As it is the general rules that describe a process, implementation ranges from gameplay options, enemy AI, multiple endings, physics simulation, texture generation or even simulating varying environments and spaces on each playthrough (in which lies the above mentioned procedurally generated video games). In this capacity of simulating systems, games become interactive interpretations based of processes in the material world (Bogost, 2007).
Player Participation
As in any cultural medium, game procedurality does not offer the full expression of the game, as it remains static without player participation. In addition to external factors affecting the experience of the medium, as is the case with any cultural artefact, the experience of games depends on the socio-cultural context, technology, basic prior understanding of the instrument, and time. Yet more importantly, it depends on the openness of the participant to take on an appreciative and open attitude to the experience and the procedural engagement. What it offers then is the potential of exploring these virtual systems within the designed playgrounds through play (Sharp, 2015). A well-designed game is then one that creates an immersive playground. A virtual space that engages play, and through which creates constructs of meaning. Procedurality, as mentioned earlier, does not only simulate gameplay systems, but also the immersive visual and narrative representations of the imagined realms, maintaining player participation.
In ‘Playing with feelings, Video Games and Affect’, Aubrey Anable argues against reducing games to its procedurality and describes it as only half the experience (2018). She focuses more on the connection between player and interface as the completing factor to this participation forming an affective circuit. An interplay between bodies, hardware, code, aesthetics, affect, and cognition. In this she sees video games’ true significance as an expressive medium. She states: “Video games compel us to act and to be acted upon through the procedures of their algorithmic structures, through the ways these structures are given representational form visually, narratively, and aurally, and through the designed intimacy of their interfaces and the contexts of our play.” (2018, p. 52) Nonetheless, this connection would have never been possible without a successful game design or what is known as game feel. Thus, procedurality holds true as both the core and gateway to games’ affective nature.
Immersive Narrative
Games proven affective nature solidifies the format’s status within cultural expression. Similar to literature, film, and art representations and reinterpretations of daily life and the physical world, video games allow for a parallel reflection on being and states of existence. It differs however due to its procedural engaging nature. Creating a narrative through the perceiver’s actions, afforded through the underlying code, capitalises on the players invested time and attention during the state of play. It provides both believability and entertaining values, delivering meaning intuitively. This is what Ian Bogost refers to as Procedural Rhetoric. He defines rhetoric as effective and persuasive expression, and so it is then the act of using processes persuasively. He goes on to illustrate that this approach is not exclusive to video games, as seen before with Romero’s work, yet computational design nature pushes the concept stronger and more creatively (Bogost, 2007).
The case of Returnal and Celeste
Form Software’s Dark Souls video game series and the rogue-like genre presents one extreme of that spectrum. The game’s main antagonist is the punishing difficulty; its designed gameplay procedurality. A learning curve of trial-and-error is crucial in understanding the game’s mechanics and designed system patterns to achieve any progress. Further understanding of the systems becomes the main objective. The player is always alert to the game’s systems. Unlike other narrative driven games that rely more on its power in creating believable immersive worlds, this genre of games is an example of a more direct connection with the game’s design and its bare rulesets. Gameplay transforms into a choreographed dance between player and simulated difficulties. As with Romero’s Train, mechanics driven video games positions its clear procedurality and players’ investment in the process at the forefront, to drive home varied range of topics. from the more personal — exploring the meaning of friendship and life in Outer Wilds (Campbell, 2019), and social — reflecting on the Covid-19 pandemic through the systems of Plague Inc (Parkin, 2020), to the political — as the ever-complex worlds of Sid Meier’s Civilization franchise (Wainwright, 2014), to name a few.
Two such examples worth noting are the 2021 rogue-like shooter, Returnal, and the 2018 2D platformer, Celeste. Strikingly different in presentation and visual design, the two games use their mechanics in contrasting ways to present their take on mental health. The critically acclaimed games generated numerous discussions around the topic and helped in raising awareness, due to their popularity but more importantly their successful gameplay systems.
In Returnal, the player takes control of Selene, an astronaut that crash lands her ship on the fictional planet of Atropos. As she ventures out, she is met with Lovecraftian horrors and different space creatures that attack her on sight. The player faces off waves of enemies as they explore the procedurally generated environments. The gruelling difficulty means death is inevitable, and on return, as its title suggests, the environments change and each playthrough is different. Death in the game is not failure, rather an ever-evolving learning experience. The player maintains perks collected and knowledge learnt on previous runs (MacDonald, 2021). Acquired knowledge becomes crucial in advancing the game and its story. Understanding enemy types and attack patterns develop into experimental runs that allow the player to get stronger. When to die becomes part of the strategy, as certain routes lead to dead ends that only benefit in collecting certain key equipment or information. The game mechanics are not only represented in its central gameplay but in the scattered bodies of past Selenes dotting the generated landscapes.
Rogue-like games and re-runs are not always represented beyond the gameplay itself, still in Returnal, the concept of the genre takes central stage and is reflected in the story and the characters reflection on her stagnant state of trauma. It is a replay of process, a replay of imaginative visual cues about the repeating nature of mental illnesses, and the struggles it entails. The narrative is not presented as a clear linear storyline but is divided between gameplay mechanics and dispersed cutscenes that only trigger based on actions taken. The intentional vague presentation of storyline and emphasis on gameplay presents a representation that allow space for interpretation, and a personalised reflection (Tailby, 2021).
In contrast, Celeste delivers its narrative through a sudden break in its gameplay systems. Telling the story of Madeline, a girl that climbs up a fantasy mountain to reach its summit, the game is not of the same genre as Returnal. It only shares in the unyielding difficulty and the repeating nature of levels to better understand the mechanics, though the environments are unchangeable. The pressure on the player to meticulously study the game systems and master them in order to climb higher and understand the difficulties Madeline faces, reveals the game’s intent; self-discovery, overcoming anxiety and accepting oneself. The turning point however comes closer to the end. In a repeated sequence of trying to control the protagonist’s breath in order to calm down a panic attack, the same mechanics that worked once before for a previous attack, cease to have any effect. Anxiety takes over. The same gameplay systems the player invested in and mastered no longer perform.
Final Thoughts
Celeste’s difficulty and subsequent break of the rulesets creates a tension that focuses on the fact that achievement is not the only goal, but acceptance (Clark, 2018). Both Returnal and Celeste tackle the reality of how mental health affect a person by interrogating a reimagined interpretation of the process. By taking the time to negotiate its nature. Returnal focuses on its repetition and damaging difficulties, while Celeste presents acceptance and adaptation as one way out through a retrospective point of view. Both video games tackle a difficult topic through experience and engagement.
Video game popularity and the entertaining value they present, make them an important and more widespread route of cultural expression, with regular advancements in technology opening up more possibilities of manifestations. Multiplayer capabilities for instance introduce connectivity between different participants and allow for collective experiences. Narratives are expanded upon and discussions developed in living online worlds that mimic realities. Virtual game spaces became escape zones for many, to have social and cultural interaction. Secondary platforms around the culture of video games like Twitch and Discord developed to continue conversations beyond the games themselves and connect people. Much like how the moving picture and films opened up the possibility of reinterpreting literature, video games cultural significance proved to move beyond its simple entertainment objective and carry-on complex topics. Its significance rooted in the fact of it being a medium of actions rather than images.
Video games potential is thus presented through their designed procedurality and still remain the main principle and gateway in achieving how the game is designed to function and execute, and how the experience is presented and propagated — Ian Bogost’s Procedural Rhetoric.
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