I explore playing retro-themed platformers as a means of enlightenment.


I never used to get headaches. Only the rarest ones would come and go throughout my childhood and teen years, usually only due to not eating or sleeping enough during a particular day. I could stay up night after night in the summer and sit four feet away from a bright-blue Final Fantasy inventory screen or THPS park editor and never feel a thing.

Several years later I find myself sitting in my dark bedroom wearing sunglasses to shield my retinas from the multicolor sheen of Super Mario Galaxy. Yeah, some lights were switched on right about then. Nowadays I can't last past three hours of gameplay without needing to pop an Ibuprofen. The health warnings were right and that's fine. I shouldn't play games all the time anyway.

The dedication we have to gaming can harm our bodies and minds. It is the only medium that requires skill, concentration, patience, hand-eye coordination, and potentially lengthy bouts of time to effectively enjoy. I take pride in these facts because they are the most clear and evident link we have to appreciating games as a respectable means of communicating new and rare ideas. These concepts help make them more tangible and real than any other art form around. We slowly kill ourselves to learn and perfect new systems in each title and it's this language of control that is, typically in the name of survival, our common toolset used to avoid near-constant cycles of virtual death. Dying is an inevitability in most video games and perhaps it is this common feature that steers certain individuals away from the gaming experience entirely. This is why I recommend games like Flower to cautious or easily-frustrated non-gamers. They can only live, they can only breathe, and they can begin to disintegrate the disingenuous falsehoods of games that their childhoods and the mass media are telling them they are. Some of us on the other hand prefer the classic pain of survival. Not in the face of an opponent but instead in the soul of our own inherent will to feel alive.



Fez tore my brain apart. Its multiple series of interwoven and complex cryptographic puzzles surprised me continuously with their intricacy and eventually had me scrawling nonsense upon sheets and sheets of graph paper like so many others in April. Your physical deaths as Gomez matter none as he instantly respawns from his last stable stance when you slam into a platform or fall into nothingness. The sound of a small, low electronic beep signals the event but other than that, there is little fanfare for the little guy's demise. Alas, Fez is about slow cerebral torture. A game about death by psychological demolition and expectant systematic failure. True death comes when your brain ceases to function no matter how hard you pull on your hair or how intently you stare at the spinning black monolith. Your natural limitations are measured with a percentage and a decimal: I am dead at 181.5 percent.



Super Meat Boy shredded my hands. I never truly died in SMB because, just as in Fez, there is little fanfare for your repeated demise. Herein lies the pain: the stubborn nature to complete increasingly difficult levels until my hands turned to frigid claws wrapped sorely around my 360 controller and my legs stung with the sensation of instinctively hitting them too many times when my temper would flare from inevitable missteps. Super Meat Boy is entirely about muscle memory and reflexes at this point as it requires a heaping helping of practice before even attempting later or Dark World levels. The individual designs are are so succinct and the control so precise that every micro-action is entirely yours to own up to as a player. Only after arriving at 100% completion did I realize I loved Super Meat Boy for it's heady level of challenge because it offered me a new and distinct feeling unlike anything I had felt before. Unlike Fez, that 100% did not represent death. In fact, death never came in Super Meat Boy. Instead I felt something close to the twists and bends that were required of my mind in Fez.



The torturous pain in dedicating oneself to completing a difficult video game was relatively new to me at the time and only now do I wish I had got to experience this rush sooner. After a while, during maybe the 100th attempt at a particularly sinister level in Super Meat Boy, or while musing on the same silent puzzle in Fez for the third hour in a row, my psyche would enter a state of purity. It was a numbness borne of repetition in the face of constant and potential failure, something we could perhaps call looking death in the eyes. The numbness turns you laser-guided, a being whose sole purpose is to survive as long as your body and mind will allow in the face of intense "virtual" adversity. Surviving not against death but through the ever-encroaching pain of failure at the hands of whatever beast designed such a path, whether cerebral or physical, and expected you to traverse it at all.



Challenge is repetition, repetition is failure, failure is pain, pain is numbness, numbness is purpose, purpose is survival, survival is life. There is no death, only a fear of dedication.



I would call my time with Fez and Super Meat Boy my only moments I had ever reached a state of zen while gaming. I believe video games, in all of their seemingly death, murder, and killing-obsessed glory, represent a new division in entertainment, blazing a killer neon path carved by ancients a quarter century or more ago. As interactive art and as a place to let go of your physical reality and develop an ardent and transcendent new purpose through ritual suicide and becoming a martyr for your avatar's insurmountable cause not in the name of victory, but in the acceptance of failure. Those who do not fear death and who truly understand the pain of second-by-second reflexive or mental dedication can reach a much more pure and pleasurable state of bliss with their time spent with such titles.

Modern games typically lack this ability because they do not pursue challenge as such, which is why I celebrate the design decisions laid out in Fez and Super Meat Boy wholeheartedly. Their primary traits harken back to a time I imagine most gamers were struck with a similar significant feeling of enlightenment and could share it collectively, as evidenced additionally by the reception of Mega Man 9. They perhaps understood then why video games are so special and why those who have not reached such a level could never relate.



Those headaches suddenly become a clarion call for your entrance into a focused and pristine posture. Because when the lights are finally flicked on, you are sobered enough to see that there was no beast in the darkness.

I rented Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit for the Xbox 360 because I like the Burnout series and the original series. I enjoyed over 20 hours of over-the-top racing and cop pursuit action, typically never dropping a car below 100 mph and having a blast doing it. Once I decided I had had my proverbial way with the game, I figured I would try some alternative methods of play over those I was accustomed to before I send it away.

I don't play online games. I find the experience taxing and full of pressure. Can't pause? Yeah, not for me. If some collection of the words "free" and "trial" are involved however, I am usually inclined to see what all the fuss is about for a brief few moments. This is after all where the cash and attention in gaming are being injected nowadays so let's just boot up Autolog and-SHUT UP FAGG*T F*CKING B*TCH F*CK EAT YOUR MOTHERS HORSE FAGG*T *SS T*TS BLEHHHHhhh

Ahem. Sure, I expected this. I've heard about it, been apart of it during rare moments of my gaming life, seen the Youtube. Typical bored American male, undersexed over hyped, testosterone-laden no real outlet for energy blah blah blah. Is this aggression inevitable though? I began to ask myself why the ultimate instinct for most online players with microphones and a wandering sense of Quick Play loyalty is to delve into fierce, name-calling competitiveness. The game certainly calls for intense rivalry, as it pits Racers against the ever ravenous and weapon-heavy Cops and is a great example of hyper, modern, adrenaline-laced gameplay. So I considered yet another alternative; how I might play Need for Speed if I was inclined to pay for the Xbox Live subscription, an EA online pass, and a microphone-headset for my system (pfffffftttt) and what it would mean considering the time I spent with the game on my lonesome.



The most important aspect of any game is the world in which the play takes place. NFS: Hot Pursuit's world is precisely attuned to what the player seeks from the promised objective: moving fast. Seacrest County is large and colorful, yet most of it is streamlined and sectioned off, and for good obstacle-less reason. The objective is delivered expertly and with pitch perfect grace, but the trade off is a world that feels empty and forgotten, when considered under a more logical, real world light. Roads never lead out of Seacrest; there is no bridge that is perpetually "under construction" to at least give a plausible in-game reason for such a secluded world to exist. There are no pedestrians, street lights, or wildlife. How does it operate? Does it exist for the racers' purpose alone? Is it all in their heads? Acting out a cops-and-robbers fantasy until the day they are knocked from their self-induced slumber?

But there are thunderstorms, the distinct chirping of unseen birds, an ever-cycling day and night rotation, and tall pine trees that sway in an unfed breeze. NFS is a conundrum because it is practical and concise as a game world but alluring and mysterious as a simulation of the outdoors, especially while exploring in Free Drive mode as opposed to entering into one of the main events to do your misaligned meandering, where you would be timed and pushed to accomplish a stated goal. I am surprised NFS even includes this mode as it offers none of aforementioned practical gameplay mechanics, it just exists so that you and your pretty race car may be.

At the heart of the environmental details are the graphics. The crisp HDMI renderings in NFS are probably the most tangible I've interacted with in my life. I'm sure it'll be topped by another big name triple A title that I'll never play soon, but as a reference point, this is it for me. With such polished games like NFS I often wonder how hard the developers worked on the engine as opposed to secretly whispering prayers to an unforeseen pagan god for nine months until scads of code erupt on their laptops that a pristine game environment can easily emerge from. Realism in video game graphics are not very "videogamey" to me so despite the obvious labors put into Criterion's creation, it still manages to baffle me to the point of whimsical doubt.



Let's return for a moment to that "hypothetical" online gaming version of myself. Stripped of my usual single player tropes and alignments, I wander the Incipisphere for players and matches to ruminate and snuggle all up inside. So cozy! There is friendly competition sure, but this time with the sincere undertone of appreciation for the game as a simulation and a complete realm. I communicate this to my opponents and happenstance teammates and attempt to appeal to their sense of humanity and earthly community for an unlikely moment. Just to revel in some common knowledge of the world and the achievements of our fellow men to replicate it. I get called a d*ck-s*cking fagg*t and am kicked almost immediately.

Is it because these environments have served as a backdrop to their own play so long that it no longer feels like a fresh and vibrant world? Or because what I suggest is less about continuing the urge to dwell in the sensationalist racing fantasy and more about well...life on Earth? I wonder how aggression, no matter how inconsequential and intangible, can translate from such a distinct sense of worth from the play and player. Criterion gave us a gift, a tool to be utilized however we wish. There is a narrative here sure but isn't it when we break these narratives that games become more of our own? Precious and memorable and more than just some measly flash of saccharin entertainment?



Most of my observations of Seacrest County came from exploring the world during Free Drive. Here, the day-to-night cycle continues endlessly and you can traverse all across the expansive map at your leisure. I took my Bugatti Veyron from shiny rain-slick roads in the deep forest to the snow-dusted curves of the highways in the mountains. I turned the soundtrack off and surprisingly found an ignition switch by pressing the left stick and listened to the birds chirp in relative quiet along the coast while the wind whistled across the desert miles away and a full moon followed its sequence in code to a T. I slunk through the dead of night, a field of satellites for a company that was created specifically to convince the player that Seacrest is real, and you can visit it like this someday too. Unauthorized access. I found endless 5-second loops in the driveways of houses that only served as shortcuts in the main races, slowed down and parked to them like a robo-couple in the robo 50's. As you do. Listen.



In trying to understand my alternative ilk, I found peace in a game that I would never have thought would ever provide a lick of it. Slowing down my car and catching up with the blurred textures allowed me connection with Seacrest County. I wanted to step out of my mega-tuned rocket car and just walk perpendicular to the perfectly realized road. In the silence, away from the din, and forward into the reality that digital interactive art will always contain, if you happen to look for it. It is in moments like these, perhaps, that the dredge of online masses could discover some solace and communal understanding in their thumping little aortas.



Or drifting around rain-slick highway bends at 150mph while being chased by scads of cops in race cars is just way more fun. There's always that.

Chatroulette is a website in which two random people are instantly connected via their webcams and microphones across the web. When one person doesn't like what the other is seeing, they can quickly shuffle the connection to the next user available. The service is rife for new and interesting social experiments in addition to being one of the most depressing portals into the state of our private humanity - especially in the good ol' USA.

You and I both know Chatroulette. It can be strange and wonderful and horrid all at once. When I was formally introduced to the service, it was amongst friends and it was silly and fun and most cameras were pointed at faces and there were quick and harsh judgements made and immediately forgotten. All par for the course...until my friend started playing Flower in the same room. Getting bored with the service, someone suggested showing the Chatroulette folk the game. I turned the camera toward the television and excitedly discovered my new favorite pastime.

In this post I want to share and explore not only my observations of displaying beautiful or interesting video game scenes on portals like CR, but what it means and can mean.



It's simple - the CR formula calls for one main tool - a webcam. The default presentation for a webcam connection is face-to-face. I see enough faces in my daily life, so copious helpings of monitor-glow frowns aren't my sight of choice and no one needs to see mine either. This is disparage number one: While we are trapped inside, becoming more and more mentally and physically unhealthy, there are games being developed that potentially replace our need for need for freedom and health, which Flower is about first and foremost.

To give this kind of visual (and aural) insight to such a large swath of non-gamers and to potentially lonely, sad, hostile, disturbed folk is important to me. Of course not everyone on Chatroulette is sad, or alone, or unaware of quality video games, but I'm gonna go ahead and assume the worst.

Flower is a game that I place a lot of my self into when I play it. There is a narrative there, but like all the best games, it specializes in allowing the player to truly apply themselves in a seemingly free range design. Flower is simply the literal definition of this, as open fields and lack of intense civilization is my ideal freedom.



Had my friend turned a different video game on instead of Flower, I think that I would have adopted this game as my primary CR display eventually nonetheless. There are few video games out now that can just as relatable as they are alienating to non-gamers, a complex trait I believe Flower has in spades.

I will categorize the reactions, just as I can when I play other games I think will be relatable in some way to the masses. In order of most prevalent:

1. Indifference
Most people aren't gamers. We know this. Somehow twenty-five years after Super Mario Bros. and the NES sell a kajillion units, our medium is still managing to be the most alienated and suspect in the eyes of, well, nearly everyone I've ever met for example. In Chatroulette this translates to a near immediate "channel change", but why? Do they recognize Flower as a game at all? During gameplay there is no heads-up display and while the visuals aren't pitch-perfect realism, what about the computer-generated flora turns these people off? I wonder what they are looking for. Another sordid blue face? Simulated sex? Whatever it is, flower petals floating on the breeze certainly aren't going to appease them and maybe open glowing fields, even when simulated, isn't everyone's ideal of a perfect environment.



2. Puzzlement
Raised eyebrows. Typing "WTF?" Mouthing the words "what the fuck". Like the majority mentioned above, I wonder if there is really just a strong swath of people not familiar with computer simulations. They know about CGI kids films and they know flowers and wind and grass exist (I fuckin hope). Where is this reaction stemming from then, and why? Confusion is to be expected, I suppose, considering the aforementioned lack of gamers on our dear planet, but my favorite still has to be this idea: What chemical connections are firing that help a violent, hostile, or generally confrontational person attempt to even remotely relate to something as peaceful, serene, and unassuming as Flower? The idea that Flower could be the wrench thrown into anyone's routine gears excites the hell out of me.



3. Recognition
They ask me, "What game?" They can tell it's a game and I don't like that, but I respond in the chat box "Gears of War". Later, asked again by another person, I buck up and try to believe in the human race for a split second, even while deep in that pit, and I say "f-l-o-w-e-r". They leave. It's such an obvious response that maybe they're insulted. Or maybe they went and bought a copy. And maybe they went directly to Jenova Chen's house and gave him 10 bucks and a hug. They also mention the name of the game. One guy: "Is that that Flower joint on PSN?" repeatedly. (note: I never respond other than when necessary. One of the most important aspects of this experiment, I believe, is to remain the messenger, but more on that in a sec.) They say that it's a "good game" and switch out. I wonder what Flower meant to them and how it felt to see the sunlight and grass again amongst the stares.



4. Anger, Contempt, and Disgust
Retro games like Mega Man and Sonic get this one much more than Flower does when I employ them here, and although rare it is typically the strongest when it occurs. They have had stubby middle fingers, screams, and sneers directed at them. Is it because they are video games? The idea that I could ever upset anyone with Sonic's idle foot-tapping animation or Mega Man's charming open-mouthed jump pose is frightening to me, but the worst is during poor complacent Flower. I leave the game on its screen saver mode sometimes, which is when the controller goes idle and the screen displays a series of vignettes from the level you're in. They are beautiful, and they upset some people. I wonder if it is because they are certain that someone is behind the lens that they want to offend. If not (which is sometimes the case when I get bored of CR and leave it go on its own), than that means there is a one-way communication happening between a heartfelt simulated attempt at a colorful and heavenly human ideal, and a pissed off fat 15 year old girl stuck in Ohio forever. This bitterness is unparalleled because it is so unwarranted and solitary. You may think I am looking too deeply into shallow and rash actions (which is the core of CR, really), but if such actions are involuntary against non-sentient art, I can't help but feel despair for our future, especially considering the large numbers of youths browsing the service.



5. Elation and Incredulity
Shocked, surprised, and utterly overjoyed to see a video game (especially when it's one from their childhood) placed in such a form. Either that, or they are so enthralled by the images and color that they're jaws drop low and I smile every time. They are most likely high, but I prefer to think that is sober joy that they are experiencing. Besides, these are the rarest reactions.



It is important that there is no "I" here, however, as the display only features the game and hardly ever communicates that there is a person behind it. If for any reason the experience is "given away", such as when the "[Start Button] to Resume" display is indicated or I receive a trophy, clearly labeled onscreen, those who may have had faith in the hypnotic aura of the complete experience may be kicked out of it and reminded that they are "only" watching a video game/simulation. Nonetheless, I never switch channels unless the person is frozen. Being faithful to the abject simplicity and giving nature of the world is my goal. Sunlight never shuts us out.


This person watched me play for minute after minute - and finally left once they saw I had gotten the "Nature" trophy.


Chatroulette is a portal into people's lives and desires. What they want out of the world and out of you. By demonstrating the opposite of that dark and sedentary choice with the free form nature and open bright greenery of Flower (even the night levels), I believe I might be helping to expose an entirely new audience to a fantastic medium and game, even if only for a brief click-in/click-out moment. Because even amongst the multitude of bare chested men and flurry of directionless teenagers, there can always be something new and something bright.


I think I've said everything I've wanted to although I bet I'll edit it a thousand times after I publish it because I'm no writer. I hope you try this activity yourself sometime. If for no other reason than to share some lovely 8-bit, 16-bit, and petal-bit art around where it is most unwelcome and surprising, do it to help convince yourself that this squalid, lonely, tech-absorbed culture of ours is worth saving through the very medium that is helping push each of us away from each other and the source code of Flower itself, our beautiful world.



Thanks for reading.