a computer game is an instrument
this is an indirect follow-up to my other blog post, games are hard, where I examine how computer games work and what about them makes them meaningful to me.
computer games (as in video games) are many things, and though I'm far from certain all the things that they are, one thing I'm becoming increasingly confident in is that computer games are an instrument, in the musical sense.
an instrument is a tool, but it is also a toy. an instrument is a peculiar, almost inscrutable object that, once you learn its language, comes to create remarkable sounds and stories with you. much like computer games, the operative verb we use for instruments is play.
recently, this talk by Quintin Smith (of People Make Games, Quinn's Quest, etc.) helped bring into focus for me something I'd long been feeling in my relationship with computer games. in it, Quintin advocates that we embrace play over any particular gaming medium because that's really what we're all doing at heart. a bursting-open of our worlds into something larger, more inviting, and more playful. I highly recommend the talk if any of that resonates.
often I consider the philosophical contradictions around "being" vs "becoming." much of modern culture is overwhelmingly focused on "becoming", and the culture around computer games is so much like it. a computer game is something we use to "become"--to achieve, to improve, to complete.
my relationship with computer games, at least for most of my life, has been a different one. they allow me to "be" in a different way, in a different world with different rules. there is an element of "becoming", certainly, but that becoming has more taken the form of a curious and unhurried traveler rather than that of a conqueror. I love to absorb the atmospheres, the soundscapes, the vibes of an experience. even when I'm practicing a challenging arcade game or roguelike, it's more about existing within it to me and reveling in the moment rather than reaching the finish line. (actually, I used to avoid finishing my favorite games because it felt like I'd have to say goodbye.)
my own relationship to play itself is one about reveling in the moment, in what exists, in what is here and now. it's about making a conscious choice about what the here and now is and living in it for a while wholeheartedly.
when I pick up an instrument, as I've begun to do recently, I find myself again a curious and unhurried traveler. as I learn to sing through it, the room transforms and the moment becomes something else. I'm taken somewhere else of my own making, as fleeting as it is. and the more adept I become at its language the more I can lose myself in my dance with it. those moments of touching on something that feels sublime, whole, transcendent, yet totally mundane.
it's all reminded me so much of my relationship to computer games, the way it feels to exist with them, to learn them, and to play them. in my current Golden Sun playthrough, the game has grown to feel much like a literal musical instrument to me, as I anticipate the music I'll compose through navigating its menus, activating abilities and shifting through scenes. I know by heart the rhythms of its inputs and its scene transitions and input my commands through muscle memory.
as much as I'm loving its story and its scenario and traversing through it, this form of 'play' and 'being' with it has been such an important part of how the game has become a part of me. when I tried Blue Fire briefly recently, I was in awe at how joyful it felt to manipulate the character. it made me want to just be with the game, to play with the movement for its own sake, and whatever else happens, happens. when I think about why I adore Mega Man 8, or Dragon Quest 1, or Slay the Spire, they all have this quality where the act of playing them feels like the joy of an instrument.
we often call this 'polish' and 'game feel' (etc.) in computer game design, but that term gets mired in product-oriented thinking. it makes it easy to want to react against it. it has for me in the past, at least. but it remained in contradiction with qualities I adore, things I love. something about atmosphere and feedback and being, about fiction and place and being a curious traveler - so much of that relates to presentation. (sometimes in the way 'polish' and the like is talked about, but sometimes not too.)
this is at least one part of my answer to myself, that a computer game is an instrument. and much like an instrument, like play itself, we want to tune it to be something joyful, gratifying, actualizing and beautiful. I want to make games that invite you to sing through them, to be curious toys that can in some way become a part of you. and when I play a game now, I can ask myself: do I love it as an instrument?
(note: I'm trying out using 'computer game' over 'video game', I prefer the way it grounds everything in the material.)