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Can We Learn More About Games By How We Play Them?

Can We Learn More About Games By How We Play Them?

On the surface, it appears as if there is only one way to play a game, the way that the creators intended. Try to get to the end of whatever game you are playing using whatever mechanics they present to you. If it’s a shooter, shoot the bad guys. If it’s a platformer, jump on some platforms. If it’s an RPG, do some grinding and cast magic missile on the darkness.

However, games are more than just static things presented to us. In fact, a game is not complete without a player. It cannot be experienced without player input changing the game as we know it. No two playthroughs will be entirely alike, as people will tackle each problem the game presents to them in a different way. But even so, few gamers do much outside the realm of the game’s core mechanics.

What if you did? What if you decided to just make up your own rules for whatever game you are playing? Wouldn’t that then change the player input, and in a way change the game itself? Since the “meaning” of a game only comes into focus when you take into account player action, altering the way you play the game alters the game’s meaning.

Here’s an example, and probably one you know of well. Pokemon is a game about finding and catching monsters and then having them fight for you. Pokemon are the ultimate in expendability. You let them die, white out, go to the Pokemon center, get healed, find new ones, replace the old ones in your team, and generally act like an animal abuser the whole game, and as a result the lives of the Pokemon in your party never really come into focus. They are just exploitable means to an end.

But there is a fan challenge out there called the Nuzlocke challenge. Conceived as a sort of ultra-hard mode for Pokemon , the idea was to add perma-death to the game by forcing you to release any Pokemon that fainted in battle. Essentially, your Pokemon didn’t faint, they died.

Now, the meaning of the game has changed. You feel a whole lot like the random trainers you meet on the road, with just one or two really good Pokemon that you want to hold on to. Your Pokemon’s lives are precious, and you will go to great lengths to preserve them. You’ll buy potions, learn moves that you wouldn’t have learned otherwise, and when a high level Pokemon that has followed you throughout the whole game dies, it’s devastating. This one simple change to a game’s mechanics, which doesn’t really require any coding or hacking but rather just a player following a set of house rules, changes the meaning of Pokemon dramatically. Now Pokemon really do feel like treasured companions that you would do anything for, rather than expendable animals that you can chuck whenever you get bored of them.

People have done similar things with other games as well. Grand Theft Auto V has been played in “pacifist runs” where you shoot no one, drop your weapons, and do as little damage as possible. When you apply these house rules, the game’s meaning suddenly changes. Instead of being a hardened super criminal fighting against the cops for his own self gain, you become a person pushed into dire circumstances, working with very little resources and unable to cross that line into becoming a murderer. You face off against cops who are corrupt and brutal, who shoot first and ask questions later no matter how much you make it clear that you are unarmed.

Can We Learn More About Games By How We Play Them?

If you think about it, we add our own house rules to gaming all the time. Speed running, for example, prioritizes speed over everything else. This makes many items in games useless, and turns your life into a resource for damage boosting rather than a signifier of when you win or lose.

And if you think about it, this too changes the meanings of games. Instead of running toward something, speed runs feel like you are running away from something, with the inevitable beast of time itself on your heels. Essentially, every level turns into that level where a wall of lava is chasing you, and that’s a significant change.

This may be more useful than we think, in terms of analyzing the games we play. When you watch a movie or read a book, you only have to look at it differently to get a different reading out of it. You consider the characters and their situations in a different manner and a different meaning comes into focus. But with games, altering player input may be needed to examine games in different ways, and these new examinations may reveal a lot about games, ourselves, the way mechanics can evoke feeling, and more.

What do you think? Is playing a game with house rules a useful tool for analyzing them? Let us know in the comments. All I know is I totally want Nintendo to make the Nuzlocke challenge an actual option in a future Pokemon game.

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